Semua Bab Blood Beneath the Cypress Knees: Bab 51 - Bab 60

The swamp glowed hellish orange, the fortress now a funeral pyre. Flames consumed every wooden beam, every stone archway, every inch of ground the witches had claimed. Smoke curled skyward like a signal to the gods—or a warning.Rio stood at the treeline, golden eyes fixed on the blaze. “No one leaves alive,” he ordered, his voice like steel.Odessa and Celine flanked him, claws slick with blood. “On it,” Odessa muttered, baring her fangs.A shrill scream pierced the air. From a side door, a witch burst into the clearing, hair and clothes aflame. She made it three staggering steps before Claude lunged from the shadows. His claws tore through her midsection in one clean swipe, organs spilling to the swamp floor.“Next,” he growled, flames reflecting in his golden irises.Another figure scrambled from a shattered window, soot-streaked and coughing blood. “Mercy! Pl—”Thomas was on him in a heartbeat. He drove his claws into the man’s chest, ribs cracking like dry twigs. “You’ll get non

The night air hung heavy with the stench of blood and smoke. The fires around Vera’s ruin had begun to die, leaving only smoldering embers and a choking haze that curled around the surviving rebels like ghosts of the fallen.Some crouched over their injured, hissing soft prayers. Others dragged the bodies of their comrades into rows, their faces set with grim determination even as grief haunted their eyes.Silas stood apart from them, his form trembling in the shadows. Blood streaked his pale face, his dark eyes locked on the blackened ground where Vera’s corpse lay.“That wasn’t the only one,” he whispered, barely audible over the crackling embers.Rio froze mid-step. His green-gold eyes narrowed as he turned sharply to face him. “What do you mean?”Silas’s gaze snapped to him, wide and frantic. “The spell Vera cast… it wasn’t just one binding. It wasn’t just to protect herself." His voice broke, raw with fear. “It’s a gate. And it’s opening.”The ground beneath their feet trembled v

Silas needed help.Adonis snarled, his voice sharp over the roaring wind. “What do you need?”“Blood,” Silas rasped, barely able to lift his head. “Powerful blood. Give me enough, I can seal it.”Lucien didn’t hesitate. He bit into his wrist, letting his ancient blood pour into Silas’s mouth. The witch coughed, but drank greedily.Rio followed, then Adonis, then Claude. Their potent, centuries-old blood seared through Silas’s veins like wildfire.Silas screamed as his body arched, veins glowing faintly beneath his pale skin. His trembling hands slammed into the earth. The rift convulsed violently, the air thick with magic and terror.The massive hand clawing through the opening recoiled. A terrible scream echoed from the other side as the rift began to shrink.“Keep going!” Rio yelled over the rising wind, his golden eyes blazing.⸻The rift’s light pulsed faster and faster—then with a final shriek, it imploded in on itself. The shockwave flattened every tree within fifty feet, sendin

The wind shrieked like a thousand dying voices, rattling the shutters as the hurricane clawed at the plantation. Rain lashed in sheets against the windows, seeping through cracks no matter how tightly they were boarded.Inside, the great hall was dimly lit by oil lamps. Shadows stretched long and twisted as the firelight flickered over weary faces.Junie sat on the couch with Jade curled against her chest, rocking her gently. Willa and Simone flanked her on either side, their hands resting on hers like anchors. Across the room, Jonah paced, his boots clicking on the warped floorboards.Claude, Lucien, Adonis, and Celine manned the barricaded doors and windows, eyes scanning for movement. Every crash of lightning illuminated their tense expressions.But Rio wasn’t among them.He was on the Upstairs LandingRio stood near the tall window of the landing, staring out into the storm. He could see nothing—only blackness beyond the swaying trees. Yet his instincts screamed danger.He felt it

The storm screamed around the plantation like a living, raging beast. Hurricane winds battered the house with fists of air so strong the shutters buckled. Sheets of rain slammed against the roof, pouring in through fractured beams. Lightning split the sky with jagged veins of white fire, each flash revealing the nightmare crawling out of the swamp.The demon gator.It was colossal. Its scaled body writhed and shifted unnaturally, as though too large to fit inside its own skin. Plates of blackened armor jutted from its sides like jagged shale. Spines spiraled along its back, glowing faintly red in the gloom. Horns like twisted cypress roots crowned its head.Its maw yawned wide—lined with serrated teeth as long as a man’s arm. Black venom dripped thickly from its jaws, hissing where it splashed into the flooded mud, sending up clouds of acrid steam.Around its massive form, smaller horrors crawled through the rising water—mutated wolves with too many eyes, pale-skinned swamp leeches th