Page 1 of Veil of Monsters

Prologue

CITLALI DAWN. THE MATE OF THE EARTH GOD.

Inever should have followed my heart.

It was madness to follow the feeling that was deep in my chest, that I ignored for so many years. I was lonely, and that feeling alone led me far into the mountains at the back of Junepit City, a place where no one dares to go. My best friend told me I was crazy, that I shouldn’t have done it. She was right. But I found him, my mate, and he was nothing like I expected. My mate turned out to be a trapped elemental god. The earth god, who called himself Terrant.

That feels like a long time ago, and things have changed since then. My heart pounds like a drum as I rush down the mountain, cutting my hands on rocks and dirt, ripping the skin on my knees as I struggle to escape him.

“CITLALI! COME TO ME!”

I don’t feel the pain, none of it matters, even if the ground violently shakes below me and his screams echo in my ears. Our bond burns against my skin, but I fight it with everything I have left. Terrant knows I have escaped him, and he will scream and shout, but he is trapped in the mountain. He can’t get to me. I can hear him roaring, begging me to come back, but I won’t. He’s a monster. They’re all monsters, the gods, and I should have left sooner.

In the beginning, when I first met him, it was like a fairy tale. He was lovely, charming, and unnaturally beautiful. The earth god in all his might. His dark green hair reminded me of the forests and matched the color of his eyes. He told me he loved me and wished for so many years for me to find him. My brown hair snags in a tree, the branches growing out to reach me and stop me from escaping here. I run faster, pushing all the wonderful memories of the earth god to the back of my mind.

I never knew the gods were real. The great goddess? Yes, I knew she existed. I’ve worshipped her since I was a little girl, but the elemental gods? No. I thought they were nothing but stories told by the sailors who drifted off to sea. They hoped that the water god would protect them, but I’ve seen so many females weeping over their husbands lost to the sea that I know it isn’t true. I also now know that the earth god protects no one, and anyone foolish enough to search for him ends up locked away.

“Keep running. I can’t stop. Run, run, and run.” I repeat the words over and over as I breathlessly search for a path through the dense forest on top of the mountain.

I did the right thing leaving. He might be my mate, but he deserves to lose me. I can’t spend my life at his side. He is evil. I shiver as vines spread across the ground, and I dodge them as they try to catch my legs, the worst memories of the earth god haunting me. It wasn’t long after he took me as his mate for the first time that his true colors started to come out. I heard screams inside his mountain, and I went looking for what caused them… only to be sick when I found out. He lures mortals, fae like me, and anyone who’s stupid enough to hear his call through the earth into the mountain. He has them trapped in cages, leeching blood out of their skin to feed himself and the creatures he keeps as pets. Terrant’s not made a home of the mountain but turned it into a source of power and food for himself.

I soon realized that I’d just be another one of the fae locked up in there forever, hearing the screams of his victims, unless I left. It took me a while to plan my escape, and I wish I could help the victims he has locked away, but his power is too great.

Even if he calls me his mate, I can’t believe we are somehow destined to be together when I never wish to see anyone harmed. My father, Paxton, was so kind and brought me up alone. He told me that to be kind is to be fae, and he only ever wished for me to have a good life. I won’t live a life as a prisoner for my mate. Not when he is a real monster.

It takes me days, what feels like days anyway, to get back to civilization. I stand at the edge of Junepit City, fresh tears falling down my cheeks. This is my home. I should have never left. I look across the amazing city where I grew up and wonder if anywhere else in the world is as lovely as this place. I know a part of me went to the earth god because I don’t have any living family left and I was searching for something more after my father died last year. My mother, I lost her young. I can only barely remember her from my childhood, but she was kind, and my father’s stories kept her alive for me. Kind, that’s what I choose to be, even as my heart is breaking.

