Page 130 of A Touch of Chaos

Then he caught something from the corner of his eye, and his gaze shifted to Theseus on television.

“What the fuck?”

Dionysus snatched the remote from the coffee table and turned up the volume. Phaedra turned, and her hand clamped down over her mouth at the sight of her husband on the screen. A red banner at the bottom announced the reason for his emergency press conference: WIFE ANDSONABDUCTED FROMHOSPITAL.

“Today I had hoped to stand here beside my beautiful and loving wife, Phaedra, and announce the birth of my son, but instead of celebrating our happy news, I am here to plead with you. My wife and our son were taken from Asclepius Community Hospital by a god.”

He paused, and Dionysus clenched his teeth. He had to admit, the demigod had mastered the role of tortured husband and father. He looked absolutely devastated.

“Many of you know the battle I have led in opposition to the Olympians. I believe this is a cruel attempt at revenge and likely the most extreme example of why we can no longer kneel to the archaic rule of the gods. Today I am here to plead for the return of my wife and child but also for the lives of every mortal on this earth. We do not deserve this treatment. Let us remind the gods of our power and cease our worship…today.”

He paused and took a shuddering breath, looking directly into the camera.

“And to the god who stole my family, I am coming for you.”

It took Dionysus a moment to get his thoughts in order. They were racing to a million things at once. While he’d expected Theseus to retaliate, he had not quite expected the demigod to essentially declare war against the gods, and that fact had worried him to a degree he could not even put into words.

What did Theseus have planned that had given him such confidence?

The door to Ariadne’s room opened, and she stepped out, freshly showered and dressed. When she saw them, she halted, hesitating.

“What’s going on?”

He started to speak when there was a knock at his door, and Ariadne stood just feet away from it. She met Dionysus’s gaze.

He spoke quietly and quickly.

“Downstairs, there is a cellar with wine stored in rounded alcoves. Once you enter, count until you reach the seventh. Touch the plaque on the wall. It will reveal the entrance to a tunnel. Get inside, close the fucking door, and don’t look back. It will take you all the way to Bakkheia. Got it?”

She nodded, and then the doorbell rang, and his heart froze in his chest as the baby began to cry.

Fuck.

“Go,” he ordered.

Phaedra picked up the child and started toward the stairs, but Ariadne hesitated. Dionysus summoned his thyrsus.

“I said go!”

He didn’t like the way she was looking at him, like it was the last time they might see each other, but shewent, disappearing down the hallway just as he felt the ground tremble, and he realized too late that his attention should not have been on the door but the windows.

They exploded with a power that knocked Dionysus to the ground. He was immediately aware of how badly he hurt, and he knew his body was riddled with glass and pieces of debris.

He groaned as he got to his feet, wincing as he put pressure on his left arm, which was impaled with a large splinter of wood.

Double fuck.

Dionysus tried to pull the fragment free, but before he could, he felt a new pain—a sharp stab to his back. He screamed and then whirled to face his attacker, lifting his weapon, only to discover no one was there.

They must have teleported, he thought, except that if that were the case, he would have sensed it. The pain from the wound on his back pulsed throughout his entire body. He was not used to feeling this kind of aftershock. He typically healed without thought, except right now, he didn’t seem to be healing evenwiththought.

Dionysus breathed heavily through the pain, his teeth clenched, glaring at the burning and smoky remains of his living room. He tightened the hold on his thyrsus, and then he felt it—a subtle change in the air—and he raised his thyrsus to block the attack, surprised when he felt the impact of a blade against it.

His eyes widened as he realized his opponent was invisible.

A second blow came, and he felt the blade sink into his stomach and then a little farther before his attackershoved him down. Years of healing had prevented him from ever feeling this kind of pain.

He felt so hot and could barely breathe as he watched a man appear before him, having removed Hades’s Helm of Darkness. He was a demigod, young with curly hair. If Dionysus had to guess, he would say a son of Zeus.

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