by Amy Braun
It was such a risk to make such a promise, especially with that long-winded martyrdom speech I gave just minutes ago, but I meant every damn word. If I had to leave, I would leave. But I would come back. I was going to get the fucking scar off my neck if I had to carve it off because I didn’t want to abandon my life for anything. Not when I had friends I cared for. Not when I had a little brother who was another piece of me. Not when I was falling desperately for Selena.
Selena, who was looking in my eyes and at my mouth, and quickly sliding her tongue across her lips to wet them.
Gods, I nearly gave in right there. It would have been easy, so easy, for me to scoop her onto my lap and kiss her breathless. The chair was big enough for two, and it was very, very comfortable.
But Selena moved back suddenly. She freed herself from my hands and stood up.
“Sorry, I… I don’t know what I was about to do.” She laughed awkwardly.
I stood up. “It’s okay,” I said. It was, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. “We should get some rest anyway.”
Selena nodded, though I saw her eyes dart quickly to my lips again.
Remembering herself, she made her way toward the balcony door, murmuring a good night to me as she passed.
“Thank you for talking with me, Selena.”
She paused before walking inside and glanced over her shoulder. A gentle smile curved her lips and replaced any awkwardness she had felt.
She slipped back into the hotel room, but I stayed outside. I stood up from the lounge chair and strode to the edge of the balcony again. I knew I needed to get more rest, but I wasn’t feeling up to it right then. Instead, I pressed my fingers to the War Pact, scraping my nails across the rough skin and wishing I could scratch it off.
I thought of my words to Thea and replayed them in my head for my own sake.
Don’t go down that road. I’ve walked it, and all you get are more regrets.
Casting thoughts of the War Pact aside, I pushed off the balcony and was about to turn in for the night.
Then I saw him.
Standing on the street across from our hotel, peering up at me, was a man in a long, dark coat and a large hood. He looked like a shadow, like a piece of darkness carved into existence to stalk me.
I was seven stories up and would have had to Adapt my eyesight to see him clearly. But I didn’t need to because I sensed him. I would know that stance, that deadliness anywhere.
Ares, the fucking God of War was watching me.
He must have known I’d seen him because he stepped backward into an alley and disappeared.
I rushed back into the motel room. Selena, who had been getting a drink of water, noticed me. “Derek?”
I paused, wanting to lie to her, thinking it would be better and easier. If she wasn’t with me, then Ares couldn’t force me to hurt her.
But she’s done so much for Liam and me. And if I come back crazy…
“Ares is outside. I’m going to talk to him.”
Selena stared at me as she processed my words. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. With the Pact, I can’t risk it.” I can’t risk you.
Selena bared her teeth. “Don’t start this, Derek.”
I held up my hands. “I don’t want you to come with me,” I said. “But there is something else I want you to do.”
ARES LEFT A trail of power for me to follow. It was like following the heat of a distant fire. I walked through the bustling Santa Monica streets to the beach.
And there he was. Dark ocean water lapped at the sand clinging to the edge of his cloak. Moonlight broke across the water’s surface and onto the beach, yet it didn’t seem to touch him. He was a strip of shadow brought up from the darkest pit in the Underworld.
I stopped when I was ten feet away from Ares. He wasn’t using his aura against mine, but I still felt its sweeping, bitter heat pressing against the air.
We were the only people on that section of the beach. The Union festivities continued distantly on either side of us, but I could barely hear the music or see the sparkling lights.
I was cut off from the rest of the world, alone with a god I had betrayed.
Ares pushed the hood of his cloak back. I cringed every time I looked at him. I hated how much I would resemble him if I were older, crueler, and emotionally dead inside. A dark, short beard had grown on his face. A warrior braid rested against back of his neck. He was dressed in molded black armor, his circle-arrow sigil printed in dark crimson on his chest. He carried no weapons that I could see, but as the God of War, he didn’t need them.
Frozen blue eyes stared into mine.
“Where are your pets?” he asked.
