Page 47

Della

G odsdamn Avesh. He was in the meeting room, blabbering on about the gods' book being wrong. I wasn't able to scrub his memories quickly enough when he got here, but I got rid of enough that he didn’t remember all my little clues for Haden.

My purpose was to save the gods, for good. When I watched Avesh, I couldn’t help but notice how different he was from the first time I had seen him. I had thought my memory was wrong, but as Avesh talked with Malamay, I watched how calm he was.

“Why were you looking at the book to begin with?” Malamay glared.

Avesh looked confused as he scratched his head. His eyebrows furrowed as he opened his mouth and closed it a few times.

“I don’t remember. I think I was just keeping up to date on new knowledge,” he finally said.

Diath was watching me, but I gave absolutely nothing away.

“No one else was there with you?” Diath asked.

“No.” He looked at me for a moment, and I held my breath to see if a flicker of recognition came to his eyes.

It didn’t. I sighed softly. If he would have remembered, I would have ripped every memory from him in a flash.

It took me hundreds of years to put this plan in place.

Everything had been carefully calculated.

Every meeting with the stars was with intention.

None of them suspected that I had known of their plans and destroyed them.

Well, until I killed the Gods of Hell for good, but even now they couldn’t prove I was up to anything.

After all, I had been here with them for a month—I couldn’t leave.

My gaze met Diath’s from across the room.

She was the only one that I worried about.

I looked back to Avesh as he talked about Haden’s name not being on the dead gods list. I had tried so fucking hard to forge his name in the book, but it would not stay. The Book of the Gods does not lie.

Avesh was freaking the fuck out more than he had in my vision, but other than that, everything was going according to how I saw it. The only problem was that I did not see everything that happened, only pieces.

“You did this,” Abarra suddenly accused me.

Malamay looked at me and frowned.

“How the fuck would I have done this? I don’t even understand what Avesh is losing his mind about. Because a book does not list Haden as a dead god?”

“It means—” She was cut off by Diath.

“Enough, Abarra.”

I knew what it meant. It meant Haden never died; I had made sure of that.

“Thank you, Avesh; you have been helpful. We will look into this matter and let you know if your assistance is needed any further.” Malamay dismissed him.

Avesh looked at me once more, like he had a feeling about me, but he said nothing as he left.

I looked at Malamay while the rest of them stared at me.

This was a pivotal moment. I knew they would suspect me because I loved Haden.

But ultimately, Malamay would decide my fate, and I had spent years making sure I was his favorite goddess.

Malamay stood up and walked to where I was sitting. “Did you do something without the stars knowing, Della?”

I looked up at him, confused.

“What would I have done? I still don’t understand what is wrong.”

“She’s fucking lying,” Abarra hissed.

I turned to her and smiled. “Maybe beating your ass once didn’t teach you to shut the fuck up.” I stood up. “I will gladly do it again if you need a reminder to mind your own fucking business.”

She swallowed and looked away from me to Diath. I saw them exchange a glance, like there was an unspoken conversation between them. They didn’t believe me. I looked at Malamay and frowned.

“Whatever the problem is with the book isn’t my doing.”

Malamay’s stormy eyes narrowed on me before he sighed. “We will go see Haden and figure out where the fuck he was for nearly three hundred years, since clearly he wasn’t dead.”

The other stars agreed, and we all stood up.

We pulled our cloaks on, which was what we needed to get to and from the stars.

Someone or something had enchanted them.

That is how the stars left when they shouldn’t have been able to.

I noticed, though, that Malamay was watching me with a cautious curiosity in his eyes.

Before I could give it another thought, we began falling toward Elloryon.

I’m sure everyone below us wondered why the heavens looked like they were raining down upon them.

A move like this hadn’t happened in hundreds of years.

All of us streamed down to the ground like shooting stars.

But we were not the kind of stars used to make wishes on.

No, these stars were made of sin and treason.

They made sure wishes did not get answered if they messed with their power.

We landed on the ground, and I stared at mine and Haden’s home in longing. I knew Haden wasn’t in there. He was hidden safely in Brim’s impenetrable home.

