Page 104 of Secrets & Curses of Fate

All my life I had been told I was not worthy. I was not good enough. I knew that I didn’t have anything to give Della. If she was actually a goddess, then she was really scraping the bottom of the barrel with me. The thought hurt. I wished I was enough for her because she had taken up every thought I had. She consumed me.

“Please. I wanted to be honest with you. How can you say such cruel words about yourself?”

“Because it is the truth,” I hissed. My eyes found hers and saw that they had dimmed to a light glow.

“Do you want me to leave?” She asked with so much hurt in her voice that I frowned. “Please, don’t ask me to leave.”

“I need to process what the fuck is happening.” I stilled. “Oh, my gods, I’ve gone mad, right? This is all in my mind?”?

“No, you haven’t gone mad.” She watched me as a million emotions spiraled out of control inside of me. “I am a goddess, and Mikel is a god.”?

“But—"

“No.” She shook her head with anger. “I’m not leaving because you think you are unworthy. I get to make that choice. It’s mineto make, not yours. You are worthy. Stop thinking like that. Have I ever made you feel that way?”

"No," I said truthfully.

"You do not get to tell me I can’t love you." Her eyes filled with defiance.

She loves me.

Della’s eyes frantically looked around the room as she tried to change my mind. She took a step forward, stopping only inches from me. My heart pounded as she fell to her knees in front of me. Her head bowed to the ground as the points of her crown rested on my leg.

“I cannot lose you,” she whispered. “I just found you. It will kill me.”

A soft sob released from her. Her shoulders shook with her silent cries. When she looked up at me again, I gasped in surprise. The tears that fell from her eyes were glowing like the stars. Something about seeing a goddess crying at my feet twisted my heart. Immediately, I knelt in front of her.

“I'm not leaving. I am a selfish man, Della. I meant it when I said you were mine."

Then I kissed her. Something about our frantic kiss seared something into my chest. Della was branded into me, and I was not willing to give her up. I scooped her up and set her on my bed. I grabbed her crown and slipped it off of her, setting it gently on my side table. Then I slipped her under the covers and held her as she buried her face into my chest.

I felt the insistent demand of the void wanting to come out. He wasn’t taking no for an answer this time. I closed my eyes, and the shiver ran through me, taking deep root in every fiber of my body. I opened my eyes and peered down to see Della sleeping soundly against me.

Gently, I pushed her hair from her face, and she didn’t move. I would recognize that heavy, calm breathing anywhere. She was sleeping, gripping onto me like I would be ripped away from her.

I needed to test something. Slowly, I shifted so I was lying on my side looking at her pretty face. I rested my hand on the side of her cheek and closed my eyes.Show me her future.Flashes of what was coming in the next few days flashed in my mind, but I had seen this a dozen times before.Show me farther into the future.I demanded desperately.

At first, I thought nothing would happen—like always. But just as I was about to open my eyes, I saw a flicker of light in the darkness that clung to her future. I approached it slowly, cautiously.

What. The. Fuck.

Della was now standing in front of a castle I had never seen before. I tried to step forward, but her magic shielded me from reaching her.

“Storm, what are you doing?”

I froze when I saw Remiah’s transparent body floating in front of her. Della looked at me like she was sorry before she lifted a dagger in her hand.

“No!”

Then a flash of Della with black, soulless eyes appeared in front of me, startling me.

I sat up in the bed, gasping for air. What the fuck was happening? I looked at Della, and she was now awake, staring deep into my eyes with a concerned look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

My gaze stared into her pretty, star-colored eyes, and I sighed in relief that they were not pure black, with evil lurking within them.

“Nothing, just a bad dream,” I lied.

---