by River Ramsey
He was sitting on an ornate wooden chair like a throne, his slick hair pulled back over one shoulder. His eyes locked on me like a cat ready to play with its meal, but I pushed aside my disdain and stalked over to him.
“Where is Hades?” I demanded, knowing the only way to avoid his silver-tongued bullshit was to cut to the chase.
“My, my. So forceful,” he taunted, standing so we were toe to toe. “That’s a new side of you.”
“Kore is in trouble,” I said firmly. Hard to believe I’d actually found him charming once. Then again, he was good at casting illusions and his good looks were the perfect distraction.
The amusement drained from his eyes and turned to concern. So he did actually care about her. That was a surprise. One that made me feel a conflicting range of emotions, but there was no time to sort it out now. “What’s wrong?”
I glanced over my shoulder, making sure the others weren’t within earshot. The last thing she needed was this getting out and making things even worse for her. “The OSTF is here, and they arrested Kore.”
“Arrested?” He raised both eyebrows. “What the hell did she do now?”
There was an unmistakable hint of pride in his voice.
“She didn’t do anything, but they think she killed Phrixus, for some reason,” I muttered. “That’s all your dad would tell me.”
“My dad?” He frowned. “That’s insane. There must be a misunderstanding.”
“If there is, he’s not interested in sorting it out,” I countered. “I need to find Hades. He’s the only one who can get her out of this mess.”
“If the OSTF is involved, I’m not sure even he has enough sway to pull the plug on an investigation,” Loki murmured, clearly troubled. He rarely seemed deep in thought, but he was cleverer than he liked to appear on the surface. I was no less worried for Kore than I’d been a few minutes ago, but at least now I didn’t feel like I had to face it alone.
Of course, the choice of company left something to be desired.
“I’ll see if I can get ahold of him,” Loki finally said, taking out his phone to dial Hades’ number. It rang a few times before going straight to voicemail and he hissed, “Shit.”
“Try Fenrir?” I asked hopefully. He was the ever-loyal hound, always at his master’s side. Hopefully today wouldn’t prove an exception.
Loki dialed the other number, but was met with the same results. He hurriedly typed out a couple of texts and paced the length of the room.
“Are they usually this hard to reach?”
“No, not both of them,” Loki said, his tone giving me all the more reason to worry. “We’ll just have to wait.”
Chapter 15
Hades
Thousands of books in the school library, and not a single one of them had anything useful to say about my father’s weaknesses. Other than his character, it was hard to imagine he even had one.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
I froze at the sound of my mother’s voice. Usually I welcomed her visits, but today wasn’t one of those times. I turned to face her, noting the concerned look on her face. She’d been distant since I’d brought Kore back, and more so since my trip to the Ether. I knew she disapproved of my actions, namely as they related to avenging her death, but that was all the more reason to go forward.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said, closing the book in my hand before putting it back on the shelf.
“You can’t stop him, Hades. He’s too powerful,” she said, crossing the room.
“You knew,” I muttered. It was a foregone conclusion, but I needed to hear it out loud. “You knew what he was doing. You knew about all the souls he used, and yet you didn’t tell me.”
“And what good would have come of it?” she asked, taking my arm. “You would have only gotten yourself killed trying to stop him.”
“And what of all the souls he’s destroyed in the process?” I challenged, pulling away from her. “It’s wrong.”
“Yes, it is. Your father is a wicked man,” she said, her voice trembling with hatred I felt in the same abundance. It softened as she reached out to caress my cheek, even though her fingers passed through my skin this time with my emotions making the link between us so unstable. “You are the one good thing he’s brought into this world, and one day, you will overthrow him. You just need to be wise enough to survive until then.”
“At what cost?” I countered. “How long can I wait and watch him bring our realm and every other to ruin before I become just like him?”
She frowned, watching me in disapproving silence. She seemed about to respond when the door opened and Fenrir walked in.
“There you are,” he muttered. “We need to talk.”
I turned to face him, taken aback by the shift in his energy. Or rather, the familiar energy that was attached to it. In that moment, I knew that he and Kore had cemented their bond, and while it was probably inevitable, the fact that he had gone there without even talking to me made the blood in my veins turn to acid.
“Yes. We certainly do,” I said coldly.
Fenrir paused, looking around the room with suspicion in his gaze. “She’s here, isn’t he?” he asked, his voice lowering with a hint of fear. He’d always been unnerved by my powers, and she was no exception. “Your mother.”
“We’ll speak later,” she sighed, disappearing through the nearest bookshelf. Just as well. I didn’t want her to see what was about to happen.
I was too pissed to offer any answer other than a glare. “And you were in Kore’s bed last night. Seems we’ve both been keeping secrets.”
At first, his expression didn’t change in the slightest. I saw the recognition in his eyes, then the stubborn defiance take its place. “She was in mine, actually,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “What about it?”
“Just like that? No warning, no, ‘Hey, man, is it cool if I fuck your fiancee?’”
