Page 149 of Blood of Olympus

With no apparent warning, I twisted sharply and retched. Nothing but bile fled me, but the acid taste in my mouth would remain — reminding me of what we’d already lost, even should we win today’s battle.

And the odds of that were slim to none.

A deep resounding chuckle bounced off the rubble surrounding us.

My head snapped up, eyes darting around the ruins while Velira hissed, doing the same.

“You should run,” an unfamiliar male voice whispered into my right ear, startling the shit out of me. The invisible man cackled again, the sound grating against me like shattered glass — jarring, sharp, and altogether out of place.

A flicker of light glittered in my periphery but when I turned to look, it was gone — taunting me further on the edges of my vision. No matter where I glanced or how quickly I moved, the glint remained forever out of reach.

Stupidly distracted by the irritation of unattainable light like a grain of sand in my eyeball, I completely missed the danger right in front of me — not that I could see it anyway. I was catapulted back to my senses by the horrendous, ear-splitting shriek of a dragon’s pain.

Velira’s agony rocketed into my mind like an inferno, blocking everything else out so that I, too, was completely incapacitated by the wound to her chest.

Because there was a sword handle protruding from it, just below where her heart lay. Just inches from killing her and stealing yet another morsel of my soul.

And I could not afford to lose any more of it, lest I become that creature who plagued my nightmares.

With more effort that she should be able to muster, Vel closed off the link between us. With her agony forcibly severed from mine, she wailed. Her head lashed to and fro even as her feet stomped thunderously on the ground, shaking the rubble and creating more of it.

“Vel!” I shouted, bolting to her, unsure what to do to ease her pain.

With our link temporarily broken, she just cracked open an eyelid, silently imploring me to help.

And all the while that bone-aching cackle reverberated around us.

“This is gonna hurt,” I murmured, closing my hand around the hilt of the offending weapon. It was hot to the touch, and worn — grooved by hands much larger than mine.

She merely closed her eye again, whining and whimpering and crushing my damn heart in the process.

Without prolonging her torment, I yanked the blade out and leaped out of her way.

As predicted, she thrashed and stumbled, crushing everything miraculously left standing after her last outburst.

When I was no longer in danger of being crushed, I stepped forward, calling to her. “Vel!” I shouted until she heard me over the cacophony of her own wailing.

Ignoring the stickiness beneath my feet, knowing that it was pools of her precious crimson blood, I reached up, waiting until she gingerly placed her head against my palm. I eyed her.

“Go.”

A sad whine snaked past her enormous fangs.

I shook my head firmly. “Find Apollo. He will heal you. I’ll be fine. Go now, that’s an order!”

With a keening wail, she took to the skies. Her blood rained down in torrents with every beat of her trembling wings.

“Bold,” the disembodied voice said. “But foolish.”

And then the world was plunged into a darkness not of my own making.

CHAPTER 37

Nyssa

Blinking to clear my vision did absolutely fucking nothing to actually clear it. Nor did calling the darkness back to me.

These were not my shadows. They were no allies of mine.