“We are Sisters of the Beast!” the lot of us cried. “We are Sisters of the Beast! We are Sisters of the Beast!”

I felt a gust of heated breath above my head and then I heard my husband roar, “Ha-Lah!”

“WE ARE SISTERS OF THE BEAST!”

And with the might of the magic that descended, I was forced back, painfully hitting stone, my hands still clasped on each side, holding fast.

Holding strong.

Then, of a sudden, the warmth of sun shone down on me.

I blinked into the blue sky above me before I saw a leaf idly blow in the breeze at the corner of my eye.

Such was my surprise, I shifted my gaze to it and saw a vine of ivy retreating as I felt those that bound my body doing the same.

Serena gave my hand a tug and I sat up, pulling Farah up on my other side.

“You can look around now,” Serena shared.

I turned my gaze to my lap, and I was correct.

Vast tangles of ivy vines were receding to the stone.

And the bowl in the middle of us was no longer billowing smoke. Instead, the embers of a dying fire were quickly disappearing.

I turned my head to the sea and gasped.

For I saw the colossally-long, scaly, eel-like forms of two double-headed angmostros slithering out to sea.

My body hummed. My skin felt alive.

No.

I felt alive.

More alive than I ever had.

I was of the earth.

I was of the sea.

The sky.

The fire.

These women.

The ones who had come before.

And my power would serve the ones born after.

“Can we bloody approach now?” Cassius bit off.

“Yes,” Melisse allowed. “It is done.”

In an instant, I was dragged off my arse, disconnected from my sisters, and pulled into Aramus’s arms.

“Fuck, shite,” he spat over my head. “Bloody sirens-damned hell.”

Well, apparently that was as intense to watch as it was to feel.

I curved my arms around him to show him I was all right, and to make him the same.

“You will not be doing that ever fucking again, piccolina,” I heard Mars decree.

“Boarding a ship bound for any-damned-place else is looking a bloody sight better right now, Ellie,” Cassius clipped.

“True?” I heard Farah call hesitantly.

“We will talk later,” True bit out.

“That was extraordinary,” I heard Chu murmur.

“Wasn’t it?” Serena asked.

I smiled against my husband’s chest.

Chu would most definitely be at one with discussing Serena’s desires.

Aramus pulled just enough away to scowl down at me.

“I do not know what there is to smile about, wife,” he ground out. “A bloody angmostros almost bit your bloody head off.”

“Really?” I queried.

“Really,” he stated curtly. “Or at least one bloody head of one, the other head of it nearly took Silence.”

“How remarkable,” I muttered.