Chapter 33

Chapter 33
Emily
She knelt beside a hysterically sobbing Shadow, rubbing her back. “I’m so sorry, Shadow. Maybe Margo can bring him back. We can ask her if she can.”
Emily looked up at Margo questioningly, only to immediately frown when Margo shook her head.
“I need a body to reanimate. I can’t just grasp onto souls,” Margo whispered sadly.
Shadow sobbed louder as she buried her face in her hands. “I never told him that I loved him. H-he died thinking that I hated him.”
Emily took Shadow’s hands. “I can take the pain away,” she said softly. “Let me do that for you.”
Kalani put her hands on Emily’s shoulders, squeezing gently. “No, Emmy, you can’t.”
Emily’s head snapped up. “Why not?”
“Because for what’s coming, she needs to be able to access this pain. This is what made me worthy of being the Secunda Regina—knowing when to heal someone and when not to. I spent so many nights being presented with so many different scenarios and was judged based on how I handled them. This was the last scenario that she gave me as a test. If you do this, it will ruin everything. It will make the struggle you all went through void. It will make this battle not matter. It will make Keith’s death simply a loss. Don’t undo what’s been done. I promise you it will all work out,” Kalani said softly.
Emily turned her attention back to Shadow, whose pain was almost tangible. “But, Mom, do you see how much pain she is in? You wouldn’t let us stay like this.”
Kalani knelt behind Emily to wrap her arms around her waist. “I would if it was for the greater good.”
Shadow’s body began to waver in front of them before disappearing, her hands slipping out of Emily’s. She looked up at her mother in shock.
“Where did she go?”
“Someone is calling to her,” Lily said. “Mom was trying to teach me how to be a Goddess, too, but there’s so many people who know my name. I’d be called every second of my life.”
Emily sighed as she got up before spinning on her parents. “What point is there to ‘the greater good?’ Three-fourths of the world’s creations are evil beings. Keith was truly good. He might have been an asshole, but he was a good asshole. He would have given his life to protect a stranger—to protect a world that didn’t deserve it. He loved his mates and only wanted to be with them. He would have done anything for his family. Hell, he did.” She turned her head to glare at Lily. “I saw he said something to you. What was it?”
“He asked me to protect his mates.”
“He died protecting you, and you can’t even speak up to help his mates?” She looked at everyone gathered. “Are any of you going to speak up on his behalf? No? The whole lot of you are cowards. You weren’t worthy to be called his family.” She looked around again, letting her eyes linger on his siblings. “Especially not his brothers and sisters. I hope that for your sake nothing ever happens to any of you, because I will let all of your mates suffer, just like you’re making his suffer.”
“You are not ready to be the Secunda Regina, Emily. Sometimes, as a queen, you have to make tough decisions. This is one of them. I will not pass it onto you, period, if you can’t understand that.”
Emily angrily wiped her tears off her face. “I was never going to be Secunda Regina, Mother! I failed all your tests. Unlike you, I am just a screw up. I couldn’t even manage to keep my mate happy. I’m so sorry that I don’t have your perfect life. I’m so sorry that I don’t have a loving mate, a bunch of children, or a huge palace to call home. I’m sorry that I care about people and have emotions. I’m sorry that my humanity is too much for you to handle. If that makes me unfit to be Secunda Regina, then so be it. A true mother wouldn’t say their child was unfit for a job; they would say that the job was unfit for their child. You can keep Secunda Regina. I don’t want it anymore. I’m past the point of caring about it. I thought it would give my life meaning, but now I know it won’t.”
Before anybody could respond, Emily opened a portal to Locust. She wanted to check on Shadow, Easel, Kennedy, and Gary before she left. She didn’t want to be part of a family that didn’t look out for each other. A family that would let members be in pain simply because they hadn’t been into it. She glared around at everyone.
“I’m leaving, but before I do…” She met her Mother’s eyes. “I renounce being your heir to the Secunda Regina title.” She looked around at everyone else. “I renounce our family. I renounce everything that has to do with you all. Don’t look for me. I’m done.”
She stepped through, slamming the portal behind her. How dare they act like that toward her? Toward any of Keith’s mates? They didn’t deserve it. They were innocent and part of the greater good. Why didn’t the rest of her family see that? She went upstairs to knock softly on Keith’s bedroom door, where she smelled all of his mates. Easel pulled the door open with her face drenched in tears and her nose already turning red. When Emily reached for her, Easel stepped back.
“Go away, Emily. We’re grieving. We don’t want to see anybody.”
Emily sighed as her heart constricted painfully. “If you change your mind, I will be in Dallas. I don’t care what my mother says. I will help you. All of you.”
Easel gave a curt nod. “Fine. Understood. Thanks.”
