Sacrifice for the Gods: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Ruling the Gods Book 1)

by Mae Doyle

  This time when I opened my mouth, I was able to scream. The sound boiled out of me, an explosion of power that finally allowed me to grab onto the magic that was inside of me. I had it now, and I could feel it burning its way through me. Finally, I understood why my parents had always said that magic can kill people who aren’t prepared to wield it.

  I didn’t want that to be me.

  Etris must have seen a change in me as I finally grabbed my power, because her eyes darkened more and she raised her other hand to grab the hilt of the dagger. Both hands on it would ensure that she had all of the power that she needed to make sure that she didn’t miss her mark.

  My voice swept around us like it was blown by the wind and I felt my hair lift away from my face. The wind changed direction and I watched as it circled Etris, tightening in on her like a hurricane. My breath was going to pin her arms in place and I would be able to get her dagger.

  I just knew it.

  But I was running out of air. Etris struggled against my binding breath, but only a minute before she burst free. I had to stop and fill my lungs with air, and that was all of the time that she needed to act. She lunged for me, the knife gripped in both of her hands, and I cried out as I saw her feet leave the ground.

  She was coming for me, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do about it.

  “No!” I screamed, throwing up one hand. Light flew from my palm, and runes appeared in the air between the two of us. They glowed purple, just like the runes on her dagger, and then spun in a slow circle.

  Etris screamed with rage, the very sound of her anger making me cold to the bone. The tip of her dagger was pressing up against my circle of runes. They throbbed with light and I felt the energy they took draining from my body. I screamed with the struggle of keeping them up between us.

  Honestly, I had no idea what the hell I’d done or how I’d conjured that particular spell, but it seemed like it was going to hold. As long as I could keep it up between the two of us, Etris’ dagger wasn’t able to get any closer. I just couldn’t drop the runes, whatever they were, or I was fucked.

  The only problem was that my arm started to shake. Holding this spell was hard and it was sapping me of all of my energy. Gritting my teeth, I dug my heels deeper into the earth, hoping to pull more energy from it, but all I felt was cold dirt rubbing on my skin.

  There wasn’t any way that I could have taken all of the energy from the area, but for some reason, it was gone. Something else, something more powerful than I was, was pulling it away so that I couldn’t use it.

  I risked a glance away from Etris and my eyes fell on a druid. He was crouched on top of the bushes, their long branches wrapping around his legs and arms. The way he was bent over made him look primal and evil, and I shivered even before I realized that he was the one sucking the energy from the ground.

  “You can’t defeat me! You’re not powerful enough! You think that you can take the power from the earth, Emily, but I’m the one who invented that type of magic! There’s nothing that you can do to stop me!” Etris’ voice was a loud screech that cut through the air and made me want to cover my ears with my hands.

  One more minute and I knew that my power was gong to be sapped. The druid was pulling more magical energy from the earth than I could and there wasn’t anything that I could do to stop him.

  I was going to die.

  I refused to let my body rest here in this magical hell pit of her design without one of the gods finding me. My magic was about to fail me, so I did the one final thing that I knew I could do. I cried out for the gods, sending my aura out for them.

  It wasn’t pretty. My aura was almost shattered. I was damaged and about to fall, and I had no idea if they’d be able to make it in time, but I had to let them know what happened to me.

  If I was going to die, I was going to do everything possible to take Etris down with me, and three pissed-off gods seemed like the best option for me to be able to make that happen.

  After that, I fell. I simply didn’t have the strength needed to stand up any longer. My legs crumpled under me like I’d been on a ride at the fair and I couldn’t support myself any longer. As soon as I started towards the ground, I knew that she was going to kill me.

  She couldn’t help herself. It was the one thing fueling her – the knowledge that she’d be able to take my life from me, and there wasn’t a damn thing that I could do to stop her.

  My circle of protective ruins broke and I watched with horror as they slowly faded out of sight. They were the only things keeping me from certain death at her hands, and as soon as they disappeared, she was able to bring her blade closer to me.

