Page 27

“I … I don’t,” she said a little too quickly. She paused, thinking it over. “It’s just … a lot. Hard to think there was a plan to this madness.” She waved around the room, indicating all ten of her mates.

Cian shrugged, that small smile still on his face.

“They aren’t like human gods. They don’t serve us.

We serve them. You can’t think of them as benevolent, all- loving leaders because they’re just …

not.” He sucked in a long, unsteady breath, seeming to decide something, before shifting back on the bed and stretching out to hold out his hands for her examination, his palms facing down.

He pointed to the symbol on his thumb. A small sun.

“Arterus,” he explained. “He’s the one you’ve heard about.

People call him the king of gods. You want to know why he doesn’t give a fuck about us?

It’s because his job is presiding over time itself.

Without him, there’s no past, present, or future.

He’s the rhythm of the universe.” He shifted his hand, pointing to the symbol on his pointer finger.

The skull. “Moros,” he said. “He guards the threshold between life and death. He guides us through the river of souls when we die. He doesn’t give a fuck what happens to us while we live.

” The next symbol. A wave. “Thalasos. His hands shaped the earth and sea. He’s the resilience of nature, the ebb and flow of the tide.

He’s the unyielding power of the natural world. He. Does. Not. Care. About. Us .”

Elijah, Gabriel, and Mikel all stood, moving to the bed, peering at Cian’s tattoos, apparently curious about the passionate way he was describing his gods, although Elijah, and probably Gabriel, would have pieced together exactly what those tattoos meant long ago.

Isobel cut a quick look to Niko, who she suspected also followed the Gifted religion.

He stared up at the ceiling from his armchair, none of the information appearing new to him.

“This”—Elijah pointed to a lightning bolt—“is for Galea. She shaped the wind and skies. When her bond with her mate, Thalasos, is good, she washes us with soft rain and warm sunshine. When they’re fighting, even the sea churns with her fury.”

“The gods have mates?” Isobel dared to cut him off, too struck to keep the question inside.

Cian only shrugged. “Arterus and Sannara are mates. Their son is Moros.” He tapped the skull symbol again. “Other than that, it’s just Thalasos and Galea.”

The earth and the sky.

It made sense, in a strange, romantic, and terrifying sort of way.

“Who’s Sanarra?” It was Mikel who asked the question.

Cian skipped a few tattoos and touched the set of wings. “Sannara is kindness and compassion. Without her, we wouldn’t have any. She is there in the resilience of the human spirit.”

“And even she doesn’t care about us?” Isobel frowned.

Cian gave her a bemused look. “She’s the reason we can care about each other.

She doesn’t owe us anything more. You can pray to her and ask her for forgiveness.

That’s what people do—just like they pray to Moros to look after their loved ones who have passed.

They pray to Sannara when they’ve majorly fucked up, hoping that she will absolve them. ”

“Has it ever worked for anyone?” Kilian asked.

Cian scoffed. “Why are you all looking at me like I’m a fucking Guardian or something?”

“It worked for me.”

They all turned at the sound of Niko’s voice.

His head was still tipped back, his eyes closed.

After a moment, he addressed the silence in the room.

“Don’t blame Sophia,” he said. “I threatened her that if she told you I went there every morning in the middle of my morning run, I’d burn the whole chapel down.

” He opened one of his hazel eyes, somehow fixing it immediately to her face, where she was leaning around Kalen to peer at him. “Sorry.”

“You don’t sound sorry,” she noted.

He closed his eye again. “Well, anyway, I prayed to Sannara for months after we repaired the bond. I couldn’t forgive myself for how I …

failed you. Failed to protect you. From Eve.

” He didn’t pause to allow her any interjection.

“I couldn’t forgive myself no matter how hard I tried, but then one day …

” He shifted like he was a little uncomfortable with his confession. “She did it for me. She forgave me.”

Isobel stared at him in shock. And since he still had his eyes closed, like he didn’t particularly invite any conversation about his experience, she turned her shocked gaze to Cian.

Cian, who was giving her that bemused expression again. “You’ve spoken to the gods yourself,” he said, almost in accusation. “The day Crowe attacked you. You said you prayed?—”

“And then went feral ,” she whispered dramatically.

He grinned at her, flashing sharp incisors and looking so achingly beautiful that she had to curb the urge to crawl closer to him.

Theodore must have sensed the desire, somehow, because he suddenly had her ponytail in his fist, giving it a small, sharp tug in reprimand for even considering leaving his lap.

“So if Thalasos is the god of nature,” she began, ignoring Theodore, but Cian was already shaking his head.

“It’s not so simple,” he said. “You can’t pigeonhole them like that.”

“Ah, sorry. So, if Thalasos shaped the earth and represents the power of nature …” she paused, waiting for Cian’s short nod before pointing to the little sprout tattoo on his finger. “Then who’s that?”

“Sylvanas. He’s the vibrancy of life. He shapes our ecosystems and preserves the balance of nature.

He is why our world is full of both predators and prey.

Poison and nourishment.” He tapped the next tattoo, the mask.

“This one is Nemoros—he’s the son of Moros, but we don’t know who his mother is.

He’s associated with illusion, deception, and trickery.

He most definitely doesn’t want to help us because, most of the time, he’s actively playing with us.

He likes to issue challenges and create manipulations, and we’re his favourite toys. ”

“That’s … not good news,” she managed. “What do people pray to him for?”

