“Cupcake, you aren’t my type. Why do the straight ones think you’re universally attractive to us? It’s a fertility ritual, you knob. You need skin contact. I don’t even want to peek at your flat arse when you’ve got trousers on. Do you want this or not?
Ah. Liam was just playing with his food again. They actually did what he asked. Radames looked like he didn’t know if he wanted to shield Lola’s nudity or his own and Liam looked bored off his arse.
He finally broke out his guitar. Sage used the fact that Liam channeled his magic through music and went to talk to the campus sirens. It was possible to sing someone into a complete coma they wouldn’t wake from unless the siren sang it. That wasn’t totally illegal and was generally used for healing and medicine.
If this worked, he’d have to sing Iman and me awake while we figured out how to draw Adrian’s magic out enough to end this. If it didn’t Liam should be able to keep them like that while Adrian found his inner phoenix.
Liam started singing and playing his guitar. It wasn’t instantaneous, but I could feel myself getting drowsy. Radames and Lola would have noticed it, too. They didn’t even want to risk this being a trap. They started fighting it. I finally understood why Liam got them naked. Their phones were with their clothes outside the circle. They couldn’t call Edmund to hurt Sage.
Morgana warned us the protection circle wouldn’t hold if the salt was disrupted. Radames and Lola started fighting, and it was like a pitch black circle of void surrounding them. Everyone else was moving into place just in case, but most of them were wearing ear plugs in case Liam’s song ended up working.
And then the circle broke and everything went dark.
Well, it was Winter Solstice, and I wasn’t even getting to watch my plan play out. They told me they were searching the catacombs for me, but so far, they hadn’t found me. I’d been working my tape against a rock when Edmund wasn’t paying attention and my hands were free. I was just waiting for my moment.
We also got something wrong. Lola might only be able to have kids in the Void where only Radames could go, but she was bonded with the wedgie kid, too. They were communicating the same way I was with Liam, Khalid, and Lucian. I could tellbecause he’d zone out and then do something like he’d been ordered to.
Which meant ifanythingwent wrong outside of these catacombs, Lola didn’t need her phone to order him to kill me. The emoji texts on the burner phones that everyone had been trying to figure out probably meant nothing when they could just talk telepathically.
He zoned out again while he was receiving communication from the mother ship, but something else happened, too. Edwin’s aura turned blood red right around the time I sensed I was about to be in a fight for my life.
While he was getting his orders, I grabbed another rock and started cutting through the duct tape on my feet. I didn’t know how to fight lightning, but I’d be damned if I was going out without a fight.Someonewas killing Edward tonight and it might as well be me.
When he came back to the present, he realized I was free and looking for a fight.
“All he had to do was help and this wouldn’t have happened. Now you’re going to die, little girl. I was Zeus. This should be easy,” he said, flinging a bolt of lightning at me.
Except now that I knew he had it, I was prepared for it. I jumped out of the way and it missed me. I felt something bubbling up in my stomach. I was madder than a wet cat at all of this. They’d murdered several students who caught them meddling with birth control spells. I was pretty sure Erica was to keep her away from Mazen. They decided to rape Liam instead of asking for help and this shit for brains could have killed me when he kidnapped me.
They were due a reckoning. I stood up, faced him, and just screamed. It wasn’t a banshee scream, I was just pissed. Edmund was Ivar’s size. Hecouldhave fought back when Liam was breaking his nose or Elliot and Petros were fucking withhim. He was lying low because he’d been a part of this the whole time and we never saw it.
Whatever he saw on my face terrified the reincarnation of Zeus. He started hysterically screaming and clawing at his face.
“You picked a fight with the Morrigan,little boy.”
I didn’t even have to lay a finger on him. He kept screaming and bashed his own head in against the wall. I picked up a rock and kept hitting until his brains were falling out just to be totally sure. I’d never killed anyone before, but that was satisfying.
The noise tipped off the people searching for me and they stepped through a portal. Professor Theron had a giant, ornate bow and arrow with her and had an arrow nocked.
“What happened here?” she asked.
“I got pissed. He started screaming and slamming his head in the rock. I just helped the rest of his brains come out.”
“You just manifested the Phantom Queen part of the Morrigan. The part of you that can manipulate a battle by instilling terror into people.”
“Well, can someone get me to that clearing? Edward was bonded to Lola and they can talk telepathically. Lola gave the order to kill me, so something went wrong.”
Professor Theron waved her hand, and a portal appeared.
“Go get ‘em. And it’s an honor to fight beside you.”
I marched through not knowing what to expect, but everyone I cared about hadbetterbe okay.
It was pandemonium. We all made and drank the potion Professor Thornheart gave us to see in the dark. It helped, but it wasn’t perfect. I could see a lot better once I shifted, and I didn’t like what I saw.
Radames was agiantfucking snake. His body was thicker than Ivar’s shoulders and he was longer than my Baba’s truck. Lola was standing in his coils. We knew nothing about her magic, but, apparently, she needed to be touching someone to infect them with the void. The blackness we were standing in was disorienting and felt gross, but it wasn’t killing anyone.
We couldn’t get near either of them. No one could touch Lola and Mazen was the only person immune to Radames’s gaze, andI was pretty sure that didn’t extend to his venom. We were at a standoff and I wasn’t sure if anyone who couldn’t shift could see as well as I could.
