Page 8 of Wicked Warlock
Ophelia groaned, “Change her.”
“I can’t.” He shook his head. “I bloody well wish could.”
He brushed the tip of his finger over the two lines running parallel to each other. Each was adorned with tiny arrows dotting the whole thing. It looked like the marks most of us received when we met our other half. Except this one wasn’t dark like the others I’d seen; no, this one was faded to a dull gray. This one was dead.
“I don’t understand.” Cross glanced around at all of us. “Who was her soulmate?”
My legs gave out and I collapsed to the ground. My body shook from head to toe. Soulmate. Tears pooled in the back of my eyes but later, when I was alone in my room, I would let them all fall. They would fall for my friends, the family I’d build here, now lost. They would fall for each of the lives that were forever gone from mine. They would fall because the only thing I could do for any of them was that. I was the most powerful witch in the world and nothing in my power could undo this.
We sat like that for long moments of silence, huddled around my lifeless friend. Part of me knew if I stood up, if I moved, that would mean it was real and she was gone. If I just sat there, stuck in this moment for a bit longer, then she was still here. But sitting this close I could see how still she was. The only kind of stillness like that was found in death. If I stood, nothing would be the same. The world would move forward without her in it. And I wasn’t ready for that change. I wasn’t ready for a world without any of them. So I stayed, holding onto a moment that I refused to let pass.
Penny looked down at me then around the courtyard. “Zinnia… where is the council?”
Chapter 3
Nova
Blackness took me under so fast, faster than it ever had before. My body twisted and turned in the darkness. I was blind to the world around me and then weightless, like I wasn’t tethered to anything at all. I felt both free and panicked at the same time. Had my plan to save my friends worked or had I killed them all for nothing? I waited for the frantic beating of my heart to fill my ears, yet it didn’t come. The rush of adrenaline never pumped through my veins. My breaths didn’t rattle in my chest. Nothing, I felt nothing, I saw nothing… There was nothing.
This was death. Did my friends feel the same way? Were they lost and weightless? Unable to feel their own bodies? This was my idea, and I wanted to be here for them when we all landed. Yet somehow, I felt so disoriented. I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing. It didn’t feel like it normally did when I came to visit. Somehow this felt different, more permanent in a way. My aimless floating jerked to a halt, and my body drifted to the ground. I expected to hit the floor in a heap. I expected my knees to feel bruised and my hands to scrape the cold stone tile. What I got was nothing. I rose to my feet, but it felt more like a glide, like I was completely weightless. I glanced down at myself only to see right through my own body and straight down to the dark marble tiles.
“Ohhh, shiiitttt.” I threw up my arms and expected them to flop back down and hit my thighs. Instead, I got nothing—no slapping sound and no sting from impact. I was a damn ghost. Shit, shit, shit. This is not going well. This is not the plan. I glanced around, looking for the others… the others I killed. “Astrid! Astrid, where are you?”
I stood in the middle of a long imposing ball room. The dark marble floors extended out before me like a river of blackness. I’d been here once before, and I could see my reflection in the dazzling floor. Yet now I was barely a cloud of a human. The reflection of the ceiling was more defined through my body than my actual body was. I held out my arms. they were completely transparent. Damn it!
I spun in a circle, searching for any of my friends. They had to be here. They had to be with me. My mind raced with panic, yet I felt no response in my body. Nothing. This wasn’t how I planned it. The plan was for us to land here as one, in the same place, so I could get us home. Instead, all I saw were the towering walls with thick black marble pillars that ran from floor to the vaulted ceiling. At the center of the vaulted ceiling hung a dark chandelier with balls of fire dancing on top of each of the spiked torches. The entire room glowed with warm light that barely touched the shadows. Darkness clung to corners and walls. In between each pillar there were places where any dark thing could lurk and hide. I’d been here before; I’d been all over the underworld. But I’d never felt so lost as I did now. Was that how they all felt? Lost? Were they together? I messed up. I messed up something.
“Beckett! Logan! Anybody!” I tip-toed my way across the floor toward the thrones at the front of the room, praying my friends might be there, yet knowing they wouldn’t be.
“What the hell is all the noise about?” A deep voice boomed from the other side of the room.
I turned toward him. “Hades! You have to help me.”
“Help you? I don’t have to do anything.” He marched into the room right past me. I didn’t know if he’d grown used to having me in the underworld so often or if he was tired of my shit all together. Either way, I held my tongue for a moment, trying to gauge his mood. He ran his hand through his wavy onyx hair. The dark strands of his hair fell around his face and into his eyes. His full lips turned down into a scowl, and he narrowed those deep violet eyes at me.
“Dead again, I see.” Hades glared at me and pursed his lips. He strutted past me and headed straight for the throne. When he turned, his long black leather jacket billowed out around him and fell over the arms of the throne made of gold-coated bones.
“How many times can I bring a spirit back from the dead? There is a limit, you know.” Hades tended to lean toward being good-natured with me, but tonight his tone held a sharp irritation I hadn’t heard before. I didn’t have time to think about that right now. I had to get to my friends. Where the hell were they?
I knew I should pay more attention to his words. Knew I needed his help. “Where are they?” I ran my hands through my hair, trying to pull at my strands, but I felt nothing. No sharp pull or strands wrapped around my fingers. I couldn’t even pull my own hair! Anxiety filled my mind and twisted my stomach. “Oh, my god. I killed them all.”
Hades sighed. “Killed who all?”
My head snapped up and I met his eye. “All my friends.”
“Interesting.” He leaned forward, resting elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers under his chin. “Never figured you for the murdering type.”
“It wasn’t murder.” I began to pace in front of him. “Well, it was. Kind of. I don’t know.”
“Death Witch brings death.” He shrugged and leaned back in his throne, running his fingers over the golden bones of the arm rest. “What made you do it?”
“Made me do it? You make it sound like I… I wanted to.” I shook my head. “I-I thought if we made it here, you’d be able to bring us back.”
Hades shot to his feet. The flames in all the lanterns flared even brighter and power swirled around him. “Bring you back!”
I sucked in a sharp breath and shrank away from him. I’d never seen him so pissed off. “I killed them all to escape a fate worse than death.”
“You should’ve chosen that.” He curled his hands into fists at his side.