I folded my arms across my chest, refusing to rise to the bait. “I figured you wanted to talk to me. Though I’m surprised you didn’t go your usual route and barge in unwelcome and unwanted.”
The force of his aura slammed into me and threatened to buckle my knees. I staggered and spread my feet apart, refusing to bow, but I felt like I was standing in the middle of a furnace.
The Pact felt like it was being freshly seared into my skin.
“I have lost all patience for your insufferable attitude,” he snapped. “Do not test me.”
“What do you want?” I growled. Sweat dripped down my neck and spine. The air tasted like ash.
“There is unrest in the Clouds,” Ares said, never once letting up on the pressure of his aura. “Zeus regaining his Thunderbolt has led to jealousy and infighting amongst the Olympians. None of them have been able to relocate their missing Weapons.” His eyes narrowed, and the heat around me flared hotter. “And mine has been stolen from me.”
My fingers itched to have Ki̱demónas in my grip, but I refused to risk Ares stealing it from me. The idea of Ares having his spear again, absorbing magic and wielding it, giving bloody commands to Ki̱demónas and having the spear respond…
No. He wasn’t getting it back if I could help it.
“Why are you telling me this?” I grated out.
Ares took a step closer. Heat closed around my body like a fist. Fresh air was all around me, but I felt like I was breathing smoke.
“Your fate is tied to the fate of my kin, and your usual informant, the skýla you call Athena, has been imprisoned by the Council of Clouds.” A wicked smile curled his lips. “She will not be coming to save you.”
Even with the heat and pressure folding around me, I still felt a knife of despair.
I’d been relying on Athena to rid me of the War Pact, to free me from the fear of losing control and killing Selena, Thea, and Mason. Her potions had kept me under control, but I didn’t have any more, and the one I’d just taken wasn’t going to last forever.
Ares chuckled. “I can see your despair. Even now, you’re thinking of a way to escape what you have bound yourself to. An oath to me is not a breakable thing, my son. Least of all for you.”
He took another step, and the pressure and heat became unbearable. My legs trembled with the weight of holding myself up.
“Yet I am not unreasonable.”
Suddenly, his aura was gone. I staggered and gasped at its disappearance. My knees buckled and I almost collapsed, but I stopped my fall and stood up quickly.
Ares was smiling. I’d crumbled, just the way he’d wanted me to.
“My goals have changed. I no longer wish for you to kill the heirs. As such, I am willing to change the terms of the Pact.”
Said by anyone else, the words would have given me hope. If I couldn’t work with Athena to remove the War Pact completely, changing it would be a welcome alternative.
But it was Ares who was asking. Ares, who would take more than he would ever give.
“No,” I argued. “Not changed. Removed. Taken off. I am never going to be under your influence.”
Ares raised an eyebrow, and I ground my teeth to stop myself from punching him.
“You are willing to sacrifice your brother’s life so easily?”
>
“Never,” I growled back. “But I am not going to be your assassin. I am not going to kill for you or for anyone else. Take it off me.”
Ares cocked his head to the right, studying me. “No. I do not think I will. Yet its purpose does not serve me as it once did, so I will change it after all.”
His eyes flared with blue fire, and his hand shot out to grab my throat.
I jumped back, trying to get out of his reach, but he was too quick. His fingers locked around my neck and gouged into the scar.
Pain exploded in my throat. I couldn’t breathe around his grip. My skin was in agony. His fingers pressed into my tortured flesh as if it were melting around his touch.
I fought weakly, forcing my body to act through the pain. I threw random punches but missed. I kicked, but he dodged. I even burst into flames. My fire was overwhelmingly hot, but Ares didn’t flinch. He just stared at me and spoke in old Greek, words I could barely hear past the pain screaming in my head.
I was just about to call on my aether when he released me.
I didn’t do anything to stop my collapse. I landed in a heap on the sand, coughing and gagging. My fingers went to my throat and prodded the skin there. It was intact, but the scar felt different. The ridge of tissue was still there, and it felt raw, but when I pulled my fingers away, they were covered ash.
