Son of a . . . she is. She’s jealous. Proprietary over me.
I’m too hard to even walk at this point, let alone fight.
Dragging a hand down my face, I throw a pleading glance toward the ceiling, seeking sympathy from a higher power that isn’t really there to listen to any of us.
“Stupid nymph, let me make this clear.” The siren leans forward, her shimmery, white gown parting down the middle, leaving her pink-tipped breasts bared to our view—or, as is her goal, my view. “What’s yours is now mine. And I shall keep you alive just long enough to let you see that.”
Lethality. Fucking. Unleashed.
With a fury that makes the old legends of the Titans seem quaint.
The speed of light has nothing on how fast my female rushes the steps to the second floor, appearing in front of Thelxiope in a blur of color evocative of dematerializing.
Her hand is even faster as it comes down in a back hand that connects with the siren’s face in a loud CRACK! Those glasses are sent flying off her face. Thelxiope cups her bleeding face, unable to contain the gash Megara left with that hit.
The glasses land on the floor, breaking apart into a slow-motion, tinkling display of radiant shards.
“Come. Again?” Meg urges in that deadly croon.
The siren’s jaw unhinges, mouth opening into their notorious, glass-shattering cry; the complete opposite of their sweet song used to entice lost males.
Every piece of glass in the restaurant breaks inward, fragments that decorate the air.
It’s a call headed by her allies, each of them rushing into the room with their weapons at the ready and their mouths open in their own fatal screams.
All fifty of them.
There’s a crash above my head—Meg flinging the Siren across the threshold, out of sight.
My initial impulse is to go after, except I’m overrun by a massive pack of barbaric females, their mouths opened in a combined melody that would incapacitated any other male.
And when they realize that it’s useless against me? That’s when those sharp weapons really start slashing.
Another wonderful piece to add to this fucked up story. I’m going to have to fight my way past a group of Amazonian-type warriors, females. A move that goes against every chivalrous instinct Amphitryon once instilled in me.
Forgive me, father, I think as I cup the back of one siren’s head and slam it to the ground beneath my feet. But they’re not really giving me a choice. No one comes between me and Meg.
Not anymore.
MEGARA
I’m backhanded in retaliation, but that isn’t what sends my immortal blood pressure through the roof.
“All I need to do is hum around his cock once and it’ll be as if you never existed whore.”
Like being put under a heat lamp.
Or in the path of this planet’s most powerful x-ray laser.
Or directly right in front of the fucking sun.
Either way, I’m overcome by a blast of fury the likes of which I never knew was possible. Heat. So much heat. My skin boils with undiluted wrath, vision disappearing.
I come to in time to see my fist making contact with her face. Bones are crushed. Flashing out of that robe and into a tight, leather fighting outfit, she flips backward into the air.
Booted feet come at my face.
I catch her around the ankle, yanking her around on a spin.
She crashes along the floor in the direction of the railing.
An image of her leaning over it, showing her tits to my male, and proclaiming ownership over him, sends me gunning across the floor, straight for her head.
Thelxiope is gone before I can reach her; a boon of her having her flashing abilities, whereas we weren’t allowed to retain our own.
A female goes flying into the wall near me, flung up from the first floor. Kles is at the top of the stairs seconds after, irises fractured with black and gold. That stubble covered jaw highlighted by that mark made of the same colors. Aura rioting in white, gold, and black arches around his tense form.
“You.” He points a dark finger at me, three voices speaking at once out of his throat and distorted by his growl. “Don’t fucking move.”
“Excuse me?”
But he’s before me now, brimming with violent intent, that possessive hand around my neck. I’m rushed into one of the walls, pressed against it.
I open my mouth to ask him what’s his fucking prob—
Damnation.
Enslavement.
The incarnation of every dirty aspect of sex there could ever be in the form of his lips meeting mine.
His tongue sliding inside me to ignite a piece of my fractured soul once more.
Our mutual groans carry the exact same weight; the melting of our bodies against the other the same level of tortured relief.
This male has fucked the back of my throat since returning to my life.
Has desecrated the inside of me.
But this is the first time in two-thousand-five-hundred years that we’ve kissed.
It devolves quickly, perhaps too quickly, becoming all about rough lips, teeth, and hungry tongues, but come on. Who could ever blame me? His hand remains around my neck, the other fisting the hair at the back of my head, tilting my head back so he has the best angle to eat at my mouth.
That incessant, demanding arousal of his is throbbing into my abdomen letting me know it has much more to give me.
Then, just as fast as it started, he’s pushing me away with a swift bite to my lower lip. The agonized moan that leaves him makes my legs tremble with lust. “I’m stripping you down and coming on every inch of you once this is over, Nymph.”
They’re rebounding, a wave of sirens heading our way, and yet I can’t do anything but lean into this wall, thighs quaking. “If I let you.”
“Oh, you will. But after I make you ride my face. Remind you who I belong to.”
Cocky motherfucker. “I hate you.”
“And I still love you, Meg,” he throws softly over his shoulder.
Asshole! An asshole that just succeeded at sending me stumbling. Reeling. That just skinned me viciously down to the core of my soul, where all my lies cease to exist and the bitter truth of what I feel remains.
