A sentence from the introduction caught my attention.
No god or goddess or any deity of The Everlasting Circle is fully good or fully evil. They fight for their beliefs, which may change as the world changes, even if their foundations do not.
I thought of Imha and Omi. They weren’t fully evil? Of course they were. Look at what they were doing!
Shaking my head, I continued flipping the pages. That wasn’t what I was looking for.
My fingers stopped by Levi’s page.
He’s the balance, the sole force that keeps the Circle strong and tied together. He’ll always stand on the neutral side and try to bring others to an agreement. He’ll put his needs after the needs of his brothers and his people.
So far, human Victor hadn’t been that unselfish.
Ceris’s page was next.
The goddess of love and family will do anything for her family.
No argument there.
She’s the strength behind Levi’s balance. Without her, his equilibrium will tip over and The Everlasting Circle will crumble.
A pang shot through my heart. I pushed the feeling aside, because who was I to feel jealousy if there was nothing there to be jealous about? I knew she had created my feelings for him so I could do whatever I had to do to help them.
Even so, it was hard to shut my emotions down. Despite what I wanted, I still thought of him, of the kiss we shared, of the feelings behind that kiss, and sometimes I wondered if those feelings could truly be false.
Pushing that aside, I flipped to Omi’s page.
Besides being bloodthirsty for war, Omi is a great strategist, and he finds himself useful when planning the balance of the world with Levi. He oversees any war going on in the world, keeping an eye on the wounded and lost, along sending help their way. He also tries to judge which side is right and wrong, if any, and help them win the war, so not many lives will be lost in it.
Whoa. No, this couldn’t be.
Omi seemed cruel and bloodthirsty like the passage said. And just that. Bloodthirsty. Nothing else.
He had killed my family, and I refused to accept any other image of him.
Irritated, I continued my perusal. Next was Imha’s chapter.
She may be the goddess of chaos, but even she can get tired of eternal chaos. In the past, whenever she threw the world into chaos, she confessed regretting it.
What?
Imha had thrown the world in chaos before? And she regretted it?
Why did nobody tell me that?
The next paragraph, though, made me sick.
Though Imha doesn’t have a true mate, as Ceris and Levi are, there are recordings in history of short relationships with Omi and with Mitrus. Although fleeting, events indicate these relationships are recurrent.
What?
Holy shit. To imagine her with Micah … I felt like throwing up.
Seriously? This book couldn’t be half-right. It had been written by humans who hadn’t had any contact with the gods. Of course, it wasn’t right.
Then I flipped the page and found the chapter on Mitrus.
The god of death, the dead, and the underworld cares about his people as if they were family. Sometimes it may seem as if he cares more about the dead than the living, but that’s a misguided perception.
I shuddered. Good thing he was still in a human body and without his full powers, otherwise I would have to worry about upsetting him and him killing me in his head. Not that that would be a bad thing. I wasn’t afraid of dying anymore, and until yesterday, I had wished Micah would kill me. I just didn’t want to die yet—not without knowing I could do something, anything. There had to be a solution for my pain, for my suffering, in one of these books.
Then the next paragraph changed it all:
He has the power to overrule death and bring anyone back to life.
He could? I mean probably not now, but once Micah became a full god again, he could bring anyone back to life. That got the wheels in my head turning. I could use this, but I needed more …
Taking deep breaths, I flung the book down and picked up another book titled The Everlast Energy. Nothing I wanted in there. Hours passed. I flipped through at least thirteen books, and I found nothing.
“What are you doing here?” Morgan asked, entering the door. He carried six thick books in his arms.
“Sorry. Just trying to learn more about the creed, that’s all.”
He smiled. “That’s good.” He set the books on a bed. “If you have any doubts about what you read or, any general questions, you know where to find me. I like talking about it.”
I opened my mouth to ask him about what I was looking for because, if there was anything like it, he would know about it for sure, but I decided against it. He would suspect my intentions and give me an earful about it. No, thank you.
“Thanks,” I said.
“All right.” He turned to the door. “I need to go to another meeting with Lord Levi, but I’ll be back in a bit.”
“Okay.”
Smiling, he left the room, and I tensed. I hoped I found whatever I was looking for before he came back because I honestly didn’t want any of my questions answered by him.
I glanced over the books he had brought in. One of them was titled Magic in the Everlast. Oh, this could be it.
I grabbed the book and flipped through it with intent.
There were all kinds of spells in the book, from how to ward a house against demons, to speculations on how to make a Black Thorn, and how to become a lesser deity—which brought to mind Brock and the Crimson Dagger. Then I found it.
The Soul Oath.
Once more it was all speculation, but that was better than nothing. I read the entire chapter three times to make sure I didn’t miss anything. It wasn’t complicated; it just warned there was no way of undoing it.
For a moment, I wondered if I really should do it. Then I remembered the Fates had given me my soul back because I would need it.
I knew this was why.
I searched for him throughout the bunker, which wasn’t the size I would imagine a bunker to be. It was huge. Really huge, and surprisingly warm. I had no idea how, but there was electricity and heat here.
