Page 62 of Hell's Secret Omega

Mezor levels his bow at the serpent as it rears up to strike at him. The arrow flies true. The beast falls to the ground with an earth-shaking thump, white fletching sticking up from its blank eye. He reaches for another arrow.

A deep, dangerous rumble fills the air. Aboomechoes across the grotto, loud enough to shake him, and dust and rubble burst from the wall. Mezor ducks, shielding his face from the shrapnel. The serpents shriek, panicked. The rumble rises to a roar. Water snatches at his feet suddenly, then his ankles. The booming stops. Mezor drops his arms and tries to see through the dust.

A river shoots from the mangled wall, rapidly swallowing everything in its path until water covers the ground inches deep.It tears the moss from the rock and lifts the broken beams of his cottage on its back. His heart sinks. He slots the arrow back into his quiver.

There’s nothing left to save.

Serpents crawl up the walls to get away from the flood. They’re addled, scales smeared with brown and black and their mouths dark with sickness. They leave streaks of blood as they chew at the rocks, trying to tunnel away. If they’re Magnus’s beasts, like Cyrus said, he can’t imagine what horrors they’ve experienced.

He wades through the rising water toward the gate.

“Come get me,” he roars, letting his voice ring over the howl of the flood. The water is already to his thighs.

With a series of rattling hisses the serpents launch themselves off the wall. They recognize who he is, even maddened by torture and starvation.

He breathes deeply as waves crash into his stomach, then his chest. With powerful strokes, he swims against the inertia of the flood. Serpents suddenly surround him in the water—six sets of flashing teeth. He swipes at the closest in warning, letting his claws speak for themselves, and it wheels away with a silent snarl. Ahead, the gate gleams golden in the murky water.

Mezor dives. The water rises above his head. Pressure squeezes him the deeper he goes. White flashes in the corner of his vision. He kicks toward the cave floor and grabs the plinth to keep himself from being carried away in the current, waiting for them to surround him, circling the gate in pale, giant ribbons.

He grabs the golden sphere and everything spins into white flame.

Chapter 35

MEZOR

For a moment he’s drowning.Suffocated by water, fur, and scales amid deafening silence, he struggles against the aether for the first time. Then noise comes rushing back, and Mezor stumbles into a circle of ruins at the edge of the pit. A ring of demons surrounds him, holding pikes and torches.

Serpents explode into existence, writhing as they hit the ground. The demons shout in surprise and their thicket of pikes clatter.

“Hold!” their captain roars.

The serpents scatter the soldiers like frightened rats, and for a moment there’s chaos. The pike wall quickly reforms. But the serpents are too disoriented to fight, and they’re already disappearing into the gloom with a clatter. Before Mezor can decide his move, the soldiers closed on him. In the dim light, their faces are uncertain.

Rage rises in his veins. It has to have been an ambush.

No doubt they expected to flush out the King himself—not his Hunter. Mezor bares his teeth. He’ll waste no arrows on them—if they want a fight, he’ll take them with his bare claws.

The demon captain steps forward. “Hunter. Where is the King?”

“Brutus, is it not?” Mezor bares his teeth, and he’s horribly gratified by the fear that flashes across the demon captain’s face. “Try your pikes on me.”

“Surrender, and I won’t have my soldiers run you through,” Brutus sneers.

Mezor takes off the bow and sets it aside. He cracks his knuckles. “I’m very angry right now, Brutus. Try me.”

CYRUS

Thunder chases Cyrus upthe stairs. Wreathed in shadow, he squeezes through the exit. His heart slams against his ribs. Mezor will be alright. He repeats it over and over, as if that makes it true. Mezor will find him.

His feet pound the stone as he runs. Breath tears at his throat. The splintering crack of the cottage being destroyed rings in his ears. Get somewhere safe, Mezor told him. Every nook and cranny he’s ever huddled in rushes through his mind, only to be discarded as he imagines being dragged out of a crack in some wall like an animal.

It’s not until he runs head-first into Magnus and three soldiers that he realizes the shadows Mezor sent with him have long since dissipated. He’s hurtled right into a trap.

“Get him!” someone snarls as Cyrus darts toward the gap in their guard.

Clawed hands grab him roughly. They drag him upright and pin him to the wall. He struggles, but it only serves to make the soldiers jerk him around.

“Hold him there! Filthy traitor.” Magnus’s voice is gleeful.

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