Chapter 35 Sera
Sera
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Everything feels unreal.
This labyrinth.
What just happened with Morpheus and Maliki.
And Hades, I think, remembering his presence. His dominance. His demands.
I… I don’t understand these sensations. This world. This pang in my lower belly.
Maliki met me in the lagoon, but all of that feels like it happened hours ago. Yet it was just in my mind, a dream, one I woke up to… as I came.
I spin around, noting the somewhat familiar walls. I saw them when I first arrived. Examined them over the last few days. But there’s something different about them now.
Vines, I think. There are… vines.
They’re crawling all over the etched skulls, giving the path before me life.
I pause, staring at them. Wondering why they exist. How they exist. Hades, I realize, sensing his touch. His manifestation.
He tried to change his design.
Why?
I whirl again, staring back at the skull-shaped cabin. Somehow, I know he’s returned. It’s… it’s bizarre. Like I’m linked to him in a way that I haven’t felt before.
Part of me longs to return to him. To Morpheus. To Maliki.
Except my steps take me in the opposite direction, a foreign side of me needing to run.
It’s an intrinsic need that rings alarm bells in my mind. I… I know Hades said this would happen, that he built this labyrinth for this very reason. However, each step I take causes my stomach to churn that much more violently.
It doesn’t feel good.
Or exciting.
Or right.
Only there’s something strangely familiar about the wrongness flooding my being. Like I’ve experienced this pull before…
In my dream about Demeter? I wonder, frowning.
No.
It’s similar, yet not.
Is this just a response to my Omega soul? Being confused by my desire since I’m used to human needs, not Omega needs?
Maybe.
But that doesn’t explain the familiar wrongness.
My legs continue to move, taking me deeper into the maze, while my mind spins with caution. The urge to scream fills my lungs. Although, my lips don’t part. It’s like my body isn’t fully under my control.
Which I’ve felt before, I realize. But when?
A vision of another corridor flickers through my mind, like it’s being pushed to me from some repressed memory.
I chase it while my feet continue to pound against the hard ground.
Except suddenly it’s softer.
Littered with petals and grass.
What? I nearly stumble as my brain tries to force my legs to cease running. Yet all I do is sprint harder. What is happening to me?
I look down and note the cement beneath my feet. However, I feel the plushness of a courtyard.
No.
Not a courtyard.
A hallway lined with fire lilies.
I smell their sweet perfume, loving the way they burn for me. Just like Hades…
I blink, the image gone in a flash and replaced by my eerie surroundings. Skulls etched into cement. Cobblestones. Blossoming flowers.
I shake my head, so confused by the juxtaposition between two realities.
Or is it a memory…? My lips curl down at the possibility. What am I remembering?
I search my surroundings, noting how they continue to fade in and out of another time. Another place. Another experience.
My heart beats hard in my chest, the sensation one I recognize. It propels me back to a moment when I was running against my will. Trying to stop. Screaming inside with no outlet.
I swallow, the terror of that day rolling through me in a foreign caress. Yet the memory of it is palpable. Like I know that moment better than any other.
Except it’s gone in a flash, replaced by my chilling surroundings once more as Pip flies into my path. His blue eyes are wide, his hands thrown upward to stop me.
I halt, suddenly in control of my body, and he gestures for me to turn around, a pleading look on his face. “What’s happening to me?” I ask him, my voice a rasp of sound. “Why do I feel so strange, Pip?”
He points again at the path I’ve just run down, urgency in his features.
Until he begins to fade away into another vision. One of a frolicking beast. No. A… a… deer. Only this is no ordinary deer. It has antlers, a majestic black tail, and the markings of a standard animal. But its mouth is moving, and words are leaving its lips. Not sounds. Words.
It’s talking to me.
Only, I can’t hear what it’s saying.
I try to read its lips, to understand the words.
Delos, I breathe in my mind, suddenly aware of his name. A gift from Diana.
