The Elites of the gargoyle community had promised me that if I killed enough monsters, if I did as I was told, they would eventually give me the information about how to reach the Underworld. But slowly, I realized that they were never really going to give me what I need. That they were hoping to keep me busy long enough that with time I would forget all about what I want.
And when I realized the truth, I’d flown around aimlessly, for how long I don’t know. I’d come across Blaise and picked a fight with him, knowing that phoenixes are our natural enemies. He’d fought ruthlessly, but I hadn’t. My sword had been easily knocked away, and I’d bowed down and told him to take my head.
I was ready to be done.
I was ready to be with my brother.
But Blaise seemed to realize this wasn’t a fight, it was an execution, and he refused. We fought again until, standing on that cliff, the rain pouring around us, I’d just begged him to kill me. My tears had been concealed by the storm, and he’d asked me why. Why I wanted to die. Again, I’d bowed my head, but I’d told him over the storm that raged.
He had made me a deal. If I allowed him to join my sad and lonely Brotherhood, he would stop at nothing to help me to save my brother. We had clasped hands that day, then worked together to try to kill enough beasts to get the information from the gargoyles. I owe him everything, including my life. And yet, a tiny part of me worries that as we get closer to our suicide mission, he might change his mind. The fact that he still hasn’t wavered...it makes that something inside of me...that love that is akin to what I feel for my twin brother, even stronger.
“We’re going to find him,” Blaise says.
I look at him and realize he’s watching me. “I know.”
His eyes glow gold for the briefest moment before they turn dark one more, and then he looks back over at the swamp, his back rigid. I smile, despite the dark hole of misery I seem unable to climb out of. This place is Blaise’s nightmare, but damn if he isn’t trying his hardest to hide it.
He lifts a hand and points ahead. “The fork!”
I nod and slow the boat, easing it in the direction the man had told us.
“What if he was lying?”
I had considered that. “Most men tell the truth when they’re faced with death.” I don’t say that I know that firsthand, because he had been there for my soul-destroying confessions.
“I guess we just prepare ourselves for anything.” Then he grins at me. “Although I doubt there would be anything worse than the actual monstrous woman we’re trying to find.”
“Probably not.”
He looks back ahead and inches to the side of the boat. I’m studying the water. It’s getting harder to tell the areas that are too low for us to get the boat through. If we’re not careful, we could get stuck out here.
I mean, we could fly away, but then we might not find the woman. And right now, that’s what I need more than anything else.
“What do you know of her?”
Blaise is quiet for so long that I think he might not have heard me over the roar of the engine before he speaks. “She’s a dangerous monster. Gargoyles have hunted her unsuccessfully for years. And that if you get too close to her, she’ll kill you. Usually, she has a number of beasts that hunt the areas around her swamp. And she tends to move from place to place.”
“Yes.” I’d heard the same.
“Orion.” He clears his throat. “Are you going in here as a gargoyle or a--?”
“Not a gargoyle.”
My mind slips back to the days before my brother’s death. We rarely hunted monsters unless tasked with it. Most of our time was spent creating a beautiful community in the sanctuary and searching out gargoyles who hadn’t awakened. We’d try to get them to shed their stone form and join us, before too much time passed and they weren’t able to awaken anymore. We enjoyed what we did. We laughed. We joked. We spent time together staring up at the stars and talking about how one day we would find a mate, have a beautiful child, and be one happy family. We had lost three brothers over hundreds of years of fighting to defend our master’s lands until finally awaking the last time to find our master and our lands gone, then going to the sanctuary and starting a new life.
It was just him and I. All the time. Until the day. The day everything changed.
“I never enjoyed the hunt,” I admit. “I enjoyed spending time with my brother. I enjoyed being free...and having hope. If I never kill another monster again, I won’t care.”
“I hope she asks questions first and shoots after,” he says.
I don’t say it, but I agree.
“Maybe…” He hesitates, then continues. “Maybe I should go first and smooth things over.”
Every muscle in my body tightens. Blaise is important to me. Like a little brother. In the time we’d spent together, he’d worked to repair my soul, and I’d worked to keep him safe, even if I didn’t tell him that. He prides himself on being a warrior, but his body is still more fragile than my stone form. It worries me. And the thought of sending him alone to face a monstrous swamp beast...well, it makes me sick.
“I can do it, Orion,” he says, one of his brows raised.
“Stop that,” I mumble. I hate when he seems to read my mind. “We’re spending way too much time together.”
“I can handle a little mon--” He stops mid-sentence and gives a very umanly shriek as he leaps from one side of the boat to the other. I glance into the water and see a massive alligator right next to our boat.
I laugh.
“Those things are like prehistoric monsters!” he shouts back at me.
I laugh harder. Blaise is a brave fucker, but his fear of creatures he deems “creepy prehistoric animals” is hilarious. I have no idea how a man lives as long as he has and still fears things like them.
My gaze meets his, and I realize he’s smiling. “It’s nice to see you happy,” he says, then turns around.
