Chapter 104: The Sacred Beast
Raphael’s POV
"Vessel, do you know how many realms exist?"
Grey’s voice rumbled through my mind, his tone uncharacteristically calm. I exhaled, my fingers brushing against the petals of a blue primrose. Ava had loved these flowers. She would sit in this garden for hours, running her fingers over their soft petals, humming to herself. Now, I tended them alone.
"Three," I muttered, staring at the blue petals beneath my fingertips. "The human realm, my realm, and the Realm of the Gods."
Grey hummed in approval.
"Long ago, these realms were connected, but the gods sealed them off. Do you know why?"
I exhaled slowly. "Because someone from your realm brought destruction."
"No."
I frowned. "Then what?"
Grey’s presence shifted, his voice taking on a rare, solemn tone.
"Because of me."
A cold silence settled between us.
I straightened slightly. "You?"
"I was once known as the Sacred Beast of the third realm, the Realm of the Gods."
His words sent a chill down my spine.
"In that realm, I was revered. Feared. But as a sacred beast, I was never meant to have a mate."
His voice darkened as if the mere thought still left an ache in his soul.
"I watched my kind experience the mate bond—the one thing that gave them purpose, that held their celestial forms to something real.
But I was chosen to be more than them. I was chosen to be a god. And gods do not have mates."
I felt his anguish seep into my bones as if the pain of his past hung around him even more now.
"I yearned for it, Raphael. Do you understand? The bond. The connection. The balancing force that kept others sane. But I had nothing."
The heaviness of his words pressed against me. I had always known Grey was different—powerful beyond my understanding. But this… this was something else entirely.
"My parents did not love me," he continued, his tone almost bitter. "To them, I was a monster. An aberration. A beast meant to serve, not to feel."
A slow, sinking feeling crawled through my chest.
"And without a mate, I became feral. Without a mate, I was just an existing form."
The air around me felt suffocating, the garden’s tranquillity shattered by the raw emotion in his voice. No wonder, he values our mate so much.
"The mate bond is not just love, Vessel. It is the very essence of living. It keeps our beast forms stable and our celestial beings in balance. Without it, I become chaos."
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"I lost myself to the madness of loneliness, five thousand years of emptiness devouring me whole. And in that madness, my beast form sought blood to fill the void."
I swallowed, my throat tight. "You… started a war, didn't you." It was something, he would do. Always humming for violence.
"I did."
My fists clenched. I was right. I sighed.
"The war raged across the Realm of the Gods, my bloodlust was uncontrollable. And because I was the strongest in the beast kingdom, it took an army to bring me down. And when they finally subdued me, they did not kill me. No… They locked me away, sealed me in chains, my bloodlust too great to be destroyed. Or maybe it was an act of mercy."
My breath came slow and measured.
"And Drogon?"
"He was my keeper."
The world seemed to tilt slightly.
"Drogon was placed in charge of you?"
"To ensure I never escaped."
I exhaled sharply, rubbing a hand down my face. "So you—"
"Yes, Vessel. I am not from your realm. I am from the god realm." That explains everything. His constant bloodlust. His unusual strength.
A cold chill ran through me.
I still can't believe the beast that lived inside me, the one I had battled against for years, the one that had stained my hands with endless blood, was not just ancient.
He was divine.
And he had once destroyed his own realm. I didn’t speak for a long moment. The realization of everything has settled in my chest slowly.
Grey had been a god. A being meant to be worshipped. But he had never known love, never known peace. And in that loneliness, he had burned down everything.
The gods had locked him away. And now… he lived inside me. Goddess. If even the gods couldn't hold him down, who am I? How was I going to stop him when the goddess was telling me not to give him in?
"They were afraid of me," Grey murmured, almost to himself. "Afraid that if I ever had a mate, I would be too powerful to control. But what they had failed to understand was that denying me a mate was what made me a monster in the first place."
The lanterns shook slightly, the air around me cold and charged with his rage. I could feel it running through my veins.
I closed my eyes briefly, exhaling.
"You—you are from the god realm?" I asked. Still trying to wrap my head around the revelations.
"Yes, Vessel. And now you understand… what it means to have me inside you." No. I don't understand.
" How did you escape him? Why did you choose my body?"
" Remember, when I said that the gods in the third realm couldn't fall in love?"
" Yes..." What has that got to do with my question?
" Drogon found his mate. Unlike me. He found her." Goddess. It can't be right.
" You don't mean..."
" Yes. I mean her. The little witch that hovered around our mate. " How is that possible?
" I don't understand... How is that possible? I am older than Gwendolyn."
" Don't act dumb," he said impatiently.
" After he found that she was his mate, he left his realm. Forgetting that the two realms are not supposed to mix." Oh.
" He got caught didn't he?"
" Yes. He got caught but before that, I had already escaped. Luckily for me, your Lycan beast just died within. What's a king without his beast? So I did some rituals and merged into you." He sounded excited as he said the last words.
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