My lashes flutter, the knowledge unexpected and the origin unknown.
Except…
Except it’s not entirely unknown, is it?
Persephone, I realize in the next beat.
But the image of Delos vanishes into a very panicked Pip. He’s still telling me to turn around. However, my feet refuse my mind all over again. I want to listen. I want to obey.
The world fades once more into a lush green garden, the bushes around me too tall to see around. It’s beautiful, the flowers blossoming, the sun shining overhead.
Everything stills inside me, my lungs seeming to work for the first time in eons.
I close my eyes for one blissful second, indulging in the beauty of life. The glory of existing. It’s an allure I can’t deny, a call I long to answer.
“Come home,” a soft voice whispers into my ear. “I miss you, sweetheart…”
I shiver, the nickname one that was recently uttered in a very different voice.
A masculine one.
Morpheus.
My world turns, and I’m back in the maze, the thought of him seeming to return me to the present.
Where Pip is whirling around in front of me like a pissed-off tornado.
Though, he’s not alone now. Athena, the owl I’ve only briefly met, is hovering above him, her wings spread wide as she flaps them at me.
Air rushes over my being, forcing me back several paces.
Agony ripples up my legs, the sensation stirred by my need to push forward, not go backward.
But another burst of energy from Athena’s feathers shoves me in the direction of the cabin. Or where I think it is, anyway.
A yelp escapes me as jaws close around my thighs. However, a quick glance downward shows the familiar heads of Howl and Mort, their teeth gentle despite being huge and aggressively holding on to my legs.
They start to walk backward, causing me to stumble along with them. Only for a flourish of mist to whip around us all, stirring us up into a magical cyclone.
Another scream tries to escape me, but I’m lost. Flying. Suddenly alone…
All the familiars are gone.
Even Pip.
And I’m… I’m in that dark space again. The one where I have no body. No corporeal form. No anything.
Just my thoughts.
No, no, no!
I am not going to fall into this vapid nothingness again.
I refuse.
I shove against the mental constraints, locking into my imagination and envisioning a door.
It opens to reveal that maze of bushes again. Fire lilies. Delos…
But instead of staring straight at him, he’s looking at a dark-haired woman with big brown eyes set in an oval-shaped face. She’s stunning. Petite. And commanding the life around her.
Except she appears to be moving against her will, being dragged down the lively corridor by an invisible force. Her lips are parting on a scream she can’t release. And Delos is desperately trying to grab her with his jaws, to tug her back.
But an arrow sails from out of the darkness ahead, spearing the beast right in the heart.
Which leaves the woman shaking with rage and despair. She looks at her beast, her eyes filling with tears, and suddenly I feel her torment. Her heartbreak. Her fear.
Because I am her and she is me.
Persephone…
Her nails claw into the ground, her legs kicking as she’s suddenly on her back and being dragged across the earth.
But everything heals in her wake, leaving no signs of a struggle. Even Delos seems to evaporate into nothing.
As though neither of them was ever there.
“This is for your own good, child,” a voice says, one I know too well by now. The same voice that whispered for me to come home. The same voice that told me I deserved this fate. The same one that dragged me off into a garden for thorns only knows how long.
Demeter.
Her desires whirl around me, her nurturing intentions a palpable presence that almost coaxes me to her side.
Only, I’ve seen the truth.
There are good Alphas in this world, I think, the words ones I can hear myself saying out loud in an accented tone. One that’s similar to Hades’s. The God of Death is a good Alpha, Mama.
I’ve never spoken those statements aloud, and yet I have.
As Persephone.
Her mind brushes mine. Her memories. Her experiences. Her plights.
The Omegas, I think, feeling them all around me. Hearing their pain. Their cries. Their dreams burning away into ash…
This is the place of rebirth. Resurrection. A plane created by Demeter using her gifts…
And the ones Persephone inherited through her mating.
It’s all so clear to me now. So present. So real.