Something inside of me aches. No, I’m not happy. How can I be happy when my brother is trapped in the Underworld? My thoughts move to the day of his accident, and then I jerk my thoughts away. If I think about that right now, I’ll completely lose my focus, and we can’t afford that.
“There!” he says.
I stiffen and follow the direction he’s pointing and see a wooden shack on platforms above the swampy water. Instantly, I cut the engine, and we drift until we get to the deck outside the house. Blaise ties the boat to it, and then we’re both staring at the strange house. Candles flicker behind curtains, but we can’t see anything inside.
Blaise climbs out of the boat.
“Wait,” I say. My heart’s racing. I’m so close to finding out how to reach Andros, but I won’t trade one brother for another. “I can go with you.”
Blaise locks eyes with me. “We don’t want to fight if we don’t have to. You might be some stone giant, but I’ve got skills too, including people skills.”
“Blaise…”
“I’ll be careful. Promise.”
Then he turns and walks around the house to where the door must be. My heart hammers. Blaise is six-foot-seven and a controlled kind of muscular. He has also lived nearly as long as I have, and knows damn well how to use the sword on his belt. I’m being protective. He can handle himself.
So why do I feel like I just sent him off to his death?
5
Hecate
I’m scarfing down the food, not even bothering to taste the roll, soup, or whatever the hell meat is on the side. I drink the water in gulps. I’m panting when I finally finish and stare in disappointment at my empty tray. Persephone’s lady waits on the other side with a nervous expression, and I push the empty tray and the cup back through the bars of my cage.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
She opens her mouth to respond when we both hear a sound in the distance. Within seconds, she’s darting in the opposite direction of the sound. I stare at the empty space where she once stood, feeling disappointed.
A long time ago, I’d tried to ration the food the Queen of the Underworld snuck to me, but I realized I was going to lose too much of it to the rats, and started eating it as fast as I could. It’s a strange feeling to be hungry all the time, then strangely full, but it’s better than wasting away to nothing. Still, I always like to steal a second or two with the queen’s maid when I’m done. She visits so rarely that I look forward to it nearly as much as the food. Having some small sound scare her off pisses me off. It was probably nothing anyway. There’s always…
I hear a door open and a small movement.
Fuck. Someone is heading down the hall. It’s either someone to drag out a prisoner and torture them, or food. It’s not time for food, so I already know what it is. Drawing back from the bars, I try to make myself as small as possible in the corner of my cell. Yeah, most of the time Hades had already asked for a specific prisoner. But every once and awhile, I think he told his guards just to pick someone.
I don’t want to be that someone.
Outside my cell, I hear keys jangle. A second later, Andros is there. I leap to my feet, ready to run into his arms, but he has that stoic look that says this isn’t going to be a pleasant visit.
My hands curl into fists. “What does tiny dick want now?”
Andros’s eyes squeeze shut. He takes several deep breaths, then his eyes flash open. “He wants you at his party to entertain his guests.”
My teeth clench together so hard they hurt. If it was anyone else but Andros, I’d fight, but that’s exactly why Hades sent him.
“Okay.”
I try to hold my head high, even walking in rags. Even so filthy I don’t want to be near me.
Andros takes me down the many halls, where the skeleton guards soundlessly open the doors at our approach. When the final door opens, I pause for a moment. Stretching out in front of me is the beach covered in black sand and bones. Beyond that is the river of souls, and the bank on the other side where the souls that don’t have the payment to cross stand for eternity. To my side is the path leading up onto the wall.
“Keep going,” Andros says, no emotion in his voice.
I go forward. It’s strange. The air smells of coppery blood and brimstone, but at least it’s cleaner than in the cells. And being able to stare at something other than walls...it’s a gift in itself.
He leads me up the wall. There are trapdoors every so often, and he takes one, a familiar one. We weave down a tightly spiraled stone staircase, with only torches lighting the darkness. When we reach the bottom, he leads me away from the area of the Underworld that’s filled with people being tortured, and toward the area Hades and his people live. I’m led to an unfamiliar room.
There, Andros opens the door. Several of Hades’s women are standing in nearly see-through, white togas. In the center of the room is a massive bathtub filled with roses, and the smell of roses fills the room. I inhale deeply and shudder, just imagining what it’d feel like to be able to take a warm bath.
“Go on then,” Andros says.
I look back at him, frowning. “Go and do what?”
He looks straight ahead. “Hades wants you clean and changed before being seen by his important guests.”
My jaw drops open. I hate entertaining Hades’s guests, but they must be really important if he doesn’t want me coming in looking like a prisoner. That should worry me, but instead, I find it hard to care about anything except the warm tub.
I go to the edge, and the women help me to undress from the ragged shirt. A woman collects my clothes, wrinkling her nose, and walks away. The others wait around me, and I step down into the tub, groaning. The water’s hot, almost uncomfortably hot, and I sink down into it, then under the surface.
My gods. This is amazing. For years I’d imagined nothing could be better than a big chunk of chocolate, wrapped in a cookie, wrapped in a donut, but I take it back. A hot bath is the best thing in the world.
