Slayers? Jax…What will he do to Cole?
Saliva builds in my throat. As I turn to his wrist, my lips brushing against marble skin, I open, and I bite down with little hesitation. Sweet, honeyed liquid burns likewildfire down my throat and burrows into sensitive flesh. “I’d have given you my neck, but I’d rather keep my memories to myself.”
My body convulses as blood streams down my throat in burning layers. An ache in my gums flares, piercing through the skin.
“Fascinating. Your glamour has completely shattered.” He adjusts me in his arms and lets out a sigh. “We should leave before the Hellsgate decides to close its doors and trap us here with the echoes of the past.”
The muted underwater sounds pop. An intense rush of low, hissing insects surrounds us. With all the strength I can muster, I open my eyes and finally look upon the man with deep red eyes.
Black hair falls forward, parting in the centre. He looks cold and pale—ashen but beautiful. Like a pretty corpse wreathed by flowers. He is dressed in a white, frill-necked shirt with lacing crisscrossing his chest. There is a speck of blood near where his dead heart should lie.
A screech tears my thoughts away from the nightwalker. A wave of unease churns my stomach as I survey the mountain of bones leading up to the crack I fell through. Creatures prowl towards us, blocking our way.
This is the Hellsgate?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TARTARUS
Death will find you.
His words are alluring. Soft.
And when she does, she will show you your darkest nights. Endure it, for it will pass when you have completely healed from your wound.
“Where…are…we?” I ask, moaning in pain.
“I’m carrying your near-dead arse out of hell,” he says with a deep chuckle, and the hint of a smile nudges at my lips. “Rest, Saya. You deserve it.”
Ink bleeds around my eyes as the nightwalker moves.
Everything he says blurs together, spinning intricate webs, and I sink into a spider’s bite. As I do, the nightwalker’s voice and the sounds of creatures fade away.
Silver moonlight glimmers over two figures in the distance.
I am in the valley. Moonflowers thrive, and pollen sprinkles the air like mist. Further down, a trickle of sound fromthe river winds through the valley, flowing out to the Slayer Sea. Those are the sounds I missed most—the sounds I have longed to hear.
But the happy remembrance is quickly shattered by panicked movements ahead.
Her strangled, whimpering breaths spill from her mouth, while his exhalations sound like a moan. As her hands push against his chest, her Blessed unbuckles his belt, and his friends hold her legs to keep her from escaping.
“Gag her,” her Blessed says. “I don’t want her waking the village like last time.”
One of his friends takes off his shirt and twists it into a thin rope. As he moves it towards her mouth, words I don’t recall saying escape from her desperate lungs. “Zahan Riganun!”
Crimson-dripping ribbons spring from the ground. Her Blessed falls back and scrambles away from her. The men run, and her Blessed is far ahead of the others, fleeing more easily than the rest. Ribbons wrap around his friends’ legs and lift them into the air. Skin stretches like it is made of rubber, and their screams remind her of the cries she released when they dragged her to the valley last time.
A wash of crimson paints the moonflowers red, and as silence torments the night, she curls up in a ball, tugging down her torn gown in shame and disgust.
“Saya, get up!” Mum grabs my arm and lifts me up from the bed of moonflowers. “Your Blessed told his father, but because they can’t punish you, they want your brother.”
As I stand, I stare at Cole clinging to Mum in a restless sleep. Small hands cling to her, and he grunts. But before her words can fully sink in, I face the bloody mess behind me. Streaks of crimson violently splattered across the moonflowers, and clumps of guts dot the garden like pebbles.
My bottom lip trembles, and as I face Mum and the worried look in her hazel eyes that have never mirrored mine, I say, “I didn’t want this.”
Her hand tightens on my arm, and she says, “I know. Forgive me. But?—”
I shake her off and cry out, “Pres laes hos siptau vix cec!”