I was about to give up on my search when I found him in a conference room, one much smaller than the one turned into the gym, but still a conference room.
Micah sat in a chair, leaned back, his feet on the oval table and crossed at the ankle. His eyes were fixed on the plain white wall, his mind clearly somewhere else. He looked focused and stern, unlike his usual nonchalant and sure self—a side of him I only saw on rare occasions.
I leaned in the doorway and tried to fight the urge to stare at him. I could only try, because really, who wouldn’t want to stare at him?
The dark jeans hugged his legs, especially in the position he was in. The black shirt didn’t hide his muscles around his chest and shoulders. His black hair was longer than before, framing his chiseled face. Too handsome for his own good.
“Like what you see?”
And too cocky for his own good too.
I straightened. “I need to talk to you.”
He put his feet down and pulled the chair in, resting his elbows on the table. “Hmm, you need to talk to me? That’s new. What can I do for you?” Before I could speak, he continued, “I know. Cuddle some more. Darling, I’m all up for that.”
I shook my head, and the idea of marching out of the room without talking to him crossed my mind. However, I needed to talk to him. I wouldn’t be able to go one more day without resolving this issue and putting my mind to rest.
“Speaking of cuddling, I found out you have a history with Imha.”
He shot me one of his award-winning smiles. “Are you jealous, darling?”
I scoffed, but chose not to comment on that. “I can’t … I can’t imagine you and her.”
“I can’t imagine it either.” He lost the smile. “It seems too long ago. I guess it was. We never took our ho
ok ups seriously, and honestly, I can’t really remember the last time we were ‘together.’” He made air quotes with his fingers. “Maybe two hundred years ago? Something like that. It never lasted. We were never like Levi and Ceris. We didn’t belong together; we weren’t soul mates. Imha and I simply had fun together.” He shook his head. “Living as a human made me realize how pathetic my affairs with her were. I regret them now.”
His unexpected confession crumbled my tough facade. Unfortunately, regret didn’t make everything right.
He was right, though. I was jealous. Too damn jealous, and I was fighting not to show it. I was trying to hide it even from myself, because honestly, I didn’t know what feeling that meant.
Jealousy aside, I also wanted to ask him about the other times Imha inflicted chaos on the world, but I was already pushing my luck.
I cleared my throat. “Remember you said you wished there was something you could do for me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I know what.” He stared at me with his cryptic black eyes, and I took that as a cue to continue. “I want to strike a Soul Oath with you.”
“What?” He stood—tall, large, and powerful. I fought the urge to cringe. “How do you know about the Soul Oath?”
“Morgan’s books.”
He narrowed his eyes. “He showed that to you?”
“No. He doesn’t know about it.” I paused, thinking of the best way to approach this. “Please, hear me out.”
“Only a handful of Soul Oaths have been struck in this world, and most of them didn’t do any good.”
“This isn’t about doing good or bad. Just listen to me.”
He sighed. “I don’t see why.”
“Please,” I begged, sure I had sad puppy eyes, even though it wasn’t a conscious act.
He sighed. “All right. Tell me.”
I inhaled deeply before blurting it out. “After all this shit is done, when you’re a full god, and we defeat Imha and Omi and restore the world to order, I want you to bring my family back to life.”
He crossed his arms. “And what do I get from it?”
“My soul.”
His eyes widened. “What? Of course not!”
“Yes. Yes. You will do—”
“Even if I wanted to strike a Soul Oath with you, the Fates have your soul. You can’t give it to me.”
“They gave it back to me.”
He stared at me. “What?”
“Back in New York, a few days before the attack. They visited me and gave me my soul back. They said I would need it.” I took a step in his direction. “This is why they gave it back to me. I know it.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“But it does,” I said. “You will strike this Soul Oath with me, because if you don’t do it, you might as well kill me right now.” Trying to be bold, I walked around the table and halted before him, the tip of my shoes touching his. I reached to the neck of his shirt and pulled the necklace from under it. He tensed. “I … I’m not sure how you feel about your human family now that you remember who you are, but try to think of what it was like before, of what you would have done for your parents. That’s how I feel. I will do anything for my family, and this is the only thing I can think of. They are my reason to live, my reason to fight. I need you to accept this, to do this for me.”
It took him a full, tense minute to answer. “One soul for five?”
“Six.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Six?”
“Yes. Since you’ll bring them back to life, I want Troy to come back too.”
“That’s even worse. One for six.”
“It’s what I have to offer.”
He watched me, thinking. “And your soul will be mine?”
“Yes. You can send me directly to the underworld or whatever you call that, I don’t care.”
His jaw tensed and he took a step back. “No.”
A punch in my stomach. The air leaving my lungs. That was how his response felt. “What? Why not?”
“You didn’t think this through. You will die. Don’t you realize that? Die, as in never be alive again. You don’t want that.”
Tears sprung to my eyes. “I do! That’s exactly what I want.”
He turned his back to me. “No, Nadine. I won’t do it.”
