She Transcends Book Four

By Odette C. Bell

Layla and Manus are thrown together in a fight for everything. This isn’t the first time they’ve been here, but it’s the first time they’ll fight together.
When Ignis tears up the realm of oaths to defeat Manus and steal Layla’s force, she’ll have to find out her past, once and for all. But Ignis won’t end there – Earth and all above and below will be under his sway. Unless she can convince Manus to finally let go of something and move on.
For the future awaits. Grasp at it together, and they’ll win. Let it slip through their fingers one last time, and the final dusk will set.
....
She Transcends follows a seemingly normal woman and the true god of lightning fighting for the future. If you love your urban fantasies with action, heart, and a splash of romance, grab She Transcends Book Four today and soar free with an Odette C. Bell series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Odette C. Bell
• Release date: Jul 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005431297

Book preview

Chapter 1

Just when it felt as if it would never stop, as if they would keep falling forever and ever, they landed. Somewhere. Someplace. Sometime.

Only one fact mattered. Manus was still around her. His grip tightened on her shoulders as he pulled her closer. His breath shuddered against her ear. She’d never felt him shaking like this. But his arms had a possessive grip as they locked her in place, regardless of his fear.

Finally, she winked one eye open.

She saw past Manus’s muscular chest to the ground below. And it was… strange.

It was lit up by glorious starlight from above.

It seemed to play along every single blade of grass. But every blade of grass would not sit still.

The second she paid too much attention to it was the second blinding pain shot through her brow. She clutched her temple and winced.

Don’t watch it too intently yet. It will take some time for your mind to settle, he warned. He kept his arms around her.

That’s when she finally realized something.

They were… finally together. Finally alone. And finally ready to have that conversation.

She didn’t care about his warning. She pulled back from him.

She looked up into his eyes.

It was… over. Not the battle for everything. In many ways, that had only just begun in earnest. But the forces that had kept them apart were finally gone.

There was nothing between them anymore.

Layla had already felt his lips on hers. And she could again. She….

She reached up toward him, and there would be no mistaking what she wanted to do from the fixed, loving look in her eyes.

There was equally no mistaking that Manus did not want to do it.

He pulled away from her, though he still attempted to use the bulk of his back to hide the view of the strange world around them.

His sudden movement shook her.

Manus—

Think nothing, Layla. That warning was delivered with a low growl.

It was perilously close to something that Ignis kept telling her, too. Why should something like her, that shouldn’t have a mind in the first place, try to think at all?

I don’t understand. When we were falling here from the real world, we just—

Do not draw assumptions from what recently happened between us. We shared Pneuma to protect us during our descent, he stated flatly.

Perhaps he didn’t care that Layla’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the strange new world yet. He turned from her. His anger was apparently too great to protect her anymore.

It left Layla blinking in surprise and wincing on the inside.

She’d never opened up to someone like she had to Manus – she could promise you that statement was true, not just in this life, but in all of her other lives combined, too.

Yet now he was shutting her down, slamming the door, and locking her out.

She took a step back. For some reason the grass beneath her was too soft or perhaps her stance was too weak – she tumbled onto her butt with a resounding thwack, dirt covering her already torn pants.

She twisted.

She didn’t want to be drawn away from Manus’s betrayal, but she still looked… she looked at the world beyond, above, and around.

Her chest froze like someone had hit pause on the muscles, and the sight stole her breath away. The very breath that Manus claimed he had simply been sharing with her moments before when they had fallen into this wondrous realm.

There was an enormous star scape above. She had never seen something on such a scale. If you took every vast track of sky from every single world and sewed them all together, you still wouldn’t get something as epic. It stretched on and on and on, and it gave one the impression that it was eternity writ large, speckled with the stars of the universe to draw the eye to every single connective point like some great tapestry that had been sewn together with neat stitches.

Around her was this verdant, soft grass plain. It undulated, leading down to hills that opened out to craggy peaks that led on to more and more mountains. Everything seemed to go on forever. You could investigate this place for your entire life – the human race could string together all of their lives and do nothing but research this place – but no one would ever be able to find its every secret.

The enormity and beauty of this realm could not ultimately detract from what had just happened.

