We didn’t need their worship to stay powerful. We just needed to be needed and as the gods stopped being needed, they started looking inward, getting paranoid, selfish, giving in to their baser desires, just making it worse as their power slowly gave way to the darkness that ran in all of our veins.
Born as gods, not made.
First of the last.
Last of the first to be reborn into the baser race of demons.
I shook my head and stared at my father. “What did you say?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
I looked over my shoulder. As long as I didn’t touch her, I would be okay. As long as she didn’t look at me like she loved me. As long as I didn’t have to touch her soul again, to feel the way it tried to wrap itself around my skin… I would be fine.
Her only solace would be the simple fact that I, Anubis, would escort her body after my own father took the one thing he needed to stay powerful.
I could already hear her screams.
I would do that, to my other half.
To my mate.
For what?
To give my father more power he didn’t need?
“She wants to speak with you.” Horus slapped me on the back. “Something about needing time before the ceremony.”
A ceremony I was supposed to perform.
Fantastic.
I turned to my father. He seemed annoyed. But when wasn’t he annoyed? He flicked his hand in her direction. “She has twenty-four hours.”
Hell.
I nodded and then slowly made my way over to Kyra. Her protectors were circled around her, touching her, laughing with her as if we weren’t within the temple walls.
As if this wasn’t sacred.
Dangerous.
I knew her mother and father would have already been led to their rooms while they waited for the marriage.
And I hated that I wanted to tell Apollo to run and never come back, take his daughter with him, and beg Ra for protection.
Trapped. All of us.
“Kyra,” I rasped. Her name felt like honey on my tongue. “You have twenty-four hours before my father makes you his.” The words burned my mouth. “Is there anything else you need?”
She stood and held out a shaking hand. “I need to be alone. With you.”
My knees almost buckled as I stared at that small hand.
So innocent.
Did she know what she was asking?
That gods were never alone with women.