Chapter 34
Sera
Maliki’s growls fill my head, his annoyance with Morpheus palpable. Is everything okay? I hedge, frozen inside this circular room—the one I ended up in after free-falling for several minutes before magically landing on my feet. Unlike the last cylinder-shaped pit, this one has a ceiling.
About twelve inches over my head.
So I’m basically in a circular box, something I’m trying not to lose my mind about.
I’ve already scanned every inch of the glowing rocks around me for a way out, and nope. I’m trapped in here.
It’s something that would have bothered me before losing all of my senses in the plane of nonexistence. Now, I’m just thankful to have my hands.
And my connections to Maliki and Morpheus.
Their banter is keeping me sane, their thoughts filled with a lightness I desperately need right now.
I’m not ignorant as to why they’re bantering, though. Morpheus is purposely goading Maliki in order to keep the situation positive. But deep down, I hear the concern in his thoughts. He’s trying to mask them, and I appreciate the effort. However, we all know something is clearly very wrong.
We need to find Hades.
Yes, Morpheus agrees. And we need to find you, little dreamer.
Well, I’m stuck in a box, I remind him. So good luck.
Luck isn’t needed, he promises me. You’re our mate. We can feel you, Serapina.
I frown. You can?
Mm-hmm, he hums in confirmation. Can you feel us?
I… I try to determine how to feel them, to garner any sort of sense of my mates. But all I can do is hear their thoughts. No… But I should be able to, right?
Morpheus doesn’t answer me right away. However, he doesn’t need to. Because I find the knowledge in his mind, the very real connection that we should have, which I seem to lack.
Why? I wonder, searching my head for an answer. Why can’t I sense my mates?
Using the information I gathered from Morpheus’s thoughts, I follow the same channels within myself and hunt for my fae.
Only, I don’t seem to have access to that part of myself. It’s… it’s blocked, I realize, finding the darkness clouding my mind. What…?
Morpheus says something I don’t quite hear. I’m too consumed by this shadow lurking in my head. It’s… it’s familiar. Pulsing. Hypnotic.
I try to mentally trace it, seeking to interact with the essence.
So strange and… Why do I recognize it?
Morpheus responds.
I should probably listen.
But I’m… I’m too lost to the enigma inside my mind. It shifts and molds as I mentally prod the substance, the inky membrane clearly concealing something important.
Something linked to my mates, I decide, frowning.
I don’t appreciate the cerebral block. I want to be able to sense my males just as well as they sense me.
It’ll help us find Hades…
Morpheus speaks again, his tenor a rumble in my head as I psychically punch through the dark smog in my mind.
And suddenly I’m falling. Again. Just like before with the endless void.
Only this time… this time I feel a cord pulling me along. Pip? I wonder, my eyes scanning the darkness as hope fills my heart. Are you here, Pip?
But as glittering lights begin to form, it becomes clear that Pip is nowhere in sight.
I was never truly falling.
I… I never fell in the first place.
The two thoughts hit me at once as I stare up at the swirling souls above me.
I’m still in the same pit.
Or… or I somehow ended up here again.
Blinking around the cylinder room, I note the runes flashing along the obsidian walls. They’re more organized than before, their pattern seeming to unfold right before me.
But I find more than just runes. More than a vacant space with a hovering cloud of souls above.
I find Hades.
He’s on a throne made of decaying bones, his arms and legs tied down by the roots of a thriving tree.
What…?
I gape at the sight of my unconscious mate. He’s naked. Ashen in color. Not breathing…
And that… that tree is the cause.
I push off of the ground. Or I try to, anyway. My arms resemble lead, like I haven’t used them in a long time.
My eyelashes flutter, my mind suddenly foggy.
The black substance…
No!
I shove the inky cloud away and propel myself upward until I’m sitting upright.
Hades is less than a foot away, his head hanging at an angle that sends all his dark hair across his features.
But I know he’s unaware, at least in the physical sense, because his bare chest isn’t moving.
And I can’t hear his heartbeat.
Not that I should be able to hear it… However, my instincts tell me he’s… he’s dead.
Except not.
His soul is there, his spirit so closely tied to mine. It’s pulsing slowly, absorbing energy from everywhere it can in order to stay alive.
What is that tree doing to you? I wonder, noting the way the limbs are moving and pulsating around him. It’s not a normal creation, which isn’t surprising. Nothing about this place is normal.
Although, that tree also shouldn’t exist here.
How I know that is irrelevant. I simply know. And I trust that knowledge.
Just like I trust the instinct that has me going to my knees beside Hades. The instinct that has me reaching for his hand. The instinct that refuses to let go even when his touch sends a shocking wave of ice through my system.
He’s trying to push me away, I realize. That dark essence in my mind belongs to Hades.
Tightening my hold on his hand, I demand to know why.
And I’m immediately hit with the truth—Hades is protecting my essence from his. He doesn’t want to hurt me.
But he needs me.
He needs my bond. My soul. Our connection.
Don’t cut me off, I tell my stubborn Alpha. Let me help you.
His dark touch grows in my head again, trying desperately to drown me out. To force me away. To guard me.
Because that tree is destroying his soul.
Which puts me at risk. Maliki, too.
I find all of that information in Hades’s quiet mind, his focus resolute. All he’s thinking about is shielding his circle. His mates. Me.
It’s almost as though he fell unconscious with that desire in mind and just… never resurfaced.
Maybe what I’m hearing is an echo of his intention, the goal one he considered right before collapsing beneath the power of this foreign plant matter. These roots. This tree.
