Aery and I watched Persephone disappear around a bend in the path, her crimson silk robe trailing behind her until it, too, was gone. Once Aery deemed it safe, she drew me in close and whispered in my ear.
“I felt something today. It took me a minute to realize what it was, but when I did, I knew you were in trouble.”
“But I am not,” I replied. “No more so than I was when I left here with my mother.”
“That’s just it!” She grabbed my arms and gripped them tightly, her desperation plain. “You aren’t, and I think I know why.” I stared at her in silence, awaiting further explanation. “I didn’t see something this time—not like I usually do. But I did hear something.”
“What did you hear, Aery?”
She took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked over her shoulder, paranoia settling in.
“I heard him.” When I didn't immediately react, she became agitated and began to fidget with my sleeves. “You know. Him…the one whose name we don’t speak.”
“I know of whom you speak. What I do not know is what you mean by ‘heard him’. Was he in your mind again?” I asked as I pulled free of her grasp and took her head in my hands. “Do you need my help?”
She shook her head against my hold. “No. That’s just it. He’s not in my head. I don’t even think he’s trying to be there. It’s—it’s like there’s an echo or a tether remaining between us, and if I focus on it, his voice grows louder. Closer.”
“But he does not know you are listening?”
“No. At least I don’t think he does, but I can’t be sure, and I’m freaking out because I do not want that fucker in my mind again.”
On that, we agreed.
“Tell me what you heard that had you fleeing my father’s realm to find me.”
Her delicate features paled at my question. “I—I don’t fully know what to make of it, Khara. He sounded crazy, like full-on break with reality. He was rambling, and most of what I heard was utter nonsense. But somewhere in the middle, he started talking to someone like they were there with him. It’s so strange for me to hear things and not have visual cues in my mind to follow, so I’m doing my best here.”
“Just tell me, Aery. I must go soon—”
“He said that he would make you his—that this time would be different.”
“Meaning?”
“I get the first part, which is creepy enough, but the last bit…I don’t know.”
I took a breath. “I think I do. He means to replace Eos with me. That maybe this time, he will manage not to break his toy when he plays with it.”
Her face went slack. “Oh shit, Khara.”
“Oh shit, indeed.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I know what I have no intention of doing,” I said as I headed back down the hall.
“How can you stop him?”
“That, I do not know. Not yet.” She followed behind me, asking fearful questions as we made our way to the Great Hall. When we arrived, we found ourselves in the presence of Deimos. Aery slammed to a halt behind me as he approached, his expression as dark and menacing as ever. To her credit, she did not run from the one who had tortured and imprisoned her.
“Thank you for letting me know of this, Aery,” I said over my shoulder. “I will send word if I need anything further. And let me know if you hear anything else.”
“All right,” she replied, her calm voice belying the fear I knew she felt. “Tell Kierson I need to see him soon. I miss him.”
The flutter of her delicate wings echoed softly off the stone walls as she took her leave.
“Why are you here?” I asked the god of terror. “Should you not be searching for your brother?”
“I needed to see you—”
“And how did you know I was here?”
His expression never faltered. “The how does not matter.” He took my arm and started toward the hall that housed his room. “We don’t have much time.”
I wrenched out of his grasp and stopped in the mouth of the corridor. He turned and eyed me tightly. I should have been cowering in fear, but I felt little to nothing.
“You’ve changed, Khara,” he said, circling me as he always had. His favorite way to cow me—to bend me to his will. “You no longer react to me as you once did.”
“Perhaps I see through you now,” I replied. “Perhaps I know that you cannot hurt me anymore as you once did.”
He stopped behind me, my words halting him. He lingered there for a moment, contemplating his next move.
“Or perhaps I’ve never truly unleashed myself upon you as you assume I have.” His hands landed on my shoulders and slowly slid down to my elbows. The prickle of terror that I had once known him to wield danced along my skin. What I had thought I had grown immune to was back, and I wondered if I could not absorb and use his power as I had the others. If not, it would not bode well against Phobos.
As my mind reeled with the implications, Deimos snatched my wrists and dragged me down the hall to his room. He kicked the door open and slammed it shut behind us. Then he stormed across the room and drove me face-first into the wall of shackles. I tried to calm my mind so I could escape as my brother Trey could, but fear seemed to root me in place. Whatever Deimos was doing to me was disabling my system in a way it never had before.
I tried to call my lightning forth, but Deimos spun me around, then bound and tethered me to the wall, my hands behind me. Even if I could call it, there would be no power of Zeus to use against Deimos.
But I did not need my hands to let loose the Dragon’s fire.
I tracked Deimos as he stalked across the room to a trunk of implements that had been used on me many times. I could nearly crane my head around enough to firebreathe at him, but it was as if he expected as much and remained just out of range.
“I think it’s time for you to see what I can do, vasilissa mou. What I am truly capable of…”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he approached my side, and I wrenched against the shackles holding me in place, sparks flying from my fingers into the stone wall at my back. I let loose my fire, but it merely shot past him, burning the sheets on his bed. A small fire smoldered as he stepped to my side and reached around behind me.
