Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
Bloom
Blades in the Barren Land
Sebastian hauled me through the doorway as the roof gave way in a shower of splintering wood.
Thunderous hooves shook the ground. Blood-curdling yowls split the air.
Monsters—not the elegant high Fae but the exiles, the ones too monstrous, too ravenous to be allowed in the gleaming courts—poured from the barren earth and headed in our direction.
Banished here, they fed on whatever stumbled into their territory.
“Shit!” Sebastian cursed again.
The first one reached us, eight feet of wrongness. Its scaled skin was mottled gray and green. Its yellow eyes glowed. Claws curved like daggers.
A tide of them followed.
Some bore humanoid features with twisted torsos. Others crawled on all fours. One had no face, only a gaping maw ringed with rows of teeth.
The stench of old blood and raw hunger washed over us.
An army of the damned.
“Weapons!” Sebastian shouted.
He’d already drawn a longsword—summoned before the dead zone stifled his magic. He tossed me a dagger. Plain steel. No enchantment, only an edge that would slice.
My fingers closed around the hilt.
The Fae monsters surrounded us, cutting off any hope of escape. Sebastian’s stallion bolted, disappearing into the gray landscape.
No wonder no Fae needed to guard this barren land. Sebastian had been able to get in because the monsters lured victims in. But no one was allowed to leave. This was a killing ground. A feeding pen.
The first creature lunged.
I dodged left. Its claws whistled past my cheek, close enough to stir my hair. I came up beneath its reach and drove the dagger into its side. The blade sank deep. Black blood spurted.
The monster screamed, backhanding me. The blow sent me flying. I hit the ground hard, rolled, and came up with the taste of blood on my split lip.
Sebastian was already engaged with three of them. His sword moved in brutal arcs, opening throats and parting limbs. He fought with lethal grace, each motion pure economy—no unnecessary flourishes.
I pushed to my feet and threw myself back into the fray.
We fought back-to-back, moving in wordless tandem. If Sebastian was surprised by my sudden skill, he didn’t show it.
A spider-legged creature lunged at him from his blind spot. I intercepted, driving my dagger through one of its clustered eyes. It shrieked, recoiling. Sebastian spun and took its head off with one clean swing.
Another came at me from the side. Sebastian’s boot caught it in the chest, sending it stumbling. I finished it with a slash across its exposed throat.
No magic worked here. The dead zone suffocated everything. We fought with mortal weapons, nothing more.
My arms started to burn. Every swing seared through my shoulders. Every dodge, every roll, every scramble cost energy I didn’t have to spare.
I’d dueled the Fates. Nearly drowned in Poseidon’s domain. My body was already past its limit.
A monster slipped past my guard, claws raking down my arm. I felt the sting, then the hot rush of blood. I gritted my teeth, drove my dagger into its gut, and twisted.
Sebastian took a hit to his shoulder. Blood darkened his shirt, but he didn’t slow. He only adjusted his grip and kept killing.
Bodies piled around us. Black blood soaked into the ash and rock. The stench was overwhelming.
Yet more kept coming.
Time lost meaning. There was only the next attack, the next monster, the next gasp of life to cling to.
My grip on the dagger was failing, the hilt slick with blood—theirs and mine. My legs trembled. Each breath became a struggle.
I fought back tears, refusing to let this be my end. I’d won against the Fates—the undefeatable. I’d stolen my own threads, seized my destiny. I’d finally broken the curse that killed me ninety-nine times before.
I was so close. To freedom. To my mate. To the life I had been denied for an eon.
And I would die here. Torn apart. Devoured. Forgotten.
There was no justice in it.
Sebastian fared little better. He fought on, vicious and unyielding, but his movements had slowed. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds. His breath came in labored gusts.
We were losing.
Just as hope began to fray, the sky darkened.
Three figures dropped from above.
The first rode a Pegasus—not the white, ethereal creature of legend but one with a midnight coat and wings like spread starlight.
I knew her.
Belladonna.
The magnificent creature dipped her head toward me and whined low in her throat, a sound of fierce affection. She remembered me, just as I remembered her.
And on her back sat Nero.
The God of Death. My mate. My king.
He wore black armor streaked with blood that wasn’t his own. An obsidian sword was in his hand, trailing shadow and hellfire even here where magic shouldn’t work. His green eyes blazed with fury as he swept the battlefield.
The Mortis Bloom had worked. It had cured him.
“You came for me,” I whispered.
Joy sang through me, pumping new strength into me in a violent, bright current. I leapt, burying my blade in the throat of a spiked beast.
Dante swept down in his archdemon form, his skin like cracking magma, horns protruding from his skull. He wielded a battle-ax fit to split mountains. His bellow shuddered through the ground.