Manus took another step away from her. You should’ve stayed in the garden I created for you, Layla. It was the only place where you could truly be safe. His shoulders continued to stiffen, marching up high like curtains that were trying but kept failing to hide his anger.

Something sank in Layla’s stomach.

When they’d apparently shared their Pneuma, her heart had filled with hope at what it could mean. She’d opened the final level of her soul. A level she’d always kept closed off from other people. She’d faced too much damn trauma in this life to freely give her heart away. But when she’d finally trusted enough to try, Manus had slammed the door in her face. Why?

Because Manus didn’t think she could protect herself.

Maybe, if Layla were being disingenuous to herself, she’d say there’d once been a time when she hadn’t been able to protect herself. There’d once been a time when she’d been forced to sit on the sidelines as horrors had befallen her family and friends. But even back then, she’d still protected herself, insofar as she had protected her spirit. She had continued. She might’ve cried, she might have begged every single day for a kinder existence, but she had still gotten up every single morning, she’d still put on the same shoes, and she’d still walked with the same tarnished feet.

In other words, Layla could protect herself. And she would continue to protect herself. She didn’t need Manus to put her in some kind of walled garden to ensure she never faced trials again. For without trials, how exactly would she know who she was?

She pushed to her feet, her movements clumsy to begin with but strengthening with every second.

It didn’t take long until she started to shake with anger.

She thought of everything she’d done, everything she’d sacrifice to get this far. But it still wasn’t enough to get Manus’s true attention? I don’t need you to protect me—

You made a pact with me long ago, Layla. I must protect you.

Then break the pact. We can do that here, Manus. We are in the land of oaths. We can break every single oath you ever made—

He suddenly spun and stared at her. She wasn’t ready for the ferocity of his gaze. He could’ve burnt through meter-thick lead. And trust her, he was certainly trying to burn through her chest cavity to get to her heart. Maybe he wanted to see her wither up, all for daring to suggest that one thing. I am the God of Oaths, he said in a commanding tone. Maybe he wanted it to boom out like thunder, and it certainly did shake over the grass plains around them. But it lacked the true certainty it required to have unbreakable force. It was just a fraction too weak.

Because that was Manus in a nutshell, wasn’t it? Maybe he was meant to be some great impersonal force, but he had a mind. And minds bring weakness. Fragility, unease – and ultimately, defeat.

Minds cannot be molded like natural forces. They cannot be told what to do, but as a consequence, they cannot be overcome so easily.

Layla pressed her lips closed. She stared down at her feet. She slowly ticked her gaze back. He was still staring at her with smoldering force. You’re trapped, Manus. I know you don’t want to be trapped. You want to be free like that bird you saw flying across the full moon back in town. The thing that binds you is all the oaths you made—

The thing that creates me and gives me power, in turn, is those oaths. If you remove them, you will finally render the last blow and kill me, Layla.

She twitched at his unrivaled dark tone. You could gather up all of the lightless places, from deep caves to the furthest reaches of space, but they wouldn’t begin to match the complete soullessness of his voice now.

How had she been so wrong? When he’d locked his lips on hers and kissed her back only minutes ago, she’d been so certain that everything had changed for the better. The old acrimony of their relationship had finally crumbled into ash and given way to some permanent, beautiful bloom like a rose that could never lose its petals.

Apparently she’d been wrong. She was back at the beginning. Because, despite tricking herself otherwise, she’d never moved on.

The real Manus was not the man she kept fantasizing about.

She turned. She took a step.

Do not leave without me. You do not know these plains. We must find a gate – it will take you home.

Where to? Where exactly can I call home? she questioned in a dull tone.

You will return, he said louder.

Back to your walled garden?

He faltered, his lips crumpling like a hand squeezing into a fist in slow motion. I would if I could, but you made it clear that you will not stay there, despite my best efforts.

No, Manus, because I made it clear that I don’t need you to help me anymore. I don’t know how to break the oath between our past selves, but consider it broken. I will look after myself. I’m not doing this to usurp your power. I’m doing this because regardless of what you keep telling yourself and everyone else, you want to be free. So I’ll make you free.

She went to walk away.

Manus was somehow beside her in a blink. He settled a hand on her shoulder.

She saw the green ring on his finger glinting. But trust her, it could glint nowhere near as violently as the look in his eyes. And sure enough, as he spun her around, she stared at his eyes.

