The Pentagram Child: Part 2 (Afterlife Saga Book 5) Read Free Page B

roots. I didn’t know what was stronger, the deathly vines or the mountain itself. I did however know how far those roots travelled, as I saw the evidence for myself every time I entered my people’s crypt. The Tree of Lost Souls was foolishly also known as the Tree of Life but this was not because it represented what it gave but more like what it took away. And like its mother, I knew what the soulweed wanted the most in this world and right now that was my immortal blood.
    That vermin Alex had certainly known what he was doing by feeding the Tree of Lost Souls Keira’s blood. As soon as it had tasted that brand of ambrosia it had been like an electrical charge to a dead man’s chest. The tree was known as the heart to not only my kingdom of the living but also to my kingdom of the dead.
    And even the dead still had secrets to keep.
    So it was time to go visit one soul that should have died by my hand a long time ago…
    Sammael.   
     
    I let my wings fold in on themselves just at the right moment to land. I knew that if I hadn’t been in this vile realm I would have spent the falling seconds basking in the clean air pushing back at me. As it was however, the second I landed I needed to stretch out my wings in annoyance just to dispel the volcanic black dust this part of Hell was plagued with.
    I stepped up to the tightest part of tangled thorns and tried not to think of what the other half of my soul could be going through right now. I should have healed her! I should have insisted, NO! I should have demanded that I heal her before allowing that bastard to send me here!
    This mounting rage was more than enough encouragement needed to do what I had no choice but to do. I thrust both my bare arms into the hellish plant and let it yank me forward. The second it felt a warm body enter its domain I went forward nearly losing my footing the deeper it dragged me into its deadly breast. I clenched my teeth against what I knew was to come but no matter the anticipation, as it meant nothing the second the needle points pierced my flesh.
    Pain was quickly followed by even greater pain as the thorns sank deeper into the pinnacle points of the entwined Pentagrams, the Tartarus symbols carved into the flesh on my forearms. I felt sick. Not from pain… No, I felt sick knowing the very reasons I was forced to take my knife and hand it over to Aurora. To unknowingly hand the fate of my kind and that of Keira’s to a lost Titan bloodline.
    But it wasn’t using Aurora to do it that caused me to force my vessel to keep its stomach acid in place. No it was knowing that we had all been fooled for so long. How could I or any of us have missed the existence of Sammael’s son living amongst us for so long? If that wasn’t bad enough then finding myself tied to the lowest level of Hell because he had cursed the very necklace I gave to Keira, one that should have protected her...!
    Oh yes, I felt sick indeed.
    “Fuck!” I shouted, both from frustration at myself and from suddenly being hauled forward and being impaled by even more thorns to various parts of my body. I gritted my teeth and let my body be dragged into the belly of the soulweed until finally it released me by flinging my pierced body to the ground on the other side.
    I had been expecting this kind of welcome but it still didn’t mean it hadn’t hurt like a son of a bitch! I got up on unsteady feet and let the anger inside me fuel my healing abilities, so that by the time I took my first step my vessel showed no signs of weakness.
    Directly in front of me stood an arched door of black charred wood in the shape of escaping bodies. My educated guess was this was all that remained when the damned souls of this place had tried to escape these mountain walls. Escaping Tartarus was a useless endeavour and one never yet accomplished by my kind…
    Until now.
    Knowing what I was about to do went against the grain in every way possible as it was the complete opposite as to why I