“And why would you do such a thing?” I asked, pressing the boundaries of his evolving persona yet again.
Unresponsive at first, he slowly stalked around me to stand before me. His massive and intimidating form loomed above me, blocking out the flickering firelight behind him. My heart in my throat, I waited with bated breath for his next move.
“Do you remember having nightmares in your time spent above? The time you spent in Demeter’s care?” he asked with curiosity, leaning in close to bury his nose in my hair. The chill that act sent down my spine could not have been more different than the one I felt when Oz did the same.
I had no idea why he had so abruptly changed the subject to inquire about the night terrors I used to endure. “Do you?” he pressed when my silence dragged on longer than he found agreeable. The simple response would have been yes, I did, though how he knew of my nightmares was a mystery to me. One that he would quickly solve.
He narrowed his eyes menacingly at me, and I finally nodded in response to his initial question.
“I’m afraid that I am to blame for those.” There was nothing remorseful about his tone.
“You?” I asked, unable to conceal my incredulity. Then understanding settled in. “You were there . . .”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated for a moment, pulling his face away from my head to look down at me, his dark eyes unreadable.
“Your father sent me.”
Yet another mystery.
“And he never saw fit to tell me this? That I was to be chaperoned during my time with Demeter?”
“I would not call it chaperoning per se. Consider it more like checking up on you,” he said casually, winding a stray lock of my hair around his finger in a rhythmic motion. “As for not telling you, he never had the opportunity to. But he had his reasons.”
I knew not how to process Deimos’ bizarre and confounding revelation. I had always thought it strange that, though I seemed impervious to the fear that so many fell victim to, at night my mind was plagued by terror. Terror I could not explain.
Terror that I felt only in Deimos’ presence.
Now that the nightmares had a name, the explanation for his presence still eluded me. I desperately wanted to press Deimos further to learn why Hades would do such a thing, but I was already surprised that he had disclosed as much as he had. I needed to make my moves carefully with him—employ strategy, not brute force. One could not strong-arm Deimos. Not unless one wished to lose said appendage.
With that in mind, I tried a different approach with him entirely.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, trying to project warmth with my voice when I felt none.
“Because,” he replied, letting my hair fall softly against my cheek, “I have run out of options. I grow tired of your reluctance to join me and even more tired of chasing you. I cannot change what you are now; that opportunity has been squandered. So you leave me with little choice. I thought perhaps if I were to bend a little that you might do the same.”
“Precisely how pliable do you expect me to be?”
“Very.”
“Then you will have to give me more than this,” I said, leaning against his hard body while mine screamed at me to flee. “Why did my father send you to watch over me?” My blood pounded so loudly in my ears that I could hardly hear his reply.
“So many questions,” he muttered under his breath, clasping his large hands around my arms. “I wonder if you really want the answers you seem so desperate for.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I will decide that once I obtain them,” I countered, tensing under his grasp. His grip on me tightened.
“I have so much that you want . . .” he said softly, bending to rub his nose harshly along my face. “And you can have all of it.”
“For a price,” I whispered sweetly, though somehow the bitterness I felt still lingered in my tone.
He pushed me away from him, his stormy eyes dissecting my expression.
“There is always a price, Khara. Always. Do not be fooled by those who would tell you otherwise.”
“And what is your price, Deimos?” I asked carefully. “My body? No, you have had that already—many times. My mind? I think not. What is it that you want from me?”
“What I have always wanted,” he replied, his voice low and cautionary. “You. All of you. That has not changed; only my methods to meet that end have.”
“And what, pray tell, will you do with me once you own me?”
His predatory smile pushed through his hardened expression.
“Whatever I want.”
“You seem so confident that this new approach you have employed will be successful.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Simple,” he told me while he leaned his face close to mine, his lips brushing against my cheek when he spoke. “I know far more than you could ever imagine. More than Hades ever will. And I also know that, once tempted by this information, you will stop at nothing to obtain the rest of it. It is only a matter of time before you give in. And when you do, I will capitalize on your weakness.”
I flinched, though almost imperceptibly. There was veracity to his claim. I had returned to the Underworld to get answers, and, though that mission had been derailed by Drew’s death, the fact remained that there was still so much I wanted to know—needed to know. About my mother. About what I was. About how and why I came to be in the hands of Demeter. Though the thought of willfully giving myself over to Deimos was repugnant, I knew that if no one else proved able to supply the information I so ardently sought, I would consider his terms.
An eternity with terror incarnate or one with amassing unknowns—neither seemed particularly palatable. If the time came, I would have to decide between the two. I would exhaust every option, though, before it came to that.
“But if I give in, you will have nothing to chase. To torment. I know how the hunt fuels your sickness, even if you have decided to play a more insidious game for the time being.”