She slammed the door in Emily’s face, making her sigh. Emily turned around to leave. She couldn’t very well magick a portal right here. It was too close to successfully escape. Her family would be able to track her, so she began the long trek through the forest on foot to get somewhere where she could open an untraceable portal. As she continued to walk, the Goddess appeared by her side, making her groan before stopping to kneel at the Goddess’s feet.
“Goddess.”
“Rise, my child. Do not fear. I am not here to punish you. I only wish to talk.”
Emily got back to her feet, eyeing her. “May I ask about what?”
“Of course you can. Let’s walk.”
Emily started walking again, with the Goddess walking beside her.
“I understand why you are so angry at your mother, Emily.”
Emily stuck her hands in her pockets. “Who wants to be told they’re not good enough?” she asked bitterly.
The Goddess stopped to turn toward her. “Emily, my dear, the only one that can ever tell you that you are not good enough is you. Do you feel like you’re enough?”
Emily shook her head. “No, I never felt good enough to be the Secunda Regina.”
“Well, you’re wrong. You only feel like that because you were never meant to be Secunda Regina. You were created to be the Queen of Queens. The roles are different, but not so much that you can’t do it.”
Emily took a step back. “What?”
The Goddess began walking again. “Many lifetimes ago, you were mated to the King of Kings. I regarded him as my son. Under my protection, he became a monster who abused you. He took the purest gift I could give him and destroyed it. I thought that after all this time, he would have changed, so I decided to give him another chance. When I realized he was going down the same path as before, I set him up to be caught by you. I wanted you to have the upper hand this time. I wanted you to get some vengeance for everything that he did to you before. You were one of the biggest mistakes I ever made regarding the trio. I am trying to fix it before I give up being the Goddess to all of you.”
Emily stopped to look at her. “What do you mean before you give up being the Goddess? Can you do that?”
The Goddess smiled at her. “Of course I can. You will still have a Goddess if she agrees. If not, the world will end and planet Earth will be another dead rock in the universe.”
“Why would you give up being the Goddess?”
The Goddess draped her arm around Emily’s shoulders. “Come, child. Let’s walk and talk. It’s almost time, and if we don’t keep going, we will be late.”
“Late for what?” Emily asked.
“You’ll see. Anyway, to answer your question, I have waited for an eternity to be with my mate. We were only allowed to be together for a few hours every thousand years. He could not be on Earth for long, and I cannot go to his realm. This last time that we were together, we conceived our last daughter, Saphire. He begged me not to send him back to his realm. He begged me to let him remain on Earth with me. I wanted it, too, but I had to discuss it with the other gods and goddesses. They agreed to bind our souls to humans here. These humans have not been asked if they will accept us or not. You needed to figure out this war first before we went to them.
Just like you, Emily, I want to be loved by my mate. I want to be happy with him. I can’t make your mate from this lifetime love you like you deserve, but I can give you your mate from a different lifetime. He was given a last chance to prove that he could be brought back. When he met you, he was so enamored with you. He made his mistakes, but he never treated you badly. That’s who I should have mated you to this lifetime, too.”
Emily glanced at her. “I have two mates?”
“Yes.”
“Have I met him?” Emily asked hopefully.
“Yes, and you ran from him.”
“When?”
“You’ll see.” The Goddess pointed to the trees in front of them. “That way. All your answers are that way.”
Seconds later, she was gone, leaving Emily staring in the direction she had pointed. She hesitated, thinking about everything the Goddess had told her. Could it really be that easy—just keeping straight, like she said? She wrung her hands together. What if she found him, and he hated her for running away. She let out a shaky breath before squaring her shoulders and walking straight through the trees. As she neared the edge of Locust’s border, she heard a child laughing. Her heart rate sped up when she recognized the little boy’s voice. She hid in the shadows of the trees, watching the little boy she had taken home run around his father, who was searching for a way around the spell protecting Locust.
“Daddy, look.”
Emily took a step back, deeper into the shadows, as he scanned the area slowly.
“What did you see, Lyle?”
“The pretty lady.”
“Emily?” He scanned the trees again. “Emily!”
Her stomach fluttered. Was he who the Goddess had been talking about? He had to be. She had felt something when they first met that scared her into running away. It made sense. Everything fit. She hesitantly stepped out of the shadows, opening a hole in the portal. Lyle immediately rushed over to her. She swung him up into her arms before shyly looking up at his father.
“You found me. How?”
He grinned down at her. “Your cousin gave me clues, and I have friends. You’re a hard woman to find. Deegan-”
Her mouth dropped open. “You went to Deegan?”
“I wanted to see something.”
“What was that?”
“If the instant connection I felt with you was real or just gratitude.”
“And?”
He raised his hand to cup her face, running his thumb across her cheek. “I think I’m never going to let you go again. It’s like you were made for me.”
She melted against him as she tilted her head back for him to kiss her. “That’s because I was."