by Eva Ashwood
Motherfucker. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony? I’m competing in a deadly competition in a realm ruled by the gods, and the thing that’s gonna kill me is running.
I was beat up, exhausted, and completely over this whole Gods’ Challenge bullshit by this point.
Too bad the only way out was to keep forging ahead.
After catching our breath, Merrick, Trace, and I pulled ourselves up against the stone, leaning back. Lachlan stood up and looked around, making sure we were relatively safe before pulling the scroll out of his pocket.
The three of us sat forward, tension surging like a physical force between us.
We each wanted to snatch it for ourselves. I could sense the other men shifting slightly, and my own fingers itched to grab it from Lachlan’s hand.
The guys might be best friends back in the hallways of Magic Blessed Academy, but out here? They were competitors just like everyone else. And each of us wanted whatever clue the scroll held.
Lachlan stared at us and we stared back at him, everyone absolutely silent.
After about a minute, I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I burst out laughing.
The men all broke their heavy eye contact and turned to stare at me.
“Come on, guys, it’s not like we’re not all thinking the same thing.” I rolled my eyes, still chuckling. “Everyone here wants to snatch that scroll right out of his hand and make a break for it. But before anybody does, let me just point out that the only reason we got the scroll before anyone else was because we worked together as a team.”
Merrick swatted away a small bug. “So?”
God. Men.
“Sooo…” I drawled. “Teaming up gave us a clear advantage. The creatures and magic in this world don’t mess around, and the gods obviously have no problem dumping us into life-threatening situations. I, for one, want to survive this shit.”
“So, what?” Trace cocked a brow, brushing his shaggy black hair out of his face. “We win the competition as a team?”
I rolled my eyes at his mocking too. “Who knows? All I know is that in a competition where people have died before, maybe we need to play the long game. If you really think you can do this on your own, hey, feel free to leave. But the way that I see it, if we want to have a fighting chance of getting out of here alive, we need to do this the smart way.”
All three of them stared at me for a moment, and then looked back and forth at each other.
They were both suspicious and interested at the same time. And they weren’t just suspicious of me, but of each other as well. Each one of them was an alpha, so working as a team without a specific leader wasn’t really in their wheelhouse.
Nonetheless, alpha or not, they were all smart and practical.
Just like I was.
That practicality was the only reason I had offered this bargain in the first place. It was the intelligent thing to do. We needed each other, and it would be much easier to get to the end of this challenge if we had each other as backup.
This had nothing to do with the night I’d spent with Lachlan in the cave. It had nothing to do with my complicated, chemistry-filled past with Merrick. It had nothing to do with the way Trace’s bad boy rock star persona seemed to cover up a hidden depth that left me curious to discover more.
Nope, it had nothing to do with any of that.
When it came down to it, I wanted to win.
That’s all this is about.
Trace drew in a deep breath, staring at me with a penetrating look before finally nodding.
“Fine. I think you’re right, and I think it would be smart for us to stay together. At least for now.”
Something gleamed in his eyes as he spoke. I could see the heat he was trying to hide from his glare, but he was doing a really bad job at it. It made warmth pool in my belly, and I glanced away, refusing to indulge the thoughts trying to surface in my mind.
Focus, Aria. Focus. Not on his tattoos and how much you want to lick them, damn you.
Lachlan shrugged, still holding the scroll. “Sure. Why not? If it gets me out of here quicker, I’ll stick around with you assholes for a while.”
I gave him a half smile, and we all turned to Merrick. The controlled, enigmatic man rolled his eyes and shrugged. He broke a twig into several small pieces and tossed them onto the ground, his jaw working like he was struggling with himself to get the words out.
Finally, he gave a single sharp nod.
“Fine. The four of us can work together as a team—but only until we beat the others.”
Standing up, I dusted off my hands I gave him a grin. “Of course. When everyone else is down, the four of us can fight amongst ourselves for the final prize.” I could feel my grin turn a little bloodthirsty. “I’m looking forward to it.”
Merrick’s amber eyes narrowed as he gazed at me, and I could almost swear I saw grudging respect and amusement flickering in their depths. But then he carefully rearranged his features into a blank, bored look.
Trace stood up and nodded at Lachlan. “Well, what does the clue say then? We might as well get on our way.”
The broad-shouldered redhead grinned and pulled the seal from the scroll. Carefully, with an almost odd delicacy for someone of his size, he unrolled the paper and held it up in front of them.
He stared at it for a moment with confusion as it began to glow in his hands. It grew brighter and brighter until he finally let go of it, shaking his hand out as if it had burned him.
I frowned, watching the paper flutter up in front of us all. The scroll went from an old piece of parchment to a moving magical beam spelling out the words in the air in front of us.
In the lands of gods, danger you will often meet.
But in the end, the search and hope will be more than sweet.
You found the clue in a situation dire,
Now find your way toward water and fire.
We all stood there for a second, staring at the writing that glowed brightly in the air. It faded just as fast as it had appeared, then the scroll popped back into existence and fell to the ground.
