by Eve, Jaymin
Louis shook his head. “Nothing. I’m worried, but I can’t leave to find them. The gods are powerful, maybe even more powerful than they were when they went in.”
Asher, at my side, remained silent. All of us took a second to let it absorb.
“If they’re even more powerful,” Louis continued, “we have no hope of stopping them. We barely had the power to buy time. Now, I’m not sure if we’ll do anything except die at their feet the moment they emerge.”
Axl shrugged, his eyes downcast. “I just wish I could do more. Apparently, it’s not easy to learn god powers in a month.”
Louis dropped a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’ve done remarkably well. Don’t beat yourself up. The timing for all of this is terrible. We’re doing the best we can.”
A heavy sigh left me. “What if … once they’re free, I use my power to fly through the prison and see if I can track the Hellbringers? Might be too little too late, but it’s something.”
If Jessa got back in time, we might have had another plan, but this was the best I could come up with. My path hadn’t shown up like Mab predicted. And I’d spent too long waiting around for it.
“Can’t we just kill them all?” Jesse asked, stepping in behind us. He’d just gotten home from classes. “I mean, Asher killed Sonaris and he was super powerful…”
Louis shook his head. “I’ve considered it, but there are no beings strong enough to do what you all did. And you’re already tapped out taking any extra power. It nearly killed one of you, and Asher shouldn’t do that again. A lot can go wrong. You all got lucky this time.” His eyes shifted to meet mine. “Maddison’s idea is solid. The Hellbringers are still our best—our only, really—option. The three of you will need your bond to control them.”
His eyes locked with mine. “Have you bonded with Connor?”
I groaned, running a hand through my hair, leaving the aqua strands in messy disarray. “No. He’s an idiot who never listens. He doesn’t want to bond. He’s keeping us out of his mind and energy, and we spend most of our sessions together arguing.”
Louis’s expression, normally open and relaxed, was dark and hard. His aura was scary even through the phone. “Stop waiting for his cooperation. We don’t have time to baby him through this bump in the road. Bottom line, you three are possibly the only chance to keep the world as it is now and not reformed by gods who care nothing for mortals. Connor needs to step up. Don’t come to the island until that’s complete. You’re useless to us otherwise.”
He ended the call and I fumed, my own guilt eating away at me. I hadn’t tried hard enough. My brother was no doubt having a midlife crisis. Trying to keep him sober for longer than five minutes was a challenge … but there was no more taking it slow. Connor was going to bond with us, whether he liked it or not.
* * *
“Give me five minutes,” I said to Asher. Mostly because he looked like he was going to kill Connor if the idiot mouthed off one more time. “My brother and I need a little heart to heart.”
Asher snarled again, shooting a dark look at the pathetic excuse for an Atlantean sprawled across the sand of the beach world. “Tell him this is the last chance I’m giving him. When I walk back in here, he better be on his feet, ready to figure this shit out.”
He turned to leave, pausing briefly to drag me into his arms, pressing a rough kiss to my lips. “I desperately needed that,” he told me, the slightest vibe of good humor creeping back in before his anger descended again and he left to walk it off.
Once I felt Asher’s energy fade away, I focused on Connor. Using my power, I swirled water around him, jerking him up off the ground and to his feet.
His eyes went very wide as he blinked stupidly at me. “Wha—?”
He choked as more water crashed into his face, drenching him completely.
I’d been practicing the last few days with one of my professors, pressing harder into my ability to manipulate water and the elements within it. I could now, without too much effort, remove certain minerals and increase others. It was not the easiest of skills, because it required huge levels of concentration, but I was starting to see that I could manipulate any substance that contained even the slightest trace of water.
Like the alcohol he was so fond of. It contained water from Faerie—which was not an issue. Water was water, when it came to my power.
Holding him in the air, I reached for more energy, marveling at how much stronger I was since Sonaris. His death … it had boosted more than just Axl. All of us had a new influx of strength, and I kept praying it would be enough to fight the gods. For now, it was more than enough to strip the alcohol from Connor’s system. I needed him sober, and there was no time left for him to do it on his own. I should already be at Atlantis. Instead I was here, babysitting this fucking fool.
As soon as Connor realized what I was doing, he started to fight me, but it was a pathetic attempt.
“How are you so strong?” he snarled, trying to stop me from removing the toxic booze from his body. It was seeping out in bubbles that smelled horrific; it was a constant battle with my gag reflex to keep going.
“We killed Sonaris,” I told him. This was not common knowledge, so I wasn’t surprised when he choked and coughed.
“You did what? How? How has the world not ended?”
For the first time since we started these sessions, Connor was showing an interest in something other than getting drunk.
“We almost died,” I told him, voice flat. “The power was too much for even the five of us to take, and Axl, who was last, absorbed the final energy. He was prepared to sacrifice himself, because the power of a soul’s death would be enough to house the last blast of Sonaris’s energy.”
Connor couldn’t even stop drinking long enough to remember his own name, so he probably didn’t comprehend that level of sacrifice. But it deserved to be mentioned. Axl deserved to be known as the hero he was.
Connor’s bloodshot eyes squinted at me. “I saw him though. At the meeting. I’m sure, now that I think about it, you all felt more powerful there.”
