The Throne of Broken Gods (Gods & Monsters, #2)

by Amber V. Nicole

A god king, they called him the World Ender. I didn’t mean to bring him back, but when I slayed one of his celestials in battle, he returned with a vengeance, and the world stopped. The last living god walked this plane once more, and the Otherworld shuddered.

It had been twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes since she had left, and I had counted every single one.

I stared at the empty night sky, watching her dark wings beat across the sky, her sleek form disappearing into the roiling clouds. Away from me. “You promised,” I whispered as the sirens continued to wail.

So, no, Samkiel was who I was, who I would forever be, and Liam died with whatever part of Dianna’s heart fractured that night.

Fake a smile. Look presentable, as if your entire world is not in shambles. Pretend. Pretend. Pretend.

“A promise? You can’t hurt me. You know this.” That was a lie. Her words had done nothing but rip me to shreds, one after the other. I felt gutted by the way she looked at me, as if not an ounce of her cared. That was pain.

“When I burn this world to embers, and you paint me as the villain, remember, I really did try to be good… once.”

“She will come for us now. All of us. You heard the death cry and felt the world shake. Gabby was a leash that held a rabid beast, and now that tether is gone. There is no stopping her. I can feel it now. All of us can. Something shifted, something old and—”

Mer-Ka was my birth name. Ain was Gabby’s, and Eoria was the home where we knew peace so long ago.

“You have taken someone from me with your actions—someone very precious to me. And now you have helped a lunatic corrupt her already damaged heart, shattering it into a million pieces. They are pieces I will pick up and fix, but what you have done is unforgivable. I plan to make you suffer for that transgression. Death would be a kindness, and you deserve none.”

“We knew we couldn’t fight him, couldn’t kill him, but you two together? The two of you are enough to shatter worlds, and he and everyone else know it. You are a threat to him and to others, and so is she. Why do you think we pushed so hard while you two were here? Even Camilla tried. Regardless of us being bound to Kaden, we had to try,” Ethan said.

“Where’s my wife?” Ethan asked. His answer came a second later. Dianna emerged from the darkness, her crimson gaze sweeping over the celestials and holding on me.

Years of war had steeled my stomach to gruesome atrocities, but seeing her so casually holding the head of Ethan’s wife in her palm had my gut twisting.

“Of course not. The way I care for you is vastly different. The lengths I will go to for you are unfathomable. I refuse to let you hurt yourself, no matter how vile or mean you are to me. I know you’re in pain. You are mourning, and someone like you will grieve just as hard and deeply as you love.”

“I had not summoned it since Rashearim fell, not until her. Do you know why? Because there are no boundaries I will not cross if it means keeping her safe, especially after everything you all have taken from her. It is the highest law not to touch anyone in my court or what I consider mine. That act alone is punishable by death, and she is mine. It will be your end.”

“I never once said that I was good. That is just a fable you all tell yourselves, I suppose. You tell yourselves that I will show mercy. You believe that to be the law and govern the realms, I have to at least be neutral, but sometimes a king has to be a monster.”

“I will admit, I enjoy the fact you thought of me while you were with others,” I called over the raging storm. “Did it help you come, or are you still deprived, my Dianna?”

“I had a crown thrust upon me from the moment of my birth. My life is not my own. It never was. It’s a thing. My life is sacrifice after sacrifice for you, for all of you, for the millions who live, eat, and die in this universe and the next. And then my life was bound to realms I had to keep closed by my father. You can yell and scream that what I am doing is unjust. You can say that I’ve fallen off whatever path you have concocted in your head that I must stay on, but you’ve lost nothing. None of you have.”

“I hope you have a plan. You are making a god desperate, and it will not end as you wish.”

“There was a prophecy of rebirth for an unraveled cosmos. A child born from celestial and one born from a god. They were meant to rule it all. Save it all.”

“What? Do you want me to be sad? Cry in a corner? No, that girl is long gone. You made sure of that. I want blood. A fucking river of it.”

“Oh, I never fucked Samkiel. Got pretty close, though.” I let out a low whistle. “The things that man can do with his hands. I can only imagine the rest. Which, you know, I have.”

“Let’s make one thing perfectly clear. You will never have me again. You lost me long before Samkiel returned. You kept her from me, used her to make me do what you wished, and then you took her from me. I will burn this world to ash, and when I find you, I will kill you.

“You really do love her,” Camilla whispered. “Where is she?”

“Always with the tone of surprise. There is no place in this world or the next that you can hide from me, akrai.”

“You could make a river of blood run down these streets, and I would still try because I know you, the real you, not this version he created.”

“If I’m wrong, then so was Gabby, and I know she wasn’t. She wouldn’t give up on you, and neither will I. We can do this dance until this world burns and the next takes its place, but I will still choose you.”

“I’ll carve that damned heart from your body,” she said breathlessly. “Then you’ll leave me alone.” But she stopped a fraction from my chest, her hands and arms trembling as she panted.