I leaned over and picked it up, tapping it against my hand. We had never been in the gods’ jungle before, so how were we supposed to figure out where water and fire were? I mean, I’d passed by several streams on the way to the dome, but were any of them what we were looking for? None of them had seemed all that special.
I glanced down at the broken seal on the scroll, pressing the two pieces back together. Then I froze.
Wait…
Slowly, a smirk emerged on my lips.
Merrick narrowed his eyes. “What? Remember, we’re a team here.”
I ignored his bitter tone. I was starting to realize that Merrick needed to hate me. He wore his disdain for me like an armor, shielding himself with it—because feelings he didn’t want to admit to lurked behind that outer mask.
Honestly, I didn’t want him to admit to them either, because they scared the fuck out of me.
So, hatred would have to do instead.
“Well,” I said evenly, “if you look at the seal, it tells us exactly where to go.”
I held the seal out for everyone to look at. It was in the shape of a compass with the needle pointing southwest.
Merrick’s expression tightened. He was obviously annoyed that I’d been the one to make the discovery.
For fuck’s sake.
“Ugh. I’ve seen your dick, Merrick. Hell, I’ve ridden your dick. And as much as I hate to admit it, it’s a damn nice one. So stop with the fucking penis measuring already. Like you said, we’re supposed to be a team, right?”
Merrick blinked, a flush crossing his cheeks as a spark of heat flashed in his eyes. Then he rolled his shoulders and nodded at the others. “Right. Let’s go.”
Lachlan chuckled, a low, deep sound of amusement that sent a shiver of satisfaction up my spine.
Still not quite willing to stop vying for control of the group, Merrick stepped into the lead. I dec
ided to let him have this one—for the sake of the team.
Trace and I fell into step behind him, and Lachlan brought up the rear as we headed out. We were all wary of each other, gazes constantly darting around, but it was what it was.
I still might ditch them later, but there was no point in splitting off at the moment—we all knew the clue and were headed in the same direction.
Toward water and fire.
Whatever the hell that means.
Chapter Fifteen
Watching Trace fight an eight-foot-tall, three-armed beast like something out of a movie, I had to admit I was a little impressed.
And maybe a little turned on too.
Not by the creature. Fuck no.
It had large black scales and jagged fangs. Its arms were long, so long that its fingers almost touched the ground.
But Trace? He had it on lock down.
He didn’t have the same kind of practical fight skills that Lachlan and I did, but he was way better at using his magic to fight than I was.
As the beast lifted its head to the sky to let out a mighty roar, the dark-haired mage did a move I had never seen before. He held his arms out, allowing his magic to surge out of him in tiny little balls that circled around his body like armor. And as he pulled one hand back, creating a magical blade of sorts, the balls lifted him from the ground, thrusting him up and forward like a surfer riding a wave.
His magical blade sliced across the monster’s exposed neck, severing it completely.
As the beast’s head rolled across the ground, the forest quieted again. Several other monstrous bodies lay scattered around the clearing.
The four of us were covered in sweat and gods only knew what else. Panting, I staggered over to a fallen tree and sat down, still staring at Trace.
“How the hell did you learn how to do that?”
He pushed his sweaty black hair back out of his face, his blue eyes gleaming with pride. “I had a lot of practice, even before I arrived at Magic Blessed Academy. I think it took Oberon and his team a while to track me down after my magic started to come out.”
“What do you mean?” I wrinkled my brow. He and his little squad had found me the day after my magic had exploded during the fight in the alley.
Trace shrugged, wiping a large smear of blood off his arm and revealing the tattoo ink underneath. “From what I’ve heard, most people at the academy manifested their magic within the blink of an eye—no magic one minute, and a shitload of it the next. But it wasn’t like that for me. Mine just kind of slowly trickled in. At first, I was freaked out, but then I started to play around with it and I learned how to do the whole bead thing.”
“Huh.” I nodded with grudging respect.
That was a pretty cool move, and it also said a lot about Trace’s character that when he’d slowly started manifesting magic, instead of freaking out and going insane, he’d taken it in stride and started learning how to control it. As terrifying as it was to have had my magic spring up all at once, I felt like that was actually easier to handle, psychologically. Like ripping a band-aid off.
“What else can you do?” I asked.
He shrugged. “All kinds of different things. There are spells I practice over and over, and then there are ones I just sort of improvise in the moment. It just depends on the situation. I’ve realized, at least for me, the magic and I are connected. We’re one. Just like everything else on earth.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Wow. For a rock star, that’s pretty deep.”
He glanced up at me before flicking his gaze to the other two men. They were both laughing at him as they cleaned themselves off from the fight. We’d found a small stream right before we’d been attacked by a bunch of oversized monsters. Maybe they’d been guarding their little watering hole.
“You knew I was a rock star?”
I smiled as I heaved myself up from the tree and crossed toward the stream where Lachlan and Merrick crouched. “Yeah, it was hard to miss you in all those fucking magazines. Your face was right on the cover.”
Surprisingly, Trace looked down at the ground, seeming to lose a little of his cocky enthusiasm. “Yeah. It was. I don’t miss that shit.”
“What? Not a fan of the spotlight?” I joked. “Is that why you chose a career where you got up onstage in front of literally thousands of people on a weekly basis?”
