Her gaze danced between his hand and his face, indecision crossing her delicate features. He could feel the war in her, tried to be patient but it was hard. He needed to get a look at his father’s wound.
He needed to know if he was right about Eris and this wasn’t just an attack spurred by anger over the conversation that had taken place before Keras had gone out into the garden to be alone with Enyo.
Maybe her anger was in part due to that conversation, but it hadn’t been born tonight. It had been festering inside her for centuries, and she had been plotting his father’s demise from the moment he had given only Thanatos, Nyx and Hypnos realms to rule.
The brambles surrounding his father parted and Keras eased his hands forwards, weathered a vicious snarl from his father as he fingered the cut in his black tunic and carefully parted the material.
Keras loosed a snarl of his own.
Violet tendrils snaked from the two-inch stab wound, spreading across his father’s pale skin.
“Wraith blade,” he growled and the tension in the room increased.
Several of his brothers cursed, and Thanatos detailed the ways he was going to destroy Eris and her cohorts when he found them.
Instinct pushed Keras to shun Thanatos and Nyx’s help, but sense told him to deny it. He was going to need strong allies in this fight, and he believed that both Nyx and Thanatos truly hadn’t known anything about Eris’s plans, and that they too were targets.
Keras looked across his father and mother to Megan where she hovered near the edge of the brambles, Ares still holding her back. “Can you heal this?”
She was quick to nod, but her chocolate eyes revealed doubt.
“Sweetheart,” Ares warned.
She angled her head and looked up at him. “Let me try.”
His brother sighed.
Cassandra glanced at Ares. “She will not be alone. I will help too.”
“As will I,” Persephone murmured, her green gaze fixed on Hades, all the worry Keras could feel in her shining in her eyes.
Hades’s eyes slipped shut and his cheeks paled further.
“Take him to his chambers,” Keras said.
His mother nodded and disappeared.
Ares stepped with Megan, and Daimon took hold of Cassandra’s arm and teleported with her. The rest of Keras’s brothers followed with their women.
Before Keras could step to his parents’ bedroom, Enyo took hold of his wrist. He glanced at her and lingered as she slipped her hand down to his, as her fingertips gently pressed against his palm.
“You don’t have to face this alone either, Keras.” She stroked her fingers across his skin, sending warmth rolling up his arm, and the darkness that had been building inside him gradually abated as he looked into her eyes and saw she meant those words.
Saw that she was there with him.
“This wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.
Words he wished were true.
She stepped up to him and lifted her other hand, brushed her palm across his cheek and kept his eyes on hers.
“This wasn’t your fault,” she said it more firmly this time, her steady jade gaze telling him that she wasn’t going to accept him blaming himself for what had happened to his father—that she was going to do whatever it took to make him see that this had been unavoidable.
Thanatos helped.
“Mother did not even have time to react.” The god of death’s voice held a darkness that revealed the depth of his anger. His flickering blue eyes shifted from the empty throne where Hades had been to Keras. “You could not have stopped her.”
“It happened too quickly. One moment they were conversing, and the next she had stabbed him and they were all gone.” Nyx continued to gaze at the throne, a sombre look on her face. “I failed my god-king.”
Thanatos leaned over and placed his hand on his mother’s slight shoulder. “Do not blame yourself either. None of us could have known what Eris planned. She played us well.”
“Not her. Eris might be leading the enemy, but it was another who put together this plan. Apate. She played us well,” Keras growled and balled his free hand into a fist.
The goddess of deceit had certainly lived up to her name.
Thanatos was right and none of them had seen this coming.
Apate must have planned it all for her sister, right down to sacrificing Nemesis in order to make it look as if Keras and his brothers had won this war. Had Nemesis known she was a pawn, that she would be sacrificed to ensure Eris and her siblings gained an audience with Hades, could get close enough to him to kill him?
Keras doubted that she had.
Nemesis, like the others, had believed she would receive a place to rule at the end of this plot against his father.
Apate had worked her wicked magic well indeed, moving her pawns into place, making them believe they would gain whatever Eris had promised them. She had fooled them all.
She had fooled him and his brothers too.
He gripped Enyo’s hand and stepped with her.
Chapter 31
The second Keras landed in his father’s black-and-gold-walled bedchamber, someone shoved him aside.
“Make way.” Caterina hurried past him with a bowl of water, Aiko following hot on her heels with some towels.
Ares grunted something under his breath as he wetted one of the small towels and squeezed it out. Rather than applying it to their father’s bare chest, he pressed the rolled-up towel against Megan’s forehead.
She huffed and leaned forwards. Her hands shook as they framed the wound on Hades’s chest.
“This is too dangerous,” Ares grumbled.
“You’ve said that a hundred times already,” Megan snapped, and then sagged, her tone softening. “Sorry.”
Cass sat on the enormous bed on the other side of his father, Persephone beside her. His mother had her hand to his father’s head, her eyes closed as she worked to help heal him. The sorceress ghosted her hands over the length of his body, her eyes sparkling with silver as pale light glowed from her palms.
