God Given Book Four: God Given, #4

By Odette C. Bell

Casey has escaped. Barely. The fight might be over, but the hunt will begin anew.

There's nowhere she can go but back to Jupiter. Their destiny might be a tangled web of pain, but she's still trapped within it.

When she learns the location of Loki's shrine, she's dragged further into Ragnarok. No matter what she does, the end will come. The only question will be whose side she will stand by when that final day arrives.

….

God Given follows a hidden goddess and the legend sworn to kill her fighting through lies to save all. If you love your contemporary fantasies with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab God Given Book Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Nov 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393125747

Book preview

1

Casey staggered down the street.

The fight was over. For now. Just not in her head. Squeezing her eyes tightly closed, she repeated it. Every blow – every injury – every word.

Casey slammed her palm onto her head. Digging her fingers in, she left half-moon tracks down her skin. Her lips shuddered open. Jupiter, she managed.

He would be long gone.

That didn’t stop her from repeating his name several times.

Every word felt like a hook sinking deeper into her heart. With one more tug, it would pull it right out of her chest. Squeezing a hand against her blouse, she trailed her fingers down.

Blood trailed out of her. That wasn’t her being overly dramatic. It didn’t trickle out of her wounds – it practically poured out of them. She knew she had to get someplace safe. She also knew that Jupiter would be back. Even if he didn’t come, Vulcan would. And what about Loki? What about all the other Dismays that filled this city?

You have to go somewhere safe, she muttered to herself.

She staggered faster. Turning her head over her shoulder, she stared back in the direction of the factory.

She’d managed to put a lot of distance between her and it. But she knew she’d also gotten lucky.

The thing about luck, however, is it always has a habit of running out when you need it most.

She squeezed her eyes closed. She turned, and she kept pushing on.

Her memories struck her – some from her past life, some from just yesterday. They swirled together until she couldn’t differentiate them anymore. They were this immovable clump – this mountain that was never meant to be shifted again.

She found herself muttering Jupiter’s name. It trembled on her lips with every breath.

She wasn’t surprised that, a few minutes later, thunder cracked across the heavens. Though the sky had been relatively cloud-free, now, in a few single seconds, it filled with storm clouds. They raged across the horizon like an unstoppable army.

She shuddered on the spot, staring up at them, her neck creaking from the effort of holding it in that uncomfortable position.

With wide eyes, she watched the heavens unleash their fury. Rain slammed down. It shot across the city in drenching sheets. In under three seconds, she was wet from the tip of her head to the tips of her toes.

It brought with it this sinking, aching cold. It pushed through her shoulders, across her back, and into her stomach. It robbed her of the last of her heat.

When she went to take another step, she staggered. She fell harshly to the side and banged her knee.

As she went to shove up, she slipped. She fell face-first into one of the growing puddles that were assaulting the street like artillery fire.

She swore she caught a glimpse of her expression in the water. She was still in a disguise – but she could see through it easily.

Her shock was too great to gauge.

Just get somewhere safe, the last scrap of her reason repeated. She held onto that mantra, using it like a safety rope to pull her out of this mess.

She continued to stagger down the street, and she passed along the side of a building and reached another section of abandoned road.

She tripped over something and looked down to see that there was an old manhole cover that had been lifted slightly.

Not knowing what else to do, she got down on her knees and shoved it. It was hard work – just like it would be for any human. Casey was rapidly losing her magic. It was bleeding out of her through her innumerable injuries.

Just when she thought she’d black out from the effort, she managed to shove the manhole cover all the way to the side. She had to stop herself from diving face-first through the hole. Do that, and all she’d do was fall unconscious in the sewers with a trail of blood that led her right to this spot.

… Trail of blood.

As she turned to use the access ladder, she saw that the rain had at least done one good thing. The blood that would have led others to this point had been washed away.

Briefly – stupidly, considering everything she’d learned – she wondered if that’s why Jupiter had sent this storm. He could control the weather, couldn’t he?