“Axl is the god of the ocean now.”
The silence was long and filled with tension, until he shook his head. “I don’t believe you. Gods can’t just be made from mortals like that.” For the first time in a month, he sounded completely sober.
Yanking the last of the alcohol from his system, I sent it up into the air, exploding the droplets in a fiery blast. “I don’t owe you any further explanation. You asked why I’m so much more powerful and I told you. End of story.”
I released the water, letting him fall to the ground. He was on his feet in an instant, eyes clear, face confused. “How did you do that?” he asked. “Stripping the alcohol? My natural barrier should have stopped you from entering my body like that.”
I shrugged. “Maybe you should have spent more time using your power and less time drinking. I’m not sure you have any barrier left at all.”
He was steady on his feet, eyeballing me like I was a piece of shit he’d just stepped in. “I really don’t like you,” he said flatly. “This reality … I don’t want it. Why the fuck do you think I drink?”
“So you don’t have to deal with things like the rest of us!” I sniped back. “Newsflash, buddy, you don’t just get to check out because shit is hard. The gods are almost loose again. We’re talking days … or hours at this point. Who do you think they’ll come after the second they get out and kill all of those on the front line?”
His gaze was steely; I preferred it to the glazed-over look he’d been rocking recently.
“Us,” I reminded him. “We are what they want. Our power. Our abilities. And right now, you’re a hot fucking mess that will be taken in by those dickhead-deities in seconds. I can already tell that you’re so weak you’d roll on us in a heartbeat and damn the entire freaking world.”
Again. I wanted to add but didn’t.
Connor had been helping the gods behind the scenes for many years.
Leading the Arterians, a now defunct secret group of Atlantean warriors. Even if he didn’t fully understand what he was helping the gods do, he still did it. He was weak, and that was the worst character flaw to have in this fight against power hungry deities.
I stepped closer. “Here’s a reality check ... I’m not letting you roll on us again. I don’t care what I have to do. Genetically, we’re siblings. Genetically, I know you must have some strength of character in there.” I growled at him. “Fucking find it.”
His jaw was set, that look of disdain still boring into me, and it was clear that my current tactic was not reaching him. My patience was at its limit, but I decided to give it one more shot, and approach him in a different way.
“Talk to me, Connor,” I said, letting whatever iota of concern I could muster filter into my voice. “It can’t just be the god situation that has you drinking … there has to be more to it?”
His jaw twitched and his mouth opened, but then he slammed it shut and shook his head. “I’m not doing this with you. You don’t really care. You’ve never even acknowledged that I’m your brother outside of that lovely ‘genetically we are siblings’ statement from a second ago.”
Guilt ripped through my gut again, leaving a slightly sick feeling behind. He hadn’t said it with any emphasis, more like he was just stating a fact, but there was resignation in his voice. He knew my “concern” right now was just a front to get information from him.
“You did a lot of shitty things. You hurt me, you took from me,” I reminded him. “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ve started thinking of you as my brother, even when I’m mad at you.” This was the truth.
I took another step closer and he didn’t back up, eyeing me warily. “You consider me to be your brother?” he asked, voice so low I almost missed the question. “Family?”
I nodded. “Yes. You’re my family, whether I want you to be or not. Our parents, they’re evil…” I sighed. “But I’m hoping that you’re not the same. I have this stupid hope that someday, if we can win this war, we might actually have a relationship. I want to believe there’s good in you.”
He swallowed so hard I could see his throat working. “I did it for family,” he choked out. “To finally have a true family. A place to belong. Then we met our parents…” He shrugged. “And you know how that went. Not exactly the happy family reunion I envisioned.”
Understatement of the century. I was finally starting to understand why he’d been acting the way he had. It all made sense now, especially his actions recently. He was grieving. For a lost dream.
“You wanted a family,” I breathed, and my chest hurt, because that’s all I’d ever wanted in my life too. And then I’d met Asher, and the Atlantean five, and Ilia and Larissa. Even Louis and Princeps Jones, who’d both been like father figures to me.
They’d become my family and I was never alone or lonely anymore. I hadn’t needed our parents. But Connor didn’t have any of that.
“You and Asher used to be friends,” I reminded him. “You pulled away from everyone in this crazy pursuit of a family. A family that could have been part of your life all along…”
He was never one of the Atlantean-five, but piecing together what I’d learned about the guys and their relationships, he could have been part of it. He’d chosen to take a different path.
“Stand with me, Connor,” I said, reaching out my hand to him. The first time I’d offered myself freely to him. “Help me save the world, and then we’ll work on our family. We’ll work on you and me.”
He stared at my hand, hesitation on his face as he fought against self-preservation … and his need for someone to give a fuck about him. I’d clearly hurt him in the past when I dismissed him, probably not my finest moment, but he also wasn’t completely blameless.
He placed his hand in mine, and the second my fingers closed around his, energy flared between us. Asher must have felt the jump in my power, because he was back in the ocean room in a heartbeat, racing toward us. He couldn’t get any closer because there were visible arcs of power spreading around Connor and me.
You okay, Maddi?
