Priestess Irena led us through the maze of an ancient forest to the Rabbit Hole. It wasn’t made by any rabbit, though, and it wasn’t exactly a hole.

The entrance was made of layers of standing stones, spreading out like rippling rings, and large enough for two people to step inside.

“The Rabbit Hole refers to a portal into a different realm,” Irena said. “It is also boundless in the extremities of time, immeasurable in its capacity, perpetual in its own right.”

As if I knew what that meant! But I tried not to yawn at her profoundness.

I halted at the entry, gazing up at my mates, struck through by fear, not for myself but for them. I wouldn’t survive if they didn’t make it. I’d been heartbroken when Apollo tore me away from them, and if any of them perished, my soul would shatter.

“We’ll be fine, dulcis,” Lorcan said. “We’re all bonded to you. Your blood flows in ours as ours flows in you.”

He reached for my hand, but Alaric beat him.

The demigod flashed me a devilish grin, sending my heart fluttering on wings.

“Shall we, sweetheart?” he asked.

We had to go through. This was the next step in the war against the gods. I bit my lip. “Let me step in first and I’ll let you know if the coast is clear.”

“Not a chance, baby,” Reys said behind us. “You won’t go alone, and you won’t go first.”

Hadn’t I praised them that they let me run wild?

I sighed in resignation. “Give me your flaming sword, then.”

Alaric handed his to me first. I slashed the blade across my palm, trying not to wince at the burning pain. Then I returned the sword to the demigod.

I would enact a blood ritual in my own right and by my own rules to shield my mates.

When my blood dripped to the soil beneath my feet, I raised a hand and spoke a secret language of my heritage, declaring my birthright.

“No door on Earth shall shut me out, and my bonded mates follow me,” I called. “No force on this Earth shall harm us.”

I felt a tug of deep magic from the Earth. It accepted my offer.

My mates and I filed through the entrance, Alaric first, though I was right behind him, then Reys, Lorcan, and Pyrder, our hands holding one another’s in a chain.

Our warriors, seer, the priestess, and three shifter alphas looked on solemnly from outside the ancient ward of the Rabbit Hole.

An unexpected icy wind, more terrible than a winter storm, whirled toward us and swept us under its force.  

A cry escaped from the back of my throat. I had lost my mates’ whereabouts.

“Cass baby!”

“Dulcis!”

Their callings were drowned out by the howling wind.  

I fell, falling through star fire, through a shattered crack in the galaxy, and into the center of ice and wind.

I was all alone.

Then a large, warm hand found mine, gripping tightly.  

He would never let me go.

“Sweetheart, I’m here!” Alaric’s voice anchored me.

He wouldn’t allow any force to tear us apart. He even managed to spin in the whirlwind and pulled me against his chest until the black veil was lifted

We landed on solid ground paved with black gemstones, panting hard, gazing at each other.

“I’ve got you,” Alaric said softly.

The wind didn’t let up, though there was no reason for it to even exist in this sealed, high-ceilinged chamber.

We surveyed the surroundings.

It was a temple made of ice, which illuminated the room with chilly, transparent light. Thick ice that hadn’t melted for probably an eon had grown into the pillars that held this place up.

The wind might have come from the ice.

“Are you cold, sweetheart?” Alaric asked as he untied his cloak and wrapped it around me. Its hem draped behind me as I stalked ahead.

“Where are the others?” I asked. “We should warn them—”

“Too late, Cass baby.” Pyrder’s rich voice echoed from nowhere, then he dropped near me in a crouch. “We’re here.” 

A heartbeat later, Lorcan and Reysalor also landed, surrounding me in a protective half-ring.

It hit like déjà vu as if I’d been here before. Then it dawned on me that it came from the genetic memory of my other heritage.

Grandma had been here eons ago and left something for me before I was even born. But for a second, I could only blink in confusion. The messenger from one of the death deities had also pointed me toward this place. Gaea wouldn’t have conspired with Hades, right? The primal Earth Goddess wanted the alien gods to be gone. Yet somehow, Hades bedded Gaea’s daughter, though Jezebel couldn’t remember her one-night stand.

I was the result of their unlawful coupling.  