“I wasn’t aware I needed your permission,” he said in a curt tone. “And she may be your fiancee, but we’re all bound to her.”
“According to Ares.”
“Her father, if you haven’t forgotten,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid that if she actually had a choice, I’m the one she’d pick?”
That was it. Something unhinged in me and I found myself across the room with my hands at his throat before I could stop it. The sudden attack caught him offguard, and I slammed him into the bookshelf, a few tomes scattering on the floor. He recovered quickly, landing a swift uppercut to my jaw. My teeth rattled in my skull and my head flew back, but the pain was just driving my rage.
The next hit was mine, and his bloody lip took the edge off my irritation, but not the storm brewing beneath it. That had been a long time coming, and now that it was out in the open, it wasn’t going to stop until it was all out. Judging from the way he was coming at me, he had the same score to settle.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled, barely catching himself before he landed on the glass table behind him.
“That would be you,” I taunted, taking another swing. He anticipated my moves this time and stepped back, grabbing my elbow to wrench my arm forward. Gravity shifted as I pitched forward and landed facedown, but I was on my feet before he could catch me again.
Fenrir wiped the blood off his upper lip with the back of his sleeve, his eyes glowing with a feral edge that grew muted in the mundane life within these walls. We had both grown accustomed to hiding our feelings, it seemed, but the time for that was over. We might have had to work together in the Ether, to escape, but there was still plenty of bad blood between us.
“She’s not your property,” he said, circling me. “You keep treating her like she is, and she’s not going to want anything to do with you, consort or not.”
That word still got under my skin, especially since it now gave him the impression that he had an equal claim to what was mine. It didn’t matter that I’d hated her at first, and
wanted nothing to do with her bad attitude and sharp tongue. The possessiveness I felt over Kore was more intense than any positive emotion I’d ever felt for another girl, and it only grew worse the more of those I developed for her in turn.
“I don’t need relationship advice from a dog.”
“So you do admit it’s a relationship, then,” he said with a smug air of triumph. “Or at least, you want it to be.”
I flung myself at him, headbutting him even though I split my eyebrow open in the effort. His nose snapped and blood sprayed as he staggered back, clutching his face. His eyes flashed again, but there was more admiration in them than hatred.
“That was low, even for you.”
I couldn’t help but smirk, my bleeding knuckles stretched over a clenched fist. “I learned from the worst.”
Fenrir snorted, and moved as if he was about to attack again. The sound of a buzz against the hardwood floors drew our attention to the phone that must have fallen out of my pocket at some point in the fight.
“Shit,” I muttered, reaching for the phone. Ten missed calls and a slew of texts, all from Loki. The last one read, “GET YOUR ASS DOWNSTAIRS. KORE’S IN TROUBLE.”
The same heart-racing, stomach-clenching dread that had filled me that night when Kore drowned in the siren’s well came back full force. I scrolled through the other texts, piecing together a story that made little sense.
“What is it?” Fenrir asked gruffly, clearly irritated by the abrupt truce he’d been forced into.
“Kore has been arrested,” I said, looking up at him. Knowing Loki, I would’ve assumed he was just fucking around, but there was something different about those texts. Even he never went this far.
“Arrested?” he asked in disbelief. Evidently, he thought it was as absurd as I did, but the rules of reality always found a way to bend when it came to her, for better or for worse. “For what?”
“Killing Phrixus, apparently.”
He blinked. “That’s bullshit.”
“No kidding,” I said, wiping my bloody knuckles off on my pants, ignoring the raw pain. I flung the door open and headed for the stairwell, hearing Fenrir follow close behind me.
“You’re in an awful hurry for someone who doesn’t really care about her.”
I shot him a furious glance over my shoulder. "If Ares is right, I need her to stop my father.”
“Bullshit,” he scoffed. “You love her.”
“Are you insane? I can’t stand her,” I said, walking faster in my agitation.
“Never said otherwise, but there’s room for both. Especially with someone as fucked up as you.”
I clenched my jaw and chose not to answer. Namely because there was nothing I could say that would convince him otherwise, but also because I wasn’t sure I really believed it myself.
Chapter 16
Loki
I checked my phone display every few minutes, waiting for the two MIA idiots to show up, and when they finally did, they were both bruised and bloody. We were definitely not doing a great job giving off the impression of a united front.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I demanded, looking between them to figure out who started it. Anyone’s guess, really. Usually Hades was the troublemaker, but sometimes Fenrir got a bug up his ass.
Actually… I recognized the change in his energy. He’d been with Kore.
Yeah, that would definitely do it.
Dionysus seemed shocked by their rough appearance. He definitely wasn’t used to the way things really were, beneath the veneer of the popular boys making hell for everyone else. There was always plenty left over for each other, too.
“Long story,” Fenrir muttered, his broad arms folded over his chest. “What’s this bullshit about Kore being arrested? And why’s he involved?” he asked, nodding to Dionysus.
