Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  Not that it helped convince his son to forgive his flawed father.

  He has not.

  He remains just out of reach.

  Lifting his hand, he presses it to the stone, watching his ringed fingers in the new, purple light that’s come to life in this place. Prior to a few weeks ago, it was silver that glowed upon these dark walls.

  Everything is changing, new paths forging.

  And he, a once king of his species, remains the same.

  Except now he serves three brothers of hell, not just the one.

  Except his son still refuses to leave this primal, proto-hell that most gods don’t know exists.

  Yet, the key to acquiring his greatest desire—the reunion with his seed—fast approaches.

  The others think they can kill Herakles and the assassin.

  He knows better.

  They shall die in the most abhorrent of ways.

  Once they do, he will be waiting for the God of Power and the Erinye.

  Not to kill them. On the contrary, to enlist their help.

  He has a bargain for the two of them that they won’t be able to refuse.

  CHAPTER 9

  – Hades, The Greek Underworld

  HERAKLES

  She tried to leave me.

  Not that I’m surprised.

  I follow her on instinct, forgetting that I’m barred from simply flashing into the Underworld—

  We crash into one of the passageways at the same time and my breath leaves me at the fact.

  Hades granted me free-entry?

  Strategically, it makes sense. Traveling the long way would just slow down this entire mission unnecessarily.

  Not that I care at the moment.

  Ahead of me, a shaking Megara stumbles. When she braces herself on one of the rough walls and catches sight of me approaching, the hostility in her glare is legendary.

  If possible, she now hates me more than she did before.

  Since that obsidian energy that Cyclops attacked us with mind-raped me with that memory, I can guess what she was compelled to relive.

  “Meg.”

  “You can simply dematerialize in here now. Fucking great.” Pushing off the wall, she spins away from me, but not before I see the pale parlor of her skin.

  The sweat breaking out along her forehead.

  Signs of a Succubus who needs to feed.

  That’s not all. The most powerful scent of arousal I’ve ever been subjected to is starting to flood this walkway—a mating call to all willing participants, male or female, to come volunteer for sex.

  To give her the sustenance she needs.

  The most willing of them all is trailing after her like a hypnotized animal, mouth watering, eyes dilating, dick pumping with pain, yet I’m also the one she’s want the least.

  Which means she’s on the way to hunt or simply putting distance between us until a better victim comes along.

  New lines formed during Cyclops’ torture, these cutting up my forearms beneath my armor. I haven’t seen them, yet, but I felt them appear.

  At the thought of Meg fucking another, whether a female or another male, I swear that more of them threaten to carve across my flesh.

  And that voice in my head . . .

  She feeds off our cock. Us. Any one else dies. Anyone. No matter who.

  The problem? That ever-growing scent is going to cripple whoever comes in contact with it. They’re going to be as compelled by her call as she is to secreting it.

  I’ll be killing them for becoming slaves to the very same chains slowly reeling me in.

  YES. THEY ALL DIE.

  “Megara!” I yell at her back, picking up speed. She loathes me. Has every right to. However, she needs to accept she’ll be using me, only me, for the sake of everyone involved.

  Fuck nobility.

  Fuck honor.

  Fuck choice.

  She’s taking what she needs from me or I won’t be able to stop myself from the rampage aching to break free.

  “Stay the fuck away from me!”

  Not surprising.

  “You get back here, Meg!” On impulse, I dematerialize within reach and corner her up against the stone wall.

  She hisses like an incensed viper, teeth bared, purples eyes alight with maliciousness—

  “Will you be there for me? Once I’ve changed. Once I’m dead.”

  That haunting, male voice . . .

  Is disgustingly familiar.

  Shoving me to the left a few inches, Megara leans to the side and shouts, “Stop talking to those hallucinations already, Apollo!”

  My brother.

  The missing Greek god of the Sun.

  Stupefied, I spin to locate the source of those words.

  A cell. One that had escaped my notice completely as I chased Meg down.

  Within its dreary, stone-built interior, a horrid image presents itself. A wraith of a male sits upon that dark, hard floor, giant silver shackles leading from his wrists and ankles.

  He isn’t facing me. As a matter of fact, with his back against the wall, head turned, he’s staring into empty space.

  Even from this angle, I’m struck nearly blind from the changes I see. His once pale blonde hair isn’t just filthy, it’s gone white beneath that dust. And his face?

  I was never close to my brother and in the one year I spent living among the gods, I can honestly say I came to loathe his arrogant, entitled, unbearable self. He was too much like our father, yet filled with that sick obsession to please the very male that constantly stepped on him.

  Zeus not only feared Apollo’s powers, but he secretly resented sharing any of his glory. The sun? Very few things held that much importance to the mortals as it does. Maybe today they take its life-giving gift for granted, but not back then.

  I watched my father belittle and subliminally mistreat my half-brother, his third-born son.

  A treatment that engendered resentment in Apollo, yes, but in the same hand it made him more desperate to earn his father’s approval.

  And when I came along? Father’s new “favorite”? Apollo already hated me. Just like many of my siblings did, Atë most of all.

