Page 65 of Death God

Freckles went nude as well. While I wore a phoenix mask with colorful feathers sticking out of the edges, he had a panther mask in place. He said if he came back as a shifter in the next life, he wanted to be a black panther.

We held hands, pretending to be lovers. Marlowe would lose his shit if he saw this. He’d murder Freckles, no matter the circumstances. But he should have faith in me, as I’d never be untrue to him.

“Wow. You don’t get to see this every day,” Freckles sighed as he scanned the orgy scene unfolding in front of us. Basically, everyone was fucking like there was no tomorrow. Traditional one-on-one fucking was rare. A foursome was common. A hardcore group fucking with whipping involved was the most popular variation.

There was no racial or species discrimination here. No one cared who their partners were.

A lot of them were drunk too. Dylan and Phoebe had told the servants to keep filling up everyone’s cups. Drugs were passed around as well. The maids who cleaned my room were eager to enact my orders and pour the drinks blended with the potions Freckles had prepared into the mages’ and witches’ cups.

After I defeated Spartoi, I’d free them and all the slaves in the castle before I burned it down.

Strangely, I didn’t sense the Alpha King anywhere, but I had no complaints if he wasn’t present to make things difficult for me. He’d be searching for me.

Swiftly, Freckles and I snuck toward the dark tower, which loomed ahead, shaped like a massive black swan with its neck stretching toward the murky moon. Black vines covered its ominous façade.

The blackest, foulest magic emitted from the tower, where Spartoi and his dark mages and witches had tortured and absorbed numerous victims to boost their own powers.

A flash of nightmarish memories rushed through me—

I crouched in the corner of a cage before the dark mages dragged me out.

The horseman of war looked down on me through one of his dark mage vessels while I was soaked in my own blood, unable to move an inch.

Those were always the most terrifying, chilling moments.

The dark tower had been my “home” for a century. My spirit had only escaped into the human world and found a family for a few blissful years. I’d endured the most horrific trials, yet I’d never turned into a monster, all because that one human family gave me an ocean of love.

“You okay, Pip?” Freckles asked in a hushed voice, realizing that I was trembling beside him.

Cold sweat dampened my armpits. My survival instincts screamed for me to run away from this place of horror and never return.

But I stood my ground despite every cell rebelling, not wanting me to go into the tower. I was deeply terrified.

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered. “They experimented on me for a century in this dark tower. If they hadn’t moved me that one time and your team hadn’t notified Marlowe and then gotten a strike team to come for me, I’d never have gotten out. I’d have been meat on the horseman’s chopping board forever.”

Freckles found my hand and squeezed it hard before he pulled it away.

“It won’t happen again, Pip,” he said. “They’ll have to get past me to get to you, and that’ll be over my dead body.”

The warmth of his friendship pumped courage into my heart. It was time to face my own nightmares and do what I needed to do.

“Don’t say that,” I said. “It sounds like a bad omen. I’ve lost friends. I don’t want to lose anyone else. Well, mage, let’s do this.”

We entered the dark tower made of black stone and horror.

CHAPTER 18

There were no guards, dark mages, or witches at the entrance or anywhere within our senses. Freckles hadn’t used magic when he’d first arrived since he didn’t want to be detected, but now he was generously throwing spells around. I could single out a few of his spells, like a detection spell, cloaking spell, and voice muffling spell.

I didn’t need spells. My power was innate, but I needed to remember how to use it. I sent my senses further out to probe, and they came back with an empty echo. There was no living being in the tower, except that one power throbbing deep within the earth.

It had to be the great power the spirits had felt and told me about, and it drew me in like my own heartbeat, which made me nervous.

“Looks like no one’s home,” I said.

Freckles nodded, his spell wrapping a soundproof bubble around us.

“It seems too easy,” he murmured. “I don’t like this, Pip. It feels like a trap.”

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