Bonds of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #2)(83)

“And … when was that?” I asked softly.

“When you drank my blood to break the bond … when Kharon cut off his ear and gave it to me.”

There was a long, silent pause.

“Oh, princess,” Kharon purred wickedly. “That’s not the only thing I can give you.”

Thud.

There was a loud yelp.

“Creep.” Alexis huffed.

I turned over on the bed as there was suddenly a bunch of empty space. Kharon groaned from the floor.

Alexis had shoved him off.

She looked at me, her lips pulled up in a small smile.

My breath caught—she was fierce, intelligent, glorious.

Two-colored eyes searched my face. “You know, you really don’t need to make a hit list,” she said quietly. “Ajax was already punished.”

I scoffed. “No—he wasn’t.”

She shook her head like I was a lost cause.

Kharon grumbled from the floor as he got up and repositioned himself at her back.

She shifted to let him in, and the faded edge of the too-small pajama shirt that the Olympians had left in the room bunched up, revealing her ribs.

A perfectly circular white ridge was raised across her bronze skin.

It took me a second to process what I was seeing. When it clicked, a rushing sound filled my ears and everything narrowed, until all I could see was the circular mark—the cigarette burn—on my wife’s body.

There was no way that it was accidental. Feeling like I was underwater, I reached for her.

“Alexis.” I traced my thumb across the cicatrix, wishing I could make the history behind it disappear. “What … happened to you?”

Kharon sat up and looked down at where I was touching.

His gaze hardened as he came to the same realization I had. He gently brushed her curls off her forehead, his fingers trembling.

From the way Alexis stiffened, she understood exactly what I was asking.

With careful slowness, she pulled down the shirt, covering her midsection and the heinous scar, but she didn’t pull away from either of us.

Long seconds passed, and finally, she whispered, “I can’t talk about it—not yet.”

The angst in her voice made my heart ache.

Suddenly, I was glad I hadn’t yet killed the fucker who raised her—the one currently rotting in our villa’s dungeon. If he was responsible for this, he would know a torment the likes of which man had never faced before.

Unable to speak, without demanding she tell me exactly what happened and when, I forced myself to nod at her calmly. Instead of shouting at the top of my lungs, I opened my arms.

Alexis moved into my embrace, and I tucked her under my chin.

She sighed heavily and I squeezed her three times in a row, communicating with my body the words I wasn’t quite yet ready to admit out loud.

Kharon remained sitting against the headboard, his face frozen in a scowl. Blue veins stood out across his neck as he ground his teeth together, all while his hand tenderly stroked locks of Alexis’s hair, gentle so she wouldn’t know he was losing it next to her.

His eyes flashed down to mine—our gazes locked.

I nodded at him as Alexis sighed again, shifting to get comfortable as she snuggled deeper into my embrace.

Kharon and I were on the same page.

Blood would be shed and the wrongs perpetrated against our wife would be avenged, eventually. For now, just holding her was enough.

When I finally calmed down enough to sleep, darkness pulled me under swiftly. As my eyes closed, a single stray thought lingered—How did she know I was creating a mental hit list?





31


THE GAMES BEGIN




ALEXIS: SGC DAY 1

I stared at my fingers and imagined light coming from the tips.

Nothing happened.

“What are you doing?” Kharon asked, his eyes narrowing. “Why do you keep staring at your fingers?”

“No reason,” I said hastily.

His lips pursed with suspicion.

I clapped loudly.

Nothing happened.

Darn it, so much for the clapper light theory. It was worth a shot.

“What the hell was that?” Kharon asked.

I leaned against his shoulder instead of answering. His arm wrapped around me like a steel vise, his grip a little too tight.

He held me like I was his hostage.

So dramatic.

For some reason that I refused to acknowledge, I didn’t pull away.

The day was blustery and chilled.

Even though it was June, the mountain breeze had a crisp edge as it whipped through the Dolomites Coliseum, and too-bright sunlight reflected off the stone walls of the arena.

I once again found myself seated between my husbands in the Chthonic section of the coliseum, but the stadium had changed.

Fear took root at the base of my spine.

Solar generators hummed around the top edge of the arena walls—a domed web of electric lines arched over the entire stadium. High above, the neon-green network shimmered faintly in the sunshine and descended all the way to the sand.

“What is that … net?” I asked as electricity prickled across my skin.

“A force field,” Augustus said. “One of the House of Zeus’s inventions. No one can leap into it—or out of it—without suffering extreme electric shock.”