Ares had burned me so badly that my skin had charred.
The god knelt next to me. “This trust of yours makes you weak, my son. The heirs you adore so much will betray you because they fear you. They fear what you are, and will be, capable of. A change is coming, and if you stand against it, you will find yourself among the first to be crushed.”
His aura wrapped around me again. But instead of more, unbearable, godsdamned heat, it was comforting. Similar to Liam or Selena’s magic.
“You are the fire I wish all my children could be,” Ares crooned. “I have no desire to see such flames doused.”
He sounded like he meant it, like he cared about me the way a father should. Thomas had never spoken to me like that. I’d always wondered what it would be like to have a father who was proud of you and what you were, who wanted to see you become something great.
I’d wondered what it was like to be loved like that, but I’d never expected it to come from Ares.
“Fuck you,” I growled.
Ares’s mocking smile dimmed and vanished. His aura slammed into my chest and knocked me onto my back.
He stood up and loomed over me. I tried to move, but the pressure of his magic pressed me deeper into the sand. Shit, shit, shit. I couldn’t move my arms.
“Heirs are meant to be loyal to their gods,” Ares announced, “and I will have your loyalty, Derek Areios. Even if I have to beat it out of you.”
He raised his hand, and I knew he meant it literally. His magic pushed me even deeper into the sand. I couldn’t move. Sand poured over me, burying me inch by inch.
Ares lowered his hand. Six shadowed figures appeared behind him. Each one was clothed in black and had a mask wrapped around nose and mouth.
One of them, a man in the middle, had his hands curled around a tall gold weapon tipped with three prongs. It was engraved with rolling waves, fish scales, and powerful seahorses. At the top of the trident, just beneath the prongs, was an inscription. I read it quickly, my stomach twisting in knots.
Kaléste ti Flóga.
Call the Tempest.
They had Poseidon’s godsdamned Trident.
The pressure on my body stopped, but I barely noticed. All I could do was stare at the Trident, my mind trying to understand why it was here, and who…
I went cold. The people behind Ares were in the Cetea Clan.
The leader tossed the Trident at my feet. It landed with a heavy thunk and threw sand onto my boots.
I reached out with the blood bond, seeking my—
Ares’s cold gaze shot back to me. His eyes flashed, and my neck burned with pain.
“You will destroy the Trident,” Ares commanded. “You will not speak of what we have discussed. Speak nothing of my plan, and forget—”
“Derek!”
A shout was coming from the boardwalk behind me.
Liam. He, Selena, and the others were on their way.
Ares narrowed his eyes.
“You are not permitted to kill him,” Ares told the Cetea. “Damage him as much as you will. I do not care for his friends or his brother. Do what you will with them.”
He shot me one final glare, and then flames rolled out of his body and wrapped around his limbs, erasing him from my sight.
I was released from the pressure and magic, but my neck continued to burn, and I was no longer in control of my hands.
I sprang out of the sand, throwing it around me, and flung my arms out. Fire streamed out of my fingers and lanced toward the Trident.
The tide surged, aided by magic, and rushed over the Weapon to smother my flames. I leaped to my feet and raced for the Trident again. I didn’t care about anything else. Ares’s mark burned against my neck, and sand closed around my feet as I raced for the Weapon.
A silvery glint caught my eye. I noticed it just in time to see a shard of ice flying toward my face.
I flicked my hand up and charred the ice. Then I twisted and pushed more flames at the Cetea. They moved quickly, surrounding me. I swung out my arm, unleashing a gout of flame that seared the unlucky Cetea next to me.
Raised voices came from the beach. I recognized them, and knew I had my chance. In the slight moment of confusion, I slipped beneath my fire and raced for the Trident again.