“He’s strong. No need to fret.”
Keras wasn’t sure who she was directing those words at. Probably all of them. There wasn’t a single person among his brothers and their women who didn’t look worried as they surrounded the large bed.
Megan blew out her breath and lifted her hand. Before she could swipe it across her brow and her dark hair, Ares gently smoothed the damp cloth across her skin and tenderly brushed her hair back from her face.
“You’re doing great, baby,” he murmured and kneaded her shoulder with his other hand. “It’s working.”
She nodded.
“But if you feel even the slightest twinge—”
“I know! I know!” Her gaze fell to her swollen belly. “I’d never risk her.”
Ares looked as if he wanted to argue, but wisely bit his tongue.
Keras paced as he waited, glancing from time to time at his father to see how far the spread of the violet tendrils had reversed. When Megan had healed Esher, it had happened far more quickly. Was the toxin from the wraith’s blade having a worse effect on Hades, or was it because Megan was heavily pregnant and holding back some of her energy?
He couldn’t blame her for doing so if she was.
Hades would be furious if she harmed her unborn child for his sake.
Ares would be furious too.
Cass moved around to Megan’s side and muscled Ares out of the way. His brother glared at the sorceress as he moved behind Megan and settled for rubbing her shoulders and murmuring words of encouragement.
Keras glanced at his father’s chest again.
Relief bloomed sweetly inside him.
The tendrils were small now, barely a centimetre or two long.
Cass whispered words that caused green and blue ribbons of light to chase around her palms and then placed her hand on Ares’s where it gripped Megan’s shoulder. His brother grunted as the light burst from Cass’s palm, forming a ci
rcle that resembled the one she had used in Scotland on the witch, only in miniature. The glyphs inside the smaller circles set around the ring glowed red. Ares’s face contorted as his fiery eyes darted to the sorceress, and Megan gasped and jerked.
The remaining tendrils were pulled back into the wound and wisps of violet smoke rose from the gash.
Cass released Ares and wiped her hand on her clothes, keeping her eyes fixed on anywhere but his brother as she said, “What’s a little energy transfer between a couple?”
“A little?” Ares rumbled, a hard frown pinching his dark eyebrows together. “I think I just lost a few centuries.”
“Oh, do not be so overdramatic.” Cass waved him away, all bravado that was instantly ruined when she hurried away from him, making a fast exit in Daimon’s direction.
Ares looked as if he wanted to pursue her, but then huffed and rounded Megan, turning her to face him at the same time. He looked her over, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks and smoothing her damp hair back.
“You good?” he murmured softly, his brow furrowing as he gazed down into her eyes.
She nodded. “Peachy.”
Her dark eyes slid to Hades.
“I’ve done all I can. It’s down to him now.”
Persephone stroked Hades’s black hair from his brow, her gaze loving as she leaned over him. He was breathing more easily now, but was still too pale for Keras’s liking. He told himself that his father was strong. He would survive this.
He looked at the angry wound on his chest.
His father would survive this.
“I don’t get it,” Daimon muttered, drawing Keras’s focus to him. “The remaining furie is dead. Nemesis is gone, and her army has been decimated or spread to the four corners of the Underworld and unlikely to return. What’s Eris’s plan?”
Keras wasn’t sure himself.
“Perhaps desperation drove her to do it? She aimed for his heart,” Marek put in, his expression grave as he stared at Hades. “She wants to rule this realm, or split it between her and her siblings. Killing Father would gain her enough power that she could take control of the Underworld. I don’t think many would rise against someone who took him down.”
“Maybe losing Nemesis and the other furie pushed her to do something.” Valen rubbed his thumb across his lower lip.
“I just said that.” Marek frowned at him.
Valen shot daggers right back at him.
That wasn’t it. Keras shook his head. They were overlooking something. Missing something.
He had the feeling this had been the plan all along.
“No. They sacrificed Nemesis so they could get close to Father.” Keras stopped pacing and looked at him where he lay on the bed, deathly pale against the black sheets.
“If it was… then did they want to kill him, or take his blood?” Esher stepped forwards, his knees pressing against the edge of the bed, a storm building in his blue eyes.
“The furie is dead. If they want to use Dad’s blood then they’d need to get their hands on Mari, and that is not happening,” Cal growled, taking hold of her hand and clutching it tightly. “Not again.”
She petted his hand and closed the gap between them, pressing against his side, concern lighting her blue-green eyes as a breeze played in her golden hair. “No one is taking me again.”
“We could ask the Moirai what they see now.” Marek’s suggestion was a good one.
The Moirai hadn’t been in touch to say anything had changed, something Keras had overlooked when he had been swept up in the moment, foolishly believing himself the victor and that they had averted the calamity the three fates had foreseen.
“Are we sure the furie is dead?” Ares’s gaze came to land on Keras.
“She’s dead,” Cal said. “We all saw it. I cut her in half. No way she could have survived that.”
But they didn’t have a body to prove it.
Keras ran over everything that had happened in the battle, replaying it on repeat in his mind, looking for something out of place, something that didn’t seem right. A clue.
