The God of Sun and Plague took our mate right from under our noses, and we had been hunting for her ever since.

We didn’t eat. We didn’t sleep. We’d been in a state of half-madness from the moment our mating bond to her had gone mute. Yet our brotherhood fortified, driven by one common need—to find our mate and bring her home at all costs.

We’d destroy the world to get to her, but our Cass baby was no longer on Earth. 

We still sent teams to search across the dark seas, unknown forests, and forgotten mountains—any place Apollo had once left an imprint. 

The four of us focused on Mount Olympus until it became clear that our mate hadn’t been taken there.

We called in every favor and demanded every debt to be paid to gain information on our mate’s whereabouts and the sun god’s many lairs.

We had nothing to show for it.

We hadn’t found any trace of Cass.

When Alaric had gone to see his father, Zeus, which he hated to do more than anything, we received the confirmation that our mate was not in Mount Olympus. He demanded Zeus hand over Apollo, but the fucking sun god was hiding.

The King of Gods had sent his own hunting team, so it became a race to find Apollo and Cass before they could.

Both the mortal and immortal realms were a total mess as well.  

Apollo had dealt a great blow to us and our world. When Noah was exposed as a god, the Academy nearly collapsed. All the other races had withdrawn from the school and returned to their own kind, leaving behind only the mages and humans.

Our brothers had the majority of the Council seats, but not absolute control. One of the Councils members, who might have been under Apollo’s influence, had disappeared. Alaric’s half-demon captain was tracking her. 

Anyone who had close ties to ‘Noah’ had been locked in the dungeon cells, but it was impossible to get all the traitors. Our teams were still investigating how deep Apollo’s infiltration had gone and they endeavored to purge the corrupted mages.

We expected the gods to strike at any time. It didn’t matter where we moved the armies. The gods had all the pieces. They had the locations of most of our rebellion armies as their spies were everywhere. But for some reason they hadn’t struck.

The forthcoming war didn’t concern me much. All I could think of was getting my mate back. Reys managed to pull all our shit together, because Lorcan, the steely one among us, urged us to ready an army for Cass’s return. Lorcan hadn’t lost sight of the goal, even though he should be more affected than the rest of us. He needed her blood more than anything, and he wouldn’t take from any other.

Alaric was crazed by Cass’s abduction. Sometimes we wouldn’t see him for days, but we knew he had gone to search for her, to find any news about her. And each time he returned without our mate, he was completely disheveled and disheartened. He was a ruthless and careless bastard, but he had warmed up the moment he’d met Cass. It was like someone had eviscerated his soul when the god took her.  

We all felt the same as Alaric, but the three of us put on a stronger front. As Lorcan had stated, we couldn’t lose our shit for Cass’s sake.

We turned to the seer. Amber had once seen our mate’s abduction and warned her to stay away from water, which turned out to be the waterfall where Cass had been taken. The seer’s predictions often came as riddles. Under our pressure, Amber tried to dream or have a new vision about Cass, but her sight couldn’t be forced.

We had Ambrosia, Luke, and Rainer safeguard the seer twenty-four seven while we hunted for our mate.

We couldn’t lose Cass baby. She was our center, our everything, our universe.

Days passed, then weeks.

And despite Lorcan’s warning, we were gradually losing it.

And then, the seer spoke.