Page 14 of Hex
I flinch in surprise when gentle fingers find my chin and, without any effort, lift me from kneeling to standing. “Liege Zelos, your devotion to my daughter is duly noted. Beyond the bond that the Moirai have granted you, the love in your heart speaks volumes. It is that love that I want to celebrate and that bond that I want to enhance.” I hear Hekate’s words and individually, I understand them, but I’m not sure what the hidden meaning behind them is.
The bronze of her sleeve falls back on her right arm as her left hand summons a knife from thin air. Gods are fickle, with mood swings that rival the Denver area weather, so to say that her wielding a knife has me on high alert is a gross understatement.
Be that as it may, I keep my cool because the charge in the air isn’t giving me nefarious vibes.
With a flick of her wrist, she nicks the skin there, scooping up her blood onto the blade of her knife. Melodic words fall from her lips, her eyes closing and a slight breeze swirling around us as though we’ve been thrust outside during a pending storm. It’s only us in this tiny tornado, even if I can feel my brothers behind me ready to pounce, willing to die to save me.
Hekate’s blood lifts from the blade, twisting and turning and mixing with the wind funnel until everything comes to a complete stop.
That’s when I hear her words. “May your bond be the guiding light.” The tip of the blade slices my shirt open, giving Hekate access to my chest, and the blood, as if having a mind of its own, crashes against my skin, right over my heart.
Seconds pass, making me doubt the process and her magic, but I was wrong. So fucking wrong.
When Hekate’s arms fall back to her sides, pain like I’ve never known clutches directly at my heart, like a fist closing its fingers and strangling its life force. I gasp, trying and failing to rid my body of this agony, but as fast as it came, it disappears.
Only then do I realize that whatever Hekate did is working because I can feelher.
I feel her warmth and I smell her unique scent. Her love is my love. Her pain is my pain. I could still feel our bond somewhere deep inside me, but now it’s like a beacon that’s stronger than ever.
My gasp is a word and that word is my hope. “Sage.”
Chapter Six
Sage
Agasp like I can finally breathe wakes me. It’s as though I’ve just taken my first real breath for far too long.
Hack.
I can feel him stronger than ever before. His pain, his longing, it all accentuates my own and I burst into tears, unable to hold them back.
Everything from George, to Trina, to Danika, dying over and over again, all the lives that have been cut short, the love that I’ve missed, the love that is but a dream away…the sobs are for all of it, every teardrop full of loss and hurt. Some have a glimmer of hope, that positive spark I love to cling to so much, trying to push forward.
“Sage?” Saffron’s soft voice makes me close my eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath. “Has something happened?”
Another deep breath helps to calm me and the freefalling tears streaking down my cheeks begin to slow.
“I think Hack has just had his visit with my mother. Our bond has been strengthened.” In my last dream visit he said that washis next stop. Visiting the goddess Hekate.Never not gonna be weird that she’s my mother.
“That’s amazing! How long do you think it’ll take for him to find you now?” Because that’s the whole point. Our bond usually leads him straight to me, but the wards around the mountain have thrown everything off. Visiting Hekate was our last hope of him having any idea where I am because she must be linked to me in some way, too.
“No idea. But when the veil thins on Halloween, he can usually find me before the day is over.”
“Okay, we’re on a twenty-four hour countdown then. And we’ll be saved by the time it’s over.” I think Saffron is the reason I haven’t fallen into a pit of depression. In fact, I know she is. Her optimism is keeping our hope alive and I’m here for it.
We both fall silent when theclip clip clipof shoes echoes through the space outside our mini-caves. It isn’t the same echo that we usually hear when Mera and Aggie come around with bread and water.
“Ah, there she is. The new troublemaker.”
A man wearing a dark-red kimono and Hamaka pants with a silvery diamond pattern is standing in front of my cell. Theclip clip cliphad come from his shiny black boots with a small heel.
“The harpies tell me that you’re Sage, and the one with purple hair is Saffron.”
I wish I knew that for myself, but in all our time spent together, I have no idea what she looks like because she can’t appear in the dreams, only facilitate them…or something like that.
“And you are?”
This feels like thatBeauty and the Beastmoment where Beast steps into the light and Belle gasps at the sight of him, because this man is gasp-worthy. But absolutely not in the strangely hot way Beast is. Snakes writhe around his head in place of hair, andbright yellow eyes like that of a reptile are peering through the bars at me.
