My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy, #1)

A little carnage is a dangerous thing (Part 2)

More of a roll, really. I tumbled off the edge of the hole into the great unknown as the walls above me ground together.

Falling down the rabbit hole, or in this case, dragon hole, did nothing to stifle my anger at the entire situation. Luckily, I landed without too much incident or damage to my person, jumped to my feet, and strode off.

Hannah, Theo, and Kai almost collided with me as they rounded a corner. I didn't even pause, cold fury driving me.

Theo and Hannah hurriedly stepped back, out of my way. Kai merely raised an eyebrow at the naked thirst for revenge written on my face, then fell into silent step beside me.

"Want to talk about it?" he asked softly.

"Mrs. Rivers is dead." Behind me I heard Theo spit out a colorful curse. "Now Delphyne has to die."

Kai touched a fingertip to the back of my head. It came away bloodied. His eyes darkened. "So she does," he agreed.

One more sharp turn left and we hit the center of the maze. My breath caught at the sight before me.

If I'd been asked what the center would look like, I would have guessed it was some kind of cavern, with various pathways branching off of it.

Instead, I found myself in the middle of a ravine. Hot sunshine blazed out of a cloudless, sea-blue sky. Unlike our ravine out back of Hope Park, this one was not trees and dirt, but rock formations. Enormous golden rock cliffs scaled away on either side. A lush, olive green foliage covered their upper third.

Below my feet was more rock, sculpted by eons of wind into small stone dunes.

"I never thought to see this again," Theo breathed. There was a catch in his voice.

"Where are we?" Hannah whispered in awe.

"The Ravine of Phaedriades," Theo said.

Uh, Dorothy, that didn't sound like we were in Kansas anymore. "We're in Greece?"

"Of a sorts," Kai explained. "We're in ancient Greece. Or a reasonable facsimile thereof."

Delphyne. "She willed all this into existence?" I asked in amazement.

"One determined dragon." Theo adjusted his hold on his chain for a better grasp. "She's this way." He led us off.

"How do you know?"

"Because that's where the Sibylline Rock was. Where the Oracle sat."

The stone ground was so uneven, that I had to watch my footing carefully. It would suck to get this far only to make easy snacking because I twisted my ankle.

Theo shot his arm out to stop us. He pressed us back behind a boulder and tilted his head down and to the right. "Look, but don't be seen," he whispered to me.

I peered over to where he'd indicated and exhaled in relief.

Cassie was alive.

Far below us lay a wide, flat section of rock, with a fissure grooved deep into it. Straddling the void was a stone slab, resembling a sacrificial table.

"Scootch" Hannah hissed. She jostled me over so she could see as well.

Cassie stood on the slab garbed in a white flowing robe, arms outstretched to the sky, head thrown back, chanting. We were still too far to hear what she said, but she radiated power.

"Cassandra reborn," Kai said.

A ring of unfamiliar trees formed a semi-circle behind her. Even though I'd never seen them before, I knew instantly what they were; could almost hear the song of their life calling sweetly to me, Persephone, their Goddess of Spring.

"Laurus Nobilis," I said, remembering. Even though they could reach almost sixty feet tall, these were maybe half that. Impressive nonetheless. Small, pale yellow-green flowers bloomed in pairs beside each leaf.

My hands itched to touch them. I sharply reminded myself there would be plenty of time for that. First, Cassie.

Delphyne lay at Cassie's feet, her heavy head resting on her front claws. Her eyes scanned this way and that, but as of yet, had not detected us up high. Every few seconds, her tail twitched violently.

I shuddered, remembering my last encounter with that particular part of her anatomy. I had no desire to reacquaint myself with it.

Considering this was Hannah's first glimpse of a dragon, she was being weirdly quiet. I glanced over at her. She had her head in her hands.

"What's wrong?" I asked, trying not to sound scared.

"My head," she moaned. "It's killing me."

Theo stroked her back. "Take a deep breath, Saul. I think it's the disconnect of your memory loss and the visual proof of Cassie's existence. Your brain doesn't know how to handle it."

"What do we do?" I asked.

"Nothing." Hannah raised her eyes to mine. "I suck it up and we deal."

"We'll have to climb down. There's a path." Theo had assessed our options.

"Are you nuts?" I asked. "I'm not a goat. Kai can jump us down."

Kai shook his head. "Not without attracting a lot of attention, I can't. I'm not Dad with his invisibility cap."

Theo gave me a gentle prod. "Get moving."

Fine. I resigned myself to taking the scenic route and hoped the path wasn't too narrow.

It wasn't. Because it wasn't a path. "You want me to scale the rock face?" I asked in disbelief as we moved into position.

"More like rappel," Theo encouraged. "It's like this. You do your brilliant light trick and lower us all down."

"I'm going to fight a dragon. Do I have to deal with heights, too?"

Theo looked at me sternly. "Get over it."

I wanted to tell Theo that I hated his stupid self.

Except how could I get mad at the guy who'd given up everything to keep me alive and save humanity?

I scowled and stomped off.