Jezebel’s parting words rang in my ear: “I was supposed to be one of the most powerful beings walking the earth, but my daughter siphoned my power and rendered me weak at her birth. I was the product of careful genetic calculation and manipulation. My true and only purpose was to be the vessel to bear Cassandra Saélihn, so she could be the final instrument to destroy the world.”

They’d all schemed together, and I was bred as a weapon.

They were all assholes.

I couldn’t figure out how gods from opposite sides had played me or continued to play my mates and me, but I was no one’s pawn, and they’d realize their mistake in the end.

I let out a pent-up breath and continued to study this place with the help of my mates.

Another piece of genetic knowledge flooded through my mind.  

This temple had once been the Court of Ice and Wind and belonged to the Earth Goddess. Now it was neither on Earth, nor on any world. It was between the realms. There were no words that could truly define this place, stuck in the crack of time and space.

Time didn’t flow inside; it raged outside.

Neither a mortal nor an immortal could survive this space.  

I was Earth’s granddaughter. I was part of this court, though in a different timeline. My blood coursed in my mates’ veins, so the Court of Ice and Wind couldn’t hurt them, either. But from the strained expressions on my mates’ faces, I knew they felt the tug of a dark force. It was neither here nor there.

I followed the flow of the icy wind, moving forward in a hurry. The court extended endlessly.

“We need to find the scroll as quickly as possible and get the hell out of here,” Alaric said. He didn’t like this place, more so than others since he was half alien god. He was more at odds with this place built by the Earth Goddess than my other mates.

The court was menacing toward Alaric, the icy wind screaming at him, though no force could really do him harm because of our mating bond.

“We should divide into three groups and search this place,” Pyrder said. “My twin and I will be with Cass. Alaric can search north and Lorcan south.”

Both Alaric and Lorcan snarled.

“We need to stay together,” Lorcan said. “We don’t know anything about this place, and I won’t separate from our mate for a second.”

“We stick together,” I said. I had no intention of losing any of them in a place out of time. “Actually, guys, I know where we should go.”

I had the guidance of my generic memory. My bloodline rang true in this place, which played only by my family’s rules.

I strode northward, following the glow of the North Star, Polaris. My mates immediately spread to form a protective formation around me. Alaric led the way, Lorcan brought up the rear, and my twin fae mates prowled on either side of me.

We marched amid rows of ice columns. A glow pulsed ahead, beckoning us.

A female figure of pure light flicked on and off in the center of a vast, round black gem. A symbol filled the stone.

“The Apotropaic mark,” Alaric whispered.

My gaze flicked from the mark to the figure of light.

She was beautiful and earthly with a voluptuous shape—her waist slim and her hips broad. Her eyes shone with ancient knowledge yet bore the pain of time. 

Her hair shifted from silver to midnight-black then to silver again, flowing down to her feet.

In her left hand she carried a black sword, dark fire tracing the surface of the blade, hissing like a snake.

A chill slithered up my spine in waves.

“The Goddess of Death,” Reys whispered. 

He and Pyrder had stepped in front of me, in case the Goddess of Death came alive and wielded her dark-fire sword. 

“But she isn’t Hades’s consort,” I blurted it out. Somehow I knew that, though I had no idea what Persephone looked like.

The figure of light wheeled, and her face changed to another female’s. Plants and blossoms formed a crown over her head.

“She’s also the Goddess of Life,” Reys said. “A goddess with two faces.”

“Goddess Gaea,” Lorcan whispered. “Many call her Earth Goddess, the ancestral mother of all life on Earth, but few know that she’s also the Goddess of Death.”

Something clicked in me. I often felt two opposite forces within me—light and dark, life and death. I’d thought it was Hades verses Gaea since I’d inherited two different bloodlines that were at odds with each other. Now I knew that I had more death in me than life. I had two death elements against one life element. No wonder I constantly felt such massive darkness in me. Maybe Jezebel had felt it, too, so she’d called me a monster.

“She’s a different death deity than Hades,” Alaric said. “Hades is the collector of the dead and their souls. Gaea lets old life cease so new life can be born and replace the old. She’s the Death and Life Circle.”

“She led us here,” Lorcan said. “Let’s ask her about the scroll. I have a hunch she’s the one who sent us the vision that led to our mate.”

