And they didn’t want us to have it.
They considered us a threat.
“I’ve heard your ranting too many times to count, old man,” Ryker drawled, anger in his tone. “Save it for your followers.”
“My followers understand the danger,” Omari insisted, his voice cracking like thunder as waves of power poured from him. “We need to nip this in the bud. Destroy the most powerful of their kind now. Because we can’t control the spread of this magic. It was never part of our plan.”
“Not everything has to fit your plan,” Ryker shot back angrily.
“No.” Omari shook his head. “But I’m the leader here, and I decide what’s important and what’s not.”
Ryker’s lips curled back, and I swore he actually swelled with anger. He pointed his finger at Omari, just inches from the white-haired god’s face. “Then understand what you are doing, fearless leader. What was in the plan is the mages. We rely on the magic users who live here, and those who worship us on earth. If they begin seeing you, us, murdering magic users indiscriminately, they’re going to start a rebellion.”
Omari and Ryker began to move away as they continued arguing, their strides eating up the ground. My mind was reeling from what I’d heard, but I followed after them anyway, desperate to learn more. Rage was burning inside me, and I still couldn’t quite comprehend what they were saying. The magnitude of what it meant stunned me.
As I stepped forward, Ryker turned to look over his shoulder, and my heart seized in terror.
Shit. Can he see me?
I stumbled backward in panic, crashing into a stone birdbath, and the mask of illusion I had wrapped around myself slipped. My hands faded into view as I suddenly became visible again, and I gasped and concentrated hard, trying to send myself back to the school.
I could feel the world blurring around me as my magic took control.
As my body began to sink back through whatever portal I had come from, I looked up, catching sight of Ryker staring at me for just a split second.
Piercing gray eyes met mine, and fear suffused me.
He knew I was there.
The dark abyss pulled me in, sending me hurtling back to the earthly plane, but it was too late.
Whatever cover of invisibility I’d had before, it had faded before the ether sucked me in.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Whatever magical force had dropped me in the palace hurled me back into the Magic Blessed Academy building.
But this time, it was a lot more violent.
My eyes were open, my senses sharp—not just physically, but mentally as well.
All around me, I could see visions of the world, mixed with scenery from the godly realm. It swirled and contorted, and loud shrieking noises echoed through my ears. I couldn’t catch my breath, and it felt as if I was careening toward the ground at maximum speed.
For a moment, I feared I would smash down and never survive the fall.
But just like in the palace, my feet were suddenly firm on the solid stone floor, and everything snapped back into place. My head whirled, and I clutched it tightly as I dropped to my knees. It took me a second to get both my vision and my hearing back, but when I did, I looked around quickly, finding myself in one of the empty practice rooms.
It was dark, and I was alone. No one had seen me fall there. I tried to stand back up, but I was so dizzy that it took me three tries.
Everything was spinning, and my stomach lurched. It took a minute for my mind to catch up, but when it did, a fresh wave of panic hit me. My hands rested on my knees, and I sucked in gasping breaths.
Ryker had seen me.
He had seen me, and he knew that I’d heard what they were saying. I hated Omari with a burning passion, but just because Ryker opposed him didn’t mean that the strange, powerful god was on my side.
Fuck. He could follow me to this realm right now. He wouldn’t even need a portal to get here, he could just slide across the barrier between dimensions like it was nothing.
The thought propelled me into motion, and even though I felt like I was going to barf with each step I took, I staggered toward the door. Shuffling as fast as I could through the hallways, I looked down into the classrooms, but it seemed that enough time had passed that everyone was out of finals and in their dorm rooms.
The guys. I need to find the guys.
I turned the corner in the maze of hallways that led to the other side of the school where the dorms were. As I raced forward, almost at a run, one of the classroom doors flew open and Wesley strode out. I was so close that I rammed right into him, bouncing back and almost losing my footing. He furrowed his brow and dropped his bag on the floor.
“Watch where you’re going, bitch.” He chuckled. “I see you came back for more. I would’ve thought you’d bring your entourage with you since you can’t take me on your own.”
I didn’t have time for this. I had to get to the guys and tell them what I had just found out.
“Fuck off, you weaselly asshole,” I blurted. “I don’t have time for you. We can take care of this little issue some other time.”
As I moved to dart around him, he put out his hand and pushed me back. The hysteria bubbling up in my stomach morphed instantly into rage, and my eyes narrowed to slits, my breath catching in my throat. “No one touches me,” I hissed.
He chuckled, trailing his fingers up and over my shoulder in a mocking gesture. “Now, that’s a lie. From what I hear, you’re quite the whore.”
My body moved before my brain even gave the command. Magic filled my fist with power as I reared back and punched him as hard as I could in the face. I was fed up, and I had no time for his bullshit. He hit the floor like a sack of potatoes, and I stepped over his body the second it hit the ground, striding away and leaving him there.
I had to get to the guys.
If Ryker had seen me, he could already be contacting the school. In fact, I had no idea how much time had passed from the moment I fell from the pavilion back into the academy building. For all I knew, there could be a barrage of mages waiting to take me away. And if that was the case, I knew the first place they would go would be to find my men. The dean wasn’t stupid—she knew that we worked together, that we were a team. They would be the perfect focal point for her wrath.
The possibility that Dean Frost didn’t know what was going on, what the Gods’ Challenge was really meant for, didn’t even cross my mind.
I had seen her face. I had seen how she looked at the rest of us. There was no fucking way she didn’t know. She had to be the ringleader here at the school.
It didn’t matter though. I knew their secret now, and I wasn’t going to stand for it. Dozens of lives had been lost in the challenges, and all to thin the herd. Omari was powerful, and I was sure he had a lot of followers, but it seemed that Ryker was powerful too, which meant the white-haired god had at least one formidable enemy. Not everyone in the godly realm agreed with what Omari was doing.
I raced up the stairs and rounded the corner into the hallway of the dorms, making sure there were no mages standing by to attack me.
Everything was quiet.
Heart pounding, I went to Merrick’s room first and knocked on the door. Almost instantly, he ripped it open. I caught sight of all three men’s faces before Merrick grabbed me and hauled me into his arms, holding me so tightly that breathing became impossible.