Page 19 of The Catacomb King
Hanging from the walls and the impossibly high ceiling were a vast number of glittering silk cocoons.
The cocoons rotated gently.
The lake was mirror-still.
Fascinated, I bent forward to touch the water’s surface. Surely I could justtouchit. I didn’t have todrinkfrom it.
Somebody behind me roared.
I startled, tripped, whipped around — and fell backward into the lake.
Eleven Months Late
The Prince moved faster than I would have believed possible. He lunged and caught me around the waist. I teetered on my heels, gasping. How could I have been so stupid as to get so close to the lake? I couldn’t swim!
The Prince’s face was full of rage. His lips curled backward. “Don’t you dare touch that water,” he hissed. “Not yet.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I protested, even though I had been. “What is it?”
“HADES!” howled a crackling voice behind the Prince. It was the beetle-godling. He had swept after the Prince and was standing at the threshold to the lake-cavern, his whole round body — oh, gods, hedefinitelyhad extra arms — trembling with anger. “Watch yourpet!”
The Prince yanked me roughly upright. “She’s not my pet,” he growled. “Watch your mouth.”
“I shall say what I like,” the beetle-godling shrilled. “You have no authority, and your revolting little humanfreakcertainly —”
“Isaid,” Hades roared, “WATCH YOUR MOUTH!”
The beetle-godling shut up, quivering.
They glared at each other. Hades’s grip tightened on my waist. I was reminded, glimmeringly, of Calix wrapping his arms around my stomach as he tried to stop me from crossing the border. Oh, how I should have listened.
“You had no authority,” the beetle-godling repeated at last to Hades.
“Out of my way,” Hades ordered him.
Then something in the beetle-godling’s face changed. Like he had figured something out. “Why do you not simply drown her?”
“I’m going to.” My thighs quivered with fear. Then Hades added, “Later. I want her for something else first. That’s what I want to explain to my father. Summon him now or back off.”
The beetle-godling did neither. “We should drown her now,” he crooned. “We need a tribute, Your Lordship. You’ve said so yourself. And look how eager she is to enter the Lake. Practically salivating for it.”
“Don’t touch her.”
The beetle-godling shifted his red gaze to me. My skin crawled. “Do you know what you’re getting into, little girl?”
“I didn’t get into anything,” I spat. “This motherfucker kidnapped me.”
“Mm. And yet you approached the Lake of your own volition.”
“She doesn’t know what the Lake is,” Hades said tightly. “I will tell her when it’s time.”
“It is time now,” the beetle-godling said. He began to scuttle toward us. “In fact, we are eleven months late. As you have, many times, so astutely pointed out.”
Hades thrust me behind him. “No. Not yet.”
“What?” the beetle-godling sneered. “You want to fuck her first?”
My stomach shrank. I looked everywhere for an escape route. Nothing.