And while there was fire, it was chaotic.

His passion did not have consistent intensity and rather spurted out in blasts like a furnace running out of fuel.

She waited for him to recognize what was wrong. Because maybe, if he really tuned in to his anger, he would realize why it kept weakening. It was a smokescreen for what he wanted to say and do.

But Manus would never give in – even to his true emotions – would he?

He was the God of Oaths. And oaths are made not to be broken – even if they are terrible promises to begin with.

You will travel with me and move only when I do. You do not know this realm, Layla. But trust me, to the uninitiated, it can be a treacherous place.

Her brow clunked down, tension wrapping around her jaw as she slid her lips open to whisper, And you do know this place? I got the impression that people didn’t just travel to this realm easily. I imagined you’d been here before, but—

He broke away from her.

She saw that momentary panicked look in his eyes he got sometimes. It was usually whenever she made uncomfortable observations about him.

I’ve been to this realm before— he stated in a flat tone designed not to reveal a single speck of emotional force.

But I get the impression from your panicked look that you come here often. How is that possible, anyway? I thought you needed to connect the eternity symbol— She didn’t have much to hide anymore, so she touched her throat as she said that.

But that just revealed yet another betrayal for Manus to punish her for. You should’ve seen his cheeks stiffen. She wouldn’t call it anger, in that anger was usually explosive and couldn’t just hang around stuck in your face like that. But Manus’s rage seemed to pause the world, not just within him, but around him.

And all of that static, immovable intensity locked on her throat.

She did not back off. She squared off in front of him, and she tapped her throat again. I found it on one of my many adventures. Though I suppose it is more accurate to say that—

It found you, he said, somehow knowing what she’d been about to say.

Her lips twitched. Yes. It found me, and I used it—

It found you, Layla, because it wanted to use you, he corrected, voice becoming so dark, if you dared to put it in front of the sun, the earth would never see the light again and would die a very quick, very horrible cold death.

Maybe Layla wanted to volunteer to die such a death right now, because it would be infinitely better than having to stare through his intensity.

Her heart fluttered. What—

You have no idea what you’ve wandered into. They say ignorance is bliss. But it is not. Ignorance simply allows you to be played by other people. Now, come. There will be a gate around here somewhere. With his hand on her shoulder weighing her down so she couldn’t move a single centimeter, he twisted his head around.

A pronounced frown marched down his lips as he considered this strange world, picked a direction, and pushed her forward.

Layla was now certain that he had been here multiple times. He hadn’t needed to adjust at all to this strange realm. There was also the sense that it somehow knew him and was familiar with him. The grass was actively growing underneath his feet, and it clung against his shined brown loafers with every step.

Layla swore there were more stars in the sky directly above him, too. So why didn’t he know where one of these gates was, then?

Perhaps he could sense her confusion. Nothing in the oath realm stays the same. It is the final realm of existence. Things move about as the great psyche within changes.

Great psyche within?

I will not answer your questions, Layla.

Why? she snorted angrily. Because you want to keep me ignorant, just as you mentioned earlier? Because ignorant people—

I never wanted to play you. I never wanted to use you. I just wanted to—

Save me? But at the expense of saving yourself? I don’t know what promise I made to you all those years ago, but like I said—

He spun now. Damn him, but that intensity struck her again, and it was like standing in the path of a thousand stars. You are too weak to break it. The oath stands. The promise will be delivered. Now come.

Layla had busted a gut to get here. More than that, it had seemed as if he wanted her to come here. The way he’d looked at her when he’d been sipping on his champagne – the fact that he’d thrown the key on the floor at her feet. He’d pretty much been begging her to come here and do this. He’d even said that he couldn’t save her anymore. So what was going on now?

Why are you suddenly a different person, Manus? I read the subtext at the party—

Earlier, he said, voice hard, I did not think you would be stupid enough to bring me here too. I didn’t think you—

What, had the power? Why, is it hard to draw someone into the oath realm with you?

It should be impossible. But you did it.

Surely that means I have the power to save myself?

No, Layla, it only means you have more power for someone else to use. You should’ve left me behind.

I don’t get it. If you want me to be safe, why did you want me going to the oath realm—

"As you would have never been able