“What do you think?” Cian’s grin flashed again, a little wider this time, a little sharper. “They pray to this motherfucker when they have an enemy, and they want that enemy to suffer.”

“Lovely,” she sighed out. “And this one?” She touched the hourglass on his finger before pausing. “Actually, I know this one. Sophia showed me this one. It’s Stygian.”

Cian nodded, capturing her fingers and then quickly winding them through his.

“Stygian is the arbiter of equilibrium and chance. He maintains the balance between light and dark, luck and misfortune. He’s the shadow of chance and the bright light of destiny, but mostly, he’s just an unpredictable, terrifying bastard. ”

“Are you allowed to talk about him that way?” she asked.

Behind her, Theodore chuckled.

Cian rolled his eyes, holding up his left hand and wiggling his ring finger at her, the one that boasted the crescent moon. “This one is for Aphelina. You know her. She’s love, passion, beauty, artistic expression and deep connection.”

Isobel nodded, recalling the image Maya had shown her of the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, draped in a simple shift and wrapped by a golden chain .

“This one”—Cian wiggled his pinky, where a harp-like instrument sat—“is the lyre of Lyraea. The Guardian, Maya, wears her pin—anyone who believes in the Gifted religion and is either at Ironside or trying to get into Ironside prays to Lyraea. She inspires thinkers, artists, creators, and visionaries. She guides their hands and whispers the beauty of expression into the art, music, and literature they create. She might help you if you want to create something, but she won’t even hear you cry about a social injustice. That’s not what she does.”

Isobel nodded, showing that she understood, but truly, it was a lot of information to unpack.

She had known there were many Gifted gods, and she even had a vague idea of what some of them were supposed to represent, but to have it put so bluntly to her that these all-powerful creators truly didn’t care about the plights of the Gifted people or the humans … was sobering.

“Who do you think has been giving me these gifts?” she asked, her free hand pressing against her chest, where her sternum piercing sat.

“Doll.” Cian levelled her with a flat expression. “I have a few tattoos, not a degree in the Gifted religion.”

“Niko?” she whispered, immediately turning to the man in the armchair.

Other than Moses and Oscar, still leaning quietly against the wall, he was the only Alpha trying to remain separate from the group gathering on her bed. He sighed, popping an eye open again .

“My guess? Stygian. That asshole is obsessed with balance. The old Gifted texts that Maya has in the chapel all say that when he gives a gift, it always comes with a limitation. You have each of our abilities, but you can only use them for a few moments, and you can only press those gems when someone isn’t paying close attention to what you’re doing with your hands. It’s pretty limiting.”

“Sophia thought he was behind our bond, as well,” she said.

“Well …” Elijah spoke up, apparently chewing on a hypothesis. “If he’s all about balance, maybe he used you to bind all of us together. Maybe ten Alphas, all with powerful abilities, in the same place at the same time, and one exceptionally resilient and stubborn Sigma?—”

“Did you mean stunning?” she asked, finally catching movement against the wall. It looked like Moses had been thinking about smiling for a brief moment.

Elijah considered her. “You’re joking, but it’s a serious consideration. You’re a fucking work of art, and maybe that was necessary to keep us all focussed on you.”

She blushed bright red, her heart skipping stupidly in her chest. “Are you sure it’s not all my flirting with death that keeps you all focussed?”

This time, Moses definitely thought about smiling. Oscar was still a terrifying mask, but it wasn’t lost on Isobel that Cian’s deep, hypnotic voice had somehow lulled the entire room into at least a semblance of calm .

“It’s probably both,” Elijah allowed, all seriousness.

“But what if Stygian saw this as an opportunity to bring balance back to Gifted and human relations? What if our plan to gather as many powerful Alphas into one place as we could, presented an opportunity to him, and he decided that an exceptionally resilient, stubborn, stunning, and death-defying Sigma would be a good way to forcibly bind us all together? If that was his goal, he may have created something that actually stood a chance of doing something about what’s going on here.

Because what’s going on here certainly isn’t balanced. ”

Isobel tapped her chin. “You made me sound like a circus act, and honestly, I don’t hate it.”

Elijah smirked at her. “You’re uncomfortable with my hypothesis.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’m uncomfortable that the god Cian described as an unpredictable, terrifying bastard might have expectations of us.”

Several of the surrounding Alphas chuckled. Even Niko cracked half a smile.

“It’s just a theory.” Elijah gentled his tone. “We’ll never know. Although, I don’t think he’s the only one involved in this. You were given Aphelina’s chain. It’s a gift only she gives, according to Maya.”

“And whoever turned you feral to save you from Crowe,” Cian added.

“I don’t think that was Stygian either. It’s not really his style to suddenly give someone the power of death.

My guess is that it was Nemoros who heard your prayer that day.

He’s known to manipulate the boundaries of reality.

You were already cycling through our powers, thanks to whoever gifted you the piercing.

All he had to do was bend a few realities and force you to reach for one of our Alpha curses instead of one of our abilities. ”

A soft, hesitant quiet crept through the room, all of them lost to their own thoughts.

Theodore was still half-hugging her as her legs splayed across Kilian’s lap and into Kalen’s, and Cian had her fingers captured.

It felt like they had floundered and somehow found their way back to each other, putting their shock and dread to the side to feel for the connection beneath.

It was like they needed to prove to each other that they could do this, find a way past their fury and fear and everything would still be the same between them all.

They needed proof that nothing was broken, even with their future up in smoke and an almost animal fury still likely tucked away deep inside them.