and what you are. You’re everything to me, and the beast is a part of you. I love him, too.”
Cold, angry eyes narrowed on me, surveying the tears that rolled down my cheeks as I sat up, studying him. I wasn’t sure what I’d done, only that I’d been unable to stop it from happening. I may not always enjoy the beast, and yeah, he could hurt me, but he never meant to. He wasn’t of this world, and his thoughts were more focused on fucking, owning, or worse, breeding my womb, but I loved him.
“Undo it!” Ryder demanded harshly.
“I don’t even know what I did. I’ll call Destiny.”
“Call her now!” The harsh tone of his voice wrapped around my heart and squeezed it tightly.
I whispered Destiny’s name, sensing the moment she entered the room, and turned to see her gaping at Ryder’s form. Her head moved from Ryder to me, and her gaze narrowed. It was as if she sensed the change in him immediately and wasn’t surprised by it at all.
“I see you finally figured out how to combine them. How did you do it?” Destiny stared at Ryder, examining in his wicked-looking wings before turning to look at the men who growled their disapproval at her words.
“I don’t want them combined. I don’t even know how it happened!”
“I’m guessing you were mid-fuck, and you tried to feed him?” I nodded, and she laughed outright at me.
“Feeding straight from a goddess has consequences, especially if she loves her mate. Your mother always tried to combine the beast to the man and failed. Danu fed Alazander gluttonously, and he took and took from her, and yet he never did become one with the beast he carried. How did you manage it?”
“I—uh,” I paused, horrified, then looked at Ryder before glancing back to the half-naked goddess. “I wanted to protect him, and then I pushed power into him the same way I do when I feed him. My thoughts were of the war, and that I could lose him. Suddenly, everything changed, and it was as if we were one being, and Ryder was staring through me like he didn’t see me. I felt him fucking me, but I no longer saw him. After a few moments, the room began to spin with a rainbow of colors, and then everything faded to black.”
“Amazing,” Destiny said, still looking at Ryder. “You gave him a piece of your soul, Synthia. You combined man and beast by giving him a part of yourself. You love him enough to sacrifice that piece of yourself to protect him. Apparently, that’s the one thing your mother was unwilling to do when she tried to merge the beast with Alazander.”
“How do I undo it?” She snorted in response, throwing her hands up in the air. “Ryder doesn’t want this, and neither do I.”
“Are you sure? You’ve succeeded in transforming Ryder into what your mother always meant him to become. As Horde King, Ryder was forced to carry the beast which appeared as the part of him you were created to soothe—you know, so that he wouldn’t go insane like his father. Do you know why Alazander went mad? He wasn’t strong enough to be both beast and man, because no one is.
“Unfortunately, Danu hadn’t seen that complication of her creation. The beast she created had to choose a host with enough strength and power to hold him. Once inside the host, they would slowly lose control because the beast is an animal, hungering for more without ever fully satisfying that hunger. Your mother searched endlessly for a way to combine man and beast. She even offered herself to Alazander in the guise of his newest concubine and endured his brutality in her efforts to find a way to save him.
“When Ryder took his beast, Danu created you to quench his hunger. She knew his need to fuck would be insatiable and would drive him mad unless he fucked and fed from a goddess or demi-goddess, and Danu was unwilling to feed another beast herself. She spent thousands of