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“Your mother was a wild magic user. Just like you, she was picked up by the school’s recruiters when her magic manifested and brought to Magic Blessed Academy. She competed in the Gods’ Challenge, just like you.” He ran his fingers over his jaw, his gaze going out of focus as he got lost in memories I couldn’t see. “It is not uncommon for the gods to watch the challenges from time to time, and that was how I first encountered your mother. I saw her fighting off a venomous snake whose body was six feet across. She was beautiful, strong, and capable.”
True affection seeped into his words as he spoke, and it pulled at my heart. Whatever else had happened, wherever this story was going, he had truly cared about my mom once.
“During the challenge, I snuck into the playing area. I had to meet this wild, enchanting creature. And the moment I met her, the moment she saw me, it was as if something snapped into place.” He exhaled a long breath. “Our affair was intense and all-consuming. She forgot her search for the gem, and I forgot everything. Several weeks passed, and then one day, she was pulled from my arms and transported back to earth when another student finally won the challenge.”
“And that was it?” I asked, leaning forward in spite of myself.
“No.” He shook his head, pain flashing across his face. “I was completely taken with her, but when she entered the challenge again the following semester, Omari marked her for death. She had become one of the most promising students at Magic Blessed, and he felt she was growing too powerful. She was supposed to die in the Gods’ Challenge, but I could not stand by and watch that happen.”
“What did you do?”
Ryker shook his head. “I did what any man in love would do. I tried to protect what I loved. I entered the playing area again, and this time, I used my powers to ensure that Abigail was safe.”
My stomach twisted as I thought of the hatred Omari seemed to have for all wild magic users, and the massive power the leader of gods wielded. “But you weren’t able to protect her in the end, were you?”
“Yes. And no.” Ryker grimaced. “She survived the challenge, although she did not win it. But Omari discovered what I had done, and was furious at my interference. He had marked her for death, and he was determined to see her meet that fate. She graduated from Magic Blessed that spring, and although I did everything I could to protect her, he killed her a year later.” His dark gaze met mine. “She died shortly after you were born, and you were taken in by the man you knew as a father then.”
My jaw clenched as my hands curled into fists. This was so much. Too much. It felt like my brain might explode from an overload of information. I wanted to ask Ryker why he hadn’t been the one to raise me after my mom died, why he hadn’t been in my life at all until now. But I had a feeling I knew the answer.
His association with a human had ended up getting that human killed.
What would’ve happened if Ryker had taken me back to the godly realm as a baby? If he had shown me to the other gods, his half-human offspring?
I would never have survived.
Ryker dipped his head a little, his voice growing softer, more serious. “The gods fear people like you, Aria. They don’t know how wild magic users developed their power, and that terrifies them. Because long, long ago, before time was time, that is how the gods came into existence too. That is what our legends claim, anyway. That godly power was granted to a small, select few.”
My pulse pounded in my ears, and I shook my head to clear it. “So, what? They think we’ve been given power by the same force that gave it to all of them?”
He nodded. “Yes. And because you’ve been granted power like this, because it is wild and unpredictable, many of my brethren fear that you and your kind could become gods yourselves.”
I laughed and gasped at the same time, and the end result was a choked snort. “What? Become gods? How the fuck would that even be possible?”
“Well, you’re already halfway there, Aria,” he reminded me gently. “You are something none of them have ever encountered before, even though none of them—not even Omari—know what you truly are.” He straightened to his full height, gazing down at me. “You should never have existed, Aria. It shouldn’t have been possible. I am not the first god to lay with a human woman. But you are the first child ever to be created from such a union.”
His answer knocked me flat, and I shook my head as a torrent of new thoughts flooded my mind. “How? Why me?”
“Your mother was a wild magic user,” he said simply. “The rules as we know them don’t apply to your kind.”
Chapter Eighteen
Okay, Aria. Deep breaths. Whatever you do, don’t pass out in front of the god.
Your dad.
Ugh.
My mind spun, making the world seem to tilt around me.
Godsdammit. I said don’t pass out!
Gripping the edge of the metal
table, I drew in several long breaths through my nose. Everything I had just learned felt like it was crashing around inside my brain, new insights clashing with old beliefs until the whole thing was one giant mess.
My dad… the man who had raised me until I was twelve, until the day he died? He wasn’t my father at all, at least not in any blood sense. But he still felt more like a dad to me than this imposing, inscrutable god who had ignored my existence for most of my life. The fact that he’d probably done it as a means of trying to protect me didn’t entirely ease the sting of learning that he’d been alive this whole time, and I had never known anything about him.
Had he watched me grow up? Had he seen me fighting in the ring? Seen me getting involved with the criminal underground of Boston during my rougher years as a teenager in foster care?