Idiot. Her thoughts made no sense. From now until the day he finally killed her, he would do nothing but hunt her relentlessly. If she looked to him for help, it would be like looking to death itself for friendship.

She managed to lock her hands on the access ladder. They slipped. The rain was so ferocious that it was thundering down the hole. Her fingers were already slick with her own blood. That too was quickly washed off. With a groan, she began to climb down. She had to concentrate on her muscles with every single rung. She had to squeeze her glutes, stiffen her legs, and hold on with all her might. Because she was slipping… slipping….

She could remember the moment he’d stared into her eyes when he’d been on top of her. There had been nothing there. No love, no confusion even. The only emotion he’d faced her with was rage.

It’s over, isn’t it? she found herself stammering as she finally made it down the access ladder. As she leaned against it, pressing her tired cheek into the metal, she looked up to see that it was really only 10 rungs high. It had felt like she’d been climbing down it for centuries.

She pushed away. Then she realized that was a bad idea.

She should’ve pulled the manhole cover back into position. Now, despite the fact the rain had washed away her blood, everyone would know where she was anyway. She was still within walking distance of the factory. Vulcan would figure it out.

Groaning, cursing herself for not thinking this through, Casey pulled herself back up the ladder. Every rung was torture.

She hated going back on herself. It had been something that had been a cornerstone of her personality for a while. Casey didn’t like to repeat things unnecessarily.

Which was pretty ironic, considering she’d been repeating the same destiny for millennia.

She finally reached the top of the ladder. Just before she could push her head out and reach toward the manhole cover, she remembered to use her senses. Vulcan’s spies could already be out there. So could Jupiter’s. Only when she sensed that there was no one around did she lean out and laboriously pull the manhole cover back into place. She had to use magic to do it – her meager strength was no longer enough. By the time she finally did it and started to climb down the ladder, she could’ve collapsed. She held onto the rungs and carefully pulled herself down. Then she sat there against the base of the ladder. She closed her eyes. She tried to black out. She told her mind it was okay, but the scraps of her consciousness held on.

You have to get somewhere safe, she whispered, that voice of reason that had gotten her this far rising once more.

Somewhere safe, she repeated as she staggered up. She could no longer stand, so she crawled.

She wasn’t aware of where she was. This had to be some kind of maintenance tunnel. Maybe it was for the sewers – maybe it was for power or water. She didn’t really care. It was cramped, and there were blue painted metal pipes beside her.

Every few seconds, she stopped, leaned her face against her hands, and gathered her strength.

She wasn’t kidding – the magic was leaking out of her with her blood – and it was pure agony.

Resting once more, she dragged her arms up. Her gaze sliced across the countless injuries.

Squeezing her eyes closed, she remembered how Jupiter had delivered every one.

I should’ve just let him kill me, she found herself muttering.

She had such a violent body reaction to that admission that it scared the hell out of her. She stopped, locked a hand on one of the metal pipes to her side, and felt this wave of anger strike her from nowhere.

She should have just let him kill her? Like hell. He’d done this. His refusal to listen – his reliance on that oath stone. Jupiter was just as responsible as she was.

Her weakness had gotten her nowhere. Her anger was a fire she so desperately needed.

She finally pulled herself up to her feet.

She’d hoped that this would lead her into the sewers, but it didn’t. She quickly realized this was just a way to access the water pipes. She came across a dead end. Balling a hand up and striking it into the wall, she bared her teeth. Get out of my way, she said with total futility. Get out of my goddamn way. From the gods, to Ragnarok, to Jupiter – I can’t take it anymore. Leave me alone. Why is everything always getting in my goddamn way? She started to smash her fists against the wall. At first, it was just her middling strength, but then, as her anger grew, so too did her magic. It blasted out of her and struck the wall.

It started to crack.

Casey wasn’t thinking. If she were, she would appreciate that there was no point in taking her anger out on a goddamn wall. It was wasting her magic. Plus, what then? It wouldn’t change anything. Nothing would. She was trapped.

