Hades' Cursed Luna novel Chapter 524

Hades didn't respond.

Because Orion was right.

He'd been using the howl for over two hours—breaking the compulsion on vampires, saving gammas, keeping his forces alive.

But it was

killing

him.

Each howl drained more energy than the last. Made him slower. Weaker. More vulnerable.

And Orion had been landing more hits because of it.

The claw marks across Hades's back. The bite on his shoulder. The gashes on his ribs.

All because he'd been too slow. Too drained.

But the gammas are alive.

The domes are intact.

Ironwall still stands.

Hades met Orion's gaze.

"Then finish it," Hades said quietly.

Orion's wings spread.

And he lunged.

This time—

Hades didn't dodge.

"Orion."

His voice was tender, wrought with exhaustion.

Orion

froze

mid-air—wings locked, claws extended, just inches from Hades's throat.

His eyes widened into saucers, even in his shifted state. It was the most expression apart from loathing that he had ever dared to show.

It was the

voice .

Soft. Gritty. Tinged with exasperation.

The way that Vassir used to speak.

If Hades noticed the shock rippling through the vampire, he did not show it. He just continued to speak in that agonizingly familiar tone that had haunted Orion for centuries.

"You can't keep doing this. You have lost so much already. Your loyalty. Your honor. Your freedom. And now you will lose yourself, only to bow to him once again." Hades's remaining eye bore into Orion's. "What do you stand to gain? What did Ezekiel stand to gain? Lysandra? Rielle? Thaddeus? Roiben?" His voice softened. "When will you ever learn?"

With every name Hades spoke in that tone that should not have been possible, Orion's gut churned a little harder. A little more painfully.

He blinked slowly, as though it were all a dream.

Then the anger began to simmer again.

The longer he stared at the impostor who had not only taken his brother's face, but his

voice —who had rifled through his memories of their clan, their brethren, the ones who had fallen, the ones yet to fall—

Orion's body convulsed from the inside.

His organs were aflame. His mind in ruins. Anger coursed through him, leaving only desolation in its wake.

The next time Orion's jaw parted, it was neither a roar, a growl, nor a snarl that escaped.

It was a

shriek .

Piercing. Sharp enough to fragment bone to dust.

The vampires froze in their assault, slapping their wings against their ears. The gammas did the same, claws pressed to their skulls, eyes squeezed shut.

The sky could have fallen from the sound that shattered the air.

But it had no effect on Hades.

He only looked on, reading his brother from another lifetime through the ancient bond that still linked them—just as it once had, all those centuries ago.

Hades was no stranger to betrayal from brothers in this life. Maybe it was the reason he could see fully through the rage that Orion cloaked himself with. Why he could reconcile the memories of the adoring brother Orion had been in his past life with this broken shell of a slave who had learned too late that he had bitten off far more than he could chew.

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