I’m running out of air, so I force myself to surface. And when I do, a laugh explodes from my lips. I look back at Andros, and he has that ghost of a smile. I lift the water in the palms of my hands and let it fall down, then splash around a little. I don’t think I’ve been this happy in longer than I can remember.
The women fill pots with the water and drop them over my head. I close my eyes and my mouth and let my head fall back. A couple of them climb into the water with me. They scrub my hair and my body with soaps that smell of roses, and I watch as the dirty water running off my body is replaced by clean water. They scrub me for what feels like hours, until the water begins to cool, and then they climb out of the massive tub and hold out a towel for me.
I climb out, locking gazes with Andros, and his gaze roams over my body, then lands on my face. In his eyes, I see a thousand words of a longing. Words he can’t speak. I smile back at him, wanting him to know that I know.
When I turn my back on him, he gasps. And I realize that out of the water he can see the lashes I gave myself. They’re mostly healed, just more scars to add to the others, but they still look recent enough that he’ll know.
I glance back at him and try to silently reassure him, but I can see a raw, horrible suffering in his eyes. It’s terrible to see him hurting, but I also know that we don’t get many decent moments, so we should enjoy this one while we can.
The women dry me with the softest towels, then put me in a robe. They dry my hair by a fire, brushing my deep blue strands until they gleam, and then they braid them intricately, placing strands strategically on my head, before letting the rest fall down my shoulders. They put rose perfume on my neck and my wrists, then put on a dark blue gown that is just a couple shades darker than my skin and soft as hell.
When they bring me to a mirror, I stare in shock. They stand back and I shift, the slit in the long dress revealing my leg. I continue moving in front of the mirror, staring at myself, shocked that the woman in the mirror is me. Yes, I’m thin. Like, sickly thin to the point where I can see the bones in my neck and chest, but I also look like the first witch...the woman of legend that I’m known as. It makes me feel strangely powerful after so long as a prisoner.
“You look beautiful.”
I shift in the mirror and stare over my shoulder. Andros is standing at attention, his face carefully blank. If I hadn’t heard the words, I’d have thought I imagined them.
“Hades will want you there now,” one of the women says, but her gaze softens and she gestures to one of the women.
The other maid lifts a bowl of fresh fruit, offering it to me.
My soul pangs at the sight, but I force a smile and say, “No, thank you.”
They all look surprised, but set the bowl back down.
I look at Andros and take a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“One more thing,” the first maid says. “I almost forgot.” She rushes over and comes back with dark blue boots made of soft leather.
I lift my feet, and the women help put on soft stockings and then the boots, then lace them up.
A sigh escapes my lips as I wiggle my feet into them. Shoes. Actual shoes.
Andros opens the door, and I follow him down a quiet hallway. Skeletal guards line the walls, as do flickering torches that burn red. Otherwise, my boots softly striking the wood is the only sound. Several times, Andros chances a look back and me. Neither of us react in any way. There are just too many eyes here. But his gaze burns into me, and I feel the overwhelming sense that I’m loved, even if the man I love is leading me to gods only know where.
Even though I have a good idea of the location.
Eventually, we come to two massive doors. At our approach, the skeletal guards open the doors, and the sounds of music and laughter come pouring out of the room. A shiver rolls down my spine and my ears seem to perk up. I’ve missed music. I’ve missed laughter and conversation.
I just wish it didn’t come with the devil himself.
“Come on then,” Andros says, his words clipped.
I stiffen my spine
and remember that Andros and I can never show an ounce of affection toward each other even again, or Hades will find new and awful ways to torture us. Following him into the room, I see that the throne room has been covered with massive pillows. Blood-red fabric spills from all the pillars in the room, and easily a dozen servants move about, dressed in see-through white tunics, with platters of food in their hands.
The guests smoke from hookah pipes, but they’re definitely not smoking tobacco. The sweet scent in the air is a special kind of drug that makes them act like giggly idiots. I hate “entertaining” his guests in general, but throw in some drugs, and it’s just plain miserable. My enjoyment over my new clothes and bath diminish.
Hades is lying back on a pillow. He strokes one man’s cock, while a woman sucks his. Like usual, his wife is nowhere to be found. But I know she enjoys both men and women too, like most of the gods. She just prefers the same lovers...lovers she’d formed real bonds with. For her, it’s not about the sex. It’s about having someone special in this dark place.
Hades’s dark eyes, ringed by red, connect with mine as he reaches forward to grab the pipe that’s handed to him with his free hand. “And here she is folks, the first witch, Hecate herself!”
All gazes are suddenly on me, and the din of the laughter and conversation dies down. Hades has seven guests, five males and two females. All of them are gods of some kind, and yet, I don’t recognize any of them.
A man with golden hair swept back from a chiseled face says, “She looks the part, but is she such a great and powerful witch?” His pale brow raises in an arrogant way.
“You look the part of an asshole god, but are you one?” I counter back.
Hecate's Spell Page 3
