Hades slams his hand onto the armrest of his throne; a shockwave of seemingly infinite proportions tears through the throne room, not only magnifying the glitch effect, but sending me crashing back into the ground.
When I raise my head, he’s as calm as ever though, and so is his tone. “She was dragged here because of you. Yes. Not by me however.” With a low sigh, he stares around him, eyes blacker than ever—
They meet mine again and for the first time I see something I’ve never even heard he was capable of before.
The bronze glow that leaks off many places in the Underworld, the same color as Charon’s boat, overcomes his irises, shining bright as stars.
I’ve witnessed gods and other immortal beings with changeable eye color in the past. It’s the fact that it’s happening to him, that nobody has ever reported him possessing that ability, that shocks me.
Then his words sink in . . . what he’s implying . . . I’m on my feet in a flash, pulse pounding with an outrage too deep to process. “What the fuck are you saying now? I don’t have time for your lies.”
“Lies? Come now, Herakles.” His emphasis on the part of my name I hate the most isn’t lost on me. “Your very soul is telling you the truth. And that truth is simple: she was dragged to this hell because of you. It also wasn’t by my hand.” He raises a black-stained hand, holding it up to his face. Peeking at me through his ashen fingers with those bronze eyes, he whispers, “Oh. But how your sister hates you so.”
Sister? Which one of the hundreds? Thousands? My father was the Genghis Khan of the immortal world, siring bastard sons and daughters wherever he could. There’s rumors that the numbers might even be in the millions.
“Fuck this.” Hades’ exasperated groan is another shock to the system. His tone and accent too modern for a being that’s rumored to spend all his time in the Underworld. “I don’t have time for this. There’s only one sister that got thrown out of Olympus because of you, boy.”
The answer is instant. Hideous. “Atë.”
“Atë. She was there the entire time, behind the scenes, the puppeteer jerking on the strings of your precious little mortal. And you were too blinded by your ambitions, your need to become someone worthy, that you never even saw it.”
Atë was the other half of that cursed equation. The second architect of every single one of my demises. Every time things started to look up for me, suddenly tragedy struck from all angles, and it was all thanks to Hera and my fucking sister.
Now he’s telling me she’s the one responsible for my Megara’s fate? “Explain yourself, Hades. Do it now. What the fuck is going on?”
“Boy, you are unbelievably lucky that you’re necessary. Yet you will understand that no one speaks to me that way while in my fucking dimension. Especially if you want me to help you save your little Meg.”
The ground shakes at his proclamation. The visual static? On a whole other level, disorienting enough to make me close my eyes. “Just tell me what the hell you’re saying!”
“You can’t handle what I’m about to say. Even now, your skin begins to blacken with the weight of your monstrosity.”
What is he talking about?
Cracking open my eyes, I’m met by the vision of my hands.
My bare hands, armored gloves gone.
Skin visible.
And so is two thin, ashen lines, each spreading across the backs of my hands.
Each caused by a luminescent, tiny gold dot that appears to be carving the black markings into my flesh.
Dots that are the same exact color as the gold in my armor.
The gold in my aura.
“And thus your soul begins to bare the truth of what you are, Herakles.”
He needs to die. Rip him apart. Force him to face the truth of the chaos in him. Ramblings that barely make sense. A blood-thirsty call I can’t give into for it precedes the insanity that can overcome me.
The irrational side that tears through it all.
“What are you doing to me?” My voice shakes with fury.
“You’ve lived on the edge of that precipice for your entire existence. Managed to ‘bandage’ that gaping hole and hide what resides in it. Yet it was always a matter of time before it overcame you entirely. Before you became what you’re truly meant to be.”
He’s a living, tranquil statue on that throne, with all-knowing bronze eyes. A stare that communicates the meaning of his cryptic words clearly.
He’s speaking of the illness in me. The other side of my personality. An evil greater than I, the one that’s slaughtered without care.
Hades’ is alluding to me becoming that thing entirely. Being overcome by a darkness I always feared and did everything to run from.
“You want to force me to become an abomination, as your myth says you were forced to become this.” Even if my father isn’t the one responsible for Hades’ curse, someone is. No one would choose to be king of the Underworld willingly. That’s a fact.
Irritation flashes in his bronze irises. “I might’ve been forced into this role, boy, but don’t ever dare think I wasn’t one of the best suited for the task. Without me, the chaos of this realm would defy the understanding of even the oldest of us all.”
In other words, he’s keeping it all together. His ruling this dimension brings some sort of order to the primordial madness.
Like I give a fuck. “Hades . . . What. Is. This. All. About.”
“Simple, Herakles. Or, as you now prefer, Kles. You fucked up. Someone once loved you enough to make a deal behind your back to ensure your success. Someone you made a promise to. You said you wouldn’t leave them once you ascended to your lofty goal. And the sister that despised you used her love against her to trick her. I’m sure you see where this is heading . . .”
She made a deal.
Meg made a deal.
Megara made a deal with Atë of all beings to help me?
