Taken by the Blood God (Devil Springs #4)

Chapter 30

Chapter

Thirty

Minerva

I woke up with a dry mouth, a churning stomach, and a piercing pain in my forehead. My eyes fluttered open, and all I saw above me was the morning sky. I blinked rapidly, trying to control the nausea that threatened to turn my stomach inside out.

Taking deep breaths until I got it under control, I let my gaze lose focus. I tried to call my magic to heal myself, but, when I reached for it, it wasn’t there.

A face appeared over me, one that looked vaguely familiar. With my head spinning, it took me a moment to recognize him. He was one of the warlocks who escaped the night we rescued Davian. He wasn’t the one who grabbed me though. His body was too thin, and he wasn’t much taller than me. He must have had one of his henchmen do it.

“You,” I croaked, glaring up at the warlock that stood above me, smirking.

“Did you think we couldn’t find you?” he asked.

“Oh, I knew you could, I just didn’t imagine you’d be so stupid.”

I tried to push myself into a sitting position, but my arms and legs refused to cooperate. Metal bit into my wrists and ankles as I shifted, and I turned my head to see that heavy shackles had been locked around them. The metal glowed with magic, highlighting the glyphs and runes etched into the metal. These idiots had bound my power.

When I looked back up at the warlock, I wanted to wipe the smug expression off his face.

“How did you release the god?” he asked. “And why?”

I ignored his first question, focusing instead on the second part.

“Because what you were doing was wrong and dangerous. You would have gotten yourselves killed.” I paused as I reconsidered my words. “Actually, most of your friends already got themselves killed, so…”

He cocked his head to the side, staring down at me with blank eyes, the black irises empty of all emotion. “What do you care?”

The dark magic had eaten away his humanity. He still looked like a man, but there was nothing inside him but rot. I didn’t need access to my magic to know that.

“I don’t give a damn about you and your minions,” I spat back. “But I do care about the innocent people you might hurt.”

He shrugged. “That’s your problem.” His gaze sharpened. “How did you do it?”

“What’s your plan here?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

The warlock squatted, lowering his head toward me. “First, you’re going to tell me how you freed the god. Then, you’re going to call him here, along with the other one, so that my brothers and I can finish what we started. If you don’t fight, we might just let you live.”

It took everything I had not to roll my eyes at him. By the goddess, no wonder he and his coven needed Davian’s power. If they were all as stupid as their leader, they had no hope of being anything more than weak and useless.

I also knew he was full of shit. If they succeeded in their asinine plan they would kill me immediately.

A hand fisted in my hair, yanking it hard. Tears sprang into my eyes as I glared up at the warlock holding onto me.

“How did you free him?” he asked. “You will tell me, or I’ll be forced to get creative.”

His gaze wandered down my body splayed in a spread-eagle position. I understood exactly what he was hinting at. I heard shifting feet nearby and glanced around to see five or six other warlocks hovering, their eyes glued to my form staked out on the ground.

“I’m a Conduit,” I answered. “That’s how I did it. It wasn’t a spell. Or a curse. My power was the only key to his prison. That’s why the other god brought me and forced me to free him.”

“Conduits are a myth,” the warlock replied, releasing my hair and setting back on his heels.

“If you say so,” I said, trying for nonchalance.

A shiver wracked my body. They’d stripped the heavy robe from me before they staked me out, leaving me only in the thin silk nightgown. While it wasn’t freezing this morning, it was still cool this early in the day. And there were parts of me on display that I didn’t want them looking at. Nausea twisted in my belly, and I suppressed a shudder.

I had to put the thought out of my mind and focus on getting out of this mess in one piece. Just because these warlocks were stupid didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Hell, stupidity was practically synonymous with dangerous when it came to magic.

The warlock studied me closely. “You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

He rose to his feet. “I see.”

I suppressed another shiver, this one from fear. I knew by the way he was looking at me that he planned to drain me the same way they intended to drain Davian and Talant.

“Call the gods,” he demanded.

“I can’t.”

He arched a brow at me. “Why not?”

I shook my wrists. “Because you’ve trussed me up with shackles that block my magic.” I couldn’t keep the heavy dose of sarcasm out of my voice.

“So, use your voice.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to hear me this far from the house. They may be gods, but their hearing isn’t as good as a shifter’s.” It was a lie, and not even a good one. Talant might be able to hear me if they were close, but I wanted out of these damn shackles.

Again, the warlock demonstrated his idiocy. “Fine,” he said.

He didn’t say anything else, just turned and gestured at his minions. They all moved quickly, each grabbing me roughly and detaching the shackles from the stakes in the ground.

Air left my lungs on a deep grunt when they turned me over and pinned me face down in the dirt. Rope was wrapped around my wrists and tied to the stakes before the shackles were unlocked from my wrists. As soon as the metal was removed, I felt a low thrum fill my bloodstream. Heat and rage echoed in my mind, but they didn’t belong to me. They belonged to Talant. Somehow, I could feel his emotions.

The fucking blood exchange. He said it wouldn’t connect us, but he must have lied. I should have known better than to believe him.

A split second later, triumph joined the anger and fire that filled him. He knew where I was, and he was coming for me. I didn’t need my clairvoyance to understand that. There was a connection between us now, and he wanted me to know.

Any other time, I would have been pissed that he lied to me about our blood exchange. Right now, I was just glad that help was on the way. I would make him pay later though.

