Once Upon a Dark October

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I t was the worst sound I’d ever heard. I wondered if Sonia was rending Morrigan’s soul as she’d once done to Clarabella, and that screaming—that horrifying, broken torment—would be all that I’d hear of Morrigan if I survived eternity. Her restless soul trapped within these ruins. Mine bearing a sorcerer’s scar that wouldn’t heal and would instead remind me of this nightmare every time I summoned power into my veins.

I couldn’t bear even the thought.

Morrigan’s blood was overpowering, nectar-sweet and divine and spilling from her much too fast. I stretched for her without looking, following the scent of her alone, the slowing beat of her heart. A grazing caress of her veins—bleeding a new torrent—and I recoiled, her warmth stolen away. Sonia’s cold punctured deep, claws and teeth hooked into Morrigan’s heart. So close to it, the pain echoed within me, seized in my chest. I willed the blood back, tried to staunch its hemorrhaging flow. Sonia cut the tether loose, and I was unceremoniously flung back into awareness.