“Now, it wasn’t all nefarious. Atë did include a responsibility clause. Whose? Yours. Had you chosen Meg, Meg would’ve been safe. But you didn’t, did you? You were given two choices. Her or your precious godhood. And everyone everywhere knows which one you got, don’t they?” The corners of his eyes crinkle, as if he’s smiling.
Shouting with a renewed wave of anger, I run at the invisible barrier and slam my fists into it.
Two new lines cut their paths down the backs of my hands.
“Oh yes. This will be quicker than I even anticipated,” Hades murmurs.
“If Atë is responsible for Meg being here, why the fuck is she one of your Erinye?” Why the fuck did you turn her into a seed-eating demon?
“Megara was here for centuries unbeknownst to me. Your sister has managed to carve out her own territory in this realm, too close to Tartarus for me to have located her in time. When I did, your precious mortal had been tortured and abused to the point of near-death. I could only turn her into one type of immortal to save her. And only immortals can become one of my assassins.”
Horror. Terror. Bile rises up my throat at the meaning of his words. Mortal. Tortured and abused to the point of near-death. Could only turn her into one type of immortal to save her. Eyes shut again. Mind bending. Cracking. Heart following.
Frenzy building.
Beneath it all, I feel more lines carving across the skin of my hands. The heat of the light causing it.
My soul, Hades said.
“Definitely going to be quicker than predicted.”
Opening my eyes, I see that there’s now three black scar-like lines gracing my skin. “Hades . . .”
“Now that you know how Meg ended up down here, doing what she’s been doing . . .”
His next verbal blows lands exactly where he expected it to, right in the middle of my damaged heart.
“. . . it’s time to ask you that most important question of all: that golden glow is your soul. The side of it known as Power, to be exact. Yet the blackened parts? That’s the other side of you, Kles. The one you fear most. To get Me
gara back, would you sacrifice yourself to it? Entirely?”
This is his goal.
He can claim my half-sister, the Goddess of Ruin, is responsible for Megara being here, yet this is where he cashes in.
Where he can grab a chunk of his vengeance against my father.
“You want me to become that atrocity in me,” I growl.
“What I want is irrelevant, Kles. This is about what must happen. We both know once I make a deal in my kingdom I cannot renege on it. So I’ll ask you one final time: to save Megara, are you willing to become the primal god you were always meant to be? Will you completely give yourself over to it? As the mortals say: the clock’s ticking, boy.”
The choice is like an instant vice around my neck, because it’s not really a choice, is it? Regardless of how he ended up ruling this place, his power is absolute.
Extreme.
There’s only one way I’m getting Meg out of here. “What if you’re lying? Like Atë lied to her.”
“Cerberus is proof that I cannot lie. Not in this. Also, question my integrity as King again, and I’ll have both you and Meg thrown into the deepest pit in Tartarus. Now, make your choice. My patience dwindles.”
“And how exactly do I ‘give’ into the thing within me?” I grit out, hatred for him burning solar-strong.
Hades shifts in his throne—
For the first time in my immortal life, those shadows part, exposing his full face to me.
I’m rooted in place by the sight of it.
It’s him. The two effigies that weren’t moving in the hallway. Those were representations of him in other forms.
And he looks nothing like my father. Nothing. The thought that follows is even more astounding. He can’t be my father’s full-blooded brother.
If he’s his brother at all.
“That’s the fine print of this contract, I fear,” the stranger on the throne says. “Remember those labors? Yeah, well . . . I have a few errands I need you and Megara to run.”
CHAPTER 5
MEGARA
“ARGHHHHHHHH!”
Bones fractures beneath my grip.
My fingertips encounter the soft, hot tissue of the creature’s brain.
It thrashes beneath me, armless, hooved feet kicking against the stone floor. “No. Please. With your kind, the death is—”
Permanent. I know. One of the perks of being an Erinye.
The majority of the Centaur’s mind comes lose with a single tear, leaving a gaping hole in my wake.
The blood gush is immediate. Torrential.
The resulting quiet almost divine.
Carnage surrounds me in the form of dozens of other bodies, each torn to shreds by my hands.
Different species bleed different colors, therefore the thick sludge extending as far as the eye can see has coalesced into a dark, brownish shade.
Disconnected hands and feet twitch, like they’re searching for their dead masters.
Not too far from me, a disembodied groan trickles up from the mass of slaughter.
In the blink of an eye, I instinctively locate the source and dematerialize to it.
A Chimaera whose lion head I left attached.
My mistake.
Raising a heeled foot, I bring it down on that head, penetrating through it to the stone below.
These beings ironically bleed red, like humanoid creatures do. It flies into my face, followed by chunks of flesh.
It’s an almost distracting sensation. Nearly enough to yank my mind away from the memory of that penthouse.
Of that modern-cut, short, slicked back ginger hair with its blonde highlights.
That muscular frame.
His voice begging me to talk to him.
Then, his voice telling me his plans to make me drench his cock.
That aura of sheer power magnified to its highest potential.
