Page 44 of Summer's Seduction

Artemis nodded before setting her sights on Camilla. She was standing between Megara and Larkspur with a smile on her face as they took turns throwing stars. “We leave in five minutes, Morpheus.”

I stayed where I was, sensing Hecate wasn’t yet finished with me.

Once the others were out of earshot, she lowered her voice and spoke. “If there is any chance The Cornucopia may have crossed into The Realm of The Living, I need to know about it.”

“The Cornucopia isn’t a typical artifact of the gods.” I spoke softly, being careful to keep my voice low. Artemis may be trustworthy, but not all secrets were meant to be shared. “It would need to be persuaded and coaxed into leaving its place in The Glass Palace. But the power of an Olympia with the aid of my father’s blood…”

I let my voice trail off, hating the idea of this war compounding. If my father did have the aid of an Olympian, we needed to travel to The Glass Palace. Sensing the magic wouldn’t be enough. I needed to enter that fucking place and ensure The Cornucopia was safe, which would be difficult since Hypnos had determined I’d lost my right to hold the key seven years ago when I decided I’d had enough of following his orders.

Artemis lifted a brow, studying me, but I had nothing left to offer. My family was horrible, but that didn’t mean I shared their desires. Letting the silence stretch, I watched Larkspur mingle with the huntress. The group was exchanging daggers and smallweapons that looked as if they’d been carved from obsidian stone and some from the whitest bones.

“You are not your father, Morpheus.” The softness of Hecate’s voice caused me to meet her gaze. It wasn’t gentle—I didn’t think The Goddess of Witchcraft was ever reallygentle—but there was something almost like approval swirling deep within her gaze. “From what the huntresses have told me, you honored Larkspur today. That is not something she’ll forget.”

“I will worship her until the realms fall. Even then, when our souls are returned to the void and the cosmos accepts our essences back into the primal chaos that spawns us all, I will find her.”

That was the one truth I knew. The one unfailing, infinite thing in a world doomed to crumble—Larkspur was the comfort in the dark.I realized I would do anything to make her happy. Not just safe, but surrounded by good, living in a realm of safety where she would never have to worry about being preyed upon again.

Hecate held my gaze a moment longer; her lips pressed thin as if she were weighing the truth in my eyes. When she found no deception, she placed a hand on my forearm, her strong fingers searing against my skin.

“Your love will be tested, young prince. She needs you now, your strength, your influence in the north, but when all of that fades… when the two of you are placed on an even scale, will you be confident enough in your love—in yourself—to let her fly?”

Her grip tightened on my forearm, a hiss escaping my lips as the pads of her fingers seemed to glow, burning into me.

My chest heaved as a nameless feeling of foreboding coiled in my gut. I felt like the ax was about to fall, and I’d only just realized it was my head upon the block. Flashes of memories flitted through my mind, blurry and coming much too fast to process.

My stomach twisted, nausea mounting as I forced my breathing to steady, willing the thoughts to slow.

“Morpheus,” Hecate’s voice cut through the clamor of my mind, silencing the world. “When everything is darkest and hope is lost, keep going. The most resilient metals are forged under the highest points of stress. You’re not breaking. Only being reforged into what you were always meant to be.”

LARKSPUR

Riding a pegasus was incredible. White wings stretched from the top of their shoulder blades, the pristine feathers glinting in the starlight as we sailed through the night sky. My hands wrapped beneath the wings, feeling the thick muscles flex with each beat as the cloak gifted to me by the huntresses billowed out behind me.

Closing my eyes, I allowed my head to rest on the soft coat as I breathed in the moment. I felt weightless gliding over the clouds, like I was floating in a surreal world where nothing and no one could reach me. The pine forest flashed beneath us, the terrain growing rockier and the mountains sharper, but despite the chill in the air, there was hope of coming out of this alive.

Artemis was sure we needed to go to The Glass Palace in search of Hypnos, but after learning it was, in fact, not a palace but a prison, I had this blossom of warmth in my chest telling me this was where Psyche was. Hecate had confirmed as much before she’d left, relaying that Hypnos had many prisoners kept in the palace-turned-prison. All we had to do was retrieve a key from a prominent family in the north, and then Psyche would be in my arms. Safe.

Morpheus had assured us obtaining the key wouldn’t be an issue. Despite Commander Egerius once being loyal to Hypnos, Morpheus pointed out that the head of infantry remained behind while his father ravaged The Realm of The Living. Artemis hadn’t looked convinced, insisting we spend the better part of the day just outside his territory to allow more of her huntresses to join us.

“Just ahead is where we’ll sleep,” Camilla told the huntresses flying around me.

I leaned forward on my pegasus, glimpsing a slab of rock jutting out from the mountainside—a perfect landing location for all of us—and a few meters below it was a narrow stream cutting through the pine forest. Thank the gods for that because I seriously needed to bathe.

Camilla had given me the uniform of the huntresses: a short tunic cinched in at the waist that had been paired with flexible pants built to run and a thick cloak. I’d allowed myself the cloak but tucked the rest away until I could scrub off the blood still clinging to my white linens.

The blood of all of the vile dark ones who’d thought they could touch another being without their permission, all to fulfill some sick perversion of power. Morpheus had slaughtered them all, making each beat of their wretched hearts pump with fear in their last, agonizing moments.

He’d left the ground stained with their blood in honor of me.

I glanced over, easily finding the dark wings in a sea of white. His golden eyes were already trained on mine as if he’d been watching me the whole time… as if I were someone worthy of being watched.

When we’d woken, he’d been worried I wouldn’t accept this part of him—the vengeful prince—but didn’t he know I was just as twisted as he was? And maybe that’s why it was impossible not to fall for him. Because he saw me. He looked into my mindand my fucked up past and didn’t think I was used goods or a dirty, crumpled thing to be tossed aside. When he looked at me and spoke my name in that deep rumble of his as if I were already his, it made me think there could be something in me still worth salvaging.

Morpheus’s golden eyes ringed in red from his earlier execution, grew hooded, smoldering with lust as his gaze tracked everything, from the way my umber curls flew behind me to the flecks of blood staining the white of my clothes.

“We’ll take turns bathing in the stream while the others set up camp,” Artemis called, leading the descent.

Megara looked to Camilla, who spared a glance at me as well before offering a soft smile. “There’s a network of caves if you prefer to sleep inside. Like many of the huntresses, I wish to sleep beneath the trees. Artemis will place an alarm of sorts around the camp, so you’re safe either way.”

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