“Do it.” I angled the tip of her blade above my heart. “If you are truly gone, I refuse to live in a world without you, so you’ll have to angle it farther to the right. That’s where a god’s heart lies, and mine already belongs to you, so do with it what you will.”

🥺🥹

“We just need to meddle a little more with that spell for it to work. Don’t you agree, Azrael?” The long-feared Celestial of Death stared blankly ahead, his arms behind his back. I patted his shoulder as I strode out of the room.

“A thousand plus worlds he has seen, yet when he dreams, he dreams of you.”

It was a soft, quick goodbye kiss to the man who, regardless of everything, kept trying to save me. “Maybe in another life,” I whispered before pulling away.

“Love is such a dangerous and powerful emotion. The gods curse it, for it has power. Empires have fallen for it, reduced to sand and scriptures. Worlds have burned for it, and they will once more. Love has the power to touch even the untouchable. Use it.”

“She is killing, feeding, and becoming everything he ever wanted. She is relentless in her pursuit of vengeance. Apparently, even I cannot stop her. Dianna is what they warned us about. The monster they taught us to fear. She has used everything I shared with her against me, trying to hurt me when all I wished to do was protect her, to save her. She sent dream eaters after us, attacked the council, attacked you all. I have skinned creatures alive for even threatening to harm any of you. The part that makes me ill is that my blood and mind scream at me to think as a king and protector. Maybe I didn’t know her as well as I had assumed. Maybe she showed me exactly who she was, and then….”

“My heart and soul scream in defiance because she is the only thing I can think about. The only thing I dream of when I allow it, the only thing in this life or the next I wish to claim.”

“Why do I feel so strongly for her? Why can’t I treat her like any other beast or creature? The time we spent together should mean nothing. Nothing. I have been with countless beings, traveled between worlds, saved thousands, and fought creatures that could swallow worlds. Yet this woman with a fiery attitude has burned me to my very core. I let her in during the worst part of my existence, and now she is in my bones. My every thought, every dream, is of her, and I can’t eat or sleep. I haven’t even been inside of her, Logan, not really, not like Cameron or Vincent suspects, but she’s burned into my soul, my very being. And I hate it. I hate that it’s not simple anymore. I hate feeling so strongly for someone who does not feel the same. Every time a door opens, or I hear heels on the floor, I look for her, and I hate that, too. I hate that I think every dark-haired woman I see is her. She made me smile, made me laugh, and I hate it. I hate that she made me feel alive and whole for once. Dianna saw me for who I am, not a ruler or king. She made me feel normal, and then she left me. Abandoned me like it meant nothing.”

He was known as Tobias on Onuna, but on Rashearim, we knew him as Haldnunen.

“Seek revenge for the sister that was not even of your blood.”

“You’re a fool, just like the old gods, to think you could outsmart us. You will die just like them, just like her. Alone. You have no family any longer, no friends. No one to help you.”

“You are all fools!” Tobias hissed, blood dripping from the open gash that ran from his jaw to his temple. “And now you will see why Primordials trembled, and gods bled. I will kill all of you and suck the marrow from your bones.” The ground began to shake.

“You are arrogant, like your World Ender, Dianna.” His lipless mouth turned up in a wide, serpentine grin. “And you will die like him, too.”

Saw why Samkiel loved her so damned much, even if he refused to say the words. He risked his crown, his throne, and the damned world for her because Dianna was a queen worthy of any king.

Samkiel wanted an equal, and by the old gods, they had delivered.

“A thousand plus worlds, Samkiel, and I have seen them all. You are now at the center. Your name is a war song now. The World Ender, they call you, but you are so much more than that.”

“You caught me?” It was a whispered question as if she couldn’t believe it. “Always.”

You won’t get another chance… Pain sliced through the side of my head. … fell in love with him while Kaden took your sister… I groaned and rolled over, covering my head with a large pillow. … remember that I love you… My head pounded. … seek revenge for the sister that’s not even of your blood… Voices whispered, begged, and screamed in my mind. You are running out of time.

“I would have followed you anywhere, Dianna. All you had to do was ask. Instead, you used me. You used every single bit of knowledge you had on me to hurt me, my family, and my friends. You threw things I confided to you back at me without a moment’s thought. I have been stabbed, tortured, and nearly decapitated. All in service to my home and kingdom. But nothing has hurt me as you have. Nothing.”

Samkiel glanced at me over his shoulder, a small glow of silver dancing behind his storm-filled eyes. “You’re a fool if you think I would be happy in a world where you did not exist.”

“I can destroy and remake this place faster than the second it takes for you all to breathe. Do not forget who you speak to.”

“I have ripped vocal cords out of beasts far larger and more vicious than you, Elianna. Watch how you speak. I will not ask again. Your place on the council means very little to me, and you can be replaced. So I suggest you watch your tongue, or I will own it. The old gods are long dead, and Xheor is no longer here to protect you. Choose your words wisely when you address me. All of you. I am still your king.”