Page 4 of Claimed By Her Monsters

Once they were all weaponless, they dropped to their knees as the very oxygen in their lungs was being sucked out of the atmosphere around them.

I was running on autopilot as I was now in this human leader’s face and holding him in a choke hold with a flick of my wrist. Shadows wrapped around his neck like a rope and lifted him up until his legs literally dangled and kicked for mercy.

“P-Please! S-Stop. W-We’re just doing our job!”

“Oh no, no, no,” I slowly voiced, realizing how thick my voice was as anger pulsated through me. “You’re not going to hang from there and lie to me. You picked the wrong fucking day, place, and time to fuck around with me!” I snarled and encouraged his body to be forced forward until he was at the same height as me.

That gave him a brief relief so he could speak, although my eyes were most certainly pitch black as they peered into his wild wide eyes.

“Who hired you?”

“I-I can’t—” He gasped as I tightened the rope around his neck.

“No, no, no. We aren’t doing that whole ‘I can’t say who’ shit right now because my emotions are on our high which isn’t good for anyone. So you’re going to tell me who you’re working for right now, or else I’m going to kill every single one of your men, then find all your families and ensure none of them survive to enjoy Christmas.”

I could see the fear in his eyes and smell their frightened aroma thick in the air.

“All I have to do is inform Alpha Erebus that you and your lot of human weaklings pointed a gun at me and you know everyone in your fleet as well as their families would be killed by the crack of dawn,” I informed him before leaning in to whisper, “And he’ll ensure you’re all alive long enough to experience the heartache.”

“W-We made a deal!” he confessed. “We don’t know who we’re working for. I swear I’m telling the truth. We took the job from a masked woman. We know she works for some village far away, but that’s it. They hired the woman to retrieve you. Said you’re vital to freedom and acquiring all they wish. Apparently, she tried to kill you and failed. She sent fleets of wolves or something and you took them out. The job was posted tonight with the reward of us meeting Lucifer, who would help our boss, who wishes to make a deal with Lucifer! That’s all I know! My men are just following my orders!”

“A masked woman,” Atticus whispered, and I realized he was on my left side.

“A village far away,” Fenriz muttered.

We shared a look, knowing well this could be the village of worshippers that keep them existing, but Fenriz certainly didn’t know the whole story.

That the villagers have wished nothing but for them to become slaves and grant them far more than they’ve been giving.

“Well, time for you all to take a nappy nap,” I concluded and clapped my hands once. They all dropped to the floor in seconds, clearly knocked out by magic, but I didn’t feel the need to put them in a web of nightmares.

I’ll reserve my energy for the priority at hand.

“We need to keep them locked up until we can figure out who they’re really working for,” I voiced. “I…need to reach Natalia and the others.”

I began to walk away but Atticus had me in his grasp within seconds, before he pulled me right back against him.

“What happened?”

I turned to face him quickly, hoping to answer in one rambling thought and get out of there to reunite with the other goddesses, but he cupped my cheeks. I realized that they were wet, which forced me to acknowledge how blurry my vision was.

“Sweet Nyx, talk to me.” He immediately sought my honesty, but I didn’t want to speak the truth out. To acknowledge that this was truly what was happening.

That Athena, the Goddess of Darkness…is dead.

I opened my mouth to speak, only for a sob to escape, which made me press my lips tightly together while my eyes further watered.

“Nerissa. I need you to tell me,” he said soothingly and wrapped me in his arms. “We can’t help you if we don’t understand what’s going on.”

I nodded into his chest as I hugged him back and took a moment to sob. The emotions were overwhelming, but what hurt the most was realizing the truth.

That I wasn’t an orphan. That my mother…was actually Athena.

I couldn’t understand why she didn’t tell me. Why had she kept such a secret for so long? I had been stolen from her, taken by the very people she ended up needing to confront when I was brought to her as a child, but there was nothing she could have done. She could only encourage me to gather enough courage to escape that hell hole and find a pack that made me feel like I belonged.

That’s when she took me in and gave me a title of purpose to hide the truth: that I’d one day take her place when she perished.

“Athena,” I finally whispered as I pulled back and fought against my sobs. “She’s…dead.”

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