Orren charged in his hellhound shape—three heads, each a boulder of snarling fury, eyes like live coals, fangs dripping hellfire, and jagged wings of fiery nightmare.
They hit the monsters like a tidal wave of destruction.
Dante’s ax carved through three creatures in one swing. Orren’s jaws closed around a monster’s torso and ripped it apart. Nero dropped from Belladonna and moved through the horde like death incarnate, his sword piercing hearts with brutal efficiency.
But Nero wasn’t focusing on the monsters.
He was looking at Sebastian, his expression promising murder.
Nero charged straight for him, sword raised. He meant to end the God of Sun here and now.
“No!” I threw myself between them. “Nero, don’t!”
He wrenched his strike aside at the last instant. The blade halted inches from my face.
“He saved me,” I said, grabbing Nero’s arm. “Sebastian saved my life.”
Nero’s jaw clenched. His eyes burned into Sebastian with pure venom. But he lowered his sword.
The monsters swarmed us. Even with reinforcements, we were outnumbered. These creatures fed on gods. And none of us could wield our full power here.
“We need to work together,” I said. “Or we’re all dead.”
“Never thought I’d fight beside the fucking playboy,” Dante said in disgust, his voice deeper and more guttural in this form.
No one argued. Because I was right, and they had to put their differences aside.
We formed a defensive circle—Nero, Sebastian, Dante, and me on the ground with Orren wreaking aerial havoc, spearing into the largest of the Fae horrors.
Nero carved through the ranks with savage efficiency. Each strike was death. Each step carved our path to escape.
A massive creature—a bear-spider hybrid with too many legs and mouths—charged. Orren’s middle head caught it, jaws clamping. The thing shrieked. He shook it like a rag and hurled it into a cluster of smaller beasts.
Sebastian and I guarded Nero’s flanks. I moved on adrenaline alone, my body pushed far beyond its limits. But seeing Nero, knowing he had come for me—it forged a second wind from sheer will.
Finally, Nero carved a clearing through the horde—a narrow path to survival.
He whistled. Belladonna answered, diving toward us, her hooves striking sparks from the volcanic rock. Then she knelt before me, making it easier to mount.
“Donna has never knelt for anyone,” Dante murmured.
I’d always had an affinity for plants and animals, but Belladonna had loved me long before I became Hades’s queen.
Nero lifted me onto her back, then swung up behind me, his arms caging me in. Orren landed beside us, jagged wings snapping from his back.
“Aren’t you full of surprises?” I said fondly, though I couldn’t reveal I knew him as my loyal Cerberus.
The hellhound’s middle head turned. All three mouths split into a grin. He purred—a sound like rolling thunder—clearly pleased.
Dante climbed onto Orren’s back, settling between the three necks.
Sebastian stood apart, watching us prepare to leave.
“We’re not leaving him,” I said immediately.
Nero’s arms tightened. “Like hell we’re not.”
“He saved my life. I won’t abandon him here.”
“He can find his own way out,” Nero decided.
“Nero.” I twisted to look at him. “Please.”
His jaw worked. I saw the war in his eyes—hatred warring with the inability to deny me.
“The nice hellhound can carry him,” I pressed.
Orren’s response was immediate. All three heads turned toward Sebastian and snarled—a sound that needed no translation: Absolutely not. The hellhound would sooner eat the Sun God than carry him.
Sebastion, bleeding and spent, just stared at us with an unreadable expression.
“Please,” I said. “Don’t leave him to die.”
“Fine,” Nero finally bit out. “But I am not happy about this.”
He called to Orren. The hellhound let out a low and resentful rumble, but obeyed. He stalked closer to Sebastian, his massive tail lashing unhappily.
“Grab the tail,” Nero ordered the Sun God.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes. “You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?” Nero’s voice was glacial. “Grab it, or we leave you.”
With a grimace, Sebastian seized the hellhound’s tail with both hands.
Belladonna launched into the air, her wings beating hard. Orren followed, his own jagged wings pumping. Sebastian dangled from his grip, swinging wildly as the hellhound gained altitude.
“Hold tight,” I shouted out.
Below us, the abominations shrieked, their rage fading into the distance.
We flew hard and fast, leaving the bad land behind.
Behind us, Sebastian’s curses tore through the air—a blistering stream fit to shame sailors.
Then the smell hit.
The hellhound had farted. A sulfurous, eye-watering cloud trailed in our wake.
“Serves the pretty boy right,” Dante laughed over the wind.
Despite everything—the exhaustion, the pain, the terror—a giggle escaped me.
“Sorry, Sebastian!” I shouted into the rushing air. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I laughed because we survived.”