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"I'm sorry," I sobbed, blinking a hot wave of tears down my cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Kai."
"Noneof this is your fault," he hissed, but his voice was ragged, rough. His magic trembled around him, snakes brushing my feathers when my wings faltered. His magic was the only thing keeping us in the air, stopping us crashing into the collapsed villa below where bones would snap and lives would be lost.
It was too close—death.
We both flinched when a deep, resonant voice roared through the air, so loud and otherworldly it made my eardrums shake.
"Where is my daughter?"
A chilling, rattling noise came from Cronus when he parted his awful featureless face, his maw split in a slash.
It took me a moment to realise he was laughing.
"Where is she?"Poseidon roared, water stilling around him until it hovered in a lethal riptide. The kind that looked harmless but pulled you to your death.
I flew away from him and closer to the dark, churning cloud, tears burning my eyes as I scanned for any sign or remnant of my mates. What if this titan had unmade them like Cronus unmade Wynvail? What if there was nothing left of the men I loved? What if—
"Shit," Kai laughed, shock like a firework in his soul. "They're there! The cloud thing just put them on the road. They're alive, my rose. They're alive."
My throat tightened, hope like a noose around my chest as I scanned the ground, searching the wreckage of gods' houses and once-beautiful parks and—they really were there. My bottom lip caved in. A sob burned my throat, but it emerged as a soft scream. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as Em snapped his wings out at his sides for balance as he wavered on his feet, Wane and Verena still clutched to his big chest.
I flew as fast as I physically could, swerving and dropping until I escaped the wind around the ruined walls, and caught a current to glide to the ground.
I landed clumsily, a broken face only prevented by Kai's snakes anchoring us to the ground. The second I was steady, I set him down and took off running, my heart in my throat and breaths wheezing.
"Wane! Em!"
My voice cracked. I sounded broken.
They turned as we raced towards them, frustration mounting when we had to swerve fallen debris, too slow,too slow.Emlyn opened his arms right as I jumped at him, throwing my arm out to hook Wane into a rough hug too. My limbs jellified with relief and terror. My eyes burned as tears streaked my face.
"What happened?" I demanded, my voice squeakier than usual.
"The black fog is Lucifer," Wane said, rubbing my back and strangely calm.
I started so violently that my whole body shook."What?"
My head spun. The storm wasn't a titan. It wasLucifer.Our ally. Okay. Okay, everything was okay.2
"He caught us before we could hit the ground," Em continued, folding a wing around me. "He said more backup is on its way, but we need to get out of here before Cronus can—"
"Eat me," I finished in a flat voice. "Got it."
I clung to my mates harder. They weren't murdered. They were still here, still with me. I was exhausted, at my limit of being terrified I'd lost them.No more. Please no more.
I needed Harvey. Now.
"It's Poseidon, isn't it?" Wane asked, rubbing my back harder, like he knew I needed the touch. He craned his neck to see the deadly still wave and the man floating atop it, roaring in Cronus's menacing face. Was this Cronus's true form, this thing of darkness and flashes like lightning? "Did he come because he owes you?"
"He came because Cronus kidnapped his daughter," Kai muttered. "Renna said something about it this morning."
"We can use them as a distraction," Wane said, silver eyes shifting back to Cronus, always returning to the titan. And I knew his calm was just a mask; I felt his terror. "We need to go, but not that way. The queen just came over the mountains; we need to escape that way."
The queen…
The blinding light racing into the city like a spear of Heaven. That wasLili?
Holy shit, my friends were cool.