A hand gripped my hair, tugging my head back.

“If you try anything other than calling them, I will let my coven take turns with you until you wish you were dead,” the warlock hissed. Considering this guy ran away when he realized he was losing his coven to two gods, I didn’t feel the need to fight back just yet. Especially since the gods in question were on their way here. No, I would give him exactly what he wanted.

“I understand,” I murmured, trying to appear suitably afraid instead of pissed the hell off. He smirked again and released my hair.

As soon as he stood, chaos exploded in the clearing. Fire and black smoke engulfed the warlocks surrounding me. Screams rent the air before being cut off abruptly. I tried to lift my head higher and twist it so I could see. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Talant moving toward me, flames running from his hands, up his arms, dancing in an invisible wind. Davian was right behind him, arcs of purple lightning sparking at his fingertips.

I sensed the trap too late to warn them. One moment, they were running in my direction and the next they were frozen in place, their bodies hovering a few feet in the air.

I’d never seen magic like this before. It was violent and so black that I wanted to shrink away from it. I didn’t want to know what sort of workings the warlocks had done to set these traps, the sacrifice of blood it would have demanded.

The warlock that I’d been speaking to had vanished as soon as the trouble started, but now he emerged from the trees, looking confident and smug. My hands fisted as he sauntered over to Talant and Davian. They couldn’t move their heads as he walked around in front of them.

“Ah, I see it now. You’re brothers, aren’t you?” he asked, tucking his hands in his pockets. He seemed completely unbothered by the burnt bodies of his coven scattering the clearing. And by the fact that he was the only one left standing.

Anger swelled within me as I watched him step closer to Talant. Then, I realized he’d forgotten all about me and the fact that the shackles suppressing my magic had been removed. Power roiled inside me, growing and swelling, until I was so full that I felt like I would burst from it. Something inside me broke, a barrier I’d never sensed before. It shattered. The magic that flooded me was deeper and more vast than any ocean I could have imagined. My skin glowed with pale blue light. The light pulsed and shuddered.

Memories crashed through my mind then. My time as Cassia. My time with Talant and Davian. How desperately they’d both clung to me until I’d given them no other choice but to leave. The sorrow I felt when Talant buried himself so far away from me. The anger at Davian when his selfishness and recklessness had forced me to imprison him. Falling in love with a mortal man and giving up my godhood to be with him. My children. My grandchildren. A life full of love and laughter. The power that waited in the void for the one who would someday wield it. My Conduit. The one meant for my friend, Talant.

My body shook with the force of power that filled me. The ropes around my wrists and ankles frayed and vanished, dissolving into nothing, and I was suddenly on my feet. Wind shrieked through the clearing. The warlock whirled to face me, shocked and horrified. With a single gesture, he was swept off his feet and pinned to a tree thirty feet away. He tried to fight me, to curse me, to call on power from Davian and Talant, but he wasn’t strong enough to break my hold.

I strode to the circle that held the males who had come for me and thrust a hand through it, breaking its hold on the two gods inside. Talant reached for me, but I held up a hand, keeping him back. He looked me over, as though he was checking me for injuries. Before he could speak, a scream pierced the early morning air.

We faced the warlock who was still shrieking in agony. His skin was turning black as purple lightning surrounded his body. He continued to scream as his flesh shriveled and began to peel away.

I turned my back and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see his death. I couldn’t deny that he deserved to die. He’d killed people in his quest for power. He wouldn’t stop if he was given another chance. He would only continue down this path of darkness.

Finally, the screams ended.

When I turned back, the only thing left of the warlock and his coven was a pile of ashes. Davian stood over the ashes, his hands fisted. I could sense his power from here. He had taken back the magic that the coven had stolen from him.

“Minerva.”

Talant’s voice broke when he said my name. I looked at him, feeling the anger rising within me. Not Cassia’s anger. Mine. Goddess, I was so angry. Angry and hurt . He’d done exactly what I feared he would. He’d hurt me so badly I wasn’t sure I would ever recover.

“You lied to me,” I said, my voice shaking with my anger.

“I know.”

“You knew that I was Cassia reborn, and you said nothing .”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were wet as he stepped closer to me. I moved back, keeping distance between us. I feared what I would do if he touched me, what the magic bucking inside me would do. With Cassia’s memories, I knew that I was the strongest of the three of us, and I didn’t want to do something I might regret while my emotions ruled me.

Still, he said nothing.

Finally, the dam holding everything back split, and the questions filling my mind spilled out of my mouth.

“Was it ever really about me, Tal? Or was it about having your precious Cassia back? Only this time, she didn’t know that she shouldn’t fall in love with you in return, did she?”

The magic within me twisted and writhed, wanting to seek out the source of my pain and destroy it. But I couldn’t allow that. As much as he’d hurt me, I didn’t want to hurt him in return.

His eyes burned into mine, but I didn’t give him a chance to answer me.

“It was never about me,” I said. “And that’s a betrayal I can’t forgive.” I didn’t hesitate another moment. I used the magic overflowing inside of me to open a portal back to my house. Until I’d accessed my Conduit powers…Cassia’s magic…it would have expended too much magic. But now, I had power to spare.

Once I was there, I cast a spell to keep them out. I didn’t want to see Talant or his brother again. Maybe for the rest of my life.