“It is bullshit, but it’s true,” Dionysus answered before I had the chance. “And I’m here because I’m Kore’s friend. And I’m the one who brought Loki in, so I’m not going anywhere.”
I shrugged as they both looked at me. “We could use all the help we can get. My old man already has it out for her, and if Creepy Kunzite is involved, getting her out’s not gonna be easy.”
“Where is she?” Hades demanded.
“In the school’s holding facilities,” Dionysus answered. “I didn’t even know we had those until today.”
He paused, looking expectantly at us. The truth was, I did know. We all did. I’d just never imagined they would be used to hold a student who hadn’t done anything wrong, let alone Kore.
And I mean, sure. She had probably done more than a few things that would earn her a one-way trip to the slammer, chief among them being our current plot against the King himself, but my father didn’t know that.
“Of course,” Dionysus muttered, reading into our silence for the answer it was. “Do you know where it is?”
“Yes, and breaking her out isn’t going to be easy,” Fenrir said. Good to know we were already thinking along the same lines.
“First things first, on what grounds was she even arrested?” Hades demanded.
I decided to let Dionysus explain, since he’d been there more or less firsthand when it all went down. As he recounted the details, the suspects were already lining up in my mind.
“Helle,” Hades said, his voice laced with irritation. If he was an ass to Kore, he was a hundred times scarier when it came to defending her. “Why would she lie?”
“She hates Kore and always had,” Dionysus said, as if that should be obvious. “You can blame yourself for that. You set the dogs on her, and Helle’s just the one with the sharpest fangs.”
I was surprised at his boldness, especially since I’d never seen any sign of it before. Even I didn’t talk shit to Hades like that, and for a tense moment as they stared each other down, I prepared to get between them.
“Whatever Kunzite saw is bullshit,” Hades finally said. I breathed a sigh of relief that he was moving on. Maybe it was just because he knew Dionysus had a point. “Obviously Kore didn’t kill Phrixus. We need to get to the bottom of this, and be prepared if it involves the OSTF.”
“Would your dad have arranged this?” Fenrir asked, looking right at me.
“I’m not saying the old man’s a big teddy bear, but he follows law and reason,” I answered. “This isn’t his MO.”
“We need to find Helle,” Dionysus said, his tone as tense and urgent as his posture. I’d never seen him so worked up over something. Hell, most of the time he preferred to just blend into the woodwork, as unlikely as that was for someone who looked the way he did. “Force her to come clean.”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said, glancing at Hades and Fenrir. “But it’s going to require the impossible.”
“What?” Hades demanded impatiently.
I stared him down. “It’s going to require the two of you morons to work together.”
My hunch that Helle would be back in the training room before the door to Kore’s cell was all the way shut proved right. She had been humiliated by her arch enemy in the Games, and I knew the only reason she’d stayed behind was so she’d have plenty of time to get ahead on training over break.
“Seems like a fast recovery for someone who just discovered her brother’s killer,” Dionysus said flatly, staring at the training room door. He looked my way. “Are you sure this is going to work? What if someone catches you?”
“They didn’t catch me during the trials,” Fenrir answered. “They’re certainly not going to believe Helle if she claims she saw a hellhound in a training room full of impossible creatures.”
Dionysus’ eyes narrowed in disdain. “I still can’t believe you guys did that.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for judgment later,” said Hades. “If you two want to watch, just stay outside the grid until I give the okay. Loki, you swiped your Dad’s badge?”
“Please. This is my third copy,” I snorted, offering the key card to him. “Try not to scratch it.”
Hades took the card and rolled his eyes. He swiped it through the training room door and the locks released, allowing us to slip inside. We could all see Helle on the observation screen above the grid, sword fighting an invisible opponent, her movements too swift and calculated for someone who was supposed to be so emotionally distraught.
Dionysus and I stood by as Fenrir shifted and I couldn’t help but glance Dionysus’ way. His reaction to the massive beast was priceless, though to his credit, he didn’t make a peep.
“Not very fluffy, is he?”
“It’s...unsettling,” he said guardedly as Hades and Fenrir slipped past the grid and into the simulation. “But all the better for our purposes.”
I smirked. “Just watch and enjoy the show. They’re good at this.”
“Apparently,” he said in a tone of disapproval.
He watched eagerly nonetheless. I wasn’t quite sure what illusion Hades and Fenrir had coopted to slip seamlessly into the simulation, but Fenrir in his hellhound form was an unwelcome surprise on any occasion.
The moment I heard her scream, I knew the ruse had worked. “Come on,” I said, nodding for Dionysus to follow me in. “Just stay close and keep quiet.”
He hesitated, but curiosity won out and he followed me into the grid. I watched with growing amusement through the thick brush in the jungle simulation she had chosen. Couldn’t have been a better cover for Fenrir, but we’d all done that sim a thousand times and this would be the first time it ever featured a hellhound.
Helle was backed up against the rocks at the base of a waterfall with nowhere to run. She’d dropped her sword in her haste to escape, and the great black beast kept creeping toward her, jaws dripping and fangs bared.