His voice washing through my mind was a soothing balm to my frazzled nerves.
All good. I think this is the connection. Our energy is … curious.
Connor didn’t fight me. If anything, he was urging the connection forward, and I squelched the small part of me that wondered if he hadn’t been playing me all along. We both had a long way to go in building any sort of trust. But we had to start somewhere.
We just needed time. The one commodity I was basically out of.
When our energy was satisfied, curiosity sated, we were released from the hold. “I can sense you,” Connor said, almost in awe. “Nothing crazy, just a small sliver of your power. Like I’d know if you were in trouble or not.”
I nodded. “Yes. I feel the same sliver from you.”
Him and five other Atlanteans. I was amassing a veritable army of energy signals inside my own power, and I liked being able to tap into all of them to know they were safe and not in pain. Only with Asher could I go deeper.
Just as it should be.
Asher would always be part of my soul, but the others … they were part of my heart, and my family.
Chapter 18
“You ready for sports bonding Wednesday?” Larissa asked, head back as she enjoyed some unexpected sun at breakfast.
I grimaced, spooning more yogurt into my mouth. “I wish. Louis wants us on the island today. He has no idea how the gods aren’t out yet, but our time is up.” I wasn’t even wearing my uniform, since I knew his final call and step-through would be arriving any time. Instead I wore ass-kicking boots, jeans, and a long-sleeved Henley. This was my battle armor.
“Louis will send a step-through soon, so we don’t create any sort of power imbalance by showing up any other way,” I told her, scraping the last of the yogurt from the tub.
Larissa’s face was wreathed in worry, but before she could voice any of them, Ilia dropped into the seat beside me.
We were both distracted by how disheveled she looked. “You’re not going to Atlantis without me,” she said, voice raspy. “If the gods are killing us all, I’m going down with you, bestie.”
I didn’t comment on that, because there was no way in hell she was on the front line. This was a war with the gods, and as badass as she was, Ilia was still just a regular supernatural. And I loved her too much to risk her life, even if I would have preferred she was at my side. It was bad enough that the Atlantean-five would all be there. Ilia and Larissa was not happening.
Deciding a distraction was the way to go, I leaned back so I could take her in. “Girl, what did you and Calen get up to last night?”
Her shirt was on backwards. Her hair was completely sticking up on one side of her head, red curls looking more like a tumbleweed.
“I mean … did you look in the mirror at all?” Larissa asked, sad humor tingeing each word. She’d argued to come with us as well, but unlike the headstrong Ilia, had finally conceded that she would not be much help, and would probably end up a liability in this fight.
Ilia grinned, never embarrassed by anything. I had a sense that we could walk in on Calen and her screwing, and she’d just grin and ride her man like the confident bitch she was.
“We kind of … fell off a cliff,” she said, reaching out to snag some of the toast sitting on the table. It was just plain old buttered toast, but she inhaled it like it was the best thing she’d ever eaten.
I pushed a glass of water toward her—she looked like she needed it. “Uh, how did you fall off a cliff?” I asked, enjoying this moment of normalcy. It might be one of the last—
I cut that thought off quick fast.
Ilia shrugged. “Apparently when you have sex in a car, you should be careful not to hit the gear stick with your ass. It would be a good idea to have the handbrake engaged as well. You know, for extra safety.”
My lips twitched. “Your car
went over a cliff?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it happens. Took us a few hours to climb out, because I kind of knocked Calen out when I punched him, and then I had to half carry him up the cliff.”
I caught Larissa’s eyes. “We should stop asking questions now,” I said dryly.
She snorted. “Probably for the best.”
Ilia glared at us both, before going back to her toast. “You bitches should have more sympathy. We were naked when we climbed out, because our clothes went AWOL and I had to steal these from a house nearby.”
“You know the shirt is on backwards, right?” I said with a burst of laughter, before I cut it off.
She looked down; eyes wide. “Well, fuck. I’m a hot mess.”
I shook my head. “Girl, you’re a total hot mess. But that’s okay. We’ve got your back.”
Larissa and I pushed the rest of our food away and all but hauled her up, dragging her back to her room. I got her into the shower, and Larissa dug out some clothes that were more the style of our usually very put-together, glamorous friend.
“Calen will probably be the death of her,” Larissa said, laying the clothes out on the bed.
I leaned back on the wall, waiting for Ilia to finish showering. “Probably, but I don’t think she’ll complain. I’ve never seen her this happy.”
I’d never seen either of them this happy. Fuck. We couldn’t lose this life. I wasn’t ready. I’d only just freaking found my place in the world.
“How’s Rone?” I asked Larissa, desperately needing anything to focus on other than gods killing the entire world.
“We’re in a good place,” she said with a small smile and a shrug. “A really good place. We talk all the time, share our feelings, eat food together, and co-exist in every way a couple would.” She paused with a harsh sigh. “Except for sex. We’re basically friend zoned, and I have no idea how to get out of there. It’s shit in this zone.”
“Dude,” I said. “I feel that. It’s certainly not fun when your feelings go deeper, and you want more, but you’re also scared to lose what you have now. I guess you just have to ask yourself, will you be happy if things stay the way they are forever?”
