Page 67 of Bride of Death
The sun is gone, the sky littered with fragmented lights.
And all around us are piles of dead earth. Rubble. Bones. Unspeakable remains.
When one of those lumps moves in the distance, I jump, and Maliki instantly pulls me into his side with one hand while brandishing a fiery purple sword with the other.
“Paradox Fae?” Morpheus asks, sounding impressed.
“One of the many gifts I received from my father,” Maliki mutters, his focus on the shifting ground ahead.
It’s black soot mixed with rock and what appears to be charcoaled roots.
“How is this real?” I whisper, confused by the juxtaposition between the palace we just left andthis. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re outside my gates,” Morpheus murmurs. “Now you see why those Betas prefer maintaining my estate in return for protection.”
A growl echoes on the wind, the sound making my knees weak. Maliki’s arm tightens around me, his gaze still on our surroundings.
“When the Omegas disappeared, their souls could no longer be felt or sensed. Which should be impossible, as Mythos Fae cannot die. But their loss could be felt by everyone in this realm, especially all of Alpha kind. Many of those Alphas have gone mad. And with them, their Betas.”
Another growl accompanies Morpheus’s words, adding an ominous undertone to what he’s telling me.
“The realm is now a wasteland of violence. There are no nurturers here. No life. No love. No pleasure. No joy. Ourheart is quite literally dead. So all the Alphas can do is try to survive. Feral needs take over. Dominance wars become a trivial playtime.” He shrugs. “The sun no longer has a need to even shine.”
“Then why does it glow outside your palace?” I whisper, my pulse thudding loudly in my ears.
“Because I live in a world of dreams,” he murmurs. “I manifest fantasies, and the fantasy of my Betas revolved around what used to be.”
It’s such a sad answer. So disappointing. Soheartbreaking.
“And how did this happen?” I ask, afraid that I already know the answer based on what little I’ve learned about Persephone.
“No one really knows,” he says, surprising me. “But it’s believed that an Omega betrayed her Alpha by mating him for the sole desire of stealing his energy. And she used his energy to suffocate Omega souls once and for all.”
I stare at him, no longer seeing or hearing anything else around us. “How is that possible?”
“Because that Alpha is the God of Death. His power revolves around ending life for good. Freeing souls to a world no one else can find or feel. And it’s assumed that his Omega tapped into that power to end all of Omega kind.”
I’ve forgotten how to swallow.
Because that Omega is Persephone.My soul.
And the God is Hades.
No wonder he hates me…
It’s a miracle he hasn’t tried to kill me for what my soul did to him.
“What is lesser understood, though, is her mother’s involvement,” Morpheus goes on. “Persephone and Demeter were very close. And Demeter was an Alpha renowned for hating many of her kind. What I wonder is if Persephone helped her willingly or if Demeter forced?—”
A screech cuts him off as an animal comes from the sky and strikes a creature just as it appears within inches of Morpheus’s back.
Maliki shifts, his sword angled toward the two tussling beasts, a shock of silver and gray feathers whirling in a pile of… of…Is that dirt?
I can’t figure out what I’m seeing. It’s like a glob of skeletal remains made of charcoal.
And it appears to be fighting an owl.
Morpheus growls at it, the low rumble of sound underlined with power.
