Page 320 of The Gods Order

He shakes his head, a humorless laugh escaping.

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. I didn’t fight through this shit show just to have the realm go to hell again before I turn a thousand.”

I chuckle, then my chest squeezes as I smile at him.

My little psycho. Chaotic. Unpredictable. Reckless. Always joking when everyone else is drowning.

But beneath all that, he cares more than he ever admits.

We shift our gazes between each other, weighing his words.

“This is crazy, isn’t it?” I ask, lips tilting up. “We fought so hard to be free of responsibility. Now look at us. Ready to accept the greatest responsibility in the realm.”

“It was never about freeing ourselves,” Creed scoffs. “It was about choosing it. Carrying responsibility with our own souls, our own choices, our own will. Not because someone else controlled pieces of us we never gave them.”

My gaze holds his until he looks at his brothers. I watch all four of them.

“So…” Kyzen says. “Are we all in or not?”

A small chuckle slips through my lips.

“Yeah. We’re all in.”

“Forever and ever, amen,” Riven cheers, opening his arms.

We all shake our heads, but move in for a group hug. For a moment, there is no realm. No war. No responsibility waiting outside this Binding.

Just us.

The warmth around us changes so fast it steals my breath. My smile fades as my men freeze. Their bodies go rigid, gasping and clutching one another. I pull back from Riven’s chest and stare at each of them.

Worry pounds through me as they don’t even blink.

“Guys, what—”

My heart stops. Or beats so fast I can’t keep up.

Every fiber of my soul sings as I…feel it.

I feel them.

I’ve always felt them in pieces. Amick’s need to understand everything. Creed’s anger burning beneath restraint. Riven’s shame behind a joke. Kyzen’s grief and guilt.

Their emotions have brushed my soul since the moment pieces of me became attached to theirs.

But this…

This is different. This isn’t a whisper. Not a thread. Not an echo.

It’s everything.

Their souls no longer feel distant or fractured or guarded by something I never realized was there. Every piece of them—their love, fears, memories, scars, every moment that shaped them, thrums within me.

And they feel me. Not the fragments they carried. All of me.

My breath shudders as the connection settles. Not like something new forming, but like something ancient finally returning home.

The ache I never knew existed disappears.