The figure of light let out a breath, which was kind of eerie, but an ancient scroll appeared, dangling from her hand.

Before my mates reached for it, I called, “Stop!” and pushed through the space between the massive bodies of Pyrder and Alaric.

My mates’ hands froze in midair.

I stared into Gaea’s death mask.

A half-smile ghosted her full lips.

Then bloodred laser lights emerged, spinning and spearing the edges of the witch’s mark at high speed, guarding the scroll in the goddess’s hand.

“You should not play games, Gaea,” I hissed. “The laser lights could have severed my mates’ arms!”

“A little test isn’t harmful, is it?” the lighted figure said, but then her face turned serious. “None can take the scroll except one of my bloodline, and even my line has to prove to be worthy.”

“Cass doesn’t need to prove anything,” Lorcan hissed.

“I’ll do it,” I said, and, before my mates could stop me, my hand thrust into the circle to snatch the scroll.

I was losing patience. I was sick and tired of all the games, and I was willing to go to impossible ends to stop the gods. As long as they were around, my mates and I would always have to look over our shoulders. Eventually, the Olympian gods would destroy Earth, be it collateral damage or not.

And I hated trespassers.

“You’ve taken the scroll,” Gaea’s surreal voice said. “The challenge is yours.”

“Thank you for letting me take on all these responsibilities,” I said.

Before I could make more snide comments, storm wind rose from the ground and tore into us, separating me from my mates.

“No!” they roared, fighting against the wind to reach me, but I was thrown into the circle with the goddess, my hand gripping the scroll.

The ice-wind rose, erecting walls that kept my mates out. Inside the walls, laser beams spun and speared the edge of the circle.

“Don’t get close,” I shouted to my mates. “I’ll be fine. She won’t harm her bloodline!”

The icy wind turned to icy fire, and the fire engulfed me.

Yet I lived.

Visions of the possible futures unfolded in front of my eyes one by one.

I watched as I killed the Olympian gods, all of them, including my father. After that, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. I became death incarnate. Death was my core essence, and I embraced my heritage, both from the God of Death and the Goddess of Death.

There was no room for life. Only the mass of darkness expanded in me infinitely.

I needed to destroy.

I had to devour all.

The hunger in me could never be sated.  All was my prey.

The world wasn’t just broken and burning like the old world dominated by the alien gods. It was worse.

I stared down at the blackened corpses of the innumerable dead, and every remaining living thing writhed under my feet. Under my rule, the Earth was pure terror. Living nightmares roamed on every corner.

So, I killed the gods, replaced them, and became a much worse horror. Wherever I went, my black fire sucked the life out of the living and burned their souls, innocent and wicked alike.

Death became my addiction and obsession.

When I was done with Earth, I travelled to other universes and blanketed them all with death. I was powerful beyond measure, and none could stop me.

My mates were but ashes, their bones made into my necklace.

I cried at what I saw, yet I couldn’t change what I was.

“No!” I screamed at the goddess. “I reject the vision. I reject that future. I didn’t care about anyone while I was in the cage, but I’ve changed. I vowed to defend those who can’t defend themselves, and my vow won’t return to me empty. I wasn’t born a mortal or an immortal. I was born a goddess, but my mates have tethered me to them. They gave me humanity, and their hot blood flows in my veins. They’re my forever anchor to the world. So, no, I’ll never be what you showed me! If I have to be a monster to kill the gods, I’ll be my mates’ monster, and even their monster won’t destroy their world. And the world is also mine.”

There’s an alternative outcome that will save everyone but you. Will you accept it, then, my true daughter?

Had she just disowned Jezebel?

I raised my head, realizing I’d doubled over from the onslaught of the ice and wind, and straightened up. The force of the storm threatened to break me, but I locked my unfazed gaze on Gaea, the scroll that held the secret of killing the gods in my grip.

“What is the alternative?” I asked hoarsely.

And then I was given the second vision. In it, I saw my own death. I saw myself torn to pieces. I could kill the gods and save the world only when I died with them. There was no other way. And that was the ultimate truth in that damned ancient scroll.

Cold tears flowed down my face.

I wasn’t afraid of eternal death. Well, maybe a little. I was mostly heartbroken for my mates. They’d just found me, but in the end, and soon, they’d have to lose me.

