Page 225 of The Lands Defying
She pauses and looks down at something, her tail tucking between her legs.
Darius stands, holding a hand out to me and I grasp it as we make our way over to Zahariss.
She looks down into a black hole as we come to a stop next to her, and carefully peer down.
A large, black wolf paces below us, head low and tail high. Chains clank at his side as spears stick out from his body, blood dripping.
I gasp, hand flying to my mouth. “Cazier,” I say, and the wolf’s head lifts, violet eyes looking to me, and then to Darius.
“Heir of mine,”he rumbles, sitting back on his haunches and looking at Darius.“I hope you are treating my Vihnarn with respect.”
“Like you treated mine by fucking with her mind?” he growls back, fist clenching and my eyes widen.
“Darius,” I hiss. He’s a God, does he have a death vow?
“He hurt you, Rhea. I don’t give a fuck who he is. I would drop down there and rip his heart out without hesitation.”
My eyes widen, a tremble in my hand as I grip his arm in fear of the retaliation of what Cazier will do.
But he just…laughs.
“I chose well,”Cazier says.“You are well now, I see,”he says as he looks at me and it all comes crashing together.
“I was down there, wasn’t I? When I fell into the sea.”
“My Vihnarn was very upset, and I don’t like her upset. So I brought you to the below and gave you enough power to get back to where you belong.”I glance at Darius as he frowns down at Cazier.
“Thank you,” I tell Cazier and he nods, his eyes go to Zahariss. They soften when looking at her, and I think back to all he had shown me, all that I had felt.
I realize something at that moment. “He’s trapped down there.”
Zahariss nods, looking at her mate.“I was banished here, and Cazier was banished there for trying to stop my punishment. He didn’t go willingly, so they had to magically bind him.”The chains, I think to myself, they are stopping him.“They sealed off the pathway for us to go to one another, so this is all we have been able to do since that day where a mother and her babe died. All we did was for naught, and we became even more helpless and trapped, unable to leave until balance is restored.”
“Do not be too hard on yourself, mate,” Cazier says.“You did all that you could.”
“I didn’t do enough,”she says back and Cazier growls, and I can tell he’s desperate to get to her. To offer her comfort.
How cruel to be able to see but not touch one another.
I look to Darius as he tilts his head, looking down at his God, and I think back to a time when we spoke about how the Gods went mad from not being able to be with each other, and I didn’t really get it then…but I think I do now.
Darius looks at me curiously, a question in his eyes but I shake my head and watch as a shimmer flows over Zahariss, and then a female appears in her place.
“You can turn wolf, we can turn human,”she tells me, not having to speak in my mind now and I blink in shock.
Even Darius looks shocked as we take a step back.
Her hair is white, her eyes silver and her skin pale as freshly fallen snow. Her dress is as green as the grass below us, and her bare feet wiggle, as if stretching out.
She is beautiful.
“She’s mine,”I hear Cazier rumble, and I splutter a laugh.
Zahariss looks behind her and shakes her head. She soon sobers though.
“You must fix what we could not,” she says, in a more serious tone than I have heard from her.
“I’m trying, we…” I look at Darius. “We are trying. They have beasts roaming the lands, and a Higher more powerful than we even knew.”