  It fell on me as she threw herself at me. We tumbled on the ground together, her hands still gripping the dagger, and I reached up to try to stop her. A small cut on my palm made me hiss out in pain, but I ignored the way that blood welled up from the cut and grabbed her arms, forcing them back over her head.

  She screamed in rage and swore at me. “You fucking witch! You think that you have any power here? I’m going to kill you. I’m going to bathe in your blood, Emily, and then I’m going to kill your father.”

  Her threat spurred me on. I felt sweat dripping from my face. She’d called me a witch and I’d shown some magical ability, but right then I felt decidedly human, and decidedly like I was about to die. “No!” I screamed, pushing her back. My arms were shaking and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to hold her much longer.

  She toyed with me like a cat, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  “Your mom doesn’t need him to bear another heir,” she purred, her face so close to mine that I could feel the heat coming off of her. She wasn’t trying as hard to stab me then, and I wondered if she was doing it just so she could torment me. “I can put a baby in her, so your dad’s useless.”

  At this, she grunted, pushing the knife down closer to me. It grazed my shoulder, the sharp tip leaving a line of blood where it cut through my skin. Each time it drew blood, the dagger glowed brighter. It wasn’t glowing purple any longer, but had turned to a deep red.

  It was terrifying.

  “You leave him alone,” I said through gritted teeth. The dagger was slowly moving closer to my heart, the tip of it now dragging over my collarbone. I had to let go. I couldn’t hold her off any longer, and if I continued to try then I was going to die.

  I let go. It was the easiest and hardest thing that I’d ever done. The blade of the dagger slipped easily into my skin, sliding into place next to my collarbone. I screamed in agony as the hot metal started to hate me up from the inside.

  It burned so much that it felt like it was going to cauterize the wound, but I knew that it wasn’t going to stop the bleeding. All it was going to do was make the blood pump faster, the magic from the dagger killing me as long as it was in my body.

  Gritting my teeth, I tried to summon some magic that would allow me to force her dagger from my skin, but I couldn’t come up with any words.

  Etris leaned forward, her eyes glittering. “All that you and your stupid whore of a sister were good for was to give me your blood. And now you’re doing that, so you can die alone. You’ve fulfilled your destiny, Emily, but that’s the only good thing that you ever did with your life.”

  Her words rang in my ears, and although I knew that they weren’t true, I couldn’t stop her from saying what she did. I couldn’t seem to get my head above water. My blood flowed fast and free, bubbling out of the wound in my chest. Although she hadn’t pierced my heart, I was still going to die.

  Just slower.

  My parents taught me to never give up, but this seemed helpless. I couldn’t see a good way out of this, but even as I thought that, I grabbed her hands and tried to pull the dagger from my chest. She responded by twisting it, making me scream in pain.

  “You don’t get to walk away from this, Emily. I’m taking what you owe me.”

  I closed my eyes, not wanting the thing that I saw when I took m
y last breath to be her face. I knew that she still leaned over me and was watching me, but I was too tired to care. My blood was sticky and warm as it flowed out of me, and with it, all of the magic and life that I had left, too.

  She was killing me.

  Moaning, I turned my head to the side and opened my eyes one last time. All I could see were bushes. Her damned druid was working hard to make sure that nobody was going to be able to find me here. I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath, crying out in my mind for help.

  “Aruer! Suros! Wydar! She’s killing me! I need you! I need all three of you!”

  I had the distinct feeling that if they really were my fated mates – or if one of them was – that they would be able to hear me. They’d come for me. They’d know that I was in pain and close to death.

  A sudden ripping noise made me open my eyes once more. The bushes, which before had been rooted firmly in the ground around me, were suddenly torn from the earth, leaving raw dirt and jagged holes. I gasped as they flew up into the air out of the way.

  The same noise all around me told me that all of the bushes were being removed. The gods had heard me, I was sure of it. They were the only ones strong and powerful enough to be able to counter her magic like that.