I struggle for a response, anything—gods damn me, at the very least I need to regain a foothold on this whole denial thing—but he leaves to face the incoming horde of singing sluts racing up to the second floor.
A slash of black cuts across my vision. The whistle of a blade cutting through air.
Kles’ confession left the epicenter of my consciousness spinning on its axis. Those kind of things have consequences.
Like eons of being an Erinye going out the window, the preoccupation costing me in perilous ways.
Thelxiope’s blade connects with my trapezius.
The slice is sudden and it takes me a bit to actually register the pain of it. By then, I’ve managed to get my head back in the game. Ducking, I jerk my shoulder and dislodge her blade, sending a torrent of blood rushing down the front of my dress.
She dematerializes around me in spurts, appearing here, there, aiming for different parts of my body with that curved sword; I dodge most of her attacks, but not all, and she manages to cut me open a few more times. Her luminous eyes shine like blue fire with her anger. “You are the reason he shows no reaction to my call. To any of them.”
Possibly a hundred siren’s in this place, singing at once, the sovereign of their species at the helm, and he’s not responding to any of them?
“And I still love you, Meg.”
I narrowly avoid Thelxiope’s attempt to saw off my leg.
But, fuckkkkkkk me. This isn’t the time to be caught up in anything related to Kles.
And what’s up with that heady surge rushing through my veins?
Triumph. Steroid-fed, egotistical, Titan-strength victory. That’s what it is. The most inconvenient, asinine thing to be feeling at this moment.
Yet . . . no reaction. To any of them. Because of me. Ah, gods, I’m freaking high on that. Straight giddy.
Undoubtedly lamentable.
I can only blame the nymph in me and its deplorable preoccupation with his dick.
We’re supposed to kill him, remember?
The blade goes whizzing by my head and it takes a chunk of my hair with it. She manages to swipe my leg out from under me and a quick cartwheel is the only thing that keeps me off the ground. “Once you’re gone, he’ll be mine. I’ll enslave him like no male has ever been before.”
First we kill this bitch. Good call.
Flipping onto the rail, I pivot on my hands to avoid her crazy swings. There’s some skill with a sword there, yet mostly, she’s lost to her rage of me. Her own competitive instincts that can’t understand what’s so special about me.
She’d claimed she could see Madness in Kles with those glasses.
Then I remember I backhanded them off her face, probably before she had a chance to look too closely into me.
What if it’s the thing inside me that’s responsible for his immunity and not me?
It’s both, and this female thinks to threaten that. She wants to subjugate the God of Power. DESTROY HER FOR IT.
That voice is back, with its own surge of vengeance, and I’m hopeless to its call. Pushing off the railing, I land in a crouch. Quicker than a viper strike, I twist on a heel, one leg extended, and kick out the siren’s feet from under her.
She lands on her back with a blast, kicking up wood in every direction.
I flip onto her, thighs on either side, the wound near my shoulder spurting blood onto us both. Her sword is in my grip, a simple turn of my other hand snapping her wrist in half.
Her mouth parts with one of those disgusting, ear-shattering screams.
I slam the hilt of her own sword into her teeth, shutting her up.
A hit turns into two, three, my arm moving faster than it’s ever moved before. Even quicker than when Kles was slamming Hydra’s head against the ground in his bid to destroy it.
Her face is mangled and I still can’t stop.
Eventually, I’ve worked my way through her cranium, down to the seat of every being’s soul, and there’s barely anything left of her brain.
My demented urges don’t seem to pick up on the memo. She. Tried. To. Have. Him.
Her, and everyone one of those females engaged in battle with him on the first floor.
They also want what’s mine. It’s like some primitive wiring’s been tripped, a united trifecta—myself, the Succubus, and the third entity gaining ground—determined to make any female that tries to have that male pay.
Kles grunts, followed by multiple feminine cries, he has takes on whatever is left of the sirens.
Thelxiope’s blade in hand, I rise and approach the railing. The closer I get, the louder the voice becomes, and the images in my mind coalesce in a crystal clear, HD display of wants.
A hundred of them walked in here to subdue him; there’s maybe half of that left after he tore through their ranks. The fifty or so remaining are locked on their sole goal of restraining him, getting rid of me—what they consider the main obstacle in the way of their songs—, and devouring him before they end him.
Ironically, not to dissimilar from my goals for him, is it?
What they want means nothing compared to what we desire. That thought would seem self-centered and insane in most circumstances, but the finality of it rings true.
At the railing, I pause to take in the carnage of the scene below. Female bodies lay twitching throughout the entire restaurant, their heads missing. There’s even one draped along a hibachi station, skin sizzling on the grill the humans left on during their sudden departure.
Kles is a nest surrounded by those hellbent hornets, as they circle his bloodied form in search for a weakness in his guard.
I suspect none of that blood is his own.
“Enough!” I shout down to them, commanding their attention with just that duo-toned word.
Everyone jerks to a halt, heads spinning to stare up at me.
Murder stains the warped angles of Kles’ face at the sight of my ghastly shoulder wound. Sadly for him, the one that dealt it is already gone.
