Page 69 of Summer's Seduction

“What do you believe?” I asked, my gaze flicking to Hecate. “You said Thanatos agreed with Morpheus that Hypnos fled The Underworld because all the portals from this realm to the next are sealed, but you didn’t say you agreed.”

Hecate let the silence stretch, drawing Morpheus’s confused stare before she answered. “Not every portal has been checked.”

“You think Hypnos is still here?” I asked, disbelief and something like hope bleeding through. Because if he was, that meant we had a chance to face him before Zeus got involved and prevent another war from following one that had cost my sister her childhood.

“The Nightmare Kingdom once held a portal, one poised on the edge of a cliff and guarded by?—”

“Chimeras,” I breathed, brows furrowing as I recalled the portal in question.

It wasn’t like the others in The Underworld. Most were passages through endless pools, infinite staircases, or even twisted paths through forests, but this portal was a patch of shifting wind. It looked as if a piece of sky didn’t fit. The mist surrounding it was the same shade of gray as the rest, the trees beyond it just as tall, but there was a warmth, a bending of thelight if you looked just the right way where this world blended into the next.

“Yes,” Hecate said, her voice strong despite how gently she spoke. “It could be seen from The Scarlet Palace.”

“No,” I said as the past and the present collided. It felt like threads were unraveling—like I’d lived the last seven years of my life with a blindfold on. Only it was much longer than that.

Lucius’s voice echoed through my mind.“None of this was your fault, princess. Hypnos believes you’re dead, and it will stay that way…”

Morpheus peppered me with questions after a dream—a dream where he’d had to bite me to pull me out of it.

“And your magic?” he asked.

“Persuasion.”

“That’s not a power among the witches, Larkspur.”

“It’s from my mother’s side… A gift from The Dark Ones.”

“Oh gods,” I panted, my hands gripping the sides of my skull to keep it from splitting in two.

“You know this,” Hecate continued despite me willing her to stop. “Because you are the last living descendant of Melinoe, Goddess of Nightmares, the last of The Strix Family, and rightful Queen to The Nightmare Kingdom.”

MORPHEUS

“But my father was a witch…” Larkspur pressed her palms over her eyes, shaking her head as if denial could change the truth.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I’d planned on talking to her about my theories again, but then everything had gone to shit, and we were left picking up the pieces.

“The man who raised you was still your father,” Hecate soothed. “Just not by blood. Odysseus was the last king to sit on the throne, but your birth father must have been a witch because I feel my magic running through your veins, as slight as it might be. Your mother, Dahlia, can be traced back to the goddess.”

“Epialos,” Larkspur whispered, her brows furrowed. I recalled the name of the man in Larkspur’s memory—when she’d been trapped in a nightmare. “That’s what my mother called the man who claimed to be my father. Who is he?”

Hecate shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

I stepped forward, letting Larkspur know I was there for her if she wanted, but I didn’t try to soften this. She deserved the truth, and it seemed like Hecate was the only person who could give it to her.

“How did my father and Egerius know?” I asked, my eyes narrowed on The Goddess of Witches. I’d had my suspicions about Larkspur’s true identity only after I’d glimpsed Larkspur trapped in a nightmare, but there was no way Hecate, Hypnos, or Egerius, for that matter, could have known who she was.

“I suspect Hypnos and Egerius recalled the scent of her blood.”

My wings snapped wide as my grip tightened protectively over Larkspur’s waist. “If they harmed her?—”

“They didn’t,” Larkspur cut in. “I mean, they did, but not in the way you’re thinking. They imprisoned me.”

The last sentence came out in a disbelieving rush. My little monster’s brows were furrowed, her eyes distant and focused on a long, forgotten past.

“I was in the forest wandering through the mist toward a stream. It was too cold to swim, but I liked to climb up and sit on top of the large boulder beside it, dreaming of what life would look like when I finally escaped my mother.

“There was an attack on the palace. I remember being unable to tell ash from mist as the two mingled together to create a heavy, suffocating cloud. Night Children took to the skies. I watched as their dark wings cast shadows across the moon while steel clashed. I was so afraid.”

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