When he found nothing, he looked at his brothers.
His gaze landed on Caterina and he stilled right down to his breathing.
They didn’t have a body to prove it.
The clue was right there.
“What if we only saw what the enemy wanted us to see?” He stared at Caterina.
A mortal turned hybrid.
“What do you mean?” Ares twisted to face him, his left hand remaining on Megan’s shoulder as she checked Hades over.
“At the gate in Olympus, the guards were confused. The commander saw two women Enyo’s age with an escort of valkyries. Another guard swore they were young women and blonde.”
Marinda’s eyes widened. “I thought it was strange that they didn’t try to stop her, but then I thought perhaps we were allowed to travel to the city. I tried to get the guards to help me, but none of them responded.”
“You were in contact with Meadow. I need you to try to cast an illusion.” Keras shifted a step towards her.
“An illusion?” Esher didn’t sound happy about that, and Keras could understand why.
Lisabeta, the illusionist, had been the one to kill Aiko.
Aiko came to him together with Daimon and soothed him as Keras returned his focus to Marinda.
Marinda closed her eyes and drew down a deep breath, and doubt laced her French accent as she spoke. “I’m not sure how to do this.”
Cal rubbed her shoulder. “I guess you just focus on who you want to see the illusion and sort of imagine it?”
She nodded and frowned, her head lowering as tense seconds trickled past.
Just as Keras thought nothing was going to happen and he had been wrong, an image built around him, a beautiful concert hall with rows of empty red velvet seats.
It lasted barely thirty seconds before it fragmented.
Marinda released her breath and sagged forwards. “Did it work?”
Her tropical eyes lifted to him.
Keras nodded.
Mentally cursed.
He should have considered all the angles when Cal had cut the furie down, should have remembered what had happened at the gate in Olympus earlier, but he had been too swept up in the thought that it was over and he could return home to build a life for himself again, one where Enyo would be at his side.
A low growl came from his father’s direction.
“My love?” Persephone cooed and leaned over him, feathering her fingers across his brow.
He frowned and leaned away from her touch, and then sagged into the pillows and accepted it when she pouted at him.
Her ruby hair spilled across the pillow beside his head as she fussed over him. “How do you feel?”
His scarlet eyes and the power that pressed down on Keras told him that his father felt angry.
“Well enough,” he said, his voice strong.
Too strong.
His father was pushing himself for some reason.
It dawned on Keras when he spoke again.
“The blade. My blood.” Hades struggled to sit up as Persephone kept trying to drag him back down again, said things about him resting that he ignored. “They will open a gate with it.”
“Wait. What?” Ares barked.
Keras’s thoughts exactly.
Cassandra said, “Like you did for me?”
And Keras wanted to growl all over again. He should have thought of that too. When Cassandra had broken free of Marek during a teleport, she’d had a showdown with their father and had been sent back to Daimon through the New York gate.
“Lie down,” Persephone muttered, clawing at Hades’s good shoulder, eventually getting her way. When his father was settled on his back again, resting as she wanted, she looked at Keras and then his brothers. “Your father has the power to open a gate at will. It was how the realms were connected long ago, before he built the new gates and bound them to all of you.”
Somet
hing finally clicked.
This had been the enemy’s plan all along.
They had always intended to lure Hades into a false sense of security, making him believe he had won and making him lower his guard so they could get close enough to deal not only a potentially fatal blow to him, but get their hands on his blood.
Blood that would make the remaining furie on the enemy side incredibly powerful.
She would easily be able to open a gate.
“We have to be ready to move… now. We have to find them.” Keras looked at each of his brother’s in turn.
All of them nodded as their faces set in hard lines.
“Wait,” Hades said. “I will be able to feel it when they open a gate.”
Keras didn’t want to wait. He needed to do something. He needed to be out there hunting for the traitors and the furie, and he wasn’t alone. Crimson ringed Esher’s blue eyes, revealing his brother’s thoughts trod the same path as his.
“Trust in Thanatos and Nyx.” His father’s scarlet eyes were as serious as he had ever seen them as his gaze darted to him and locked with them.
Keras wasn’t sure he could.
Eris and her siblings were related to them, and for all he knew, their determination to participate in the coming battle could all be a ruse devised by Apate. He wanted to believe they were loyal to his father, but it was difficult.
“You will not get a choice.” Persephone caressed Hades’s arm as she looked at Keras. “Thanatos and Nyx will want to be involved. They will want to punish Eris and the others. This is an affront to them too.”
He thought about what Thanatos had said to Nyx.
Eris had ruled Nyx’s realm for a century while she had been absent, and had been angry when that power had been stripped from her when Hades had forgiven Nyx and allowed her to return.
“When I sense the gate, we will move.” Hades sat up again.
“Oh no you will not,” Persephone snapped, fear washing across her features as she gripped his shoulder. “You are staying here. For all we know, they want you on the battlefield again so they can have another chance to kill you. If they kill you—”
Keras: Guardians of Hades Series Book 7 Page 34