Two of the Cetea intercepted me. They struck at the same time, one lashing out with a punch while the other kicked for my stomach. I ducked the punch and grabbed the kicking leg. I twisted the ankle and flipped my assailant onto his stomach. The standing man hurled a punch toward my ribs. I brought my elbow down and blocked him, then kicked the inside of his knee. He crumpled, and I turned to the man already on his stomach. I booted him in the face and spun around, just as the second fighter recovered himself. He threw more punches with intense fury, but I wasn’t interested in him at all. I needed to get to the Trident.
I grabbed his next punch and snapped a kick into his chin. His head rocked back, and he crumpled. I whirled around, barely conscious of Liam and the others arriving and battling the Cetea.
Where is it? Where the hell is it? Where is the damn Trident?
The tide washed back and revealed a sheen of gold. I raced to the Trident and closed my hand around it.
Ice shot from the Trident and closed over my fingers. My skin froze to the metal. A flicker of a voice told me to drop the Weapon, but I couldn’t make my fingers move. The frost enclosed my wrist and skated up my arm. I clamped my free hand on the ice and forced my fire into it.
The ice refused to melt. It crawled over my flames and closed around them. It was a god’s magic, and it overpowered mine.
“Derek!”
I looked up.
One of the Cetea had escaped the fight with the heirs and bolted straight for me. I tried to stand, but the Trident refused to move. I glanced down and saw that the Weapon was frozen directly to the sand, and the surface ocean was starting to freeze in thin layers.
I turned to the Cetea. He kicked at my head. My arms were frozen to the ground, so I couldn’t move them. But I ducked and kicked out, bashing my foot against his ankle. The man roared and tripped onto the sand. I snapped a leg into his chest to hold him down and slammed my free foot into his face.
The ice had crawled up my biceps. Chills wracked my body.
Liam, Selena, Corey, and Mason were fending off torrents of magic from the three remaining Cetea, holding them off. Thea was bolting straight toward me. She dropped to her knees next to me and stared at the icy Trident and my hands trapped around it.
“I need to destroy it,” I said. “I have to destroy it.”
Thea looked at me, confusion burning in her eyes. “What? You can’t—”
Ice bit into my arms. The frost had closed around my shoulders and was crushing my chest.
Thea stopped asking questions. She pressed her hands to the ice coating mine. She closed her eyes and moved her magic into the ice. I felt it shudder over the tops of my hands.
It worked. The ice melted away from me, freeing my arms. Then it plunged back into the Trident, as if that was where it belonged.
Thea closed her hands around the Weapon. She gasped and clutched it tightly. Ice spread out of the shaft and closed over her hands. She hissed in pain but didn’t let go of the Trident. The amount of power she was holding was enormous. Ki̱demónas was a weaker Weapon and had been forged after Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had taken control of the skies with the original Trinity Weapons. But the Trident… Ki̱demónas couldn’t compare to that scale of magic.
The War Pact flared aggressively. I cringed and clapped a hand to my neck. My eyes snapped to the Trident, and I felt my magic building, needing to destroy the Trident before—
“Get away from me.”
Thea looked at me. She pulled the Trident closer to her chest and watched me with wide, confused eyes. “What?”
I knew he heard me and would come running, regardless of what he was doing. I just didn’t know if he was going to be fast enough.
The War Pact sparked and burned in my throat, and Ares’s curse took control of my body again. I lunged and grabbed the Trident with one hand, opening myself to its bitter frost. My other hand went around Thea’s throat.
She yelped before I cut off her air and my weight crushed her into the sand. She stared at me in horror. I tried desperately to remove my hand, but I couldn’t make my fingers move. The fingers of my left hand were freezing again, and I was strangling a friend, but every time I tried to break away, the War Pact blazed with pain and fire.
Thea punched me in the face. I took the blows, but her strikes were getting weaker.
A weight slammed into me and knocked me away from Thea. She coughed and dragged in ragged breaths. She sat up and reached for the Trident again, using her magic to melt the ice. I snarled when my fingers slipped away from the Weapon, but my new attacker had wrapped an arm around my throat and pinned my legs beneath his.