  There was never any love lost between he and I.

  Then why does my heart beat this way as I approach the thick, stone bars of that cell? As I take in that cadaverous face, so far removed from its past glory?

  His disembodied, unrecognizable voice sounds out again as he speaks to whatever vision he’s entrapped by, fully white eyes beseeching. “You won’t be here. You won’t. Once you see what I really am—who I really am—you’ll be done with me. Like everyone else is.”

  I wrap my hands around two of the large bars. “Apollo.”

  He’s oblivious to my presence. That supplicating expression would’ve been alarming on his face back in his glory days, but to see it on that living, breathing corpse he’s become?

  I call his name one more time. Don’t even know why I want his attention, what the fuck I plan to say if I get it. I’m running on an inexplicable impulse; pity, maybe, or sheer morbid curiosity.

  He went missing shortly after our pantheon fell in the Protomachy—the War of the Primals. A brutal battle that I wasn’t allowed to be part of. I’d left Olympus, officially locked out from that dimension, and even if I hadn’t been, it’s not like I would’ve heeded a call for help from them.

  Or maybe I would’ve. Who knows? That request never came. The story itself is vague and was never chronicled in the mortal mythology of my pantheon. All I know is that stronger gods than us arrived on Olympus. Gods that were said to be the primal of us all, even older than the Titans and Giants alike, tore apart Olympus within hours and ordered a dismantling of the order.

  Some went missing.

  Others, like my self-serving father, went voluntarily into exile.

  A few, like myself, were blamed for the desertion.

  The ones that went AWOL became infamous among the immortals. Whispered about. Searched for.


  My brother being one of the main ones.

  The entire time, Hades had him here. Somehow weakened him enough to keep him imprisoned like this.

  One of the most brilliant forces known to this planet, literally, and now Apollo is nothing but a lost shadow of his old self.

  Rattled, I push away from the cell to seek Megara out—

  She’s gone.

  I didn’t even notice her scent disappear.

  Probably because it never did. That Nymph pheromone bomb remains, drenching the entire vicinity.

  The source itself has rushed off to no doubt search for more suitable prey.

  My pupils literally burn with that understanding. I’m once again reminded about Hades’ mention of my eyes, suspect that, as this inner insanity continues to take over, my skin isn’t the only thing transforming, yet I don’t give enough of a damn to investigate it at this moment.

  Expanding my senses, I ignore the flood of information that my instincts bring—that influx of tactical data about the beings in this dimension, what their capabilities and weaknesses are, what kind of threat they pose—and search for a hint of Megara’s location.

  “We both know what she went off to do.”

  Hades.

  Whirling on him, I bring us face to face, not even caring that it’s the height of disrespect to threaten him in his own realm. “Where. Is. She?”

  He stares me down calmly with those false black eyes. “Somewhere beyond my sight.”

  “Bullshit!” I press my finger into his chest. “You can sense anyone here.”

  “Not always. How do you think it took me so long to realize she was here, in your sister’s demented hold? This is my domain, yet its size and very nature can make certain aspects quite unpredictable.”

  “Or,” I growl, that unrelenting distrust of him many of us have lived with running strong, “you knew exactly where she was, what was happening to her, and you chose to let it continue until it was convenient for you to intervene.”

  He doesn’t deny my assertion, standing there tranquil and stoic.

  Rage begins to descend anew.

  “Part of the deal I made with Megara upon drafting her into my service was to give her her privacy whenever she needs to feed,” he says after a few, apparently unconcerned by my current free-fall into rabid savagery.

  I press a hand to my face, fighting the whisper. The ones insisting I rip off his own face. Something that isn’t plausible. At least not yet. Need this bastard to finish freeing Meg once the deal is complete. “The gods damn you, Hades.”

  “They did. A long, long time ago, boy.”

  That cryptic yet loaded comment makes me drop my hand to gaze at him.

  Not that he elaborates. God forbid he should be straightforward in this perplexing situation.

  “Since you’re in the mood to murder something—and Megara isn’t here to lose her mind at my handing you another of her vengeances—how about I point you in the right direction?” he asks.

  “Another of her vengeances.” Another that hurt her, he means. “Who?”

  “Eurytus.”

  First, I have to deal with the image in my head of a half-buffalo like beast abusing my Meg.

  Now, a fucking Centaur—half-male, half-horse.

  Not just any Centaur, but the infamous fool that started a war between his kind and one of the most legendary people in Ancient Greece, the Lapiths. Eurytus was one of hundreds of Centaurs invited to the King’s wedding.

  They were given wine, a substance they were unused to. However, it wasn’t an excuse. Eurytus’ impulsive nature was well-known in his time. He took one look at Hippodamia, King Pirithious’ new bride, and attempted to abduct her for his own in front of every guest in sight.

  Triggering one of the most infamous and bloody battles in Ancient Greek history.

  And, apparently, even in death the asshole keeps forcing his attentions on females that belong to other males.

  On my female.

  “Where is he?” I grit out.

  Our eyes meet—a second “instant download” of information floods my consciousness.

  Eurytus’ location.

