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Blood coats my thighs, staining the white sheets around the stark red body trembling between my legs. Both hands in the shape of claws. Its eyelids flip open to reveal black, beady eyes, the whites of its eyes blood red.

Like a Rager.

I gasp and startle awake. Lying on my side, my fingers are clutched tight around something, and as my eyes scan my surroundings, I take in the white horse on the wall. The familiarity. The scent of burning wood and chamomile.

I’m dead. I’m dead, and this is Heaven.

Turning over onto my back, I find a shadowy figure across from me. Illuminated by the moon, the lower half of him is visible—thick, jean-clad legs and heavy boots—before the rest disintegrates into the blackness of the shadows that hide his identity. When I try to kick away, an unbearable pain tears across my stomach.

The figure sits forward, and the light hits his face.

Titus.

But the setting is wrong. “Where’s the sea? And your boat?”

Frowning, he stares back at me with his one good eye that seems to have lost its shine. As if dulled by pain. “My boat?” he asks, as though we haven’t rowed a dozen, or more, times across the sea in it.

Emotions weigh down on me, recalling our final moments, when we reached for each other. A yearning blossoms inside my heart, and I stretch my hand out to him. When he looks up, though, his golden eye is black as night. A demon’s eye.

Kicking away, I back myself from the edge of the bed, until a hard surface slams against my spine where I’ve run into the wall.

“Thalia, I won’t hurt you,” he says, but it isn’t Titus I hear.

It’s Remus. He’s somehow found a way inside my safe escape. No. Not here. Not here, please!

He reaches out to me with his clawed hand, and I let out a scream.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

My whole body trembles, watching the figure retreat back into the shadows. A new wave of pain strikes my stomach, and I grunt, setting my hand there.

“Thalia!” I hear the thunderous boom of Titus’s voice.

Dizziness has my head spinning, and I fall to the pillows.

* * *

“Wake up, Thalia. There’s so much suffering left for you.”

At the sound of Remus’s whisper, I cry out and jerk back, eyelids flipping open to the dark room. Shadows crawl over the wall, and a pinch of pain, like that from a claw, hits my stomach.

A soft stroke against my face sends a wave of terror down my spine, and I smack it away, curling myself into a tight ball so it can’t touch me again. “Stay away! Stay away from me!” I swing out at the shadow looming over me, and feel hands press into my arms, holding me down.

“Thalia, it’s me. It’s Titus.”

It’s a trick.

“T-T-Titus is dead. You’re a liar! Titus is dead! Oh, God, leave me alone! Get off of me!”

I scream.

So loud and so long, my voice goes hoarse. I scream until the figure releases me and backs away, letting me slip into the blackness once again.

Chapter 41

Warmth hits my face, drawing me out of sleep. Nausea churns in my stomach, and I let out a grunt, resting my hand there.

“You’re still healing.” It’s Titus’s voice this time, and I frown toward the shadows in confusion.