“You will pay for this!” he snarled up at the ceiling above. “So help me, if it’s the last thing I do! Every last one of you will taste my vengeance as I ram it down it your throat!”
He ran his fingers over Rubati’s lips until they were coated, then used her blood to paint binding sigils on his body—they were identical to those that marked Nick’s Ambrose form. “By the blood of my wife and unborn child, I swear that my sons shall all remember this and that they will carry forth my powers, my strength, my hatred, and my wrath. Each one will know you for what you’ve done here this day. We will never forget and with each generation we shall grow stronger until we have enough power to put you all down and reign over you! We will not rest, will not falter until the day comes that we are avenged for this wrong you’ve done us. Let our wrath rain down on you! So mote it be!”
And as he continued to chant and call for vengeance against the gods who’d wronged them while he held her, he felt something striking against his stomach.
With a fierce grimace, he pulled back to see that her blood had begun to spin and twist with his. More than that, the winds picked up his cries.
Suddenly, a piercing light erupted from her body, tearing through her chest where her heart had once fed life to her.
Monakribos shrank away and held his hand up to shield his eyes. The light danced and spun, coming together until it formed a beautiful young woman. One who bore a striking resemblance to his wife.
Only where Rubati had been fair and pale, this creature was her darker counterpart.
A perfect shadow creature of his beautiful wife.
With the grace and dignity of a fully grown goddess, she rose to stand before him. Yet for all the appearance of a woman, she glanced about in utter confusion and bewilderment. She was a lost child who knew nothing of the world she’d just been born into.
Monakribos rose slowly to his feet. “Rubati?”
She frowned at him as if she understood nothing he said.
When he reached for her, she shrank away.
“Step away from her … she’s not your wife.”
With a heated curse, he turned toward Cam, intending to kill her. But she wasn’t alone.
She stood in his mother’s temple with the rest of her pantheon.
With her gold and pearl skin gleaming, Cam approached him slowly. “She has no heart, Monakribos. She’s merely a shell conjured by your grief. A physical manifestation of all the emptiness you feel inside.”
“Then let her be called Bathymaas. For she shall be my promise of a plague of unending misery on this earth. As you’ve all damned me, I curse you in return. None of you will know peace or love or happiness. Ever. Not until the day you do right by me and make amends for what you’ve wrongfully stolen. Damn you all! Damn you!”
With those words spoken, he manifested his Malachai sword and descended on the gods with his full fury. One way or another, he wasn’t leaving the room until he’d slaughtered them all!
Not until the floors ran red with their blood.
They had thought the war was over. But it was only just beginning …
CHAPTER 12
Kody gasped as she felt Nick’s memory fading away from her until she was again aware of being inside Menyara’s store, and in his arms.
With a ragged breath, she finally understood why she felt so connected to him. “My mother is Bathymaas reborn,” she whispered.
Caleb nodded. “She’s the empty shell. When she met your father, he gave her the heart she was missing and completed her. Which allowed you to be born as her completed whole … the part of her that was Rubati. It’s what makes you the anchor for the Malachai. Even when he’s like that, he feels you for who and what you really are.”
Kody laid her hand on Nick’s cheek. “Can you understand me?”
Nick blinked slowly before he nodded. Still in his Malachai form, he slowly lowered them to the floor and set her on her feet.
“Better?”
“I have my powers … for the moment. So I think the answer is yes.” He narrowed his gaze on Jaden. “But you didn’t explain what Grim and Laguerre have to do with this.”
“It was their daughter who drugged Monakribos,” Jaden said quietly. “Needless to say, he went a little crazy.”
“And you have a hole in your memory, Nick.” Xev slid a glance to his father. “No Malachai before you has ever known what happened to Monakribos.”
He scowled. “Yeah, you’re right. I know the fate of all of them. But his is missing.”
Xev nodded. “Because my father and his friends ripped Monakribos apart.”
Jaden sputtered. “I had nothing to do with that. If you recall, I was against it since I didn’t know what Monakribos’s death would do to Jared. I was the one who risked everything to bring him back!”
“So you were.”