Page 68 of Death God

“War sent many assassins my way. All of them failed, except one, your mother. I fell for her, just as War had expected. I learned that War had an army of dark mages, witches, druids, and sorcerers when I landed on Earth. They performed the darkest ritual and sacrificed tens of thousands of beings. The ritual was designed to forcibly transfer my power to him upon my demise. The spell that your mother carried with her to kill me was part of the black ritual.

“Only War hadn’t expected your mother to fall in love with me as well and that our true love would create you. Even I didn’t believe it was possible for me to have offspring, but your mother’s fire burned my ice. You were everything to us, daughter. We were beyond joy when your mother conceived you, but we weren’t naïve enough to believe that War would leave us alone. I was new to Earth, but War had accumulated a great army and powers. And he was extremely resourceful. He wouldn’t stop until he took my power. When you were two months in your mother’s womb, I had a vision, and your mother and I knew that we wouldn’t have more time and we wouldn’t be able to raise you. It broke our hearts, but we were still grateful that we had you.

“So we transferred our powers to you, so you could be born earlier. You were born after three and a half months, just before War found us. We sent you to the ocean with a spell to protect you and blessed you to find your next home.”

I swallowed. The sea had brought me to Marlowe’s castle. I’d matured into a woman physically while I was only a few months old in human years.

“War couldn’t harvest any power from us since we’d given it to you freely. Enraged, he beheaded your mother and held me captive. In this dungeon, I was between life and death, even though my essence was death. For a century, my power grew, yet I was still trapped. So I sealed myself here, and only my bloodline could walk through the barrier I set. War couldn’t get to me, but to my utter dismay, he got to you.”

“I survived, Dad,” I said. “He tried to drain me and absorb my essence, but that motherfucker failed over and over. I’m here to kill him, but I need to find his weaknesses. And who knows his weaknesses best?” I grinned at my father. “You.”

“Even I couldn’t kill him since we were both angels,” my father said. “The only one who can destroy him is you, beloved daughter. You hold two great powers: death and dragon fire.”

“No one taught me how to use my power though. No one can really teach me since I’m one of a kind. Now I’m running out of time. I broke free from War’s nasty claws only a few months ago and started to remember my past only these last couple of weeks. I don’t know how to use this combination of awesome powers you and Mom gave me to toast War’s ass into a piece of burned bacon.”

“You have me now, daughter. The Fates have smiled upon you so that you have finally found me. To fully activate your death power, you’ll need the last element, which is the essence in me. When you come into your full power, your mother’s dragon fire will manifest in you as well. Then you can defeat and vanquish our enemy for good. Show the corrupted angel no mercy, my flesh and blood.”

“I can kill that fucker alone?” I asked. “My light mage allies said that I’d need to combine forces with my mate to defeat the horseman of war. By the way, Dad, I’ve found a mate, and he’ll be coming for me.”

“Is he good to you?” my father asked, menacing power rippling off him and death shadows dancing aggressively at his feet.

“Yeah, he gave me Dragon Tears, which is worth fifty-five million if you factor inflation into the market price,” I said with a big smile. Maybe I shouldn’t brag to so many people about my wealth, but this was my dad. He wasn’t going to steal my treasure under any circumstances. “That was very generous of him, right, Dad? And I’m telling you that there’ll be no prenup. All his properties will have my name added to the ownership. He won’t need to worry about me taking his money and running, since I’m fully committed to ruling his kingdom by his side. He can run it alone and have all the power to himself when I go on vacation with my pack and my friends. I already have an idea where we shall go for vacation.” I bit my lip. “Marlowe might not want to be left behind. He’s very possessive. I hope you can meet him, Dad. In a nutshell, he’s my true mate. There’s a mating bond to prove it as well.”

I told my father the practical version of Marlowe and me instead of the heartbreaking, dark history between us and how we’d overcome it and chosen love and forgiveness. My vampire mate and I had reached an agreement that we’d forge our future together and wouldn’t allow the past to drag us down.

My father regarded me, profound pride, fondness, and grief flashing in his eyes. “You’re full of life, Aria. My little daughter has grown up.”

Suddenly, tears formed in my eyes.

So my birth name was like Mom’s. My human family had named me Pip. Marlowe had named me Ophelia. But my true name was Aria.

“You don’t need your mate to add his strength to yours to defeat War, even though you’re more powerful when he’s around you. That’s how true mating bonds work. But you’ll need your mate to bring you back once you mix your death and dragon power and go too far. You’ll be lost without your anchor, and only your true mate can tether you.”

“Okay. I’ll let him know.”

“Now’s the time for you to receive the last element of the death power,” my dad said.

What he was about to do suddenly dawned on me, and I felt a hammer falling on my heart.

“No, Dad. No!” I shouted. “It’ll kill you, and I ain’t going to kill you! I just got you back. I’ll help you. I’ll get you out of here, and I’ll fix you! I promise, Dad. We can do this together.”

“We can’t,” he said softly. “I wish to have more time with you. You won’t be killing me. You’ll finally set me free from this stasis of neither life nor death. I can finally go meet your mother, and we’ll watch over you from the other side of the veil. You make us so proud, my daughter.”

“But I haven’t done anything to make you proud yet,” I protested.

He smiled at me, and it was like the stars were shining down on death.

“You’ll be most vulnerable when the powers start to merge in you, since you’ll go through a transformation,” he said.

An alarm pinged in my head. “What transformation?” I asked, gesturing at my body. Then suddenly, I remembered that I was naked in front of my dad, though I’d tossed away the animal mask as soon as I entered the tower.

Well, I didn’t have anything to cover my body, and Dad was an elemental force. A naked body meant nothing to him, and we had more important things to worry about than my modesty.

“I like my looks, Dad. I don’t want to look like a skeleton or a monster. I have a mate! I have responsibilities to him. If I look like death or something worse, he’ll dump me.”

“If he abandons you because of your looks, then he doesn’t deserve you!” my father hissed and clenched his fists as if he wanted to punch Marlowe for being superficial. Lucky for my vamp that he wasn’t here. “Never sell yourself short, daughter.”

“In theory, yes, but in real life, I’ll be heartbroken if he abandons me, no matter if he deserves me or not,” I said. “I’ll cry myself to sleep every night.” I eyed my father with a sigh. “You’re single now, Dad, and you’re no longer on the market, so you don’t know what it’s like these days. We all fancy the fairytale and true love, but true love is easier when we all have youth and health. I’ll also throw in financial security as an important factor. We should all try our best to make true love come easier, right?” Then I suddenly sobbed as everything came together in my mind. My emotions were also highly charged at seeing my dad. I’d thought he’d been murdered nearly a century ago, right after I was born. “I went through a lot of hardship, Dad. I don’t want to lose any more friends. I don’t want to lose my mate and his love. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to be an orphan again. I already lost my human parents.”

---