  “Let her go, Etris.” It was Wydar. I’d recognize his voice anywhere, and the very sound of it thrummed through my body. His voice emanated power, and I forced my eyes open, even as my blood ran from my body. Wydar stood next to me, his hands on his hips, his face tilted up in rage.

  Etris had risen over my body and now hovered in the air, facing him. I could reach up and touch her feet in the air if I had the energy, but it took all of my power to watch what was going on.

  “I’ll never let her go, you stupid god. Don’t you see that I need this from her? We all need her blood! Why are you trying to protect her?” When Etris was mad, her voice changed to a high-pitched shriek. I wanted to cover my ears. I wanted to turn away.

  I couldn’t. It was like I was completely frozen and unable to do anything but stare at the two of them.

  “She’s my fated mate,” Wydar growled, and the sound of his voice made my skin stand up on my arms. I felt warmth flowing through me at his rage and at the way he’d claimed me.

  No, I didn’t believe in fated mates. But I wasn’t going to argue about that right then. Not when he was standing over me to protect me. Not when I could feel the power coming off of him. His rage was almost palpable, and when Etris didn’t move away from me, he reached for her, light and energy flowing from his hand. It hit her full in the chest and knocked her out of the air, sending her spiraling backwards until she hit the ground.

  Even then, she’d been going so fast and with so much power that she slid, taking up grass from the garden until coming to rest against a tree.

  Wydar bent over me. “Emily, we’re here. Let me help you.” He reached for me and I weakly raised one hand. I had to get the dagger out of my chest or I wasn’t going to make it. My blood had stopped flowing out of me, but I could feel it pulling my magic.

  One way or another, it was going to drain me, and I wasn’t going to survive. My fingers lightly traced the handle, but before I could pull it, he reached down and put a hand over mine.

  “Don’t touch it, Emily. You don’t want to make it worse, okay?” There was so much compassion and love on his face that I wanted to lay there and spend all day looking at him. I realized that I could fall for him, could want to go swimming in his icy blue eyes, especially when they were dark and tormented like they were just then.

  Etris, though, had other ideas. She shrieked, drawing our attention, and hit him with a magic blast that knocked him off of his feet. His entire body went rigid and he fell next to me, his head turned towards me, but his gorgeous blue eyes unseeing.

  “No!” I managed one last time to scream, but that was all I could say. I felt tears squeeze from my eyes and run down my cheeks in hot lines. Wydar was so close, so cold, that they froze on my skin like small diamonds that glittered in the sun.

  I didn’t even have the energy to reach up and wipe them away.

  “You’re mine, you stupid witch.” I didn’t look, but I could hear Etris picking herself up off of the ground. Before she made it to me, though, a rush of hot wind swooped by me. I smelled campfire at the same time and I knew that Aruer and Suros had arrived.

  Slowly, I turned my head away from Wydar. Even though part of me was convinced that if I kept looking at him, I could keep him alive, I needed to know what was going to happen with Aruer and Suros. I had to know if they could save me. Save us.

  “Didn’t we already kick your ass today, Etris?” Aruer sounded almost bored, and I wanted to scream at him to hurry. Wydar and I didn’t have much time, and I honestly didn’t know which one of us was the worst off.

  “I thought that we sent you back to your little realm already.” Suros chuckled a little, like he was actually enjoying this. “Didn’t we get rid of all of your little creatures?” He snapped his fingers and I heard a howl as the druid who had been helping Etris fell from a tree and landed in front of them.

  I saw the druid bounce as he hit the ground. “We missed some trash,” Aruer mused, then screamed, throwing his head back to the sky. Huge dark clouds gathered in the sky overhead and temperature dropped about five degrees. Before I even realized what was happening, a lightning bold shot out of the clouds.

  It slammed into the druid. My jaw dropped open, expecting to see a crispy body on the ground when the light receded, but the lightning bolt disappeared, taking the druid with it.