I fell in love with the earth god, and I failed to see he was a monster hiding under a bridge, waiting to pull me beneath to live in the darkness with him. I miss my father. I wish I could run to him now and tell him everything. He would hold me and make it all better. I was lucky to have him. He worked hard for me, leaving me a house and money.

I make my tired legs move, and I buy some food from a local vendor before going to the beach to sit down. My best friend is going to have never-ending questions, and I’m not ready to do anything but sit in peace. As much peace as I can get now that I’m linked to the earth god. Thankfully, I can only just sense his anger from here. I eat my food, my stomach turning even though the spiced apple slices and milk are my favorites.

The air picks up around me, unnaturally cold for this time of year. I sit up, looking around with a frown, noticing that the beach is near empty when it wasn’t only ten minutes ago. The sea is still, even with the wind picking up, and I crawl away from it, but a wave violently crashes into my feet. The wind seems to pick up more until I can’t hear or see anything around me.

Softly, I hear a female voice whispering to me. “You carry his child. A child of the earth god. There are only two children of our blood walking in this world, and I will have them both. Bring the baby to me when it is born or else.”

My hand falls to my stomach. No, that can’t be true. I’m tired, and I must be hearing things. I glance at the food in the sand, and flashes of my time with the earth god come back to me. We never used protection. I never took a tonic with me like I should have done. Could it be true? Do I carry a child of a god? The wind itself seems to tighten around me, and I soon realize that this is another elemental goddess… I don’t remember the stories about her, but she is whispering to me again. “Come to me.”

I look down at my stomach. She wants my baby. “You’ll bring me the child the moment it’s born, or I will take the air from your lungs when the child leaves your body. The baby boy is mine.”

“No.” I turn, running towards the city, knowing I’m going to protect my baby no matter what. He is my family. He is good, innocent, and the gods are not going to touch him.

ChapterOne

CALLIOPHE SPRITE

Athousand heartbeats seem to pass as I stare at the dungeon bars.

Emerson doesn’t remember me. My mate, my king, the love of my life, doesn’t know who I am. That realization sinks all the hope in my chest until I’m nothing but a fae sitting in a prison, unable to cut out her beating heart that stings. It took me so long to accept who I am now. A mortal changed into a fae. And yet it’s something he hates me for now.

Sinking my hands into the soil at my sides, I look up at the darkness above me. There is little light in here. The warm flicker of a nearby flame reflects gold tones onto the stone walls, and small gaps in the stone let in tiny flashes of moonlight. It’s night, that much I know, as I breathe in the damp, earthy scent. Posy is saying something, but all I can see, all I can think of, is Emerson. It’s like he is in front of me again, looking through me, seeing me as an enemy. That’s where we began, and I never would have thought it could hurt so much for him to be back at that point.

I can’t hear Posy’s words as I watch the all too familiar dark, wondering if any of the darkness and shadows belong to him. The cold, cruel Wyern King he once was when we met seems like a joke. It’s like his memories flew him back in time, but I have to tell myself that he is still the male I love. He was always kind, under all the pretense. Broken but kind.

But he doesn’t remember falling in love with me. I gasp, the memory crushing my heart. I feel like I can’t breathe. Posy suddenly slaps me hard across the face, and I wince, snapping out of my thoughts. Fire and ice spread across the ground between us, going to attack her, and I have to call my power back.

Posy doesn’t even flinch as the fire fades and the ice melts away into nothing. She simply pushes her long black hair over her pale shoulder and narrows her eyes. Somehow, bat or mortal, her eyes are the same. “Snap the fuck out of it and stop feeling sorry for yourself. I did that for years, and I wish someone had told me not to give up hope. Fuck, actually, I remember you giving me some kind of pep talk and I ignored you.” She stands up, placing her hands on her hips. “Don’t be me.”

She’s dressed in black leggings and a short black top that barely fits her, but it’s better than her being naked down here where it’s cold for a mortal like her. The guards threw clothes and terrible food in here with us. “Hope, Calli. Come on, if you break, we all break. Please stand up.”

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