Page 83 of Summer's Seduction

Blisters formed on my palms as I eased her to the ground, trusting Psyche and Larkspur’s thundering heartbeat that she would be okay.

I gathered my sword, knowing Lucius was correct. The worst had passed. Larkspur would live, and I needed to ensure there was a world for her to rejoin when she woke.

“Go,” Psyche said once more, hovering near her sister. “She’s working through the last of it.”

Sending a prayer to the fates, I joined Lucius at the center of our troops. Ares turned, the flames along his chariot and horses flickering in the lightning sky a moment before he raised his spear and screamed.

Furies, dark ones, the spelled humans, even the gorgons at our back mimicked the cry. The horde was unleashed as Ares raced toward us.

We were strong and far better at war tactics than them, but they outnumbered us three to one. And with Hermes leaving the portal open, I feared the odds weren’t in our favor.

There were no great speeches, no words of comfort as the wash of enemies swelled—only our beating hearts, our steady breathing grounding us to this moment.

“Elysium awaits,” I said knowing this was our end. Tension rolled through The Dark Ones. If we were lucky, we’d be called to serve Lord Hades in the afterlife once our souls had mended, but I wasn’t for that honor just yet.

“Eternal Paradise is ours,” Lucius yelled, wings bristling as we readied to launch into the skies. “Let’s earn our place among the heroes!”

“And make the gods wait a little longer to claim our souls,” I added, launching into the sky as Aphrodite shot her first arrow. I slashed it in two as Lucius and the others followed my lead, heading straight for The God of War and his soldiers.

I flitted through the early morning mist, slashing down each arrow The Goddess of love shot, allowing myself a moment of joy at the furious glare twisting her features.

It wasn’t until the pouch of sand was falling that I realized Hypnos had remained back, hidden in the shadows with a smug grin on his face. He looked as if he’d already won. Like nothing we could do at this point would stop him.

I dove as the first rays of dawn stretched across the sky, wings tucked in tight as I fought to reach the pouch before it struck the ground. But it was falling too quickly.

I was vaguely aware of Larkspur twisting in the distance, of her rolling onto her hands and knees as the first sounds of steel and bodies clashed. The screaming souls were muffled, drowned out by the pounding of my heartbeat as I watched the pouch containing The Sands of Slumber hit the ground in the center of our warriors… and burst open.

LARKSPUR

“Awaken, daughter. Awaken and become their worst nightmare.”

A soft, feminine voice reached me in the blackness. My body was mended, the long slash across my neck sealed, but something else had been let in. Something that was preventing me from opening my eyes.

There was a burning in my veins, like fire blazing through straw, and I was nothing but a dried, shallow husk. The raging inferno consumed me, sweeping through bone and muscle until it condensed between my shoulder blades.

The skin there hadn’t healed, the gash from the gorgons still open. Still bleeding. The fire spewed out, dragging and stretching my skin as it did so. I screamed, rolling to my hands and knees. Splinters became bones, lengthening as my skin grew taunt, forming the webbing that connected them. Wings.

They were sticky, still slick from formation, but they were whole. And they were mine. The momentary reprieve of realizing I’d grown wings was overshadowed by the pain coursing through the rest of my body.

My fingers dug into the bloodstained, muddy earth, black claws forming where once I had only nails. I felt a pulse along my fangs and my eyes as everything sharpened.

Chimeras howled at the rising sun, the cry reverberating through the surrounding forest. It was fearsome, a warning as much as a declaration, but I knew they were welcoming me. The wild beasts saw me as Larkspur, Queen of The Nightmare Kingdom, long before I’d known who I was. They would have a special place at my side in the future, but first, I needed to ensure there would be one.

The world around me had changed, like pulling the curtain back during the night, only to find it had been morning all along. Only the dream I’d been having had turned into a nightmare.

Persephone clutched Hades, her glowing palm pressed to his chest as he used a whip of shadows to reign death upon Ares. Every time the God of War attempted to slip past him or drive the mangled throng of souls and humans forward, Hades was there, disintegrating them with a burst of death magic.

The power contained in each blast was staggering. I could see it now, how each shadow swirled around another, blending in deep violet and indigo hues, sapping the essence from anything it touched. Judging by the way his shadows swayed, taking on the same color, I’d bet Persephone was the only thing keeping Hades’s soul from being siphoned.

Lucius was commanding the souls of Elysium and The Dark Ones, beating back the wave of humans who looked out of their minds. A sickly sweet scent clung to them—the same one that had been on Morpheus when he’d tried to kill me.

I caught the glint of golden arrows flying through the sky and the goddess responsible—Aphrodite. My lips curled into a snarl. That explained how Hypnos had been able to ensnare so many souls to his cause and why Ares was so invested.

He’d been chasing Aphrodite for eons. Not only was this a war of gods and mortals spanning realms, but I had no doubt he saw this as an opportunity to win her favor.

And there, at the very back, hidden by the army he’d amassed, was Hypnos. He hurled something over the heads of his army, slipping through the clash of furies and dark ones in the sky.

There was a twisting in my gut as I spotted Morpheus among the fray, watching the item sail through the air and then start to sink. It was a pouch, and based on the smile stretching across Hypnos’s face and the horror on Morpheus’s, it was filled with The Sands of Slumber.

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