Page 3 of Claimed By Her Monsters

“Athena! Give me my powers back!” Danica screamed.

“They were never yours, Danica,” she answered and sweetly smiled. “I present to you, the Goddess of Light…and Darkness.”

She lifted her head. The last bit of her essence remained so that her words would boom through the magical space and seal what was surely my fate.

“I, Athena… the previous Goddess of Darkness… set these words in stone.”

“NO!” Danica screamed and tried to race forward, but all of us were beginning to fade, our energies being pulled back into our designated bodies.

“Athena!” I pleaded with her one last time, but her image was practically gone.

“What is lost will always be found,” she stated again as if I wasn’t allowed to forget. “Now you must be claimed, my dear. Be claimed and your true destiny will unravel.”

I could see the quirk of her smile, even as my vision began to blur away.

“Farewell, my stolen child. I may have never gotten the privilege of raising you, but in the end, I got to experience the joy of being a mother.”

The flashback left me speechless yet again, only this time I was able to decipher and piece together the truth.

Athena…was my mom? Athena gave birth to me. I’m her disciple, but now I’m the Goddess of Light…and Darkness? It can’t be possible. There has to be a mistake somewhere. But Danica couldn’t heal anymore. Her markings were stripped from her…and replaced with my flesh. I can’t believe what’s happening.

Danica killed Athena…my mother. I’m the successor of two Goddess positions.

I realized I needed to get up and warn the others because things would go to hell — literally — if I didn’t reunite with the other Goddess in real life and have us discuss the truth of the frightening matter at hand.

Before I knew it, my eyes snapped open and I sat up swiftly to breathe, which only encouraged two strong hands to stop me from lean over d further — or potentially passing right out because the world was spinning.

“Fuck,” I cursed and shook my head. “Trouble. So much trouble.”

“What’s wrong, Ness?” Fenriz urged, and I took a shockedmoment to meet his worried eyes as I realized he really was here — in the flesh.

“How…?” I dared to ask while my eyes further widened in shock. “You’re here? You…came?”

He tried not to show just how my words invited a sense of guilt that flickered in his eyes.

“You called,” he whispered. “Your energy dropped and went all over the place and I felt deep within that you needed us.”

“Only you’re here though,” I acknowledged as I worked on catching my breath.

He slowly nodded.

“I told Regis and Alosium I’d walk if we continued to let you slip away from us,” Fenriz revealed. “That I was tired of them thinking you had to be the one to return to them versus us coming to find you.”

He shook his head and quickly corrected his words.

“No. We did find you, Nerissa. Long ago. We knew where you were. We knew the forest you found safe haven within. We should have come for you a long time ago…but Regis’s pride, Aloisium’s inability to find an explanation for your actions in a book, and…well…my cowardness, is what led us down this long path of miscommunication and heartache,” he confessed and reached for my hand to hold it tightly. “If we’re destined to turn into dust and leave this world of existence, I had to at least do the right thing. I had to do what my heart has been craving to do for years. I had to find you. To make it clear that I wish to claim you. Whether Regis and Alosium like it or not.”

“Fenriz…” I whispered and slowly looked to Atticus, who observed him carefully.

I wondered if he was trying to determine whether he was telling the truth or not.

“Why…why would you turn into dust?” I needed an explanation for that, but suddenly the sound of racing footsteps was heard, followed by guns being pointed at us from every direction.

“Don’t move!” a man screamed through his masked face. “You’re all coming with us!”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right?” I gasped in annoyance as I took in the fact that these pathetic humans were actually pointing guns at me, my archangel-of-death mate, and my favorite monster among the three dark gods.

I didn’t know why it ticked me off so much, but my magic went on a soaring rampage that had the men beginning to choke on their own salvia while they lost grip of their guns, which fell to the ground, one by one.

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