As if resonating with my thoughts of terror, the ground rumbled.
It was as if storm and thunder battered the whole castle. A second later, I registered that the attack was real. There were storms, lightning, and thunder crashing into this magic castle from the outside.
“The brats have found us,” Ares cursed. “I’ve warded and sealed every inch of this location. I wonder if they placed a tracer on you that even I haven’t detected it.”
He didn’t know that I’d formed a mating bond with Zak, and I’d also bonded with Axel and Héctor. They must have tracked me through our connection, which was so sacred and deeply intimate not even a god could sense it.
A teardrop rolled down from the corner of my eye.
The demigods had come for me.
The glass walls shuddered.
I raised my head when my form turned solid.
I needed to hang in there. I couldn’t fade off and disappoint them when they’d just found me.
Ares grabbed me and went through me again. He cursed, frustrated out of his fucking wits.
He couldn’t teleport me away while I was in this shape.
When I became half-transparent, I grinned at him viciously.
Didn’t expect this, did you, fucker?” I asked.
“Stay the fuck away from my lamb!” Héctor roared. He’d arrived first.
Ares snapped his head at the four demigods, who materialized one after another outside my glass cell.
Four energy beams merged into one and shot at the glass that caged me. The glass walls reverberated before the blended beam melted them.
“Axel, get our mate!” Zak shouted.
The Demigod of War flung his violent wind at his father as he zipped toward me. At the same time, Héctor, Zak, and Paxton blasted their energy at Ares.
Ares pulled up a shield as the room exploded in a flurry of motion.
“You’d fight me for a woman you met less than two weeks ago?” Ares scolded his son.
“She means the universe to me,” Axel snarled. “You should never have touched her.”
The demigods tossed their energy blasts at the god again and again, hellbent on blowing him up.
“Why is she like this?” Ares demanded as he shielded himself. “What’s wrong with her?”
“If she doesn’t come back to us in one piece,” Héctor said, “we’ll kill you, asshole.”
Axel scooped me up into his arms, but I slipped right through.
“No, no, Cookie,” Axel called, terror in his voice. He’d never seen me like this. “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave us. I’m sorry I let you get taken. We’re here now. We won’t let anyone take you away again.”
I struggled, gathering my strength to return to solidity.
I flickered once, twice, my form regaining shape.
A hot mouth found mine. Axel breathed his life force into me.
My shimmering form stabilized as his power flowed through me, nourishing me.