Page 41 of Claimed By Her Monsters

“Substitute?” I didn’t understand.

“See, if we didn’t listen to the Elders and confronted the issue before I died, none of this would have flourished.”

I blinked and glanced over to my left to see a woman who looked exactly like Natalia but older.

“Holy Bananas!” I attempted to curse and realize it changed to a ‘clean’ version of the swear word. “Okay. I didn’t have any intention to say Bananas.”

Snickers came from my right, and I looked over to see my men standing in a row and watching our little reunion.

“Oh snap. Sorry,” I began and managed to slide out of Athena’s hold before gesturing to my men.

“These are the Four Horseman,” I introduced. “Atticus, Arthur, Sawyer, and Cornelius. They’re also my true destined gods.”

“The Four Horseman?!” the woman with flaming red and orange hair gasped. “So the world is ending?”

“No,” Atticus spoke up with a smile. “We’re merely here on Sweet Theia’s behalf.”

“Awwww. How supportive,” she beamed and clapped her hands.

Athena took the opportunity to gesture over to the woman with hair was red as fire while she wore a rhinestone white dress.

“Nerissa and her destined gods. This is Natalia’s mother, Naomi.”

“Hello, my dears,” she greeted. “What a privilege to meet you all.”

“Wow,” I whispered in awe. “You’re like the less hyper version of Natalia.”

She laughed and bobbed her head.

“My girl is a wild one, isn’t she?” she offered.

“She misses you,” I admitted with a sad smile.

“As I miss her,” she replied and snapped her fingers which triggered more mushroom stools to form. “Sit. We have much to discuss.”

Giving Athena one more squeeze, we settled down before deciding to explain everything that happened.

“So now there’s the potential chance Danica wants to use Athena’s preserved body for some ritual that involves the old village and worshippers I came from,” I explained. “They’re going to use the dark energy from my dark gods to empower this ritual which may push them into disappearing. The only problem is I can’t decipher what their end game is.”

Athena and Naomi shared a look before they sighed.

“Danica is attempting to get her role back.”

“Huh?” we all said as we looked at the two of them in confusion.

Athena bobbed her head to Naomi who decided to take the lead in the conversation.

“To cut a long story short, Danica originally was meant to be the Goddess of Darkness, and Athena, the Goddess of Light,” Naomi revealed. “However, at the time of delivering both their roles, the Elders sensed immense dark power from Athena. It was so grand that Athena could very well have carried both titles of Goddess of Light and Darkness, but the Elders couldn’t think of someone taking on both roles.”

She looked around us before her eyes landed on me.

“Little did she know she was actually pregnant and the immense power was coming from her unborn child, which made everyone realize Athena was pregnant. It’s extremely hard for Goddesses to get pregnant because they need to essentially mate with someone on the same power level as them. What makes it even trickier, is the male has to truthfully wish for a child. If both conditions are met and the Goddess is unclaimed, pregnancy is imminent,” she revealed. “This is where the drama began with Danica.”

“Was she mad Athena was pregnant or something?” Sawyer pondered.

“Yes, in a sense,” Naomi began. “Despite Danica coming from a family of light witches, it was clear early on in her youth that her light energy was dwindling. It was to the point where she needed constant boosts from any source that could keep the problem under wraps, but it got worse when she remained unclaimed and sought a child in hopes of having a disciple who could take her place come a time she can no longer boost her light magic. As many of you know, if an unclaimed Goddess roams the land for too long, Lucifer himself will come down to confront the Goddess in question.”

“Was Danica expecting Lucifer to knock her up or something?” I dared to ask.

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