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T EN

ESTRELLA

My shock rippled through me at the revelation that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Even as the implications of it sank deep into me, it didn’t quite strike in the way I’d expected it to now that I knew.

My parents were from Tartarus.

That was the extent of what I could pry from the Morrigan. Nemain had immediately clamped her lips shut like she was physically unable to say more, leaving me to stare at her sisters in the hopes that they would pick up where she’d left off. Neither muttered a single word, not even when I’d probed for answers.

The beast inside of me had vanished the moment the gate stripped away my magic, but it would make sense that she was the consequence of that birthright. If my body wasn’t really my body, was she what I was truly meant to be?

I swallowed, thinking of the horrific beasts I’d heard in the night. How many more nights would I need to spend in Tartarus in the en deavor to complete these trials and confront Medusa before I could return home and save Caldris?

The thought that I might have been one of them, something of this world and not my own…

Gods.

A very different kind of sound traveled through the ruins of what seemed to have been a village, emerging out the other side as we approached. The flames consuming the buildings disguised it, making it blend in with the surroundings until we were nearly upon it. The Morrigan and Cwn Annwn guided me through the center of the street, leading the way toward the sound.

It wasn’t the strangled moan I associated with pain, but the kind that came from pure, undiluted pleasure. I swallowed back my nerves, holding my chin high and shoving down those delicate human sensibilities that had once seemed so crippling compared to Caelum’s assertion and willingness to partake in more creative endeavors.

“What is that?” I asked, glancing toward Nemain. The woman smiled, her white teeth gleaming with a red tint thanks to the flames that surrounded us. Her red eyes seemed to match the fire.

“I should think you know exactly what that is,” she said with a chuckle.

I paused, my feet stopping in the middle of what remained of the road. The dirt beneath my feet was all that remained, but I couldn’t help but envision cobblestones having been there before.

The portrait it painted of a picturesque town vanished from my mind as soon as it had come, leaving me to scramble after the Morrigan. I couldn’t afford to get left behind in a place that was just as likely to eat me as it was to make me one with it.

The flames receded as we approached a newer part of the village, the darkness settling along with a white, filmy mist that descended over the red earth. There were trees here, plants and fresh signs of life that weren’t consumed by fire.

There was also a writhing mass of flesh, bodies upon bodies gathered in the center of the village. From what I could tell, the homes themselves were empty of life, as if every single soul was in the village center. Daybeds surrounded the single bonfire at the center, where my own village would have congregated around a well for drinking water.

Immediately surrounding that fire, there were strange, almost tentlike structures. But the canvas was transparent, allowing each and every person to see the activities that occurred within and offering no privacy whatsoever. But there were cushions and pillows, blankets and furs for comfort within them.

The people who hadn’t found their way to the comfort of one of the tents lingered outside, already lost to the throes of passion with a partner or two or three.

Clothing was minimal if present at all, tiny scraps that covered private parts and nothing else. They were tossed out of the way to give their partners access, a forgotten and irrelevant inconvenience.

Only one man seemed separate from the passion of the orgy, a lone figure sitting on the pedestal placed atop the bonfire. He glared down at the figures below him, his hands chained behind his back. The metal clinked when he shifted, but he made no move to escape.

The wounds around his wrists where the iron touched his skin were deeper than I’d ever seen, surrounded by scar tissue as if they’d been there for countless centuries of suffering. “What is this?” I asked, sticking close to the Morrigan as we approached the village center.

The distinct pulse of music rang in my ears, though I couldn’t find a single instrument that might have been responsible for it. Drums beat in a steady pulse, the rhythm of the strikes sinking into my bones. The hair rose on my arms, the distinct shiver of magic crawling up my spine and forcing me to roll my neck from one side to the other in an effort to ignore the tingle that sank into my pores.

“Phlegyas,” Badb said, her voice coming from too close beside me. I’d been so fixated on ignoring the warmth coiling in my belly that I hadn’t noticed her sidling up next to me. Her breath fanned my cheek, the warmth of it too hot for my skin. It made me feel like one touch and I might burn, like I might be consumed by the magic of sex that coated the air. “His daughter pledged herself and her body to one of Rheaghan’s temples before the Veil. He was one of the first humans to resist the Old Gods, swearing his fealty to The Father and The Mother with the King and High Priest. I’m sure you can imagine what he thought of his daughter’s participation in the Summer Court traditions.”

“I know nothing of Summer Court traditions,” I admitted, swallowing as a woman approached me. She separated from her male partner, striding up without a care for the Morrigan at my side or the Cwn Annwn who growled at her approach.

“They’re very much like this at times,” Badb said, smiling as the strange woman ran the backs of her fingers across my cheekbone.

“Aren’t you hot in all those clothes?” the woman asked, her warm brown eyes running down the length of my leather and armor. “Take them off and join us,” she said, trailing a hand up her belly and between the valley of her very bare breasts.

My breath hitched, and the woman’s gaze was knowing as her eyes fell to my parted lips.

I swallowed, ignoring the pulsing heat in my veins. “I have a mate,” I said, smiling as she reached out to take my hand in hers. She placed it on the side of her neck, slowly slipping it lower so that I could feel the distinctly feminine curve of her collarbone.