Narrowing my gaze, I release Hades and reach for one of the branches.
“Thorns,” I gasp as electricity shoots up my arm. I yank my hand away to shake it through the air. No wonder Hades isn’t lucid or alive. That… that thing is sucking the literal life out of him.
Or rather… death.
It’s taking his gift for resurrection and…
I glance upward, my eyes widening as everything clicks into place. Every puzzle piece. Every word said by Demeter. All of Persephone’s memories. My own experiences in the plane of nonexistence.
Stars. I palm my belly. Omegas create life.
Except Demeter—an Alpha—birthed Persephone.
That has to be rare. Maybe even impossible. I… I don’t know. But Jove was an Omega. Which means his seed gifted Demeter a dose of life—in the form of a daughter.
And that gave Demeter a unique connection—an anchor of sorts. Almost like a mate-circle, only vastly different as mother and child.
The way I’ll be tied to the life growing inside me, I realize, feeling the pulsing bead of energy.
The bond between mother and child is sacred. A bond not meant to be abused or harmed in any way.
An Omega would know that, I think.
However, Demeter wasn’t an Omega. She was an Alpha. Used to being in charge. Used to being the dominant one in a room. Used to making all the decisions, especially in regard to the protection of others.
Having Persephone changed her irrevocably.
She became a mother to all Omegas, choosing to take on our souls as her burden to guard. That care, that responsibility, drove her to break the biggest covenant of all.
She betrayed her daughter’s soul. Her mind. Her heart. She tapped into the mate-bond between Persephone and Hades, something I already suspected, but now I understand how.
She took control of her daughter’s life force and bent it to her will, created a world, and used Persephone’s essence as the anchor.
Only, it wasn’t strong enough.
That’s why it became a state of nonexistence.
The Omega souls were safe but couldn’t manifest a physical presence. Demeter knew that would be the case. But now…
Now with my corporeal link to Hades…
I look up again at the spirits writhing in agony above, their former lives being forced in a direction they’re not meant to go.
They’re populating the world Demeter created.
She’s using Hades’s control over death to… to perfect her manifestation.
Mingling life and death. Weaving together a new form of resurrection with ties to fertility. It’s… it’s convoluted. It’s a web of confusion that shouldn’t be feasible.
But Persephone is the heart of it all.
Her memory.
Her soul.
Her roots.
There’s only one way to fix this. To free the Omegas. To save Hades. To end this once and for all.
Demeter’s ties to her daughter have to be severed.
Which means the anchor must be released.
And Persephone’s soul… needs to be truly resurrected.
My stomach drops.
The only way for that to happen is if Hades agrees to let Persephone go.
I… I’m not sure he’s capable of doing that. His first mate. His true mate. His… his heart.
My eyes fall closed, my hands dropping to my sides.
Can I convince him to kill her memories? To send her soul to rest in a traditional resurrection cycle?
And what will happen to me in the process? I wonder.
Except, I can’t think about that right now. I’ll… I’ll probably disappear entirely… since her soul is my soul.
I’ll die. I wince. I’m absolutely going to die.
But what choice do I have? It’s the only way to free the Omegas and to stop Demeter from killing Hades. And if he dies, I’ll die anyway. So better just me than him, too, right?
And Maliki, I realize. He has ties to Hades, too.
If Demeter manages to reallocate all of Hades’s power by using it to fuel her new world, then everyone Hades is connected to will be harmed as well.
Maybe Hades won’t actually be killed. But he’s already being hurt. And it’s only a matter of time before I feel that, too.
That was the point of the cloud in my mind—the fog he used to protect me.
He knows I’m going to be impacted by Demeter’s rerouting of power. By this… this tree and its branches that are strangling Hades.
I shake my head.
The first step is freeing him from this monstrosity.
The second step is rousing him.
And the third step… the third step is convincing him to do what needs to be done.
He’ll hate it. But there is no other choice. I’ll make him see that. Or I’ll… I’ll find a way to do it myself.
I glance upward. Unless there’s already a way…
My head cants to the side, a new idea taking form.
What if I join Pip in that swirling mass of souls? I think. Will I simply go back to the plane of nonexistence as a nonentity again? Or will it be different since I’m in my corporeal form?
Maliki told me that touching a soul could kill me.
That was when he thought I was human, but I still feel mortal.
Aside from the life pulsing inside me, I realize, my hand falling to my belly again.
My brow furrows. If I join that swarm of spirits, I’ll be taking the one inside me with me, too. My shoulders straighten. No. Not that… That, I can’t do.
Sacrificing myself for Hades and the Omegas is one thing.
But the innocent energy inside me?
My gaze narrows. There has to be another way, then. Another way to sever Demeter’s ties to her daughter and free Persephone’s anchored soul.
Wait…
If Hades’s power can be manipulated in this way to empower a new plane, thereby rendering him one with death… can’t the same happen to Demeter?
Is there a way to reverse the energy flow?
She’s using Persephone to reach Hades.
And I’m… I’m a conduit, too.
“This new link to Hades is exactly what we need to bolster our world.” Those were her words when discussing my resurrection and how it was a mistake, yet a benefit.
A benefit she’s currently using.
Only, I’m not her daughter.
So there has to be a way for me to cut her off. Or shift the exchange of power.
I’m going to need you to wake up, I think at Hades, once more evaluating the tree wrapped around him. And I think I’ll start by freeing you from these branches…