Page 65 of Summer's Seduction

“Hydra venom,” Camilla gasped, launching the arrow into the nearest dark one with a flick of her wrist. It sank into theexposed skin on his chest, a tortured cry erupting from him as his pale flesh ignited into boils in seconds.

I doubled over as pain lashed through my head. It felt like my nose had been shattered, the agony blurring my vision until I blinked and realized this wasn’t my pain at all.

Unbridled terror lashed through me as I spotted Morpheus on the ground, blood pouring from his face. Egerius was panting, chest heaving, and face marred with wounds. Egerius reached for the dagger, face set into a grim line as he raised the blade over his head and swung.

LARKSPUR

“Stop!”

The word reverberated through me, blasting out in a raging wave of power. I felt it ripple through the room, freezing everything.

My knees crashed to the floor as the shadows controlled by Lucius’s magic stilled. The rapid pounding of my heart was the only sound in the unnatural silence.

Leaning into the panic, I glanced up, finding Lucius’s eyes wide in disbelief before I bolted through the window and toward Morpheus.

“Leave Morpheus and the key,” Artemis called, her voice dripping with sorrow as she hoisted the broken bodies of Arete and Megara over her shoulders. Hebe, Camilla, and Cyrene were already gone, the distant sounds of their shoes echoing beyond the doors of this tomb. “This is evidence Hypnos isn’t working alone, and your magic is running out.”

“I can’t,” I breathed, not bothering to look back at her as I wove through the carnage.

“I’ll wait as long as possible, but I won’t see another huntress killed.” With that, she was gone, bounding after the others.

Puddles of blood splashed as I ran, the scarlet liquid coating my legs and toes as my sandals carried me across the room to the suspended bodies of Egerius and Morpheus.

Not pausing to analyze the grief etched onto Egerius’s face, I shoved his body off Morpheus. I knelt at my Dark Prince’s side, pressing a palm to his chest. “Move.”

The buzz of magic pricked against my fingers, but he was up in the next breath, chest heaving as he fought for air. I felt it then… the waning of my power. Gods below, it felt like my soul was being siphoned into pebbles of magic, not entirely stopping time but coming close to it.

It was too much. My blood turned to fire, consuming me as the magic wavered. Morpheus’s thrumming heartbeat kept pace with mine as I fought to stay conscious.

“The others…” I started, only to realize my eyes had shut. The pain in my head pulsed, feeling like my skull was splitting. Then, there was a band around my shoulders and under my knees, keeping me from falling as the scent of leather and spice clashed with copper.

“Release the magic,” Morpheus pleaded, his voice pitching.

A crash sounded from far away, and then I was weightless. The inferno raging in my veins cooled as crisp, pine-scent air whipped around me.I blinked, looking up to see the beating of Morpheus’s great wings set before the faint light of dawn. We were flying.

He tucked me closer against his chest as we bound through the air. The dark strands of his hair were matted with blood, matching the dried wash of scarlet flaking off his face. His nose was broken, and I could feel a pit of despair yawning within him, but Morpheus was alive.

“Sleep, little monster.” Golden eyes found mine as consciousness slipped from my grasp. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

Morpheus

Ifelt hollow—like a fall squash split open and my insides scooped out; only in place of seeds, there was a pile of entrails with the ragged bits of my beating heart set on top.

Egerius betrayed me. Not only that, but he’d tried to kill me. And for what? Had Hypnos finally had enough of me? Was I too much of a liability now that it was clear I wasn’t joining my father in wherever this quest for power led?

Fuck.Egerius had a blade to my chest. He would have done it, too, if Larkspur hadn’t frozen time and space for me. If she hadn’t been there…

My arms gripped her slumbering form tighter, willing my little monster to feel how much I loved her. And how infinitely sorry I was to have put her in that position.

She’d been wary—they all had. But I hadn’t listened. How many times was I going to have to fuck up before I got things right? Or worse, before she left me for good.

Shaking the sense of doom looming on the horizon, I focused on the pegasi ahead of us, spotting Artemis in the lead. She’d allowed Camilla to hold Megara as they flew but refused to relinquish Arete.

The air grew colder despite the early morning as we flew north, away from the rising sun and toward the familiar set of mountains. Despite the ambush, Artemis still planned on visiting The Glass Palace.

We’d already reached the foothills of The Echoing Mountains. The cries of lost souls caught on the wind, echoing the grief in my chest.

The mountains were riddled with caves, some said to be connected to springs of water that fed The Styx and The Lethe. The Nightmare and Slumber Kingdoms used exile to the tunnels of The Echoing Mountains as a punishment. They were perilous.One wrong move would cause a being to plummet miles until they crashed into cursed waters.

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