The Lovely and the Lost by Page Morgan

Author:Page Morgan [Morgan, Page]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-98082-3
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ingrid backed away from the fountain. The arcade entrance wasn’t far, perhaps fifty yards. She could make it if the serpent kept its sluggish pace.

Luc. She stole a glance over her shoulder. He wasn’t there, coming for her in full battle regalia. And the glass doors seemed farther away than she remembered.

Ingrid’s soles scuffed over the marble, a rush of desperation making her clumsy. Luc would come. Any moment he would swoop overhead, his wings like black pennants. There were no other humans here to witness him. But a second passed, and then another, and a fast look showed Axia’s pale serpent now gliding over the marble tiles, its shining scales leaving a track of fountain water in its wake.

Where was Luc?

Ingrid hated that she needed him so desperately. The first moment of fear and here she was, wishing for him to fly to her rescue. She’d started going to Constantine so she could learn to defend herself. She had the power. She’d defeated this serpent before, too, sending spikes of lightning through its boneless coils.

All she had to do was face it. Let Axia’s pet come at her. Her body would react, her lectrux blood would boil and surge all on its own, and she could make the lightning.

Ingrid slid to an abrupt stop on the glass-and-iron floor she’d just crossed a few minutes before. It was a gamble. She tried to imagine the sparks lighting at her shoulders, tried to feel the numbing current coming down her arms. She needed to feel it.

“Don’t fail me,” she whispered, and then spun on her heel to face the serpent.

But the demon was gone.

She let out a shallow breath and searched the corridor, eyes wild. A creature of that length and mass shouldn’t have been able to hide very well.

Ingrid let her shoulders drop, the urge to run overwhelming. It wasn’t gone. The thing was still here. She could feel it.

She took a step toward the entrance, but a strange squelching, like a sweaty palm dragging along a pane of glass, stopped her again. The sound resonated in her gums and made her cringe. It was coming from beneath her.

She lowered her gaze slowly, but she wasn’t prepared for what she saw.

Axia’s serpent was on the underside of the glass-and-iron floor, directly beneath her feet, stuck to the glass like a leech. How it had gotten into the underground arcade and maneuvered its way onto the stretch of ceiling wasn’t something Ingrid had to worry about for very long. Because at that moment the tip of the serpent’s tail reared back and smashed against the glass. Ingrid threw out her arms for balance as the floor shook—and then cracked.

She sucked in a breath as the fissure in the glass carved a path between her feet, branching out in fits and bursts like the overflow of a flooded river.

The serpent rubbed at the glass as it peeled free, curling down toward the strip of white marble floor that ran between the underground shops at least three stories below.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.