I felt... strange for some reason. My whole body ached as if I had been through a beating, but I could have sworn that I hadn't been through one. I had been through a battle, but that felt like eons ago.

I furrowed my brows and opened my eyes to see red walls staring back at me. Weapons and blood covered the walls of this torture chamber, causing my stomach to drop.

Orethenal. I was in Orethenal this whole time, and that meant that what I had done, what I had witnessed didn't happen. I had been stuck in one of Mahklaha's tricks, and he had conquered up a mate to torture me.

I had no mate, nobody to love my flaws and the pain that I had suffered at the hands of both Makhalha and my father. I had no one but myself, and even if I did have a mate, who was to say that he would love me and accept my past.

Dread filled my body, and it caused me to drop my head. I had been cheated on for the last time and was giving up on hope.

No one was going to rescue me. Miza wasn't going to allow them to rescue me. He didn't care about me at all. He hated me and wished that I was dead. I think that was the reason why no one came for me yet. It was his fault that I was stuck in this place with no chance of escaping.

But, why did it physically pain me to blame him? Was there something that I was missing, or did whatever happen to me was just a dream or a figure of my imagination?

I closed my eyes and tucked my head to my chest. I took a deep breath in and let it out as I tried to figure out what had happened, what was real and what was fake.

I could feel this presence near me, and it was not my Wolf nor Mahklaha. This... presence was ancient, older than me and even older than Miza.

'Come closer,' the presence whispered. 'Hurry. We don't have time.'

'Who are you?' I asked, turning my head in that direction. 'Where are you?'

There was a pause before the creature sighed. 'You know who I am,' the voice said, and deep down I knew that I did. 'This was the only way.'

'Only way for... what?'

The door banged opened, causing me to jerk up and stare in front of me. My heart skipped a beat when I saw Mahklha standing in front of me in all his glory.

His black hair was pulled into a greasy ponytail, the end of the ponytail almost touching the floor. His black eyes bore into my gray ones, a look of disgust and pride filling them. He had a sneer on his face, and it caused my heart to skip a beat. "Deira," he said, coldly before he bowed mockingly. "Did you really think that you could defeat me?"

My throat went dry and my heart pounded in fear. I stared at the male in front of me and prayed that this was a trick of the light, but I knew that it wasn't.

Mahklaha was standing in front of me and not in the Pit like I had thought.

'Hurry,' the voice urged. 'We do not have time. Think everything through. What is the last thing that makes sense?'

What made sense? Nothing made sense. The last thing that I remembered "doing" was getting on a Dagon with Miza sitting against a tree.

Miza sitting against a tree, powerless. He had used his magic to kill off the Shazaraks. The Shazaraks were attacking, and we had killed them all.

We had killed them all to get here. It was the only way to break through the mirage of Orethenal and into the Pit where Mahklaha was held.

I was Skylar Ross, daughter of a Werewolf couple and a God couple. I was mated to an Alpha Male that was keeping an eye on my pack. And, I was the Godkiller. I was trained to kill Gods, and that meant the one in front of me.

'Glad to see you back,' Aargon said, causing me to roll my eyes at him. 'Pay attention. He is doing a monologue, again.'

"You know, you are starting to sound boring," I said, speaking for the first time and cutting him off. My voice sounded different to my ears. I sounded older, more mature. My voice was a bit raspy from the lack of use, but that didn't matter.

Mahklha stopped talking. Surprise filled his eyes when I had interrupted him, something that I would have not done before, until now. "What?"

I blinked unimpressed. "Your monologue about how you are going to rule the world and kill me. It is boring. I have heard it before."

Mahklha frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The last thing you are going to say is "enjoy insanity" and then stab me in the back. I am surprised that you are even in front of me, right now."

Mahklha didn't say a word. He looked rather afraid of what I was saying, and I knew that it was getting to him.

"So, if you want to monologue something, say something different and not what I have heard before." I "took" a step back and felt this newfound energy. "Or better yet," I said, breaking the chains that held my hands behind my back. "You don't send me to a place that I had already been to."

Mahklaha backed up and looked at me with this new found fear. He didn't say a word as I stood and probably for the first time saw me as a Warrior, someone that was able to kill him.

"Verna," I yelled, shooting a ball of magic at the wall. I covered my head when the whole thing fell away and closed my eyes.

He was not going to capture me again.