PART ONE
Chapter 1
LANEY
Caroline was dead. My best friend in the entire world.
Gone.
I had seen her body disappear into the lava flow and burnt to a crisp. My best friend, my comrade, my sister in arms. We had lived most of our lives together since we’d met in high school. I knew every boyfriend she’d ever dated. I knew every issue she’d ever had with her parents. I knew her life almost as well as I knew my own.
She knew me just as well. She had been there for every break up, every interview, every cold, everything. Her number was my speed dial. I had gone to her for everything and she had stabilized me in the world, making me feel safe and secure when, in truth, I was alone. Caroline was my rock.
“How dare you!” I ran screaming towards Cade, the demigod of volcanoes who had destroyed one of the few loves of my life. I ran toward him with my nails out, but he laughed mercilessly and held me at arms-length with a single raised hand.
“Little firefly, you are divine,” he murmured.
“Stay away from her,” Magnus growled from his cage. The stump where his finger used to be dripped blood onto the stone floor.
“You need to shut the fuck up,” I glared at him, anger welled in my chest, tightening my skin and causing it to emit a pale blue glow.
“She’s a feisty thing,” Cade said to Magnus, as if they were having a drink and talking about some woman in a bar.
“You killed my best friend!” I screamed the words out. “It was as if my whole being suddenly recognized the truth that Caroline was gone. My legs buckled beneath me and my padded bottom squished to the floor with a thud. I stared at the molten lava that had swallowed the largest part of my aching heart. Tears welled in my eyes as my body sagged.
She was impossibly gone.
“Do not be disheartened, little firefly,” Cade purred toward me. “You have a whole new world to discover. One that does not require the likes of a banshee.”
“She was all I had,” I insisted. “You don’t understand.”
“You had me,” Magnus said.
“I don’t want you! Traitor!” I screamed up at him. “I want her back!”
“Now, thanks to the sacrifice of your friend, the true monster can rise. The one, who as the elder, should be the God of Monsters,” Cade said, his lips peeling in a gleeful grin. “The child of Vulcan. He will need a bride when he comes to life. This will be you, Firefly.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “I’ll be no one’s bride. Not any of your stinking selves. Not his.” I pointed at Magnus, who looked forlorn and full of chagrin in the dark shadows of his cage. “Not yours. Certainly not some fucker who’s going to be brought back to life through the death of my best friend. She was everything to me. Everything.”
“What the fuck was I?” Magnus cried.
“Shut the fuck up or I will climb up there and throttle you,” I spewed hatred at Magnus.
“No-no, little bug,” Cade admonished.
“What did you just call me?” I frowned at him, wiping the tears from my eyes.
“Relax,” Cade held his hands out, as if to soothe me. “You’re a firefly. It’s not much more to call you a little bug. It’s a compliment.”
“Leave her alone,” Magnus insisted.
“The only reason you’re still alive,” Cade looked up disdainfully, pointing at Magnus, “is because I need to keep you in order to manage your brother. Well, that and demigods are hard to kill, otherwise I would’ve done it. Right now, I don’t need you.” He waved a hand and Magnus’s cage began to rise into the dark chambers above the hall. When he disappeared into the shadows, Cade turned to me. “Come. We shall prepare you for your groom.”
The cave wall receded, showing a hallway leading further into the volcano.
“I’m not going anywhere with you, fucking asshole,” I spat at him.
“Oh, I think you will,” Cade grinned.
