Page 13 of Underworld
“It’s not your fault.” Orion stroked my back once he had me on my feet, his touch carefully avoiding my injured wings.
Pain radiated up and down every nerve ending, but the fact that thiswasmy fault hurt worse than any physical injury. I couldn’t respond to Orion without either lying or inciting a lecture.
Brushing his stroking hands away, I went to the barrier and inspected the fracture. Cole and his demons were almost out of sight, rushing toward a tunnel in the distance. My perception of distance felt distorted by the barrier, as if I was looking through a giant bubble, and I couldn’t tell how far they really were.
But they were retreating. For now, that would have to be enough.
While I stared through the barrier, a flash of movement caught my eye. I narrowed my eyes, trying to follow it as it approached a hill.
Straining to pierce the stygian darkness, I leaned closer nearly pressing my face against the humming barrier.
An animal?
Were there wild animals in this part of Hell? Yuri and Olivia had told me that Fortune Academy had merged with the Underworld… maybe something else had merged with it, too.
Something pale moved along that slope, then turned and looked straight at me.
What is that?
“A horse?” I murmured. But it couldn’t have been a horse because a sharp horn protruded from its head and a distinct glitter diffused the light all around it.
It can’t be…
If there were unicorns in Hell, I’d eat my fist.
Before I could ask Orion what I’d just seen, something snapped in my chest; a pang of aggression and rage painfully burrowed its way through the Virtue bond, making me gasp. It wasn’t Cole. No, I’d recognize this pang of guilt anywhere.
Dante.
He appeared a moment later from the tunnels just as my connection to him faded into nothing as if I’d imagined it.
In some ways, he was just as I remembered him. Tall, strong, with orange eyes that glowed with ancient magic that had created him.
Except now his gaze came with a ruby glow that reeked of Cole’s rage.
“Dante!” I cried, confused why I couldn’t feel him anymore. Was he blocking himself from me, somehow?
He stiffened and stared at me with disbelief. His lips moved, likely muttering a curse as he shook his head.
“He won’t believe it’s you,” Orion informed me, making my heart twist.
Cole did this to him.
Will the universe flip out if I kill one of my Virtues?I thought to myself, meaning it.
Dante rubbed his eyes again and the flicker of the Virtue bond returned, giving me a brief glimpse of his mental state.
I felt how tired he was. Tired of everything. Each of his scars stung, reminding him of each injury he’d survived, some of them otherwise fatal wounds that would have killed a human, not to mention a few supernaturals, too.
He couldn’t take this anymore. Cole’s consistent torment. He only had his rage, now. That’s all that Cole allowed him to keep and he turned on his heel, venturing into the tunnels in search of the spirits of the witches who’d created him.
Suffering in Hell was fitting, to say the least, and he would make sure that he found those bitches and they suffered worse than he did, even if it wound up killing him and Hell became his permanent residence.
He didn’t care anymore. He had nothing to live for because I was dead. I was gone and I wasn’t coming back.
My heart breaking, I launched for him despite the danger that lurked outside of the campus protections, but the breech closed, trapping me inside.
“No!” I punched it hard, leaving a hollowthumpto sound through the barrier. It didn’t send a jolt of retaliating power through me like it had Cole, but it wasn’t going to let me through.
