Bonds of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #2)(6)

Electricity exploded through my chest as our bond lit up.

Alexis’s face twisted with pain. She stumbled, turned forward, and barely avoided colliding with a tree.

“Be fucking careful!” I shouted. “Watch where you’re going.”

“Don’t worry about him, my darling mentee,” Patro called out mockingly. “Achilles and I are here for you!”

Hermos shouted something to Agatha, and a safety clicked off.

Augustus turned back in slow motion, his black eyes widening with sheer horror.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Muzzle flashes lit the night as bark exploded.

Drex staggered.

Two bullets lodged in his arm.

Alexis grabbed him by the front of his toga and dragged him forward as they zigzagged wildly through the trees.

Their lead was disappearing.

Forty feet.

Patro screamed something and Agatha yelled back; both sounds were swallowed by the wind.

Alexis jerkily yanked Drex closer, draping one of his arms over her shoulders. She half ran, half dragged him through the dark woods. His arm was bleeding all over her.

“LEAVE HIM!” I shouted.

Alexis tightened her grip around the injured boy as she dragged him through the woods.

A muzzle flashed.

Pop.

Alexis’s body rocked. She grunted and stumbled.

She wiped at her leg—her gloves were coated in crimson.

Copper stained the air.

She grabbed Drex’s wounded arm, he cried out in pain, and she resumed pulling him through the remaining trees.

A bullet was lodged in Alexis’s right calf.

They.

Shot.

My.

Wife.

Augustus bellowed.

Patro shouted.

A strange pain burned my leg.

I looked back—Hermos, the vile Gorgon, had a gun in his outstretched hand, the barrel smoking with fresh gunpowder.

He’d shot my wife using one of the Spartan guns I’d designed.

I knew all about his kind.

The trainers at the House of Aphrodite were all Gorgons—they’d tortured Patro as a child, for fun. He was fucked up because of their sadistic culture.

“Get to her first!” Patro shouted, and Achilles sped up, his muzzle coated with ice.

Augustus matched him stride for stride.

The two behemoths of the House of Ares moved in a blur, faster than the rest of the Chthonics. They were built for power.

“Handle Hermos—or I’ll destroy him … permanently,” Augustus ordered, blood dripping profusely from his eyes as he weaved through the branches.

Spinning around, I came to a stop—raising both weapons—and fired at point-blank range.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Hermos didn’t have time to blink.

Bullets ripped through his skull—eyes, mouth, and forehead—his brain exploded. Momentum threw him onto the ice as he bounced off a tree.

I stomped over to Hermos’s fallen body, kicking off his Spartan helmet.

“What the fuck was that for?” Agatha screeched as she stumbled to a stop and kneeled beside her downed partner.

My chest heaved with rage.

“He shot my wife.”

Agatha cradled Hermos’s bloody snake head, her face shifting rapidly between a woman and a demon. “It’s the rules!”

“It’s my wife.”

I turned and ran, resuming the hunt.

An eerie hum filled the air as sleet poured harder and slammed against ice.

Shadows moved up ahead.

When I finally broke out of the forest, Drex was lying in a heap cradling his arm, but his bullet wounds were somehow already healing over.

That’s strange.

I stepped over him.

In the middle of the clearing, Alexis was limping backward. Her strange protector crouched in front of her.

Lightning lit up the inky sky, illuminating wet golden curls.

Augustus and Patro were slowly approaching her.

“Just come with us!” Patro shouted over the wind. “You hate your husbands. We never betrayed you. Not like they did.”

Poppae and Nero crept forward with him.

Augustus shook his head. “Don’t listen to him—let me help you, my carus.” Poco was a lump on his back, hiding from the elements under his cloak.

Achilles stood with his arms crossed, smoking in the sleet, as he watched the two men approach Alexis.

I stalked along the shadows of the tree line.

“Let us help you!” Patro held out his hand. “It’s different with us … We’re not like them.”

Thunder cracked.

“Careful.” Augustus turned his head to the other man. “That’s my wife you’re talking to.”

Patro’s laugh was cold and humorless. “Tell me, does the marriage truly count … if the bride is trapped, deceived, and forced into it?”

Augustus raised his fist.

Achilles moved in a flash, shoving Patro back as he stood in front of him.

“Don’t test me,” Augustus said as he pointed at Patro. “I won’t hold back. Not when it comes to her.”

Lightning flashed.

Achilles’s ice-covered muzzle glinted as he pulled out a serrated hunting knife. He held it up to Augustus’s throat.

Blood dripped from Augustus’s lashes, freezing as it spilled over.