Trace scowled at me. “Hey, you don’t know my life, Snow White. Yeah, I loved performing. But that doesn’t mean I loved all the rest of the bullshit. The interviews and award shows and keeping the record label happy? That’s not why I started playing.”
“Yeah,” I drawled. “Must’ve been a really tough life. I bet you cried about it in your million dollar mansion every night.”
His expression hardened, and he didn’t respond. A sudden twinge of regret shot through me. I’d just been bantering mindlessly, but I seemed to have hit an actual nerve.
The truth was, I didn’t know his life. And it bugged the shit out of me when people judged me based on what they thought they knew about me, without bothering to find out the actual truth.
Fuck.
I kind of wanted to apologize, but I wasn’t sure how. The words were unfamiliar, and they didn’t come easily to me.
Before I could open my mouth, movement in my periphery caught my eye, and I turned just in time to catch the water bottles Merrick tossed at me. I shoved them both in the pack, studiously ignoring Trace, hoping the weirdness would just dissolve if I let the subject drop.
We’d found a satchel in the wilderness a few days ago with several reusable metal water bottles in it. And that was pretty much the only good thing that’d happened all week.
“Godsdammit. We need a new plan.” Merrick stood up, shaking the water off his hands. “We need to figure out if we’re going about this the right way. It’s been almost a week and a half since we read that fucking clue. We’ve fought off monsters, almost frozen to death, and we don’t even know if we’re headed in the right direction.”
Lachlan rolled one shoulder as if testing the joint. A ragged scratch decorated the front of his shoulder, visible through a bloodstained tear in his shirt. It was a testament to his fighting skills that he hadn’t lost the whole damn arm in the fight.
“We’re headed in the right direction,” he said determinedly. “Remember the compass on the scroll?” Then he hesitated. “But Merrick’s right about one thing—we don’t have much to go on. Water and fire? What the fuck does that mean? It sounds nice and poetic and all, but how do those things mix? They’re total opposites.”
I finished stuffing the bottles back into the pack and stood up, slapping my hands against my legs to knock the dirt off. “Well, I know it’s gonna be dark soon. We should probably set up camp. Let’s go upstream a little and camp there. There’s enough tree cover that we can use the tarp from my bag like we did a few nights ago.”
All the guys agreed, and we trekked about a quarter-mile upstream, leaving the dead bodies behind. Once we reached a good spot, we didn’t even have to talk about who would do what. We all just separated and started doing what we normally did.
We were actually starting to function pretty well together as a team.
I acted like it bothered me, making sure to keep my walls up around each of them, but the truth was, I sort of liked the company. These guys had been walking cocks inside the halls of Magic Blessed, but out here in the magical wilderness, they weren’t actually all that bad.
Tough. Strong. Capable.
Exactly the types of guys who are dangerous for my self-control.
Brushing that thought away, I grabbed a bunch of twigs, sticks, and branches and headed to the center of the clearing to make a fire. As a first-year, I was still behind the three men in magical ability, but my magic was really good at making fires, so I had been in charge of them since the third or fourth night.
As I set the kindling ablaze, Merrick walked up beside me. When the fire was burning steadily, he reached down, handing
me a bit of food. I crouched in front of the flame, eating slowly as Merrick surveyed the jungle around us.
“It’s crazy, right?” he murmured.
I stood up, shoving the last bite of food into my mouth. I always ate my rations too fast, too hungry and impatient to savor them. Besides, they tasted like year-old granola bars. Not a lot to savor.
“Which part?”
Merrick chuckled, and for the first time since we’d arrive in the godly realm, I saw no disdain or malice in his expression. I carefully hid my shock—I was sure if he realized he’d forgotten to speak without a sneer, he’d throw the walls back up real quick.
“The whole thing.” He shrugged, the movement languid and elegant. “One minute, I’m sitting in my penthouse condo getting ready for a business meeting, and the next minute I’m out in the woods, taking a break from the magical academy I’m attending to try to win a competition. Not to mention the fact that I ended up here with you.”
I smiled, glancing up at him for a second. “It hasn’t been so bad. I mean, if you take out those giant eight-foot monsters, the spiders, and that plant that almost ate you alive two days ago, I’d argue that being around me hasn’t been too terrible.”
He just stared at me for a moment, his almost white hair shaggy and slightly overgrown from the amount of time we had been out there. I had never seen him with a beard, but he actually looked pretty good with a scruff. For the short time I’d known him back in Boston, he had always been super clean shaven and perfectly put together. “What did you do back at home anyway?”
He blinked at me, the hardness returning to his eyes. “You don’t remember?”
Shit.
“Oh, wait, I know what it is,” I said, frantically searching my memory banks. I mean, I knew he was a sort of corporate prodigy, but the details had always sort of turned into mush in my brain. “You took over your father’s business in mergers and acquisitions, and you also work with some high profile political people. You graduated from college when you were eighteen and took over your dad’s business when he died.”
See? I remember stuff.
He gave a short nod and looked away from me. “Yeah. Though I have to admit, the events of the past week make my job sound pretty boring.”