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” she said, the words washing over me. It was like a splash of cold water to my system, forcing me to draw my hand back in the stark realization and firm knowledge that he would care.

He would care very much.

“Then you’ve clearly never met my Caldris,” I said with a laugh, squeezing the woman’s hand before I released her. She raised her chin, her head tilting to the side. I felt it in my soul that she recognized that name, that his reputation for violence had traveled even into the depths of Tartarus.

Her head tilted to the side, sadness filling her warm brown eyes as she studied me. Her deep red hair fell about her shoulders in waves, her pale skin gleaming in the shadow of all that fire.

She was beautiful.

“You’re so young. Did you ever even have time to explore this side of yourself before the mate bond snapped into place?” she asked.

I swallowed, considering the answer. Thinking about the days when I’d been far more concerned with the ladies of the night than Lord Byron when they partook in their intimate activities. I’d assumed that to be because of my disdain for the Lord, because such things were so forbidden in the human realm that I dared not even think of them.

“It’s just the magic,” I said, with a shake of my head, denying the significance of the attraction. Always hiding it—sometimes even from myself. It had been the kind of attraction that could lead to my death in the puritan society where the High Priest controlled the very nature of sex and relationships according to expectations for breeding.

She smiled secretively, turning away from me and walking toward the man she’d left behind before. He welcomed her back with open arms, admiring the same sway of her hips from the front that I enjoyed from the back.

She murmured a few words to him, glancing over her shoulder to look at me as she sank her teeth into her bottom lip. He followed her gaze, reaching down to grip her ass in his hands while he held my stare. Putting on a show that I forced my eyes away from, giving them the privacy they hadn’t asked for.

The sound of their footfalls came in our direction until the woman’s long legs and thick thighs filled my vision. The hand that reached out to touch me was male, a single finger crooking under my chin to raise my stare. I couldn’t help the way my eyes bounced back and forth between the man and the woman, waiting for whatever they might say and steeling myself against the rising heat of the torment around me.

“Are you certain we cannot tempt you to stay?” the man asked, reaching his hand around the front of the woman’s throat. He gripped her there, and I could have sworn that I felt the whisper of the touch against my own throat.

“It can be our little secret,” the woman whispered, her voice hoarse with the pressure of his hand at her throat. She reached behind her, stroking him through the thin cloth that covered his groin from view. He groaned in her ear, but his eyes were on me even as she touched him.

“My mate and I do not have secrets,” I said, swallowing and shifting back. “Take your pleasure in those who are willing. I am not one of them.” I continued to shift backward, putting distance between them as they obeyed the final words and engaged with one another more fully with little regard for me. The last dismissal seemed to appease something in the magic, the heated bubble around me bursting so that it felt like I could breathe through it once more. The lust was still there, ever present, but it was no longer suffocating me.

“You should always bear in mind that magic cannot create something from nothing. It is by definition the emphasis of nature, of what is already there,” Macha said, and I turned to find her gaze riveted on the same woman in the way my own had been. Nemain and Badb seemed far more interested in watching a group of men with one another, their mouths moving over one another’s in a slow, tantalizing dance. “If you were not attracted to her, she would not have tempted you. The magic of this place will only send someone who would be temptation for you.”

“They’re trapped here, aren’t they?” I asked, looking at the dozens of souls lost to the throes of passion. How long had they been stuck in the same loop of intimacy?

“Any who pass through this place are tempted by the magic here as part of their trials. Should they give in to temptation, they are trapped here for all eternity and join the celebration,” she said, feeding her arm through mine and guiding me through the fray. Arms reached out to touch me as I passed, gliding across my leather and armor in a way that was seductive but gentle. Pleading but not pushy. I ignored them in the interest of getting through the thickening magic that felt so dense it filled my lungs.

Only the memory of my mate and that shining golden bond pulsing between us kept me walking, pushing me forward out of loyalty.

“It is a shame you never had the opportunity to acknowledge that you are attracted to women as well as men,” Macha said, running her fingers over the swell of a woman’s ass as we passed where she was locked in an embrace with a man and another woman knelt before her. One of her legs was hoisted over the other woman’s shoulder, her face buried between her thighs.

I swallowed back that pulse of heat, turning my stare away and wondering if Caldris could feel my need even outside of Tartarus. I’d felt nothing of him through the bond since entering Tartarus, but I couldn’t be certain if that muting extended both ways.

I didn’t want to join, especially not without him and in a situation where I would become trapped forever. But this only made me miss him more. It made me wish he was with me to be at my side as I had no choice but to acknowledge something that existed within me. “Is it?” I asked her, forcing myself to focus.

I could see the end of the passion ahead of me, and knowing that the end was within sight gave me some clarity of mind.

“Who I’m attracted to hardly matters now. I love my mate and would never even consider being unfaithful to him. Having an attraction to women doesn’t change that any more than an attraction to men would,” I said, passing by the outliers. The last groupings faded into the background as we stepped to the other side of the village, the magic of that temptation vanishing with a quick crack that made my ears pop.