“I guess we will not be needing the bed, then,” he said as his other hand reached in front of me, careful not to get close enough to be burned. “But this seems even more necessary than I thought.” I felt cold metal against my cheek before something large and hard and cold bumped against my mouth. “Open…” he said, his voice full of lust and need. “Open or I will shove it in myself…” Instead of complying, I shot fire forth again, the flames surging around the stone gag he was trying to insert. “Now, now, Khara. You know how this ends. I will have my way…”
And he would. He always did.
As soon as I ran out of breath and was forced to inhale, he pinched my nose shut, and though I fought against the urge, survival eventually won out. My mouth shot open, and he shoved the stone gag in so deep that my jaw hurt. As he secured it behind my head, I tried to firebreathe once again. But it was weak and erratic and of little use unless Deimos was foolish enough to come within range, which, given that I had just shown him what it was, I knew he would not be. I was his prisoner—his slave—until he saw fit to set me free, or someone else forced his hand.
Either way, I was his for the time being.
He stepped directly in front of me, the safest place to be since my fire could only reach my periphery with the gag in, and inhaled deeply, a smile overtaking his countenance.
“I have missed seeing you like this.” His eyes closed slowly, as if he were reliving every memory he had of the two of us together in his den of torture. “Missed the fire in those endless green eyes and the way it snuffed out as the fight finally left you. There is so much I still want to do to you…” He reached forward to hook his finger underneath my chin. Knowing it was futile, I still let loose whatever fire I could, the flames sur
ging out of the corners of my mouth. “So much fire…”
He leaned closer until he towered above me, the sheer delight in his eyes enough to inspire my rage. But with no way to unleash it, it was little more than a storm in my belly that could not reach him. I tried to scream in frustration, but the gag withheld it as well, little more than a muffled cry escaping.
“I’m afraid we don’t have much time together,” he said, drawing a cruel finger along the angle of my jaw. It continued down my neck to the curve of my breast, then stopped on top of my heart. With a violent motion, he slammed me against the stony wall, his fingertips biting into my skin so hard it nearly bled. “Phobos grows nearer by the second.”
As he dug his fingers into my chest, a sense of dread and terror unlike anything I could have imagined drowned me. I could not breathe. I could not blink. All I could manage to do was stare up into his empty dark eyes and pray for him to end me, for that would be the only way I would find peace.
The will to die was so strong…
“I told you that a small part of me cared for you in a way you would not understand, and it was that part that did all it could to dim what I am in your presence. To try to stifle my being enough that it didn’t break you, as it threatens to now.” Unable to control my body, I shook and shivered until I convulsed, my head banging against the wall at my back. “I do not wish to break you, Khara,” he said, his free hand pressing on my forehead to hold my head still. A whimper escaped me as he leaned in closer, his tongue dragging along my bottom lip. I feared what was to come next. “This torture is not a punishment, vasilissa mou. It is a gift.”
My knees gave out, but Deimos held me firmly to the wall.
“Remember that it was I that did this to you,” he said before releasing me and letting me fall to my knees, arms yanked up high behind my back. “You will need my gift if I fail and my brother finds you.”
He opened his bedroom door and lingered for a moment. Emotions my brain was too addled to understand looked back at me from his dark eyes.
“I have always loved you, Khara…in my own way.”
He shut the door behind him, closing me in with my racing heart, my ragged breath, and the realization that Deimos had orchestrated this entire scene in order to give me a power that I did not already possess.
One I would need to face his brother, the god of fear.
15
“What. The. Fuck?”
Oz’s angry tone snapped me to attention, and I looked up to see glowing white eyes of rage staring back at me. Before I could even attempt an explanation—not that I could offer one with a gag in my mouth—he stormed over to the wall and, with some effort and creative leverage, ripped the chains from the stone. Rocks and dust rained down around me. Once my body was free, he hooked his hands beneath my arms and hauled me to my feet, my wrists and ankles still shackled.
I attempted to tell him where Deimos kept the keys, but my words were unintelligible. He reached behind my head and unfastened the gag. With a gentleness I had not expected, he withdrew it from my mouth, being careful not to break my teeth in the process. My jaw ached from the position it had been forced into, and I slowly closed and opened it until the joints worked properly.
“You were saying…?” The brightness of his eyes had dulled enough for me to look at him without being blinded, but his rage was as palpable as ever.
“The keys are over there.” I jerked my head toward the adjacent wall and the torture devices hanging there.
He hurried over and returned to fully free me from Deimos’ bonds. “Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Well, I’m guessing he’ll be back eventually,” Oz replied, looming above me. “I’ll wait.”
“He has gone after his brother—”
“He’s signed his own death warrant.” I let out a breath and headed for the door. I made it two steps before Oz caught my arm and turned me to face him. “Tell me what happened.”
“Deimos happened. Is that not obvious?”
“It is, but the details are not. I want those.”
“Do you?” I countered. “Because I fear that your male pride will override what little sense you possess, and you will not hear my words as you need to, but rather how you choose to, and we do not have time for your petty feud with the god of terror. He is not the real threat.”
