Bonds of Hercules (Villains of Lore, #2)(91)

“How can I help?” She hugged me tighter, squeezing like she was afraid to let me go.

I couldn’t forget Ceres’s scribbles about Zeus and Vyco. I’d been working on a plan. It was a foolish plan, a bad plan, the type of plan that you never told anyone about out loud because it wouldn’t work in real life.

Cyclopes screamed in my subconscious, and I steeled myself.

Only cowards are complicit in the face of injustice. You have to at least try to make a difference.

“I need speakers,” I said quickly to Lena. “The fancy solar-powered ones. I need to plug a device into them.”

I gestured with my hands to show her what the plug-in port looked like.

She nodded, her pastel eyes wide with emotion. “Stay safe—I’ve heard that they want to hurt—”

“No talking to the sirens!” Zeus shouted as he pointed at us.

Another siren appeared. Lena was pulled away into the dancing crowd, but her gaze held mine.

“Speakers,” I mouthed silently.

She nodded back.

“Thank you.” I touched my hand to my heart, vision blurring, as tears once again streamed down my face.

A male siren paused with a tray of ambrosia shots. He pushed a glass into my shaking hands and disappeared.

I threw the liquid back.

It did nothing.

I flagged down another server.

The second glass burned—it did a little something.

I stole a drink off someone’s table.

The third glass numbed—everything.

Someone pulled a chair out for me.

I collapsed into it. I blinked—Augustus and Kharon sat beside me at one of the long wooden tables set up in the middle of the room for the Spartans. They both moved closer to me.

The rest of the Chthonics sat around us.

Patro and Achilles were a few seats down—both glaring.

The former opened and closed his mouth like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know what; the latter smoked a cigarette—his hands were clenched into fists on the table like he was stopping himself from signing angrily.

I tipped my head to them.

Patro frowned at whatever expression he saw on my face.

Achilles remained unmoved, smoke tendrils lazily rising around his muzzle.

We were all prisoners these days.

Hades said something about “the importance of solidarity and appearance of unity.”

I nodded in agreement.

Kharon placed a slice of meat on the empty plate sitting in front of me, and I shoved it into my mouth, not tasting anything. I’d never turn down free food. Ever.

Kharon shot me a worried look. He snapped at a person who passed us without offering me food from his tray. He kept his hand on the back of my necklace.

He handed me a pastry with one hand, fingers caressing the back of my neck with his other.

I ate every morsel he offered.

Augustus stared down at me like he was afraid I’d disappear if he blinked.

Neither of them asked about Lena.

I didn’t offer.

A strange energy wrapped around the three of us. It seemed to be growing with every second we spent together sleeping in the same bed, eating at the same table, sharing a stone bench.

Their thighs brushed against mine on either side.

A small touch.

My nerve endings sizzled.

There was a clatter as a siren put the day’s Falcon Chronicles scroll on the table next to the food—Agatha leaned forward next to Kharon and unrolled it, showing off the headline.

The table craned to look.

Literacy was a curse.

“Hercules’s protector is seriously ill and unfitting of the heir to the House of Hades—how did she choose so poorly?” Below the news line was a picture of me kneeling next to Fluffy Jr., Augustus and Kharon were a blur, caught mid-motion as they moved to stand in front of me.

Kharon banged his fists on the table and swore vehemently.

Augustus still hadn’t blinked.

I reached my hand down under the table, where all our protectors were lying, and pet the top of Fluffy Jr.’s sleeping head.

Poco climbed off my protector and into my lap. He chirped and curled up in a ball, purring.

Agatha unrolled the scroll further—she glanced around with a worried expression.

The next story was worse.

My vision flickered in and out, anxiety mounting with an intensity that even ambrosia couldn’t mask.

The headline read: “Zeus and Federation announce their plan to interrogate younger Chthonics after their rounds.” The picture was of Medusa.

Hades snatched up the scroll and slammed it shut.

His worried gaze met mine.

Persephone huffed and pushed her chair back. “Excuse me,” she said. “I have a reporter to threaten.” She smiled at me, her expression serene. “Don’t worry—I’ll handle this.”

I tried to smile back, but my face didn’t cooperate.

How can she be so calm?

I wished I had a tenth of her composure.

She walked around the table to me and leaned down, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all going to be okay, daughter. Stay calm—never let the Olympians see you sweat.”

I nodded jerkily.

“We’re in this together,” she said softly.

My vision blurred over.

She was everything my childhood self had ever dreamed about.