  However, it’s not all I see. Among that knowledge, a secondary image flashes beneath.

  A glimpse of strawberry blonde hair.

  Arresting, hazy gray eyes, irises that swirl like smoke itself.

  Hades’ voice, his agonizing chant. “It’s my fault she left me. How dare she run? My fault. She dares. She ran. My fault.”

  His lids lower over his eyes, cutting off that freaky connection.

  Too late. My mind reels at the image of that female. Of who she must be. Persephone. “What the hell is that thing you do?”

  “As I said. Your education of the world you inhabitant is woefully lacking. The original word for it is of no importance right now. Just know it’s a mind connection, a way of exchanging information instantly.”

  “No shit,” I grumble. “Guessing the exchange can go both ways?”

  My question earns me a disgusted sneer as he turns from me. “Sometimes. What can I say? You truly have the potential to be one of the most powerful motherfuckers, God of Power. Now, don’t you have a wayward female to avenge?”

  I shouldn’t.

  Considering what she’s currently up to—something I can’t think of too deeply—this is the last thing I should be engaging in.

  Bullshit. Nothing in this universe will stop me. Eurytus violated my female at a time she was too vulnerable to defend herself.

  While I was clueless to her whereabouts and what was happening to her.

  Hades has already departed.

  I glance a last time at Apollo, who went silent a while ago, and do the same, heading in the direction Hades showed me.

  To avenge a female I adore and wants nothing from me.

  She’s off fucking someone else, while here I go to destroy another of the bastards that once raped her.

  Man, this is exactly what these Nymphs do. Ruin a male’s life until nothing makes sense anymore.

  And we gladly let them. It’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to them.

  MEGARA

  The weakness continues to spread.

  Eventually, it’ll be incapacitating, to say the least.

  To think I could’ve found a solution for it.

  And I didn’t.

  Sick of myself—sick of everything—I head back to the Sempiternal Road. I arrive just before the black expanse begins and find a sight I wasn’t expecting awaiting me.

  Leaning against the stone wall, Herakles is busy analyzing the backs of his newly scarred hands, sans those pristine white gloves.

  The rest of his gold and white armor is in place, except it’s coated in remnants of a fresh kill.

  An extremely fresh kill. There’s a small pool of gore and blood gathering beneath those white boots. More of it trailing down his armored thighs, from his chest . . .

  Whatever he butchered, it must’ve been huge. Abnormally so.

  Scowling, puzzled, I stop in front of him.

  Fractured eyes bounce up to glare at me from that tense, ginger-haired brow—bright blue dissected by those black cracks, miniature pinpricks of gold light showing in those rifts.

  It’s the recrimination in that glower that gets to me. How dangerous, deranged, and plain fucking sexy he looks. “What?” I snap, crossing my arms.

  The muscle in his jaw jumps.

  That’s it. That’s all I get.

  Pushing off the wall, he spins on his heel and heads into the eternally black road.

  Clearly expecting me to simply open the door for us to head to our next location.

  Which I will.

  Not because he’s the fucking boss of me, but because my earlier “hunt” made things very obvious to me: I won’t have a moment of peace until this asshole is dead.

  Until I’m free to truly go out there, into this vast, multidimensional universe, and explore what it has to offer.

  Hopefull
y something—someone—that will help me finally forget the colossal mistake in front of me.

  Envisioning a passageway to Ibiza, I snap my fingers and watch it materialize paces from where Herakles is.

  As if I’m the one who’s done something wrong, he barrels straight through it, mumbling something angrily under his breath that I don’t manage to catch, even with my immortal hearing.

  Doesn’t matter. I throw a, “Fuck you, asshole”, at him regardless.

  As I follow him into an empty road bisecting a patch of land less than five-hundred feet from a main road, I hear his next comment loud and clear.

  “I wish you fucking would, Succubus.”

  CHAPTER 10

  – Ibiza, Balearic Islands, Spain

  MEGARA

  “Slow down, dumb ass. We’re way too close to the target.”

  Shoulders bunched in a dangerous display, he continues onward.

  “Herakles, damn it!”

  That gets him to stop.

  Turning, he walks back my way, face twisted with shit I don’t want to analyze. “I need you to do me a favor. Just one favor in all this madness.”

  My heart is a raging disaster between my breasts. His lips the center of my focus in a way that doesn’t make sense. As a Succubus, it’s what’s between his legs that matters most. That’s what my kind would need to get at.

  But his lips—fuck my life, I never forgot what those feel like.

  On every part of me.

  A sheen of sweat begins to glisten along his brow and he swipes at it impatiently with the back of his marked hand.

  I cross my arms tightly. “I’m not having sex with you.”

  That earns me an impatient frown. “My name is now Kles. Can you at least call me that from now on?”

  That male is determined to throw me for a loop every freaking time. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t go by Herakles anymore. Haven’t in a long time.”

  “But it’s your birth name.”

  “My cursed name, you mean.”

  He has a point. He was named Herakles in an effort to please his father’s broken, psychotic wife, a feat that failed spectacularly. Not only was she not pleased, but she took it upon herself to demolish every aspect of his life that was good.