His grip on me tightened and his eyes glowed brighter. “Did he hurt you?”
“No more than he ever has,” I replied. It did not appear to assuage his anger in the least. “But this time was different. It was not born of his sadistic need to own me—he did it to protect me, in his own way.”
“Because his brother can’t come get you down here, so keeping you prisoner seemed the next logical move?” Oz’s voice was barely his own anymore, his Dark nature in complete control.
“No. Because he wanted to give me something he thought I would need.”
I pressed my hand to Oz’s heart, as Deimos had mine, and channeled the terror just as I had felt it; just as strongly as it had coursed through me. White light flashed in his eyes, then slowly faded until only their normal shade of brown stared back at me, wild and wide. I pulled away before giving him the full brunt of what Deimos had shared with me. It seemed unnecessary, given his reaction.
Pushing him further seemed cruel, a characteristic I did not wish to absorb from the god of terror.
“He said I would need that to face his brother, should he fail to kill him before we finally meet in the flesh. So you see, twisted though his actions may have been, they were necessary in order to pass that along. He knew I would not let him near enough to do it otherwise. He bound my hands so I could not blast him with lightning—”
“And gagged you so you couldn’t breathe fire.” Oz scowled with realization. “Clever motherfucker.”
“Or talented premeditator, whichever you prefer.”
“I prefer dead son of a bitch, but—”
“But he is aiding us, so for now, he lives.”
“Yeah—for now.” His eyes drifted to the wall of broken restraints at my back, and his signature smug smile returned. “Too bad we can’t hang around for a while…I kinda like the idea of you bound and on your knees, under different circumstances.”
“Another time, perhaps—when our lives are no longer on the line.”
“Raincheck, then?” His smile widened.
I gave him a sly one in return. “I am not certain you would survive me on my knees, Oz.” I pressed against him, snapping my teeth at his face. “I like to bite, remember?”
“I can’t say that I do, new girl. Perhaps you should remind me.” His body pressed closer to mine. “I think we could spare a few minutes for that.”
I smiled at him, the wickedness behind it showing through. “Perhaps another time.” I walked toward the door as though I had not just been held prisoner by the god of terror. “Are you coming?”
I looked over my shoulder to find the same smile staring back at me. “Not yet. But I hope to soon.”
We emerged from the Underworld to a most unwelcome sight. Ares loitered near the gates, undoubtedly awaiting my arrival, and I could not help but wonder how he had known I was there at all. What he wanted, though, I knew all too well.
“Khara,” he said, feigning happiness to see me, but that façade fell the moment he saw Oz exit behind me, his black wings spread wide. It was only then that I pondered whether or not their paths had ever crossed before. I turned to assess Oz’s expression, but it gave nothing away.
His words, however, spoke volumes. “Time to go, new girl.”
“Well, well, Daughter. I heard you’d had a run-in with the Dark Ones—”
“And some of your other fucking progeny—”
“—which makes me question your current choice of company.” Ares’ eyes narrowed. “For that and other reasons…”
“The company I keep is my business and no one else’s, Ares. Now is hardly the time to play the role of concerned father.”
“Oh, but I am concerned, Khara.” He took a step forward, and Oz met his challenge with one of his own. His black wing extended far beyond me and rounded ever so slightly to protect my side, not that Ares could harm me. From what I understood, he could not hurt anyone, but that did not mean he could not have another do so in his stead. I scoured the surrounding trees for an ambush. I had not done as he had asked, and I was certain my insubordination would come at a price; what the price was remained to be seen. “So many hunt you, and you seem lost as to how to stop them.”
“If you cared so much, you’d call off your psycho,” Oz growled. “But you and I both know that’ll never happen, don’t we?”
Ares stared at Oz for a moment, as if he had only just now noticed the wall of muscle and deadly wings that stood before him. As if the threat had not registered at all. I wondered for a moment if he was the one I had inherited that trait from—the lack of fear that seemed to drive both my brothers and Oz mad.
“Why are you here?” I asked, stopping their argument before it could escalate. “I will not do what you ask, so you and I have no further business.”
“I think you might change your mind once you hear what I have to tell you.”
“If you think you can use her, you’re in for a rude fucking awakening, Ares. Her mother might have fallen for your tricks, but Khara is way too smart for that bullshit—”
“Do you know why you can never really trust an angel, Khara?” Ares asked, cutting the Dark One off. “Because they have no regard for your welfare—the Light or the Dark.” He pinned Oz with narrowed eyes as he continued. “They only seek to use you or kill you.”
“How interesting,” I replied, sounding anything but intrigued. “The former sounds like what you wish to do—most likely because you can no longer do the latter.”
Unbridled rage flashed in my father’s eyes and he took a step closer, the tension plain in his body. If he had possessed the ability to harm me, he would have unleashed a fury upon me that I wondered if even I would have survived. But he could do no such thing, so I stood fast against his hostility.
Unmade (Unborn Book 4) Page 10