Page 81 of Fallen Stars
“Two,” she heard him rumble, swords being drawn from the air as he stalked out after her, red coat tails flying in the wind.
She ran, praying to the wind to carry her, for her dreams to catch her, her own tether to guide her. She traversed the gates, leaping through the arch. A chasm opened up, the end of the dream, a vast nothingness below her. She yanked her own tether to her with bared teeth.
“Three,” she heard Ariete yell behind her and tumbled, screaming, into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Red light burst through Elaraas she gasped awake, still standing.
“Run,” she screamed, already staggering forward before she had even taken a second to register her surroundings.
“Elara?” Merissa asked shrilly, leaping off Ariete’s lap.
“I saidrun,” Elara snarled. “Eli!” she bellowed in her mind, throwing the thought out with vitriol as she pounded on the door.
It swung open immediately, and Elara pushed Merissa back out. “Set off. I’ll follow in a moment.”
“El, you have to come with menow,” Merissa replied hysterically as Ariete began to stir.
“Go!” Elara shouted as a rage so blinding took over her. Ariete had bested her,again.She had played right into his hands,again. Enzo’s tether was around her neck, its presence carrying through into the waking world. Perhaps it was that what fuelled her, perhaps it was Ariete’s charm in her veins or her own unending wrath. But she shoved Merissa out of the door, slamming it closed.
Ariete stirred again, and Elara bared her teeth, snatching the nearest hypnom pipe and forcing the mouthpiece down Ariete’s throat.
She couldn’t kill him, not without Enzo’s magick. But she could make him suffer.
She heard pounding on the door, heard Eli roaring in her mind.
“What the fuck are you doing? Get out of there now.”
“Go ahead without me. I’ll catch up,” she replied in her mind.
She heard Eli curse but ignored it all, pulling her dagger from her thigh. With gritted teeth she straddled him, his throat exposed as the god remained in the land of dreams a moment longer, features strangely soft in sleep.
She raised the tip of her blade to the base of his throat, pushing it into his skin.
“This is for my father,” she growled as she began to drag it across his throat. With surprise, she felt a burning pain in her own throat. She shook it off as she continued the line.
“This is for my mother.”
She cried out in pain as she felt liquid seep down her front. She brought a shaking hand up to her throat and felt blood, realising in shock that what she was doing to Ariete, she was also doing to herself. It must have been the bargain, their blood tied.
But regardless of the pain she felt, her fury was greater, and the god before her deserved to be marked.
She clenched her jaw, biting her cheek to stop herself from screaming as the mark she continued to carve into Ariete’s flesh was gouged into her own.
The god jerked beneath her, whole body twitching in agony, but the hypnom flooded his system, the smoke sweet as Elara continued.
“This is for Sofia,” she rasped as she curved the blade in an arc. “And this is for Enzo.” She joined the points together, finished, panting heavily. She could feel her own blood slick down her neck.
A crescent moon stood in bloody relief across the base of Ariete’s throat, right between his collarbones—a moon that she knew would scar. She didn’t care that she had a brand to match. She’d felt worse pain before—the Star beneath her had caused it.
But for a prideful god like Ariete, one always so sure that he could not be beaten—he would never look in the mirror without seeing Elara now.
She kept her dagger in her hand as she leapt off him, the hypnom pipe already low.
“Eli!” she called out again, and the door swung open once more as she rushed out into the packed club.
“Head down. With me.Now,” the god murmured, jaw clenched and eyes set as he paced through the space, the crowd parting before him. His eyes flicked down, and they widened imperceptibly.