“Do not worry, Khara,” he said, his voice so cold that I stifled a shiver. “When you give in, I will still find plenty to torment.” I stood before him, forcing my legs to stay still. I had no doubt he would make good on his word. In fact, I had seldom been so certain of anything. “There are many ways to torture, skoteini vasílissa. I am confident that your mind will break long before your body ever would.”
“We shall see about that,” I said coldly, though my words lacked conviction.
His recognition of that was evidenced by the wicked smile that stretched across his dark face.
“That we will.” He brushed past me, letting his hand trail across my chest as he did. The second his fingertips left my body, I felt the air I had been denying myself rush into my lungs. “And Khara?” he called back to me. I did not turn to look at him. “I would not bother to ask Hades about my presence above. He will have nothing to tell you.”
“I think he will have plenty to tell me.”
“No,” he corrected. “He will not.”
His adamancy warranted my attention. I looked back at him to find a dark and foreboding expression dancing across his face. His words were a warning.
“He would not lie to me if directly confronted about this matter.”
He scoffed in response.
“His denial would not be a lie,” Deimos laughed. “It would be ignorance of the subject.”
“He cannot be ignorant of an order he gave,” I rebutted, confusion overtaking my countenance.
“Precisely,” he purred. His dark, piercing eyes demanded that I decipher the subtext in his reply. Mulling it over in my mind, I finally came to a paralyzing realization. The smile he donned in recognition let me know that I was no longer schooling my reactions. I wore the revelation all over my face.
“Hades did not tell you to go.” My words were barely a whisper.
He shook his head no, affirming my conclusion.
“Sweet dreams,” he said softly, turning to disappear around a corner in the rock face beside us. “I did so enjoy watching you sleep.”
20
Ares . . .
The name finally registered, but I did not speak it aloud. I could not. Saying it would give it power. Truth. And it was a truth full of unpleasant ramifications.
Before I could allow my mind to catalogue all of them, I once again found myself interrupted.
“Skoteini vasílissa, eh?” Oz’s voice called from a shadowy crag. “His Dark Queen . . . I find so much irony in that name that I hardly know where to begin.” He revealed himself, slowly stepping forward into the firelight that bounced hypnotically off the rock faces. The way that Oz could conceal himself amid the darkness was uncanny. I wondered if it was a gift of all Dark Ones or just a skill of his.
“After everything you have undoubtedly heard, that is the point you see most fit to address first?” I sneered. “Perhaps you were not listening carefully enough.”
“Oh, I was listening, all right.” He walked toward me, his usual swagger absent from his stride. There was heat in his words and anger in his expression. “But I think what I saw was far more intriguing.”
“You could not possibly have been listening acutely, or you would have heard Deimos tell me that Ares not only knows of my existence but has had his son torment me for centuries while I was above.”
“No, I heard that.” His face had settled into a mask of calm indifference, but it was the fire that burned just beneath it that I was keenly aware of. If not chosen tactfully, my words would be fuel to that flame.
“How is it that you are not at all surprised by this revelation?” I asked incredulously. “It was what my brothers feared most while I was above—that Ares would be made aware of me.”
“And how do you think he came to know about you, Khara?” He cocked his head with curious condescension.
“I do not know, but—”
“His son, one of his three favored children, is your father’s second in command. Hades’ number two. Surely you cannot be so naïve as to think that Deimos has had no contact with Ares in all these years?”
“Maybe he could not? Maybe he was part of the covenant for that reason?”
“Or maybe he’s just as shady a bastard as he presents himself to be,” he argued, looming over me. “But he’s a problem for another time. They both are.”
“Deimos is always a problem, but one I can handle. Ares, however, is not.”
“Ares can’t come down here because of his contractual obligations to the PC, nor should he want to. As long as you’re here, you’re safe,” he countered before his features twisted into an ugly set. “And I saw how you handled Deimos.” In a flash, Oz lifted me up painfully by my arms and rushed me backward across the room until I crashed against the wall. “You think you can play both sides, do you? That I’m as much a fool as Deimos?” he growled, pressing me painfully against the wall. Escape was no longer an option. Enduring the dark side of the Dark One was all I could do. I was about to see why Father had long warned of them. “I have pandered to your need for answers, but my patience for your tactics is growing thin. Do not, for one moment, think that my tolerance for your behavior is endless.” He released an arm to run his index finger cruelly down my face, dragging it across my lip. He watched me with an intensity that was reminiscent of Deimos. He enjoyed what he was doing. Inflicting pain fed him.
Fear was his weapon as well.
He had been holding back his true nature from me. I had only glimpsed it when he first came to me that night in Detroit. After that, he was only a slightly more surly version of the fallen angel I had come to know. He showed nothing of the monster that would trap me in a cage of hostility in this corner of the Underworld. Though he did not evoke the same physiological response that Deimos inherently did, there was something far more sinister about him that left me disturbed.
I had underestimated him once again.
“My irritation with this place grows daily, Khara. Even where you are concerned. You would be wise not to cross me—especially not now. I am above the precious few laws that your beloved father enforces. Or attempts to.”
