Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125179 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Seth shrugged, sliced into his palm with pure power, and then repeated Xavier’s exact movements. He leaned forward, twisted the doorknob, pulled on it . . . and the door opened.
Abaddon grinned. “Wasn’t so hard.”
His muscles tight, Cain cricked his neck and rolled his shoulders. His creature writhed and hissed and demanded that he find their consort. The only thing keeping both him and his monster from losing their motherfucking shit was that they knew Wynter was alive.
“She’ll be all right, Cain.” Seth quickly whipped up his hand. “I’m not being dismissive of the situation. I just mean that if Kali truly wants her down there, the deity will be with her. She’ll watch over Wynter and do what She can to aid her.”
She’d fucking better. Deity or not, he’d find a way to rain fresh hell on Her if She didn’t.
The coven quickly returned with the sisters.
Ishtar looked unbelievably put-out at the sight of the open door. “We examined every inch of this side of the hill and found nothing.”
“Should we gather some of our people to accompany us to the underground city?” asked Inanna.
“If there are non-Ancients with us, we will . . .” Lilith trailed off, casting a quick look at the coven. “There will be a certain something we cannot do when we fight.”
Inanna’s frown smoothed out as she nodded in understanding. “Ah, true enough.”
Cain turned to the coven. “You four need to stay here.”
“Sorry. Can’t. We have very specific instructions from Wynter, and they include us being down there,” said Delilah.
“We get that there’s stuff you’d rather we didn’t know about your kind,” said Xavier. “But you have our word that we won’t talk to others of what we see.” The crow squawked, as if to back him up on that.
“Wynter told us that you’d want us to remain up here,” Anabel interjected, “so she also asked us to tell you that she literally needs us to be down there. She didn’t explain beyond that.”
Cain cursed, swiping a hand down his face. “Fine.”
Ishtar gasped. “Cain—”
“We don’t have time for debates,” he snapped out. “We have to move. My consort is currently in Adam’s custody, and fuck knows what is happening. What makes it more important to move now is that we’re going to have to move slowly.”
Inanna’s lips parted. “Adam has her?”
“Yes, courtesy of Noah,” Cain bit out. “Who I would happily torture for a fucking lifetime if there isn’t one thing I know for certain.”
“What’s that?” asked Abaddon.
“He’s already dead,” replied Cain. “Wynter will have ensured that by now.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Cain stepped through the door and straight onto a stone platform. The other Ancients and the coven hurried inside and quickly shut the door before sounds of battle could filter down to the city below.
Blocking out his creature’s enraged hisses, Cain held up his hand for silence and listened carefully. He heard nothing. Not even muffled voices. Good. If no noise was trickling upward, it meant none would trickle downward.
Seth lifted his hand and conjured a faint sphere of light, illuminating the spiral staircase, dust motes, and rough-hewn walls. They were clearly in a cylindrical tower. A narrow tower.
“God, I hate tight spaces,” Anabel whispered. “Stay in your crow form, Hattie. This staircase will otherwise be a nightmare for you.”
Ishtar made a quiet sound of complaint as she studied the steps. “There couldn’t be an elevator, no, there had to be a staircase.”
Still holding the ball of light, Seth led the way as they all quietly began to descend the compact staircase, careful not to let their shoes noisily scrape the stone steps. The scents of dust and stale air were strong, aggravating Cain’s senses and the back of his throat.
Considering that Seth’s white sphere didn’t cover much radius, Cain suspected a few other Ancients had conjured their own source of light. He didn’t look back to check. He kept his focus on the steps before him. He had to. It would only take one person to slip and lose their footing for several others to be knocked down like dominoes.
It killed Cain to move so slowly when he knew his consort was somewhere down below, possibly suffering at the hands of Adam. It seemed doubtful that the Aeon was currently torturing her—the bastard had bigger things to concern himself with right now. But the whirl of violent emotions inside Cain made it difficult for him to cling to that piece of logic.
He felt pumped up. Restless. Charged with a dark energy that demanded release.
He kept it all bottled up, still moving slowly. They came across no windows, or even any cracks in the walls that would allow thin shafts of light to beam through. Which was good, because it meant they had a better chance of moving undetected.
The staircase seemed to go on and on and on. The constant twisting and turning aggravated his sense of equilibrium. The slow pace threatened to make his creature lose all patience, even as it understood the need for stealth.