“I feel there’s a ‘but’ coming,” Oz said, shifting his weight beside me.
“But I fear that we cannot withstand them indefinitely. Hades must return.”
“We are working on that,” I said, emanating a confidence I did not feel. “Have you seen Aery? I need to speak with her.”
Cass’ eyes narrowed. “The nymph is nowhere to be found.”
“Because she’s dead or because she has abandoned this shitshow?” Oz asked, anger thick in his tone.
He shook his head.“I do not know.”
“Well, this has proven to be an epic fucking waste of time,” Oz said. “The people we need to clean this up can’t get here, and the second string is AWOL.” He turned his burning stare to me. “Your father really runs a top-notch operation down here, new girl.”
“Loyalty is hard to inspire,” I replied, eyeing him tightly. “It is even harder to retain.”
He could not keep the smug smile from his face. “I wouldn’t know…”
“We can help you hunt down the nymph,” Cass said. “If she is here, we will find her.”
“We should split up,” Oz said, surveying our surroundings.
“Be careful, Khara,” Cass said, his expression tight. “Trust nothing. If something approaches you, do what you must to stay safe. The souls…they crave something. I can feel it.”
“They will heed my orders, or they will pay,” I replied, looking back to find Oz smiling. “I’m sure the Dark One would be more than happy to slay a few just for entertainment.”
“I’ll try to keep it to a dull roar,” he replied.
“Meet us back here in an hour,” Cass said. Then he turned to the horde of PC brothers behind him and started shouting orders.
Oz pulled me aside. “Where should we start?”
I pondered his question for only a second because I had already formulated a plan. Though the Underworld was vast, it was not ideal for hiding. The fact that no one had seen Aery in all that time meant one of two things: either she was not there to be found, which I doubted given Oz’s warning the last time we had seen her, or she was in the only place that even the freed souls would dare not go.
“Follow me,” I said as I headed down a particular hall, one that led to a place where I had spent more time than I wished to recall. One I really did not want to ever see again.
“Care to fill me in on where we’re going, new girl?”
“You will see soon enough.”
“All right. I’ll play your little game,” he said, striding up beside me. A cluster of wispy black souls rounded the corner toward us. The moment their ghostly eyes saw us, they stopped. We, however, did not. We headed straight for them, undaunted in our task.
“Move,” I shouted as I neared the shadowy barricade. With only a moment’s hesitation, they parted for us, plastering their willowy forms to the stone walls to avoid my wrath and Oz’s wings of true death.
“If only you could get your brothers to behave like that,” Oz said with a laugh. “The Victorian would be a much more pleasant place to live.”
“They would argue the same would result if you were to leave,” I countered, headed for the final door at the end of the darkened way; the one so black it could not be seen until you were upon it. The one that led to a den of torture that made my skin crawl.
“Well, this looks all kinds of inviting,” Oz said as we stood before Deimos’ door.
“Just wait until you are inside.”
“Color me intrigued...”
With a steady hand on the knob, I turned it slowly and pushed the door open. The room was cloaked in darkness, not a glimmer of light to be found. I stalked back down the hall to an ever-burning torch and yanked it from the wall. With Oz watching, I made my way into Deimos’ room, fire dancing off the cavernous walls to cast eerie shadows along their surface.
“Do I even want to know?” Oz asked as he scanned the room, eyes wide with surprise. Every torture device they landed on seemed to draw him in further until he was standing before the bloodstained wall on the far side of the room, holding the iron shackles that hung from it. “Deimos…”
It was not a question; rather, a grim realization.
“Is any of the blood fresh?” I asked, ignoring his reaction. I was far too concerned with suppressing my own to bother with his.
He dragged his palm along the wall, then shook his head. “All dry. Doesn’t look like any of it is new from what I can see,” he said. “Bring the torch closer.” I did as he asked, and together we scanned the splattered wall for any clues it might reveal. “No. It’s old. If he had her here, it was a while ago.”
I turned from him, torch in hand, trying to remember where Deimos had once imprisoned me not long after I arrived in the Underworld. Just after his sick obsession with me began. Before I had learned the ways of survival I now possessed.
Oz looked on as I silently searched behind the whipping bench, quartering bed, and every other piece of furniture built for pain. When I could not find what I sought, I turned to him in frustration.
“I know it is here,” I said, voice tight.
“Maybe if you actually filled me in on what you’re doing, I could help.”
“I’m looking for a cell,” I said, thinking back centuries to try to remember where it was hidden. It had been so cleverly camouflaged that, at the time, I had not realized where he was taking me. Perhaps my mind had blocked that particular memory from ever being found again—a survival mechanism of sorts, though a highly inconvenient one given the current circumstances.
Oz said nothing in response. When I pried my searching eyes from the room and focused on him, he was staring at me, chest heaving with every ragged breath he took.
A bright white glow from his eyes illuminated the room. “Like a prison cell?” His voice was deep and full of malice.
“Yes, of course. What else would I have meant?”
With slow, controlled movements, he walked toward me, every muscle in his body coiled for a fight.