“Haden Vale, you are being summoned by the stars to get out here and answer questions.” Malamay’s voice drifted with authority, but no noise came from the home. None of us had our hoods on, meaning they were all staring at me to watch my reaction.

“Get out here now!” His voice shook the ground.

Again, nothing happened.

“Search the house,” he demanded, and we all stepped forward, but he grabbed my wrist and tugged me back to him. “You’ll wait here, Della.”

I looked at him. “Why is everyone treating me like I did something wrong? I have been stuck with you for a month.”

“You have the most motivation to mess with fate. You’ve done it before.”

“And you caught me every time, and I am paying my dues.” I glared back at him.

Malamay’s jaw clenched as he stared at me. “You were supposed to save all of my children, not let them die in Hell. Now they can never be reborn because they are trapped down there forever.”

I sighed heavily. “I tried to get them out. It’s not my fault that the God of Death interfered. I died trying to get them out.” I lied.

I had stood there in Hell with all of them in my hands and smiled as everything caved in around me, crushing me to death but sealing all of them down there for eternity.

“You have died before; don’t act like you made some huge sacrifice for us by trying to get them out.”

“I could have gone to the gods with what happened to me, and they would’ve all turned on you, but I didn’t. So why are you treating me like I am the bad guy here? I didn’t know what was going to happen. Haden would have never done what you wanted him to.”

He scoffed. “Because you were too busy crawling into bed with the one man I told you to stay away from. You fucking tainted him. You made him abandon all his wrath, and for what, love?” He spat as he gripped my arm tightly.

“Sorry that Haden and I are mated, but you can’t blame me for him not being inherently bad.”

“I’m not stupid. I know that you can’t have a mating bond when he is in Hell. And you were technically dead when he met you. You were a fucking star at that point. So how did you know he was going to be yours? I told you he was promised to Abarra for a partner. So how did you do it?”

Over my dead body was he ever going to belong to that fucking bitch.

He would’ve never been attracted to her.

It was always supposed to be me. Malamay and Diath had carefully chosen the gods and goddesses they let be stars.

They had handpicked a mate for each of their children to unite with when they broke their curse.

As for me, I was chosen for Mateo—the prideful fuck. Not my type.

I opened my mouth to answer him when Diath shouted, “He isn’t here.”

They all came out of the house and stared at me.

“Where the fuck is he?” Diath asked as she stepped toward me.

“How the hell would I know?”

Diath looked around as if Haden was hiding in the fucking woods. She turned back to Malamay, scowling.

“Did you let her see him alone?”

He stilled as he looked at me. I smiled because he was not supposed to let me see Haden by myself.

“No,” he lied. “You better not have told him anything last night,” he whispered.

“I didn’t.”

Malamay’s eyes frosted, and I smiled because I knew it was fear causing his magic to get out of control.

“Go find Thea and Cassius; he’s probably there. If not, go pay his fake family a visit and torture them for information if needed.”

I shoved him. Malamay gripped me tighter.

“Maybe you should have thought about them before you did whatever you did to warn him.”

“You probably listened in on our entire conversation last night; I didn’t say anything.

Besides, you are the one that sent him to Avesh.

” I glared. Malamay didn’t know that I planted that idea in his mind before we came out of the house last night.

“Should I tell your wife that you left me alone with Haden?”

“If you do, I will fucking end him.”

I smiled at him. “You can’t even find him.”

Diath came over to us to see what the arguing was about while the others went to try and find everyone that meant something to me. Diath stared at me for a brief moment before she slapped me across the face. I laughed just to piss her off.

“You fucking bitch. How much of this was you?”

“What do you mean?” I acted stupid.

Her eyes flashed red. “You manipulative bitch.” She went to hit me again, but Malamay stopped her, grabbing her by the wrist. “Let me go.”

“Quit,” he warned her.

“Protecting her as always?” she hissed. “You know she is in love with our son, right? You can quit being protective over her; she isn’t your mate.”

He clenched his jaw. “You know I do not care for her in that way,” he snapped.

“Quit being ridiculous.” But Malamay was a fucking liar.

He had feelings for me; I saw it in his mind.

It was how I manipulated him so easily. I knew he shouldn’t feel that way about me, but I sure used it to my advantage.