“Then do as you will,” I replied, my tone laced with indifference. Indifference I did not feel. “You are no different from Deimos in that regard.”
“Deimos is an arrogant fool, and you are an ignorant one if you think that he and I are alike.”
“You are far more similar than either of you can see. You both seek to own me, do you not?” I baited, hoping he would unwittingly disclose the reason for his obsession with me. It remained a mystery to me still. “Your methods are no different. Manipulation is the current weapon of choice for you both. Perhaps you are just as arrogant as he, and that hubris blinds you to your likenesses.”
Judging by the look on his face, he was impressed with my tactic but saw right through it.
“So much you fail to understand,” he replied, eyeing me as though I were a naïve child. “Let me state this in the plainest terms so that we do not find ourselves here again: Do not presume to play me, new girl. It will never work.”
“Then I shall play Deimos instead,” I retorted, still uncomfortably pinned against the stony corridor wall.
“Is that what you were doing?” he asked with a quirk of his brow.
“Yes.”
“Interesting,” he mocked. “It looked far more like you were trying to fuck him.”
“As was my plan.”
“Your plan was to look like you were trying to fuck him or to actually fuck him?”
“My plan was to do whatever necessary to get the answers I desire from him.” He looked displeased with my response, so I elaborated in an attempt to assuage his growing anger. “To that end, I employed a strategy that was most likely to get me what I seek.”
He cocked his head awkwardly while he considered my response.
“The only thing you will get employing that strategy is Deimos’ dick crammed deep inside you.”
“Not the only thing,” I argued. “He tends to be rather obliging once his needs are sated.”
His initial surprise quickly devolved to rage.
“You have fucked him solely to obtain information before?”
“Yes. Once. It is the only currency I possess that he is interested in accepting. Though he takes what he wants when he wants it, he seems to find it amusing when I come to him. His dark delight in my submission appears to make him rather forthcoming.”
“And you would do it again?” He leaned against me so hard that my chest could barely expand enough to continue breathing. I assumed that was his intention. With his forehead pressed tightly against mine, his eyes blazed white, forcing me to shut mine. The light was blinding. “Would you like it?” he asked, his voice low and husky. But there was a note of warning there that could not be denied.
“I would endure it as I have before.” At that, he scoffed.
“Of course you would,” he muttered under his breath, an unmistakably demented edge to his tone. “A means to an end . . . and if there was another way to gain access to the information he holds?”
“I would gladly take it.”
“Even if it involved fucking me?”
He ground his erection against my stomach.
“I recall trying that once before. You seemed disinclined to acquiesce then,” I replied, mimicking his sultry but dangerous tone. “Had I known it may have benefited me greatly to do so, I would have been more diligent in getting what I had come to you for.”
“Opportunities wasted,” he tsked, pulling away from me only slightly. “Now you’ll have to work even harder.”
I leaned forward, closing the gap between our bodies again.
“I excel at hard work.”
His eyes widened momentarily before resuming their maniacal glare.
“We shall see about that,” he drawled, his voice tight.
Seeing that he was blinded by my sexual complicity, I end
eavored to capitalize on the situation by asking an unexpected and untimely question.
“Tell me something, Oz, was my mother like this when she was Dark?”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he chastised, wagging a finger in my face before capturing a stray wave of my hair. “No changing the subject.” Those piercing eyes of his narrowed to a menacing glare while he tucked the dark strand behind my ear. “You have not yet paid the piper, Khara. Do not presume to dangle a carrot in front of me to get what you want—assuming I have it to give at all.”
“You knew my mother, Oz,” I countered while he placed his free hand against the wall by my head, caging me in. “You have something to give and yet will not. You are curiously evasive about her, which leaves me to question why.”
“Maybe I just like toying with you.” His response and its tone sounded far more normal.
“Maybe you have something to hide.”
“We all have skeletons in our closet, new girl.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, well, you do seem to prove the exception in almost every way imaginable. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
“And you continue to make yourself a hurdle I must overcome to get what I want.”
“There is no overcoming me,” he warned, still facing me. He pushed off the wall behind me with his hands, which had still been entrapping me, and walked away. “Your fate will not allow it.”
“I will never be yours,” I shouted after him, my well-practiced façade of control overrun by heated emotions. Conflicting emotions at that.
“That choice has already been made for you. Your insistence in denying that fact is both pointless and tiresome.”
“Made for me by whom?” I pressed.
Before disappearing into the shadows of the tunnel leading away from the Acheron, he looked over his shoulder at me, a crazed look of self-satisfaction in his eyes. It served as his response. It was then that I realized that there may be no way to redeem Oz, even if Persephone did know of a way to try. He was not looking for redemption of any kind. He had finally found a form that allowed him what he desired most: complete control of his fate.
Apparently, he presumed that meant he had complete control of mine as well.
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