At the promise that she was trapped, she just lashed out all the harder. Her fists started to bleed. She’d used magic before – too much to count. But now it poured out of her as if she’d hit a volcano.

It pulsed through the wall.

It shifted in through the cracks. The next thing she knew, it just turned to dust. She didn’t expect there would be anything behind it, but there was. It emptied out onto the real sewer.

Though this city was a modern hub, it had old roots.

Clearly those roots hadn’t been dug up. She stared out onto an open, old sewer.

She took a step in.

The last of her magic ate through the remaining rock that had constituted the wall. It crackled around her in a cloud of power.

Casey wrapped her arms around herself. Shrugging against them, she pushed further in.

She got several steps before she realized that her magic was somehow still connected to the wall.

Turning her head sharply over her shoulder, she saw that, just like a lot of Vulcan’s spells, her magic had pushed all the way into the dust. It crackled around it.

Can I… close the wall? she stammered at herself.

Grating her nails back and forth across her palms, she closed her eyes and realized she should just try.

So she did. Conducting her hands like an orchestra master, she commanded the dust to form a wall once more. It took a while, but finally it worked.

Breathlessly, Casey stared at it.

She fell down to her knees. She pressed her forehead against the dirt. Then the tears came. Now she finally knew that she was safe, she let it all out. And there was a lot to get rid of.

Crying and beating the wall pathetically, her thoughts zigzagged back and forth between loving Jupiter and hating him with all her heart.

Why the hell am I like this? Why is this happening to me? she cried harder.

She was beating the wall so much that her hand had become bloodied.

Who cared? They were just more injuries to add to the litany she already had to bear.

Casey didn’t know how long she remained there. Minutes? Hours? She doubted it could be days, but she was losing so much of her sanity, who knew?

Soon enough, she crumpled down and fell into an uneasy sleep. She didn’t dream of Jupiter. Her thoughts centered on one thing. The oath stone. Over and over again, she saw herself walking into his shrine and stopping in front of it. Her lips repeated some word, but whenever she tried to pick it up, her hearing would become fuzzy.

By the time she woke, Casey was even more of a mess. Her body, at least, had healed some.

Shoving up to her knees, she didn’t wobble once.

She didn’t need to pry back her clothes to check on her injuries – the disguise spell was still under her control. She just shifted it, mentally removing patches of her clothes as she stared down at the scars.

Her weeping wounds were gone. Usually when she woke from a devastating fight, she would be healed completely, but not today. It would take time for these scars to leave her.

Though all Casey wanted to do was remain there, she knew she couldn’t. Brooker would be going out of his mind.

Just get to him. That’s all you have to do, she repeated to herself as she staggered through the sewers. It would be a really bad idea to break the wall and go back up the way she’d come.

If she were Vulcan, she would’ve cast surveillance spells all the way around the streets near the substation. It didn’t matter that she was on the edge of town. It would still be too conspicuous and too much of a risk to pop her head up around these parts.

So she walked. And she thought. Her thoughts traveled across everything she’d learned.

Virginia thought that the prophecy might not mean that Casey would have to kill Jupiter.

Casey now knew that Virginia was wrong.

One of them would die. There was no getting away from that fact now.

Casey kept walking. She had to admit there was a strange kind of beauty to this old sewer. The architecture reminded her of some ancient, grand train station. The stones were well carved and worn, and there were unnecessary decorative arches.

That being said, despite the fact it was no longer used, that didn’t mean it didn’t have an old, particularly unsavory, musty scent. She noted it once, then ignored it. If she’d wanted to, she could’ve walked straight into the god realm and left it far behind. Casey was starting to appreciate that was not an easy fix to her problems, though.

Fix – she latched hold of that word.

Did she honestly think she had any chance whatsoever of fixing this?

Ragnarok would come. It was only a matter of time, right? Of days, of weeks, of maybe a year if she was lucky –