Page 34 of To Hell and Back
“Is he a new god?”
“That was Dario. He prefers to speak to us telepathically,”Killian told her, then he switched to speaking out loud. “I don’t think so. He definitely has god powers, but I don’t think he’s a full god. He might be a demi-god, though. No matter what he is, he needs to stay the fuck away from people until he learns how to control his magic.”
“Looks like he had one hell of a rude awakening,” Anika quipped as she finally joined them. She gave the guy a hard nudge with her foot. “What do you want to do with him?”
“Mason!” a woman screamed as she kicked open the broken backdoor of the small house and raced out of the house. “Get away from him!”
They turned in unison to watch her running toward them, and Killian sighed when he saw the knife in her hand. She was trying to protect the boy, and he couldn’t fault her for that. But he would not let her come near his mate with a weapon in her hand. Instead of physically stopping her, he simply dissolved the blade in her hand, leaving her grasping nothing but air.
That made her freeze.
Tears streamed down her face as she yelled, “Did Christos send you? Tell that bastard to leave us alone! Please don’t hurt Mason. Don’t hurt my son!”
She obviously knew what they were, or else that little display of magic would have totally freaked her out. Dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt with her wet black hair plastered against her head, she didn’t look old enough to have a son Mason’s age, but he didn’t pay attention to females enough to accurately guess how old someone was.
Besides, after a few centuries, age didn’t matter much.
He wasn’t a male swayed by sentiment, so her tears meant little to him. However, he could sense Seneca felt differently about the situation. She was moved by the woman’s desperate pleas for her son. For his mate, he took pity on the crying woman and extended his magical shield so she was also protected from the rain.
“We’re not here to hurt him,” Seneca tried to assure her. “He’s fine. We just had to knock him out to stop him from hurting people with the storm he created.”
The woman’s pale green eyes widened with fear. “But he can’t do that. He doesn’t have magic.”
“He does now,” Anika said dryly.
“You know about supernaturals,” Killian stated.
“Yes, I’m a stylist at the spa at The Manor.” Making an effort to stop crying, she took several deep breaths to calm herself down. “Although I’m human, I’ve worked for Arson for a long time so I’ve seen and heard enough to know about the supernatural community.”
Killian immediately reached out to Arson to request his presence. The woman was being honest, or at least she was being truthful based on her own knowledge. He sensed no magic emanating from her, but his internal alarm system warned him that there was something different about her. He just wasn’t sure what it was yet.
Perhaps she had a supernatural ancestor that she wasn’t aware of. When he used his magic to do a deeper scan on her, she shook her head as if it pained her. She looked confused for a moment, then went back to glancing at them warily.
That made him extremely curious.
A few seconds later, Arson teleported into the clearing. “We were able to stop the flash floods before they reached the populated areas and…Daphne? What are you doing here?” He frowned as he glanced at the others. “What is going on?”
“Her son just had his awakening,” Killian explained.
“Mason? But he’s human.”
“Not anymore. He has god powers.”
“Well, shit.”
“That isn’t possible. My son can’t be a god. I’m telling you, he has never had a speck of magic, and he’s twenty-four now. Past the age to manifest any powers.”
Anika started to snap at the woman, but Seneca interrupted her. “Who is Christos? And why did you think he sent someone to hurt your son?”
Daphne swallowed hard before answering. “He is Mason’s biological father. No, that’s too nice a description for him. He’s an asshole who took advantage of me and now shows up every few years to check to see if Mason has developed any magic. My son has always had medical issues and doesn’t leave the house much, but he’s never had any magical abilities. When he turned twenty-four last week, Christos showed up and said it was the last time he would come because it was clear Mason was useless.”
“He was lying,” Arson growled. “Awakenings usually happen in their teens, but they can still happen after someone turns twenty-four. We even have someone on staff who didn’t have his awakening until he was in his forties.”
“Killian, it sounds like that bastard was trying to breed a child to inherit his magic. If he did that to Daphne, he probably did it to other women, too,”Seneca pointed out.
“I agree.”
“I want him punished,”she bit out, her voice harsh with anger.“The permanent kind.”
