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I used my arcana to hold my amorphous form together as I shot upwards towards the bright light above. Fingers crossed, I hit the light and rushed through a portal. For a moment, I hung, suspended and motionless.
Everything stopped.
I feared the worst. This was Fenrir’s asshole, and I’d just duped myself into the void of death. That would be absolutely disgusting.
But no, the world rushed back. First, it came in a blur of colors that slowly sharpened into the shape of trees, water, and sidewalks. Then sound slammed into me. Everything coalesced into a loud din of sounds that I couldn’t tell apart. I pressed my palms flat to the earth and gulped down mouthfuls of air while I waited for my body to readjust.
It felt like that time I’d accidentally raised a girl from her shallow grave in the woods. Fear had swallowed me whole that day. I’d watched in horror as a young woman, rotten and hollow, crawled out of the ground. My heart had thumped so hard that I’d thought it would burst. My chest had been so tight that breathing had been impossible.
Reality slammed into me. Inside Fenrir’s wasteland, I’d been unaffected. Now that I was on my hands and knees in reality again, I faced my near brush with a permanent death. That could have ended poorly. Somehow, I’d brought myself back, but there had to be a cost.
I lifted my gaze and found Fenrir and Maddox locked in a battle. I couldn’t see Fenrir’s face, but what I could see of Maddox didn’t look good. Blood stained his pale hair and smudged his porcelain cheeks. The shadows under his eyes were gaunt and hollow. He was hungry and had no food source without me.
That’s what Fenrir wanted. Not only had I been a threat with the fate chains, but I was Maddox’s battery. While it irked me that Fenrir saw me as nothing more than the tool of others, I had to shove my anger aside and help my husband first.
I rose on shaking legs and reached out to direct my arcana at Maddox. It slammed into him, maybe a little too forcefully. He reeled back for barely an instant. It gave Fenrir an opening and allowed him to shove Maddox into the ground.
My heart flipped. I panicked, my mind emptying. Should I give Maddox more power? Or should I reach for threads of fate to make chains? This would be our undoing. Maddox knew how to fight. He knew how to protect people. I was the one who faltered every time. I couldn’t do what was needed of me.
All I could do was save myself, and it was costing us so much.
Maddox caught Fenrir’s fist in his open palm. The grin that spread over Maddox’s now-flushed face was feral and filled with glee. He brought his knee up between himself and Fenrir to shove Fenrir back. The world-devouring wolf went flying.
In a flash of pale blue light, Maddox changed shape. His form flowed with fur as all four paws hit the empty ground. I spared a moment to look at the half-sphere void in the ground where there should have been grass and sidewalk, and wondered which of them had eaten it.
Why was this so weird? We were trying to stop a monster from ending the world. That felt so serious, but my thoughts were interrupted by weird holes in the ground because they wereeatingthe landscape…
If we survived this, we would never have to pay to get rid of anything ever again. Maddox would be able to break all of our junk down into energy, and that was oddly sexy of him.
Oh no, I must have messed up my brain when reforming myself. Why were these thoughts going through my head? I wavered, the world swaying around me. I had barely a heartbeat to realize that I was going to go down before my knees gave out.
Maddox appeared beneath me. In the distance, I saw a black shape rise tall only to limp when he stepped towards us. Fenrir wasn’t doing that great, either. We needed to push him. If we did that, then we could win this fight once and for all.
I tried to get back onto my feet, but my body refused to comply. My form didn’t feel solid. Standing felt like sinking through gelatin. If I stayed upright, I was afraid my legs might give way and disappear completely.
Maddox noticed. He tore his eyes off Fenrir and stole a glance at me. Though I tried to push myself upright, Maddox grabbed the back of my shirt with his teeth and tossed me into the air. I landed on his back while the world spun around me.
I barely had the strength to cling onto his back, even though my well of arcana seemed full. Magic and energy weren’t exactly the same, though. I couldn’t fill my body with my arcana. I wasn’t dead.
However, I could take from the landscape around me. The grass turned brown beneath Maddox’s feet as I slurped the life force out of it like a juice box. That wasn’t enough, though. I’d been nothing more than a cloud of energy a few minutes ago. I needed a lot more life force to make my body solid again.
Behind us, Fenrir howled. The ground shook when he gave chase. I tightened my grip on Maddox’s fur and changed my focus so I could pour my arcana into him. There was only one place we could go that Fenrir would not follow, and I think Maddox knew that, too.
Maddox
As much asI hated it, I opened a portal and leapt through. Addie and I tumbled into another world. I shifted so I could wrap human arms around my wife. My back hit the tangled roots of the world tree in Hel’s domain. The impact made my teeth clatter, but Addie seemed fine.
I pushed her hair from her face, so I could inspect her and make sure she was all right. She blurred in front of me. My arms sank into her form before being shoved out of her when she became solid again.
A pale pink and gold glow washed over us. I stiffened and growled before I even looked up.
Perse laughed, the sound soft and light like petals on skin. “Don’t worry, puppy. Your lover is safe in my hands. I find the two of you absolutely lovely.”
I tightened my grip on Addie when the woman reached out to touch my wife. Perse paused and raised a humorous brow, a smile slipping over her lips. Before I could stop Addie, she reached out and wrapped her hand around Perse’s wrist.
Perse’s smile split wide. She pressed her palm to Addie’s head. Or Addie pulled Perse’s palm to her head. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Addie’s hair took on a pink glow. It stayed black, but it shimmered with pastels when her head lolled to the side. Perse sighed contentedly at the sight of it. My beast raised its head to growl in warning, but the goddess offered a reassuring smile.
“She’s been through a lot recently. She can heal, but only through her dreams. There are dark underworlds waiting for her to light them up. Follow at her side and keep her safe from the things that lurk in the shadows.” Perse tapped her fingertip to my forehead.
I jerked away from her touch, but time seemed to stutter, and I found myself back in the same position with her finger against my skin. A wave of magic that smelled like artificial strawberries rolled over me, and the rest of the world fell away.
“Don’t worry. I’ll watch over you for now.”