But maybe I shouldn’t be so devastated. All things die in the end.

Even the eternal universe and the gods, immortals, and mortals with them would cease to exist one day.

“So be it,” I said. “Now let me take the scroll and leave with my mates.”

Be warned, daughter, said the goddess. As the world fears you, you should fear yourself.

You planned all this, didn’t you? I thought, the knowledge burning in me.

And another piece of truth slammed into me. This wasn’t the Gaea I’d met in Apollo’s lair. That goddess was in the present. This one existed eons ago before she’d conceived my mother. She’d watched as events unfolded in my time, and she had waited.

Only in this temple could the goddess from the past exist and last for so long.

The icy wind passed by me and was gone, along with the goddess. As she vanished, she let out an inaudible sigh of sorrow, leaving me to stand alone in the center of the Apotropaic mark with the scroll in my hand and tears glinting on my face.

My mates rushed to me, pulling me out of the circle and into their arms. 

“Are you hurt?” Alaric asked urgently, cold rage rolling off him toward the goddess.

Lorcan cursed my grandmother, wiping the tears off my face.

Reys took the scroll from my hand carefully, his arm sliding around my waist in support, and Pyrder kissed the crown of my head.

When my mates were convinced that I wasn’t injured, they let out a breath of relief.

“We need to look into the scroll now,” Lorcan said. “Before everything can go awry.”

I already knew the inscriptions etched on the silky paper, except it didn’t reveal the part that my life was the required payment for killing the gods.

All that was left on it for my mates to see was the technique of how to forge a blade that could kill a major god.

As they looked to the scroll, the temple started rumbling. Without the goddess from the past holding this structure together, her Court of Ice and Wind was going to collapse. It no longer needed to exist as it had served its purpose. 

It had locked me into its mistress’s ultimate design. 

Several ice columns broke from the middle, part of the ceiling toppling down.  

“Bury us here,” I hissed, my voice full of bitterness, “and who’s going to kill the alien gods for you?”

The wind of ice rose again from everywhere, howling around us.

“We must get back to the entrance!” Reys shouted over the wind. “Hold on to each other.”

He had my hand in his tight grip. Alaric held my other one. My mates held onto each other as a unit, and the fae princes conjured up their teleportation magic.  

Nothing happened. We were still here.

“Teleporting doesn’t work between the realms,” Pyrder shouted.  

Large ice chunks plummeted from the top of the pillars that supported the temple. Lorcan shoved me away and threw himself on top of me to shield me.

Instinctively, I threw up my own wind and it halted the ice rocks in the air.

At least my magic still worked here, but I couldn’t pull off the teleport, either.

Time raged outside. A trace of time leaked through the crack to reach for us. If we were stuck between time—

“We’ll get out of here,” Alaric said, his voice hard. “We won’t fail our mate.”

He pulled out the thumb ring that he stole from Zeus for me and tossed it into the air. 

For a second, only the unnatural wind and time bellowed. 

Then the shimmer of a portal formed in front of us. The icy wind slashed at it. The shimmer flickered.

“Let’s go!” Lorcan ordered. “With our mate in the middle.”

The wind whipped at us, pushing us back, halting our every step. But my immortal mates countered it with their strength. With Reys and Pyrder on either side of me, grabbing me so tightly, we pushed through the violent current toward the gate to our world.

Alaric planted himself half inside the shimmer and half outside to hold it, his face distorting at the effort, but he didn’t falter. The demigod connected his hand to Reys and hauled us through.

The Court of Ice and Wind collapsed just as Lorcan stepped through the shimmer and into the void with us. Time dove into the temple with the grating sound of a crashing iceberg.

It kept chasing as we spun in the dark tunnel, wanting more than anything to drag us back into its reign.

There was no starlight or color to accompany us, only endless wind. Finally, some force spat us out the other end of the tunnel. We grabbed each other’s hands with all our strength and will. We dared not let go. We’d never let each other go, no matter where the end was.

Then, suddenly, the icy wind receded. 

Alaric hissed a command and the shimmer vanished, faster than time, shutting it out from the ancient past and another realm.

The five of us stood atop the cliff, a crashing sea lapping at the rocks beneath us.

We had returned to Alaric’s secluded cabins in Australia.