Yet, I know this isn’t happening right now. I’m not truly in this world.
I’m in Hades’s maze.
With my intended mates.
I close my eyes once more, picturing that world. The one I was running within when the strangeness overcame me. The place where my Alphas are waiting. Where my enforcer provides protection. Where my body still exists…
Sensations overwhelm me, ones I finally recognize.
A chill underlined in smoky wisps.
The scent of a crisp morning.
Sinful touches that inspire dark desires.
The combination causes me to fly once more, only it’s not a cyclone of foreign energy rotating around me this time. It’s the caress and embrace of my future. My males. My intended mates.
But it’s so much more than that.
I feel our maze.
Our familiars.
Our lives.
It’s encased in a cold coffin of death. However, inside, we thrive.
The walls are frigid, the floor even chillier.
Yet vines can grow here.
Roots are possible.
Life will begin anew.
I can create. Hades can resurrect. Maliki can protect. And Morpheus can inspire.
It’s an incredible marriage of circumstance and fate.
A world I want to be part of.
A bond I’ll never leave willingly.
Something screeches in my ear, the agonizing sound going straight to my heart. But it doesn’t pierce the shield around my vital organ. Instead, it withers away.
Because I’m safe here.
With my mates.
Surrounded by their warmth.
Their affection.
Their strength.
Demeter can’t touch me.
It’s a fact that becomes true as I open my eyes and find Maliki holding me, his gold eyes intense. Morpheus is beside him, his hand on my arm.
And Hades’s palm is around my throat, his body seeming to cradle mine along with Maliki’s.
It’s like they caught me falling from the sky and formed a nest around me on the ground.
“Sera,” Maliki breathes.
I stare at him, my lips parting to say his name.
But the gravity of everything I’ve just experienced whips around me once more, and all I can do is scream.
Because it’s too much.
Too intense.
Too hot.
A combination of convoluted experiences.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
Except my brain is on fire with the past. The present. The now.
My limbs shake.
My lungs burn.
My heart races.
I try to tell them I remember, that I know where the Omegas are, that we have to help them. Yet all I can do is whimper. Cry. And beg.
Because my world is upside down.
My body is being turned inside out.
And I register with a delirious thought that my heat has finally begun. It’s the only explanation for what’s happening to me right now.
Which means I’m about to be mindless. Hopeless. Entirely at their mercy.
Hades purrs, like he’s excited by the prospect. However, in a grounding moment, I realize none of them are trying to fuck me. Or knot me. Or claim me.
They’re simply comforting me.
Because Morpheus is purring, too. And Maliki’s tattoos are vibrating.
“You’re safe,” Hades whispers against my ear. “Just focus on your breathing, all right? Inhale and exhale.”
“Don’t close your eyes, Serapina,” Morpheus says when my eyes begin to droop. “Look at me, sweetheart. Stay here with us.”
I stare at him and then at Maliki.
Hades is the only one I can’t see since he seems to have me and Maliki on his lap somehow.
Rather than ask questions or try to figure out how I’ve ended up in this nest of limbs, I just do what they suggested and breathe.
It’s easier than thinking.
Easier than remembering.
But as soon as my heart stops thudding in my ear, I clear my throat.
Because easy isn’t always right.
I need to tell them what’s happened. What I know. What I saw.
“Persephone didn’t betray you,” I say, my voice a rasp of sound.
However, I know Hades heard me because he stiffens beneath me.
“She tried to crawl her way back to you,” I go on. “Delos was there to help. But Demeter was too strong.” My voice grows more powerful with each word, my reality mingling with my past, my soul oddly at ease as the truth finally reveals itself in my mind.
I feel miraculously whole.
Strangely vulnerable.
And exceptionally furious.
“I remember everything,” I say, straightening my spine as I sit up more fully. “And I think I know how to find the other Omegas.”
The Netherworld Fae Trilogy Concludes with Knotted Myths…
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