His bright blue, ethereal eyes. The same ones I’m forced to stare at each time I bump into one of his remaining siblings. Minos. Atë. Apollo.
Those eyes.
Those eyes.
His motherfucking eyes!
I slam my foot into the decimated Chimaera’s head with each flash of memory.
The past.
This new, asinine present.
I couldn’t kill him. As he ground into me, pinned me to that wall, ducked his head to kiss me, I couldn’t fucking kill him.
And I’m not oblivious enough to only blame my DNA for it.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Letting out a shout of my own, I punt what remains of the Chimaera—
“I’d never accept this level of disrespect from anyone but you, Megara,” Hades grouses, stepping into sight.
Dripping from his armored chest is a mess of tissue and blood.
The remainder of the creature I kicked.
Snapping his fingers, he wills the meat and fluids away, leaving his black and bronze armor pristine.
I’ve only seen him in it once. A few months ago prior to his leaving to Earth. Still don’t know what he was up to, but something tells me he only “suits up” when something’s about to go down.
“I failed in my mission, Hades.” He already knows, of course he does. Maybe I’m hoping to enrage him enough with my proclamation that he decides to end me once and for all.
It’d be better than living with this reality inside me.
I still want him.
He left me to a fate crueler than any he was ever forced to live through, and the blood in my veins still pounds for him.
What kind of loathsome, moronic, pathetic being would even think like that after everything that’s happened?
A headbutt, really? Herakles had the audacity to think he’s entitled to my lips—to any part of me—and the best I could do was headbutt him away from me?
Right before I ran away.
I could’ve flashed over to one of my swords. Could’ve used my abilities against him to play off his lust. Could’ve had him on his knees begging for the chance to get his tongue on me and beheaded him right that instant.
But what did I do instead?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!
“I’m aware of what you call your failure, Meg.” Hades walks around me, heavy boots flattening more of the bloodshed I left scattered throughout. “Yet, considering what my real goal was, it was actually a success.”
Scowling, I spin to ask him what—
White. Gold.
A brilliant light that floods the space we’re in.
Intense, hyper focused, bright blue eyes among the brilliance.
Him.
The God of Power.
“Down, my little Erinye.”
Hades’ command freezes me in place just as I was beginning to flash in Herakles’ direction, mind shrieking for a second chance to do the right thing.
To bring him the end he has coming to him.
“Hades,” I grunt, shaking and fighting to overcome his will with my own. A futility. I’m his, one of his assassins. His desires are absolute when compared to my own. I’m his puppet. His tool. His weapon. He decides when I act and how.
“Let her go,” Herakles snaps, coming closer.
Stare glued to me.
Expression twisted.
Hands fisted.
Every supernatural sense I was gifted with upon my transformation into a succubus hones in on what’s pulsing from him.
His desire.
His yearning.
The multitude of aches and regrets he has no right to feel.
No. Fuck him. After he chose glory over me, the least he can do is enjoy the benefits of his success. He doesn’t get to regret what he did to me.
“And let her finish you before you finish saving her?” Sucking his teeth lightly, Hades faces his nephew. “Now what would be the point of that? Think, Kles. Be rational. I know you struggle with that, yet considering your new path, maybe it’s time to practice it. You’ll be losing the choice soon, anyway.”
Herakles’ jaw clenches at Hades’ t
aunting tone.
A curse of my immortality? I can scent him from over here, regardless of distance and what should be all the other overpowering smells around us.
A gift of it? Having the choice whether to fucking breathe or not.
Guess which one I chose?
Stifling my breaths, I confront Hades in the only way I can since he froze me in place, head turned in his direction, eyes narrowed. “Save me?”
“I’m getting you out of here, Meg.”
That soft spoken proclamation goes over very well.
Yeah, sure. Very well.
“What the fuck is he talking about?” I yell at Hades. The ground starts to tremble beneath my heels. I might not be as powerful as the king of this place, but so help me, if he made a deal with that worthless bastard nephew of his, I’m going to destroy this entire dimension.
Hades holds a hand up in Herakles’ direction. “Maybe let me do all the talking for now. I think the sound of your voice alone is about to drive her into another bloodlust.”
His nephew frowns at him, anger brewing in his stare.
“You said you wanted me to kill him!”
Hades glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “What did I promise you after I first turned you into what you are today, Megara?”
I’m speechless at the memory that invokes.
More confused than ever.
“I told you I’d one day deliver you from your suffering, didn’t I?” The King of the Underworld materializes inches from me, analyzing my form from head-to-toe. Like it’s the first time he’s seeing it. Like I’m a polis piece—the ancient Greek version of Chess—and he’s strategizing the best place to move me to.
“You did. You gave me the ability to survive what Catobeplas did to me. Then you made me an Erinye. What does that have to do with him being here and still fucking breathing?”
“Catoblepas? What the fuck did he do to you?” Herakles’ tone warps, yet it’s not the usual uprising of his calling known as Power echoing behind it. It’s an even deeper, raspier voice. One I’ve never heard come from him.
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