“And how do you know of this cell?”
“We do not have time to rehash—”
“How. Do. You. Know?” he asked, stopping to tower over me, his anger narrowly held in check.
“Because I saw the inside of it once, and though I never wish to again, I fear Aery may be trapped there. We must find it to be sure.”
“Is it in the wall or the floor?” he asked. The tension in his face made his words clipped and curt, as though forcing them out took far more effort than necessary.
“I do not recall. I was far too terrified at the time to think clearly.”
He inhaled deeply, letting it out in a long, harsh breath. The bright white of his eyes dimmed until it was a faint glow. “Check for seams in the wall. I’ll scour the floor for anything out of place.”
“We must hurry,” I said. “If we are caught—”
“If we’re caught, I want you to get the fuck out of here. I’ll deal with Deimos.”
The faraway look in his narrowed eyes when he spoke made me question if that was not the very outcome he wanted.
Instead of wasting time arguing with the stubborn Dark One, I did as he ordered and began searching the walls for any sign of a fissure in the stone. Anything that would indicate a possible door to a cell. Minutes passed like hours as we worked in silence, and I began to wonder if my ghost of a memory was a mere figment of my imagination—something I had dreamed up after a frightening encounter with Deimos in those early years. But my gut told me otherwise, so I continued.
“I’ve got something!” Oz called from near the wall of shackles. “The blood seemed to funnel toward this particular crack in the stone,” he said, pointing to what he had just described. He bent down and began pulling at the crack with his fingertips.
It did not budge.
“There must be a switch of some sort,” I said, looking at the wall of torture implements nearby. Most were marked and well-used, given the wear they boasted, but one in the middle was not.
The steel mallet jutted out from the wall, its finish still gleaming. It called to me like a Harpy, and I walked over on guided feet. Without a thought, I plucked it from the wall.
The sound of grinding stone snapped me from my trance, and I turned to find Oz jumping away from the floor that moved beneath him. Those now-warm brown eyes looked to me, full of surprise.
“Well played, new girl.”
I ran to his side just as the stones finished revealing what lay beneath, and I nearly gasped at the sight. In the tiny room, merely four by four feet at most, lay a body so covered in blood and dirt that I barely recognized it. If it hadn’t been for Aery’s size, the delicate dragonfly wings on her back, and the fact that we knew she was unaccounted for, she could have been anyone.
“Aery!” I called as I tried to climb down to reach her. The stone that had covered her was at least five feet thick, so she was deep in the space. She didn’t stir when I called her, and I wondered if we were too late; if the nymph we had ordered to stay behind had been claimed by the Underworld—permanently.
“Here,” Oz said, taking my hands to lower me down. The space was so small that I struggled to find a place to set my feet without stepping on the limp form huddled on the floor.
“Aery?” I said, bending down to move her. When I rolled her onto her back to face me, she groaned. “She is alive!” I scooped her into my arms as gently as I could, avoiding her wings in the process. One had clearly been broken, its angle far different than the others. Each of them had been sliced, the delicate iridescent material intentionally cut. The damage was too clean to have been accidental.
“Hand her to me,” Oz said from above. He was sprawled across the stone floor, reaching down for the nymph. Once he had her, he disappeared from sight for a second before returning.
“How bad is she?” I asked when he returned. His grim expression was answer enough. “Get me out of here.”
He got down again like he had for Aery and hauled me back into Deimos’ room of terrors. I spotted Aery lying on the bed, her body far thinner and paler than I remembered it being. She looked like a barely animated corpse.
“We need to get her to the Victorian now,” Oz said, rushing over to her.
“Take her,” I said, following him out of the room. The two of us ran for the Great Hall, no longer concerned about being heard or caught. Deimos would not be pleased that his pet had been released, but I did not care. Rage coursed through me like the Acheron, spitting and searing my insides. Oz could return Aery to the Victorian, but I was not ready to leave. Not yet.
Deimos would answer for what he had done.
A fork in the corridor came into view, one path leading to the Great Hall, the other to my father’s chambers where we had found Deimos earlier. Oz started down one path, and I the other.
“Where are you going?” he called, turning to follow.
“To Deimos.”
“Oh no you’re not—”
“He has done this for a reason, Oz, and I intend to find out why.”
“She needs a healer now. Not later. And you’re not going to Deimos without me.”
“Find my brothers here. One of them surely has some measure of healing ability—”
“That’s assuming their abilities still work. Those brothers are dead, remember?”
“The Underworld has awakened, and its inhabitants grow stronger. That includes my brothers.”
Aery stirred in Oz’s arms, and I placed my hand on her head to calm her.
“If you want to go after Deimos, fine. But you wait for me—”
“No.”
His chest rumbled with irritation. “Khara—”
“You threaten the lives of others with my abilities, then insist that I need your help to do what needs to be done. Which is it, Dark One? Am I capable or am I not? Because you cannot use my strengths to your advantage when it suits your argument, then claim I am too weak to fight without you.”
His expression darkened, but I cared not. I was right and he knew it; that truth was written across his face, from the set of his jaw to the pinch in his brows.
