Page 28 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

Caedmon said that they are Atlanteans, not Gods. I know that. I understand it, yet still, my mind struggles to connect his truth with what I’ve known all my life. These are Gods that I’ve always feared and resented. Gods are immortal and all powerful. They shouldn’t have age lines. The fact that they do only lends more credit to Caedmon’s outrageous words.

My attention centers a bit more on his eyes. No painting could have shown the vibrant storms that create the color of his irises. Silver and blue clash together like seas and storm clouds. But it’s not the color that makes my heart skip a beat, but the lightning flashing within them. The riot of untapped power that exudes from his very bones pours into the room, sliding over my flesh. My throat closes up and a similar power that I’d felt from Dolos slams into me. My knees buckle and I hit the ground hard.

My legs crack against the stone and the pain ricochets through my limbs. I bite back a curse, sure I’ve just broken something. My kneecaps feel like they’ve been shattered. Fissures form under my flesh as the injury throbs anew.

“Tryphone.” The name is spoken with a feminine voice, admonishing.

Gasping, I try to suck air, but it never comes. My lungs collapse in my chest and my ribcage opens into a cavern for the dead. I am but a corpse in flesh, waiting to rot.

Air. I need air.

Something moves against my ankle and I nearly jerk my dress up and reach for whatever it is when I remember the snake Kalix had placed with me. The little creature is circling my leg, spinning around and around and shivering its scales against my skin as if it’s trying to tell me … what? That Kalix is nearby? That he’s on the other side of those doors along with Ruen and Theos?

The Darkhavens are powerful but these … these are the actual fucking Gods. Even if Caedmon admitted that these beings are not Gods in their world, to me, that’s exactly what they are. The power rolling off them and permeating the room practically strangles me. I squeeze my eyes shut as a choked noise leaves my mouth and black dots dance behind my eyelids.

I reach down, still, though, patting the snake through the dress skirts in the hopes that doing so will make the little creature calm down and not alert Kalix.

“Tryphone.” This time, the woman’s voice fills with annoyance. “That’s enough.”

Suddenly, I can breathe again. My eyes snap open as air returns to my lungs and the graveyard of my body springs back to life. I suck in breath after breath, coughing as it chokes me. My hands clench and unclench on the stone floor as I remain, kneeling on the ground before the dais.

No doors crash open. No Darkhavens come storming in. More than the fact that I haven’t passed out, the fact that the Darkhaven brothers are not currently bearing down on me tells me that all of that must have happened in only a matter of seconds.

A chair scrapes back, the sound a sharp cry in my mind. Footsteps echo closer, but still, I don’t look up. Afraid, I realize. I’m afraid to. My limbs tremble and my mind crawls over itself, searching for a way out—a way to escape my body and free itself.

It doesn’t matter that the hand that cups my shoulder is gentle. It doesn’t matter that the voice that follows it is soothing. The second someone else is near, I flinch away, scooting back slightly on my broken knees, ignoring the shriek of agony that my body responds with.

Tsking in her throat, the woman reaches for my chin and lifts my face upward. The blonde Goddess. Her full, peach colored lips purse in displeasure as she takes in my expression. Then she turns, accusingly, on the God King. “She’s hurt herself thanks to your power,” she snaps.

Tryphone’s voice, when he speaks, is a low rumble. “She will heal, Danai.”

Danai. I blink in recognition. This woman is Danai—the Queen of the Gods, wife to Tryphone. She is the Goddess of Beauty and … of pain, I recall dimly.

Danai huffs an irritated breath and then hooks her hand around one of my arms and urges me to stand. I do, but my legs shake and tremble with the effort. Yes, Tryphone is right, I will heal. I can already feel the heat around my fractured kneecaps working faster than ever before as it repairs the damage caused by my fall. Is the speed and heat because the brimstone is gone? I wonder absently.

I’m so focused on the quickly receding pain, my brow puckered in confusion, that it takes me another moment to realize that a woman is speaking.

Lifting my head, I blink as the woman on Caedmon’s right arches a brow at me. Her lips part. “Did you not hear me, child?” she demands.

I shake my head, feeling like my head managed the impossible feat of escaping because right now it feels very much detached from my body. The woman taps her long fingers against the table’s empty surface.

“I asked if this is the first time you’ve ever received an injury,” she snaps. “You appear confused by the healing.”

My head tips down again and I feel something wet slide under the skirts of my dress. Though the folds had cushioned my landing somewhat, no doubt the sharpness with which my knees had cracked against the stone had still split the flesh.

“I’ve never healed this fast before,” I admit and am thankful that I can be honest. “It feels … warm.”

In response, the woman turns her attention to Tryphone. “Caedmon must be right then,” she states, directing the words at him. “It’s very unlikely that she’s made it to adulthood with no wound before and if she’s only now noticing the rapid healing and heat of it, then?—”

“Unlikely,” Tryphone rumbles, cutting her off, “but not impossible.”

Danai’s hand slides away from me as I straighten. As much as I want to yank my skirts up and see if the wound is still there, I won’t. Instead, I lift my head, forcing the action past the threshold of my trembling fear.

“I’ve been wounded before,” I say. “I’ve never felt … this.” I gesture down to my legs.

It has to be the removal of the brimstone, I decide. Before this, I’d certainly healed faster than a normal human, but never with this odd sensation of fire licking over my flesh. It’s barely been minutes since I’d injured myself and yet the pain is already completely gone. The remaining wetness on my calves is likely blood from already closed wounds.

Tryphone hums in the back of his throat and gestures for Danai to return to him. She sighs and carefully releases me, pausing to see if I’ll falter again. When I don’t, she moves back to the dais and strides up the side steps until she circles the table to her own seat at the God King’s side.

---