Page 247 of Bonds of Hercules
The lightness slowly dissipated.
No one else was present.
I frowned.
I was all alone, spread-eagle in the middle of the arena, lying on blood-drenched sand as clouds scudded across the leaden sky.
There were entrails all around—I was surrounded by dead lions.
Fear sank teeth deep into my throat.
Thoughts broken—nothing made sense—I looked down, searching for an answer.
For a reason.
Who saved me?
I tipped my head to the side, sticky curls falling away as I glanced down.
The bronze skin of my arm was unblemished, and it was all the same, my bicep, elbow, forearm, hand, and fingers—I gasped as I turned my right hand over.
Oh, my fucking god.
I sat up and scrambled back, kicking desperately at the sand, but the mirage didn’t disappear. The heavy weight in my hand prevailed.
It’s not a miracle at all.
Father John would not like this.
No one had appeared; no one had saved me; no one else had slaughtered the beast.
A throbbing sensation pulsed through my swollen eye as I tried to open it wide and see better. I licked my cracked lips and once again turned my hand over.
I was holding an object.
A thick scarlet rod, with a wickedly sharp point and a ball at its wide end.
What the heck?
It didn’t look like any weapon I’d ever seen.
It was also made entirely of crimson. I was holding a rod-like object made entirely of scarlet—my blood.
Bits of lion fur were stuck to the end, and I slowly looked across the sand. The lion that attacked me had its stomach ripped open. There was foam on its lips.
It was my blood.
Mypoison.
Overwhelmed, I opened my tingling fingers.
Midair, the rod melted—a pool of smoking blood spread across the sand where I’d dropped it.
In slow motion, with prickling fingers, I knelt to the pile of sizzling blood.
My face reflected in it, one eye swollen and black, barely parted, the other an unseeing white.
I didn’t recognize myself.