“I am taking her to your brothers and then I’m coming back for you.”
“You will make sure she is being cared for and then you can do as you please. That is the deal.”
He hovered near me, his eyes searching my face for something. They fell to my lips for a moment before he cursed under his breath and sprinted down the opposite corridor that led to the Great Hall. I followed his cue and darted toward where we had last encountered Deimos. I threw open the door to find him standing there as though he’d known I would return.
My wings exploded through my back, sensing the threat he posed.
“We need to talk,” I said, walking toward him.
“Have you rid yourself of the Dark One?” he asked, amusement in his eyes.
“No. But I did manage to find a nymph.” That amusement fell to darkness in a flash. “Tell me, Deimos, why did you have Aery locked away in your chamber? There must be a reason for you to go to such great lengths, and do not endeavor to tell me it was for your pleasure. We both know she is not to your taste.”
“You know my tastes well,” he said, stepping closer.
“Too well.”
“Aery was a threat that I neutralized.”
“A threat to whom?” I asked, mimicking his slow approach.
“That depends on how you choose to look at it.”
“And will you tell me about this threat, I wonder?” I asked, staring into his bottomless eyes. “No, I do not think you will, for where would be the fun in that?”
Those eyes narrowed as he moved closer. “This is no longer about fun,” he replied, voice low and booming, bounding off the stone walls around us, its echo hemming us in.
“For me, it never was.”
He stood before me, contemplating something I could not fathom. “What will it take for you to give yourself to me willingly?” he asked.
“The impossible.”
He let out a growl. “Would you rather perish than live at my side? Because it may come to that.”
I pondered his question for a moment. For once, his words were not a threat. There was a weight to them that I could not ignore; an urgency he possessed when asking that warranted concern.
“Are those my only options?” I asked.
“They will be soon enough…”
“What danger is coming that you think will lead to such an outcome? What does Aery know that you wish to keep secret?”
His jaw flexed as he ground his teeth. There was a battle waging in his mind between what he wanted to say and what he should.
I decided to use the moment to gain answers of another sort. “Why did Ares send you to watch over me during my time with Demeter?” Anger flashed in his stare. The muscles in his jaw feathered and flared. “It is unlike you to blindly follow the directives of others, Deimos. It makes me wonder…”
“Because, when eventually given the reason, I agreed with his order.”
“The reason…” My words were a thinly veiled demand.
“He thought you were in danger.”
I stared at him blankly for a moment as I tried to gather my thoughts. From the moment I’d learned the truth about who my real father was, I’d been told that Ares would have wanted me dead had he known about me; that he had suffered no females born of him to live since the death of his daughter, Eos. This was fact—all my brothers swore to it. But when I looked into Deimos’ eyes, there was a hint of something buried there—concern. Fear. The terrifying demigod was terrified himself. What could hold such power over him was a mystery to me, but one I both wanted and needed to solve.
It seemed as though my life depended on it.
“He should not have known I exist,” I said, moving closer to Deimos. His body tensed at my proximity. His eyes went wide.
“No. He should not.”
It was clear from his tone that he had no intention of elaborating—provided he even could
.
“Do you believe I am in danger?”
“I know you are.”
I pressed closer still. “From whom? You? Kaine? Ares…Oz?”
“All present a threat, but none like the one coming for you. One I am trying to stop.”
I hesitated for a moment, doing all I could to strategize—use his weakness to my advantage.
“You once told me that you had information I wanted, and that I could have it all if I just gave you what you desired…”
“I did,” he said as his hand lifted to encircle my arm. “That offer still stands.”
“I need more than this vague, empty promise. I need proof first—proof that you can give me the information I want before I agree.” His grip tightened with anticipation. “Name the threat Aery was imprisoned for knowing, and I will consider your offer.”
His menacing mask fell for a second, letting that fear creep into his countenance. For the briefest moment, I reconsidered my demand. If Deimos feared this enemy, then I should as well. But ignorance would do me no favors. The threat would not disappear because I pretended it was not coming.
“The threat, Deimos?” I asked again, steeling myself for his reply. “Aery will tell me once she is well enough, and then the answer will be no. Forever.”
“Phobos…”
That single word seemed to echo off the walls and down the hall, announcing his presence as if he were about to appear before us. For a moment, I wondered if he might. If speaking his name would conjure the ghostly demigod, then Deimos had done just that; brought forth the very entity he feared was coming for me.
Hunting me.
“Your brother? Has he not been missing for centuries—not a single sighting of him in that time?”
“That is true.”
I did little to hide the confusion I felt. We were far past the need for pretense.
“Then why would he be a threat?”
Deimos looked over his shoulder again before leaning in so close that his breath was on my ear, inspiring the terror his proximity always bred. But I could not deny that it was not the sole cause of the fear that prickled the back of my neck and snaked its way down my spine. The thought of Phobos did the same.
“Ares adored Eos in a way that I cannot explain. His love was parental but so intense. She could quite literally do nothing wrong in his eyes.”
Unspoken (Unborn Book 3) Page 9