Page 7 of Claimed By Her Monsters

I couldn’t even prepare for what happened next as it felt like gravity was lost while the van was suddenly off whatever form of ground was left beneath its tires and sent flying through the air.

I forced myself to push off the wall, and my body crashed into a summoned magic circle that I used as leverage to push off of and get closer to the open doors that flapped wildly from the crushing winds.

It took one more magic circle that emerged from beneath my feet to push right out of the van in time, but I realized just how far the drop was — my eyes glancing down to see the van and the crashed truck that was the culprit to all of this sinking to the thick river below.

“I swear if I’m the Goddess of Light, where the fuck are my wings?!” I cursed as my body began to drop. I hissed a bunch of curses as I put my arms in front of me to begin conjuring a spell, only for the sound of bullets to reach my ears — seconds before I screamed at the bullets that hit me all at once.

Two in my chest, and one in my arm.

The pain was completely unexpected — the whiplash of blinding agony enough to make my body go suddenly limp while my eyes rolled back.

My mind fought the odd flow of foreign magic fighting to consume my body, but my healing magic was far faster as it worked overtime, attempting to chase out whatever was in those bullets that were strong enough to debilitate me upon impact.

“NESSA!” Someone was screaming my name again and again, but I couldn’t pull out of this voided space as a memory suddenly plagued me.

“My duty is to be the Goddess of Darkness until my time is up,” Athena whispered.

I hid behind the bookshelf, moving a book from its secret slot to see Athena as she stood before a fire place.

“They don’t even want you here!” a harsh, deep voice declared. “Are you going to wait until that bitch literally kills you before you return where you belong?”

“If I must to ensure Nerissa reaches of age, so be it.”

“You speak madness, Athena.”

“It shouldn’t matter if you make no sense of it, Lucifer! You’re not here to see what I see. The true darkness formed by men whose greed is grander than anyone expects. I need to prepare her so when these humans decide to be bold fuckers and combat us beings of magic and supernatural powers, we’re ready!”

“They would be foolish to do so,” Lucifer discarded the mere idea. “They made a vow to keep the balance. However, I can gladly have my way with their kind and create a lovely army of servants with their mass deaths. We know the Four Horsemen are present upon these lands. The moment the humans fuck up, it’s over for them all.”

“They don’t believe you!”

“Then it’s a pity for them, and a form of entertainment for me.”

“You understand if the balance isn’t resorted and the world ends, that means Nerissa will perish.”

“A goddess can’t die,” Lucifer huffed. “Only ascend.”

“Either way, it doesn’t matter! She’ll die with everyone else of the world. You don’t carry any pity?”

“Pity a world that causes their own problems? Pity a bunch of humans who can’t live in peace and wage wars in the shadows by hiring shifters who are willing to turn on their own? Why should I pity a race that will destroy the very world bestowed upon them? Look at all the various universal planes, Athena! We’re not the only beings of power in this galaxy. If the humans of these lands wish to perish, so be it. We can go to another universe and start over.”

“We can’t leave Nerissa!” Athena snapped.

“And why is that?” he demanded as he now faced her.

She shook in place out of pure anger.“SHE’S OURS!” Athena snapped with rage that made all the lights shut down, leaving only the flickering of flame in the fireplace that managed to keep its flame going.

The two were silent, staring at one another with intense gazes, before the man named Lucifer, who I could barely see, took a step forward — enough that he was right in Athena’s personal space while the dancing orange light from the flames illuminated parts of his face.

Eyes of scorching red with rings of orange stared at Athena with intensity while his nostrils flared as if to sniff out the lie in her words.

And yet there wasn’t a thread of deceit in her words.

“Ours?”

Athena didn’t back down, even as the tension in the atmosphere grew.

“If you didn’t have to commit to hell for such long periods of times, you would have returned to grasp the consequences of your actions.”

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