Page 75 of Summer's Seduction

He shook his head once. “But I can feel him slithering beneath us.”

My stomach twisted as we picked up the pace. “Who’s he?”

Morpheus only shook his head and started up the opaque staircase. We bound down chilled corridors and pitch black rooms, relying on our hearing to measure the reverberation of our echoing footsteps against the walls.

All the while, a looming presence drew near. The floor seemed to groan, and the walls wail as we transversed the landing of the last staircase. Distant moonlight refracted along the ceilings and walls, the thick slabs of glass thinner here than in the lower levels.

“Finally,” I breathed, feeling familiarity bloom in Morpheus’s chest. We were nearly there. With my eyes set on the solo set of stairs leading up to an illuminated door at the end of this hall, I started forward.Only to discover that where the ground should have been, there was only open air.

A high-pitched shriek left my lips as I fell. An answering roar hissed from far below, chilling the blood rushing through my veins as it reverberated through the blackness.

I couldn’t have been falling for more than a second because Morpheus was there before I could scream for help. He caught me with one arm, the other still clutching his sword, as his great wings beat. We reversed directions cresting up until we were gliding across the upper floor.

From this vantage point, I could see the large pit I’d fallen through. It was wide enough to fit three horses, and the edges were smooth, looking as if something had melted right through the glass floors.

“Gods,” I breathed, swallowing down my panic.

“Not quite,” Morpheus said, wings snapping in close as we swooped onto the steps just before the door.

I reached for my sword, feeling safer with it in my grasp, only to find that I must have dropped it. With a curse, I withdrew a curved dagger from my boot and readied myself.

Morpheus glanced behind us as hissing started anew, this time much closer than it had been before. He raised his palm just as I caught the flicker of movement from the other side. It was nothing more than a shadow, but my chest heaved with the possibility that it might be Psyche.

A warmth spread through my body momentarily, a soft peace flooding my system for a brief second and then it was gone.

ItwasPsyche.

“Using my magic will draw him closer,” Morpheus said, his words taking on a frantic tone. “As soon as the door is unsealed, get to Psyche.”

I gave a quick nod, my pulse hammering in my chest as Morpheus called on his magic. The pressure in the air shifted, as it had done upon entering The Glass Palace, but this time it felt different. There was another magic swirling just beyond his, coaxing Morpheus onward as the pressure built. And then released.

The door clicked open, the full light of the moon overhead illuminating the pristine space. Where the rest of the palace had been dark and desolate, this room was filled with thriving plants. There were small trees ripe with fruit and vines climbing along wooden arches with pops of color among them. There was a basin of murky liquid that looked to be pressed and filtered intoclear water through a makeshift distillation system and there in the center of the room donning a thin white gown was Psyche.

Her white curls had grown past her waist. She’d been thin and lanky as a girl, but she was nearly twenty now, and the past seven years had transformed her into a woman.

My sister turned, her icy blue gaze looking almost violet in the moonlight, and smiled.

“There you are, Larkspur. Right on time.”

MORPHEUS

Psyche was here—awake—and looking like the epitome of a well adjusted person. She’d been taken against her will, trapped in a prison riddled with the worst types of beings for years, and had somehow managed to turn her cell into a home. She’d grown afucking garden.

The vast well in the center of the room had been transformed into a glorified plant stand, leaving no trace of The Cornucopia or The Sands of Slumber it once held.

“We need to leave,” I said, more to myself than to them as I felt the pricks of unease slip down my spine.

The ground rumbled beneath our feet, the pots clattering as they knocked against glass. I looked behind us, toward our only exit. Shadows danced beneath the glass floors, bursts of fire illuminating sharp fangs. A hideous snarl sounded as the entire palace shook.

“Larkspur,” I breathed as I sheathed my blade.

“We really should be going,” Psyche said, as if we were discussing what to have for breakfast.

Larkspur urged Psyche to my side as she held onto my other. I pushed from the ground, holding on to both of them as I flew toward the hallway.

The rattling grew impossibly louder, the cool air heating. Fire crashed against the glass floor illuminating dozens of snarling dragon heads a moment before the ground crack and heat scorched across our path.

“Not that way, Morpheus,” Psyche stated calmly as I twisted to avoid the worst of the blast. “Back the way we came.”

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