Page 29 of Bought By the Manticore

A memory struck me, vicious and clear. It was of my mother and a much younger version of me. We’d crossed through a dark veil and walked into what looked like an exact replica of her den.“This is Thanatos’s Temple,”she’d said.“It is a place of sanctuary for those in need. I don’t wish for you to ever end up here, Skaros, but if we must, we’ll make the choice.”

I’d genuinely considered becoming a recluse in the temple before Medea had come along. The wards around it were impenetrable. A manticore with a taste for human flesh could never escape to harm the death-touched brides of the city.

What had once been a possible solution had become an impossible horror. The blind healer had locked my mate in the one cage I couldn’t pierce.

The rage that coursed through me tasted like madness and futility. I threw myself against the wards again, and they flared, repelling me even harder.

Thanatos’s power would never let me pass. This was a safe space for the crippled, for the lost. No intruder had ever breached it.

But perhaps that was because no one had ever tried. And I’d been born to destroy. I wasn’t afraid to tear the temple apart to get my mate back.

In the end, it was an easy choice to make. If I couldn’t slip through a crack in the masonry, I would break the island open.

The death energy hummed around me, as if in approval. Without hesitation, I stopped trying to pierce the ward. I drove my roots downward, beyond the temple itself. I bypassed the clusters of death crystals entirely, even though they were usually my favored feeding source.

Down below, the waters of the Acheron lurked. And when my roots sank into the dark depths, a thousand screeching voices rushed into my mind.

“Child of Thanatos, you ask for much.”

“You are unwoven.”

“You should be here, among us.”

The lake tried to drag me down, to consume my consciousness. It knew, perhaps, that my mere existence defied everything Asphodelia stood for. But I stubbornly held on and continued to feed.

I’d been a fool once, when Ianthe and I had met in dreams. I’d held back because I’d stupidly thought that my form mattered. She had shown me it didn’t.

I was still her mate, no matter what shape I had. Unwoven or not. Nothing, not even the sentient lake, could sever that bond.

“So be it,”the lake replied, and this time it sounded calmer. Less hostile.

Power exploded over me, so intense it blinded my senses. For a few moments, I thought it would overwhelm me, just like the gorgon’s gaze had. But after meeting Ianthe, after tasting her pleasure, after feeling her heart, I possessed more strength than I ever had in my life.

As the lake’s power surged through me, I allowed my consciousness to drift over the city. Every avenue became my target, every building shaking under the weight of my anger and grief.

The monsters of the city sensed the wrongness. Their death energy grew agitated, panicking in a way it hadn’t even after Medea’s accidental power surge. “What’s happening?” they cried. “Thanatos’s gift! It’s leaving us.”

I shut out their fear and desperation, focusing solely on Thanatos’s Temple. The shell of the powerful refuge still lay beyond my reach, but not for long.

I coiled around the wards, squeezing with every ounce of stolen energy I possessed.Wait for me, Ianthe. I’m coming.

Skaros was angry.

In my heart, I’d known this for months. No, for decades, maybe more. I’d gathered the energy of his weave myself. He’d been angry from the moment he opened his eyes.

The Moirae had warned me back then.“His weave holds a snag, Phix,”they’d said. But I’d refused to give up on him. In my selfishness, I’d damned him to an existence of solitude.

When Medea unwove him, a part of me had hoped he’d find peace. But for all my wisdom, I could still be so blind.

I sat in the Agora of Echoes, in front of the rostrum where I held the most power. Today, the rows were silent, no bidders leaning forward and throwing death crystals at the feet of the death-touched brides. The fires from the bronze braziers flickered, and my fur stood on end.

I wouldn’t apologize to Skaros. I was no fool, and I knew such words meant nothing. But I needed to reach out to him. Perhaps it wasn’t too late—for him, for us, for everyone in the city.

As I left the Agora and launched myself into the air, the scent of agitated death energy washed over me. From above, the city looked strange, like a twisted picture of what it should have been.

Once, asphodels had peppered every avenue of our home, and death crystals had lit our streets with a kindness only death could ever offer.

But before my very eyes, the death crystals were being extinguished. One by one, they were losing their light, and Asphodelia was plunging into darkness.