Page 73 of Vengeance of the Gods

Then after.

“Do not forget that Death belongs to me, Vega Caelum. You belong to me.”

Now there will be before death, and then what comes after making a deal with its master.

I can’t warn myself of the approaching collision when the floor I was standing on falls out from underneath me. Darkness floods my throat, stealing the breath from my lungs.

Vega lost consciousness the second her body reached the bottom of her freefall.

26

Something’s not right.

The feeling came in like a rising tide. Slow and steady until it was unmistakably there. It felt like a crack inside, splintering until it was held together by will and not force.

Over the years, she’d learned not to ignore the strange sensations her body experienced, because more times than not, they were trying to tell her something.

She suddenly jerked out of the blissful state she’d been trying to distract herself in. The woman between her legs jumped, looking up at her with wide eyes.

The man who’d been kissing her neck scooted away.

People didn’t follow Marlena only because they were scared. There were some who truly felt she should be worshipped—that her powers were given to her because she deserved them.

Since announcing her status as a god? More fell at her feet every day.

Saying she was a god felt almost impertinent. Marlena was more.

She had more.

“Marlena, is⁠—”

Marlena was already moving, grabbing her clothing from the floor. “Get out.” The door flew open on her command, assisted by her wind.

Invisibility and air, her two original abilities—the strongest of them inside her only becoming enhanced when she’d taken on the gods her powers descended from.

She didn’t have to repeat herself as she dressed, pulling her long, straight hair from underneath the dress she slipped over her head.

The two, who moments ago had been set on giving Marlena the pleasure she could never quite reach, sprang from the bed, grabbed the clothing they’d shed from the floor, and left without redressing.

Her door shut, and Marlena stepped through the abyss, leaving Atrox, where she’d stationed herself while Bridger was gone, and jumping into the room of mirrors.

Shattered.

Glass everywhere.

A gasp slipped through her parted lips. “No.”

The gods were quiet. Too quiet.

The mirrors were shattered, pieces of their frames littered among the glass or hanging to the wall by nothing more than their nails and wire pieces.

“The curse,” a voice whispered… but Marlena was almost positive it was her own.

Shards of glass crunched under her shoes, her reflection staring up at her from jagged edges on the floor. She snapped her jaw shut when she realized it hung open.

This was exactly what Marlena had dreamed of making this room look like at one point in her life. She’d wanted to blow all the mirrors down with gale-force winds and dance on their broken corpses… but instead she’d used them to anchor Vega’s memories to her curse.

Marlena had given the mirrors a new life.