Page 1 of Of Gods and Pain

Chapter One

Emrys

Three weeks.

It’s been three weeks since he took her.

Twenty-one sanity-fracturing days she’s been gone.

My soul bond.

Anellah.

Cas and I failed to get to her in time, and now she’s trapped with that fucking bastard. I know what he’s doing to her. She told us about the horrifying practices he used the last time she was under his control. I have no doubt he’s making it worse for her this time; she escaped him, which probably pissed him off.

That sadistic fuck.

I can’t even allow myself to think of the details, knowing I will spiral to a point of no return and do whatever it takes to get her back.

I need to be smart about this, Cas says. I need to keep my head level, because panicking will not help her, he tells me.

It’s not like we’re helping her, anyway, so why does it matter?

There’s nothing I can do. I mean, I could go to Ceross and try to kill him myself, but I know it won’t work because he has her essence. She’s strong. She’s a fucking god, and the worst being in this realm has her magic. He’s unbeatable right now.

Plus, she asked Cas and me not to come after her. I’d be going against her wishes, though I’m not sure why that matters so much to me. She lied to us. She told us we would all go to GodsPass together, so we could ensure her safety…but she fucking left without us. She walked right out of the castle doors without so much as a goodbye, and now she’s in the hands of the most callous, perverted snake I’ve ever met. I can’t wait for the moment I get my hands on him. The things I plan to do with his body will make him look like a fucking saint.

He touched what wasn’t his. He touched my soul bond. Mine. And I will pluck every fucking cell out of his body, one by one, until the only thing left is scattered pieces of an abominable puzzle. He will beg me for mercy.

No.

He will beg her for mercy. He will answer to her, and I will do her bidding. Gladly.

My blood heats at the thought of seeing her on a throne, a smirk on her unnaturally beautiful face, while she watches Cas and me tear apart her abuser. Day after day, soaking in his screams as we become covered in his hot, decrepit blood. I would clean myself off before approaching her, because not even the waste of that fucking creature deserves to be in her presence.

I groan at the thought of crawling up the steps to her throne, and devouring every bit of pleasure that I can wring from that devastating body. I would bow before her each day, and kiss my way up her unbearably soft skin, showing her exactly how a queen deserves to be treated.

Because that’s what she is: my queen. My goddess. I can be angry at her for lying and leaving, but that will never stop the uninhibited longing I have for her. It will never alter the unbridled devotion that I have seeping through my bones for her. Her presence gives me the very air that I breathe, that I need to survive.

And right now I’m suffocating.

I reach through our bond again, pounding against the impenetrable wall that is her mind. Until she spoke to Cas and me when she was being taken, I didn’t fully realize what the new presence electrifying my body was. There were times I thought I heard her say things, when she didn’t speak, and I just convinced myself that I was falling too hard. I’ve never loved another female. Never wanted to; but the moment I stepped through the doors at the Solstice Ball, I knew something was different about her. My soul was frantic; wreaking havoc among the few remaining thin strings of my heart. She looked into my eyes and my world shifted; those delicate strings began to weave themselves back together, and now instead of feeling nothing at all, I’m feeling too much.

It is too much…losing her. I can feel the fabric in my chest fraying each day she’s gone. It’s withering, knowing what she’s going through.

Fuck.

I’m afraid of what I will do when I have no strings left. I’m straining to not go to her already, and I know I won’t be convinced otherwise if I lose all feeling. I fear myself, because I know not even Cas could stop me; I most likely would get myself, and her, killed.

Steam rises around me as my fire leaves my skin in waves; something I can’t control when the Earth is crumbling around me. The rest of the gods are probably laughing at how pathetic I am. So weak that I can’t even pull myself together long enough to find a way to save her. I’ve already thought about each option a hundred times, but that doesn’t mean I should stop trying.

I let out a loud sigh. My inability to get out of my head stresses me out even more, allowing all the frustration and panic to inch their way to my breaking point. I’m a mess. I shouldn’t be, I can’t be, but I am.

“Fuck, Em, what are you doing?” I hear Casmir’s voice and tilt my head backwards in the water, his form appearing to me upside down. Bubbles take over my sight, and it’s only then that I realize the pool is boiling. If anyone else were to touch the water right now, their skin would melt right off.

I press my palms to my eyes, groaning, and lower the temperature of the water. I don’t respond to Cas. I’ve said everything I can say, and he won’t listen. He says I’m thinking too irrationally, but I have no fucking clue how he’s not. Nell is being tortured and raped, and he’s just able to sit here and continue to act all princely?

Fuck that. I don’t give a shit about any of my responsibilities as Second in Command, or as Captain; the only thing that matters is her. He and I are clearly not on the same page with that.

---