  “Nice trick,” Etris sneered. “Did you send him back to my realm? He’ll just be waiting for me there, waiting for me to give him the command to come back and kill Emily. All of my creatures are loyal to me, you stupid gods. There’s nothing that you can do to stop me.”

  Suros looked angry and I gasped when he reached out, whipping his hands around. A small ball of light quickly grew between them and then launched itself at Etris, encasing her in pure light. It looked like a miniature sun, and the glow on the gods’ faces told me that it was much warmer over there than where Wydar and I were laying.

  A tap on my shoulder drew my attention and I ripped my eyes away from the battle. Etris had managed to shake off the light and was firing back at the gods, and I wanted to watch it all, but someone hissed my name.

  Goreon.

  “We have to get you out of here,” he whispered. “I have to get you to the healer because Aruer is busy. Come on, Emily, I’m so sorry that this is going to hurt.”

  I gasped as he slid his hands under me and lifted me. He held me carefully, obviously worried about making the dagger slip or change position, but even though he was careful, every step he made felt like it was jolting through my body.

  “Wydar?” I asked, concern in my voice, but Goreon didn’t slow down.

  “He’s fine,” he promised me. “Besides, none of us can move him. Gods are…heavy. But someone is there with him.”

  “Please,” I said, but I couldn’t finish the rest of what I wanted to ask him. I wanted him to turn around and take me back. I didn’t want to leave any of the gods. I needed to know if they were really going to be okay and if there was anything that I could do for them, but I didn’t have any more energy in my body.

  In fact, it was amazing that I had that much energy.

  That final word drained me.

  A plea. To see my gods.

  Who would have thought?

  Chapter 16

  My eyes fluttered open, but I couldn’t see anything at first. Automatically, I reached up to see if there were any bandages on my face, but my fingers grazed my skin. No bandages, then, but why in the world was everything so dark?

  I held up my right hand and focused until my fingertips sparked. The sparks were sad, almost barely there, but light emanated from my hand. I bit my lower lip and frowned until the light was bright enough for me to see around me.

  I wasn’t in my tower, that w
as obvious from the beginning. Wherever I was, though, Aruer had moved my magical tree. Leaves fell gently around me, almost making a curtain around my bed. Beyond that, though, the room was one that I hadn’t seen before.

  Footsteps in the hallway made me gasp and extinguish my light. My fingers were hot from glowing with magic, and I shoved them under the blanket in case anyone would be able to tell that I’d been doing magic. I wasn’t sure that I wanted anyone to know that I was awake – at least not yet.

  The thought that Etris may have taken me scared me, but if that was the case, surely she would have killed me by now, right? She was really intent on it in the garden, and my chest ached to prove it.

  A light glow filled the room and a woman walked in the door. She paused for a moment to let her eyes adjust from the bright hallway, then walked straight to my bed.

  Immediately, I shut my eyes, but she must have seen the movement, because she chuckled.

  “I’m glad to see that you’re awake and feeling better, Emily,” she said. “I’m Tatum. Why don’t you open your eyes and we’ll see how you’re feeling?”

  My heart pounded in my chest, but I finally did as she asked. Tatum looked like a human. She definitely wasn’t a centaur, but there was a soft light around her and she had an energy that I hadn’t felt before.

  “I’m a healer,” she explained before I could even ask. There are very few of us in the realms, but God Aruer himself keeps me here to ensure that his people are never without the medical care that they need.

  Keeps her here? She didn’t sound bitter, but there was something strange about the way she worded that sentence.

  “Are you happy here? Or does he keep you here against your will?” I struggled to sit up as I asked the question and she immediately reached out to help me, her hands warm on my skin as she propped me up and slipped a pillow behind my back.

  “You good?” When I nodded, she continued. “He keeps me here, but it’s not a bad thing. I agreed, and he and the other gods offer their protection to my family. It works out for all of us. Especially for you. Let me see.”