Surveying the gathering of my cousins—for the succubi and the sirens do share a common ancestor in the primeval past—I take in the influx of information being presented to me.
As well as the direct guidance that follows.
By nature, we are their sovereign. Not Thelxiope. We control every creature that play with the ambitions of the living. We control their ambitions, period. What does that make me exactly? A query not meant to be answered right now. “Every one of you will drop your weapons and step away from him.”
Their bodies twitch, expressions twisting in bewilderment. They’re wondering why they feel overcome with the urge to obey me, even if it might not be what they themselves want.
“You don’t rule us,” an idiotic siren hisses, stepping toward Kles.
“You . . . will . . . not . . . touch him,” I warn calmly.
She jerks to a stop against her will, shuddering from her unwillingness to adhere to my order.
I saunter over to the stairs and descend them with deliberate steps, Thelxiope’s blade held loosely in my grip. “You have only one choice. Back away from this male and swear allegiance to me, willingly”—since taking it from them without their consent wouldn’t be too difficult, I can sense that with my new powers—“or . . .”
“Or?” A sourly looking yet gorgeous blonde asks as I step off the final step onto the first floor.
I smile brightly at her. “Or I’ll command you to want death so passionately, you’ll slit your own throats and tear off your own heads here and now.”
Bodies tremble with their efforts to break my hold and attack either Kles or myself. When they admit to themselves the senselessness of their efforts, silent looks are exchanged among them.
Weapons fall to the floor in a series of thuds and clanks, until none of them remain in any of their hands.
I could demand they take a knee . . . but, nah. Good enough.
Nodding at them, I drop their ex-leader’s sword and head on my way out the door. After going through that much trouble to make sure none of them touched him, perhaps I should wait for him. Or at least make sure he’s actually following.
I know he is.
Of course he is.
“And I still love you, Meg.”
He calls my name in the present, rushing down the front steps of the restaurant after me. The entire block is clear of pedestrians, an oddness considering how busy this city is. Not that I’d care at this point if a bunch of humans saw me walking around, covered in the remnants of that fight, with what would be a life-threatening injury for them at the base of my neck.
“And I still love you, Meg.”
“Megara!”
My finger is in his face out of nowhere, leaving us both confused, but there’s no stopping me. No stopping this. No controlling every twisted thing bubbling up out of my gut. “You can’t.”
He blinks. “I can’t what, Meg?”
“You can’t love me, okay?” It goes against everything. Defies every one of his choices, how this wretched tale turned out.
“Explain that one to me, baby,” he requests in a low, controlled tone.
This fucker’s kidding me, right? I poke his chest. “You left me.”
“I know!”
“No. No you don’t. You can’t. I would’ve never been able to walk away from you, especially that easily. It was never even a thought in my mind. I risked my mortal life, for a demigod, and never once pictured a life without you. That’s love, you jackass. Not that easy ‘hug-pivot-leave the idiot who adored you behind thing’ you did.” I’ve never admitted to him I loved him before, never once said it during those days. It wasn’t my way after that original betrayal by my first love. After the life I’d lived in those hard times.
; Which brings me to my next point . . .
“Meg, you don’t understand how many times I’ve replayed that moment and asked myself how the fuck I could do it, too. I also didn’t know what the consequences would be.”
I barely check the urge to punch him in the mouth. “Fuck you and your sister. Even without that deal in place, you know what kind of world you were leaving me to. Herakles’ used goods, left behind in a misogynistic, ancient world to rot.”
He flinches like I’ve just hit him, after all.
Don’t feel bad. Not one bit.
Point proven, I begin to walk away—
Forget this. If it weren’t for Hades, none of this would be happening. I could’ve found Kles on my own and enacted my revenge without any of this emotional bullshit. He says this was my way to gain my freedom; I suspect it’s something else entirely.
And if by some toxic cosmic sense it’s true I’m a goddess now, I’m done doing things his way. Absolutely done. He owes me some actual answers and it’s time he pays up.
Throwing Kles a last, nasty glare, I dematerialize back to Hades, hellbent on cornering the Lord of the Underworld.
Whether he wants to cooperate or not.
CHAPTER 21
– Persephone’s Grove, Hades, The Greek Underworld
HERAKLES
“You had to know I was going to follow you.” We’ve been on what feels like a days-long search of the underworld with me on her tail and she hasn’t said a word to me the entire time. This is our second go-around of Persephone’s grove and we haven’t found any sign of Hades.
Heck, no living creatures, either. Only the somber, wandering souls of the dead that were never granted access to the Elysium Fields.
Or dragged down to the fiery pits of Tartarus.
Meg growls out in frustration and kicks a dark, maroon-leaved tree. “I know and I don’t freaking care! Where in this hell is Hades?”
As if screaming for him will suddenly make the king of this place appear. “Baby, just stop for a bit.”
She spins like some possessed she-demon, eyes wild. “Don’t you—just don’t.”
Call her that, she means. No endearments. No confessions of love. Don’t do anything that might remind her how I feel about her, regardless of my monumental mistakes in the past.
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