“I could. I did—” His fear bled through the words, raw and anguished, and my conviction answered it.
“No. Not now.”
I had been afraid my whole life, but there was nothing left to fear. Nothing for either of us. And I’d rather die by his hand than Ares’.
“Take what you want,” I said steadily. “Take everything.”
And the power roared back.
I could see it when he finally entered me, in sunburst flares of pleasure exploding across my vision. Could hear it in the blood roaring in my ears as I writhed under him, struggling to accommodate his size. Could feel it with every movement, slow and stuttering at first, as if he was as overwhelmed as I was, and then with longer, surer strokes that made me squirm and cry out. And then lock my legs behind his back, pulling him farther into me, pulling him as far as he would go.
Until his heart beat, strong and sure, at my core. Until we moved together as one. Until, instead of riding the power, we were swept up by it, carried off with it, into a maelstrom of light and force and sensation.
I cried out, and heard it echo in his throat. Saw our shadows splashed on the ceiling of the tent, as if there was a fire burning inside instead of out. Saw it grow brighter and brighter, until the light burst into a thousand fractured rainbows, whiting out the shadows and spilling out the door.
And then I saw, not with my eyes anymore, but with my mind: power sweeping around in a huge arc, like a glittering wave. Or an ocean, I realized, watching the enormous span of the Pythian power shimmering and dancing as if under a distant sun. I saw it all, just for a moment—
Before it came crashing down—on Pritkin.
I screamed, afraid that it would hurt him, would rip him apart. And maybe it would have, except that all those years, all that lonely starvation, had done something, hadn’t it? The incubus part of his soul had withered and shrunk, barely clinging to life. It was hollowed out now, empty, a vast, echoing cavern full of exactly nothing. Waiting—
For a tsunami.
Like the one that was pouring into Pritkin. It would have killed another incubus; it should have killed him. But the great void at the heart of his being took it gladly, more perhaps than any other incubus had ever taken, because no other of his kind could fast for so long. And instead of killing him, it reanimated a part that he’d almost forgotten, one that suddenly remembered how to feed, how to love, and how . . . to magnify.
A second later, I found out exactly what a starved incubus of the royal line can do when presented with a banquet. Because all that power, doubled or tripled or whatever it was now, came roaring back. I cried out, in agony and ecstasy—and disbelief, because I’d never felt anything like it. And because I’d assumed it would rejoin the Pythian power, where it came from. But it didn’t.
It came back to me.
Suddenly, I could see the light shining out of my pores, feel it screaming through my veins, taste it in my throat as it bubbled over into laughter, insane, impossible laughter because it was good, so good, so much. Too much, overwhelming my body, mind and spirit, the feel of him surging into me, the strength of him under my hands, the emotions I’d denied for too long, all of it.
So I sent it rushing back into Pritkin, who magnified it again and sent it back to me, beginning a thrumming, heart-stopping, explosive cycle that went on and on until I thought I would die from it, die and not care.
And then climax ripped through me, and the world exploded.
I vaguely understood that the tent had just been torn away, blown off by the hot desert wind flooding all around us. Dimly saw the trees above thrashing as if in a hurricane, every leaf shining like a floodlight was beneath them. Distantly knew that this was dangerous, so dangerous, because I was human; I couldn’t hold this much power. It was why the Pythian power was separate from its hosts. We borrowed it when needed; we didn’t inhabit it, or it us. We wouldn’t have lasted a day if we had, before it burned us up.
Like this was about to do to me.
Because Pritkin had just given it back, everything he could, one last time. And then rolled off, gasping and stunned, his body shaking from his own climax, and from the strain of holding that much power. Because he wasn’t meant for it, either.
We couldn’t handle it, neither of us, not even both of us. I had to get rid of it. I had to get rid of it now.
And there was one obvious target.
I looked up at Ares, so huge, so strong, so powerful, towering in the skies above us. And knew I couldn’t take him, not even now. I had power, yes, enough to fight him, enough to hurt him, but not enough to win. I needed a god to fight a god, but I wasn’t one. I was just Cassie Palmer.
And yet Johanna had come back for me. . . .
Which was why I reached out, not with my human hand, but with a much more ephemeral one. And grabbed not the air, but something beyond it. Because Jo had seen what I couldn’t, that there might be one more trick up my sleeve. Not the Pythian way, and not from my mother’s blood. But something far more human.
Because I had a father, too.
So I reached out a spectral hand and ripped open the fabric of time. Not in the small, barely there way, like when I tagged along with a ghost. But in a great gash that tore across the entire length of the battlefield, like a jagged arc of green lightning.
It spilled a long line of illumination onto the bloody scene, a cascade of ghost light, pale and gleaming. And swarming. Not with dozens or hundreds, but with thousands of ghosts, all of them fleeing ahead of another god, a dead god, one who emerged back into the world, his mind set on revenge, his eyes searching for me.
Until he saw what towered above me.