My hands were shaking as I placed one on Atlas’s back, needing whatever Saros had planned to work. I’d do anything. Pay any price. Whatever it took to keep him for our son and me.
Once Saros caught up to us, he simply said, “Get us to the pines.”
Lynx nodded, apparently understanding, and stepped through the painting, the rest of us following. My eyes stayed locked on Atlas’s limp body, my heart locked on the frail hope that Aurora hadn’t been full of shit and that we could keep him here somehow.
I couldn't accept anything else.
We were spat out in a cavern tunnel, a few holes above spilling moonlight into the dim space.
Strange.
Lynx halted and turned to me. “While we still have some light, look in his pockets. There should be some sort of stone or talisman that gets this to work. Didn’t see what it looked like when we came here but it should get us back to the pines.”
I fumbled through the pockets of Atlas’s trousers, finding nothing before combing through his jacket pockets. When my hands flitted over the angles of a small box, I flinched, releasing it, knowing I couldn’t bear to open it and find the ring I’d illusioned onto my finger moments before.
The one he’d all but begged me to wear and be his.
I jolted out of my thoughts as my fingers grazed over something hard and cold, and I plucked it out, examining the polished dark-gray stone inlaid with crystal shards. This had to be whatever Lynx was asking for.
“What do we do with it?” I asked as he ushered us farther into the cave.
“Here,” Lynx finally said after a few minutes, though I had no idea whereherewas without any light in the darkness.
He fumbled for the stone in my hand and clutched it tightly, muttering a few words too quickly for me to understand. Then after a beat, the ground began to shake beneath us.
“What the fuck’s happening?” Hands clutched onto me, but I had no idea who they belonged to within the pitch surrounding us. We lowered through the cave floor, like grains of quicksand, landing within another dark cave.
“Come on,” Saros said, starting to jog toward a dark figure in the distance. “We don’t have much time.”
“Time for what?” I asked, but he was too far away to hear me.
My chest ached, my skin feeling too tight as I followed Atlas’s limp body slung over Lynx’s shoulder while he sprinted after Saros.
There was a rustling sound in the trees, and I glanced back, suddenly realizing Aurora wasn’t with us anymore. In fact, I hadn’t seen her since before we’d entered the cave.
But I didn’t have time to worry about that because, when I faced forward, a well-polished suit and devilish smirk stole my attention. While I’d never met him myself, I’d seen his face in the papers before.
Dante Vivaldi, Vampire King and nefarious supernatural crime boss.
Saros and Lynx continued through the tree line, meeting up with Dante. Lynx laid Atlas on the ground, and the Vampire King knelt next to him, staring at his throat.
Hundreds of pines loomed over us from every direction, as if to witness what was about to happen. A few howls broke up the silence in the distance.
“What is he going to do?” I whispered to Lynx who’d come up beside me.
“Keep death from reclaiming him.” He swallowed thickly, eyes pinned to the vampire and his few friends who were standing slightly farther out.
“Permanently,” Saros added, glancing over his shoulder.
Holy shit. He was going to turn Atlas.
Would that even work?
My gaze darted up to the moon. The Goddess felt more like an unwelcome audience than a comfort now. “Will this interfere with the hex?”
“What hex?” Lynx and Saros asked in unison.
I spent the next minute rushing through what Atlas had told me, why I had left and why he hadn’t stopped his fate. To save our son.