“But—”
“I won’t change my mind.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line and clenched my fists, holding back from jumping on his back and punching the hell out of him.
If he wouldn’t strike the Soul Oath with me, then I had no options left, nothing to reduce the pain, to feel like I could do something. Oh, God. Sorrow replaced the anger and a tear rolled down my cheek.
Defeated, I ran back to my bedroom, threw myself on my bed, and hugged Pinky.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe.”
16
“You have to get up,” Keisha said. She placed the plate on my nightstand and sat on the metal chair beside my bed.
She came to check on me at least five times a day for the last four days. During her visits, she tried to convince me to eat and then get up.
“Think about what your family would want,” she said. “They wouldn’t want to see you like that.”
I just put the pillow over my head, hugged Pinky, and ignored her.
Who cared about what my family wanted? They were dead. They had no say in my life anymore. Ugh, a life I didn’t want anymore, a life I wanted to end, though I wasn’t brave enough.
Knowing this shelter had a gym with weapons, I hashed out plans of sneaking in there, grabbing a dagger, and piercing my heart. However, I wasn’t brave enough. I wouldn’t be able to hold the dagger still and stab myself. I needed someone to do it for me. Unfortunately, asking the others for help was out of the question. They would never agree to it.
So I stayed in my bed, praying to wither away in my sleep before any nightmares came to me because they hurt too much. They made me feel more guilty, more hopeless. They increased the dull ache in my chest until it was too difficult to breathe, and all I could think of was stop. Stop breathing.
Victor and Morgan also visited me at least once each day, but there was no sign of Ceris or Micah. Micah had no excuses, other than the fact that he wanted distance from me. Which was true, right? He had left me alone on that island, and he refused to strike the Soul Oath with me, proving to me he didn’t care about my feelings and didn’t want any association with me. This dismissal only added to the pain in my chest, making everything worse.
As for Ceris, I suspected she was still out, searching for the scepters because, if I knew she was here, I would go to her. I would ask her to bind the Soul Oath with me. However, whenever I thought about it, I knew it wouldn’t work. For one, Ceris didn’t like me and wouldn’t do me any favors, even if in the end it meant she would be rid of me. And two, she wasn’t the goddess of death and the dead. She couldn’t bring anyone back to life.
Killing myself was the only solution to end this pain and reunite with my family. The plan came to me during a nightmare.
Enfolded by fire, my mom grabbed my hand in her smoldering ones. “You have to save us,” she said, her voice croaking.
I held on to her, even though the heat scorched my skin. I gritted my teeth and endured the pain that ricocheted through me. “I want to. I want to save you. All of you,” I said between sobs.
My father appeared on the other side and slapped my mother’s hand away from mine. I gasped, not expecting such action.
He glared at me. “You are poison. You’re poison to us. You’re poison to anyone around you.”
Desperation gripped my heart. My father hated me. He hated me because I couldn’t help. Because they died and I did nothing.
“No!” I cried, reaching for them.
The fire bellowed higher, stronger, brighter, and engulfed them. I raced to them, screaming when the heat wrapped around me and the fire charred
my skin.
Panting, I jerked awake. My hands shook and my tee clung to my sweat-dampened torso.
I took a few deep breaths to calm my racing heart, and then shut down my conscience, the part telling me this plan was insane and I shouldn’t do it.
But I had to. I couldn’t go on like this anymore. I pushed those thoughts away, and a weird mix of desperation and numbness settled in my heart.
Feeling like a robot on a mission, I threw the comforter aside and jumped out of bed. I pulled a jacket over my tee and shorts and exited my bedroom, hoping everyone was asleep at this hour of the night.
I tiptoed to the bathroom, grabbed the medicine box from the cabinet, and then tiptoed to the kitchen. I emptied the box of medicine over the counter and sorted through it. Tylenol Cold, Tylenol pain reliever, aspirin, Benadryl, Robitussin, Zyrtec, Anacin, and several others. I opened them all and dumped the contents in a bowl. Now I need some liquid. Water maybe, but I would prefer something a little stronger. I opened the fridge and found beer. Hmm, if I didn’t find anything else, it would have to do. I searched the entire kitchen until I located a tall cabinet housing hard liquor. I grabbed a vodka bottle, a glass from the drying rack, and filled it to the brim.
I glanced at the bowl with at least fifty tablets and the vodka glass before me.
My conscience wanted me to listen. It banged on the walls I had built around it, asking me to listen, asking me to think better about this, to give up on what I was about to do—but I refused to hear it. Clinging to the numbness in me, I pushed my conscience away, making it stay locked behind my walls.
Swallowing pills and drinking would be far less painful than trying to pierce myself with a dagger—and hopefully easier. I wouldn’t feel anything while taking them, not until it was too late. I shrugged. I would probably pass out before feeling real pain and dying, and that was all fine by me.
Shaking, I held the glass with one hand, took a handful of pills in the other, and popped them in my mouth.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
My heart racing, I jumped and choked on the pills. The glass slipped from my hand and crashed to the floor. A coughing fit shook my body.
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