Meta Gods War 3 by B. Miles (the ebook reader txt) 📕

Sirrin gestured vaguely with his hands. “It’s not an easy thing to teach. As I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I know,” Cam said. “Believe me.”

“But I think I could.” Sirrin dropped his hands. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking we have all this untapped potential,” Cam said. “If any Human can learn magic—”

“We can’t trust just anyone with this,” Sirrin said. “Imagine if we trained the wrong person.”

“So we’ll teach the right people.” Cam dug his fingers into the dirt. “We’ll be careful with who we choose.”

“I don’t know,” Sirrin said. “It’s too dangerous, what we can do. And some people can’t handle it. Believe me, I’ve seen what happens when you teach someone that’s not ready.” He was quiet as he stared down at the rocks. “If we unleashed magic and gave it to every Human, just imagine the consequences. People would be ripping each other to pieces, going mad with the Need, fucking like animals. It’d be chaos.”

“Maybe we need chaos,” Cam said. “Maybe we need a little danger.”

Sirrin met his gaze and his lips pulled into a frown. He opened his mouth to speak—

A bright light appeared, so bright Cam reeled backwards away from the cliff. He scrambled along the dirt and stone until the back of his head hit the cliff wall. He grunted in pain and felt dizzy as the light began to fade. For half a breath, he thought the entire valley had just gone up in flame.

Instead, a woman floated in front of them.

Cam’s mind twisted. It tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but there was no sense. Sirrin cowered next to Cam and covered his head with his arms. He let out a soft groan of fear or pleasure or pain, Cam couldn’t tell which.

The woman hung motionless before them. Her hair was long, wild, and pitch black. She was tall, or maybe short, Cam couldn’t tell, it was like her body morphed and changed as it lingered there, suspended over the sheer drop. Her hands were outstretched, her fingers finished with long pointed nails. Her face was tipped back toward the sky, her eyes wide and open and entirely black. She wore a gossamer dress, more like a second skin over her amply curved and sensuous body.

“What is that?” Cam said through gritted teeth. “Sirrin? Are you seeing this?”

“Fuck,” Sirrin whispered.

The woman tilted her head down toward them. Her hair floated in the air like snakes. Her dress rippled in the breeze.

“Hello, little shaman,” she said, and her voice seemed to echo through the cliffs around them and hammered directly into Cam’s head.

Cam leaned forward. He wanted to study the woman more, felt compelled to stare at her beauty, but the longer and the closer he looked, the more she seemed to shift and change and shimmer. His head began to pound. He wasn’t sure if the woman was making his head ache or if it hurt from when he smashed it against the wall behind him.

“Who are you?” Cam called out. He dropped his gaze down to her feet, her toes pointed downward, her skin light pink. He focused there and tried to tune out the rest of her.

“You know me, shaman,” she said in that inhuman voice. “You know my children well.”

Cam leaned forward more and felt himself climb onto his knees. He kept himself hunched downward as though the presence of the woman itself kept him bent in half. Sirrin curled tighter into a ball.

“I don’t know you,” Cam said. “I don’t even know what you are.”

“My name is Lycanica,” the woman said. “Look upon me, shaman.”

Cam felt a stab of horror run through him. He forced his eyes up along her toes, up her ankle, her long lean legs, the graceful curve of her hips, the taut muscles of her stomach, her full breasts, her slender neck, her pointed chin, her full red lips, her black eyes.

As soon as he met those eyes, he felt as though he couldn’t move.

“You’re… you’re a…”

“You’ve met my children,” Lycanica said. “You call them Weres, godlings. You have many names for them. But I call them my loves, my heartbeats, flesh of my flesh and skin of my bones. Do you understand me, shaman?”

“What do you want?” Cam said.

He thought she smiled, just the ghost of it. “What I want is immaterial,” she said. “What I need is more important.”

“I don’t know what you’re doing here,” Cam said. “I don’t understand why you’re doing any of this.”

“My children need room to breathe and live. Is that not reason enough?”

“You’re killing thousands,” Cam said. “We didn’t— We never—”

“You did,” Lycanica said, and it sounded as though her voice was composed of multiple screaming singers. “And you will again. Your people have hunted mine for millennia. Your god broke from our kind and waged war against his siblings, and all for what? My children come and they go because of him, and now we’re left with ruin.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will, little shaman.” She raised her hands, palms up toward the sky. “You cannot stand before my hordes. You will fall, as so many have fallen before you. But I find you interesting, and so I come with a warning.”

“What warning?”

“Leave this place,” she said. “Take your people and flee before my packs. Hide your women and children, leave behind your valuables, for nothing is as precious as your lives. Flee far and wide and cross the salt ocean. Never return to this place, or else I will not have pity on you again.”

“I can’t do that,” Cam said. “I can’t leave my people behind. I can’t leave this place.”

“You have been warned,” Lycanica said.

“Stop this madness,” Cam said. “It doesn’t need to be this way. It doesn’t need—”

“I will not stop,” she said and her voice burrowed into Cam’s skull. He tore his gaze from her eyes and hunched forward again with a gasp of pain. “I will burn your Mansions to dust and grind your bones into the earth. Your