Page 78 of Muzzled

“Orion! Down!”

Hades.

He turned toward his master, his vision narrowing on his new prey as he stalked across the floor. Bo and Alex stepped between them, panting from exertion and barking out a low warning.

He needed no warning.

He knew he would never survive a fight with Hades.

But he would do a fuck-load of damage on his way down.

Stop swearing. It’s not you.

Micah’s words wove through the red haze in his mind and he shook his head, the clanking of his leash bringing him back into lethal focus.

“Orion. We’re trying to fix this,” Hades said slowly, his single step back spurring on Ryan’s inner predator. “We need a little ti—”

He launched at his boss, his head snapping back midair as his leash was held steadfast. Dropping to the floor, he bucked and writhed against the grip until a wrinkled hand came into view.

Atropos wove the links through her fingers and stepped closer to him. “Settle, boy,” she commanded, motioning for the others to leave and flicking her wrist when he attempted to pull away from her. “Settle.”

Alex and Bo hesitated at the door while Hades held it.

“Go,” the old Fate ordered. “This no longer concerns you. Either of you.”

They backed out of the room, their heads bowed to him with a deference Ryan neither wanted nor acknowledged.

He was in the Fate’s hands now, and he was ready.

Widening his stance, he tried to shake out of the slackened chain around his neck, snarling when the leash became taut and the collar dug into his raw skin. Raging against the restraints, against the cutter of lifelines, against Hades and Persephone and his brothers, he thrashed and bucked, welcoming the pain of the metal slicing through his fur and digging into his jaw as he tried to bite through the iron muzzle. His own blood mingled with Micah’s on his tongue, the taste centering his fury. He strained to break the leather holding the muzzle tight, lunging at the doors separating her body from him until his throat was raw.

Shoulders heaving, he collapsed to the blood-streaked floor.

Atropos wound the chain around her frail wrist and knelt before him, her scissors tucked neatly in the pocket of her peplos as she extended her hand to him. He lowered his head and snarled at the shears that had snipped Micah’s lifeline, ready for the moment his own was cut.

The air electrified, disorienting him for a moment until the fog that had risen in his head cleared and he looked around.

The base of Olympus.

An exasperated sigh filtered through the clearing haze and he turned, his hackles rising as he tracked Lachesis, daring her to approach him.

Atropos’s grip tightened on his leash and led him to the rows upon rows of spools and spindles, her wrinkled hands pulling several loose threads from a stationary spindle. “Tempting the Fates is dangerous, Orion. Angering them is more so. Lachesis, leave.”

The vindictive Fate sneered at her elder, but obeyed. “The rescuing of mutts isn’t worth the time or energy,” she called over her shoulder. “They will always bite the hand that feeds them.”

He lunged, but snapped back mid-air as his collar cinched at his throat to the sound of the Fate’s laughter. He fell to the floor and stilled.

“The Fates are not to interfere,” Atropos said quietly, pulling a tightly wound spool from the rows and gently unwinding a thin thread before selecting three more and placing them into her pocket. “And I have spent my existence adhering to that edict.”

He eyed the familiar spool, searching his lifeline for the place where Bo’s cursed love line was woven into his.

The love line he’d willingly accepted to keep his brother alive.

She placed her hand on his neck and rose, waiting patiently for him to stumble to his feet before she led him across the room. “I am too old to sit on floors,” she stated, easing into a wooden rocking chair. She patted her knee, then shrugged when he merely dropped back to the marble and stared out at the bright-green fields.

“Your line has always intrigued me,” she said quietly, her voice echoing against the marble structure. “You, Boreus, Alexandros. Three distinct entities existing as one and three simultaneously.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out two of the spools. “Theirs were spun from yours. And that unique splitting of a single lifeline is what brought you into my sights, Orion.” She chuckled and shook her head. “I feared your line would weaken from the strain, that perhaps we were sentencing you to a fragile existence which would eventually fray and break. But it was quite the opposite.”

She unraveled the first spool carefully, allowing it to pile at his feet until she began to rewind it with the practiced flick of her wrist, pausing to stretch the thin thread into his line of sight. “For a brief time, it appeared I was correct. As the lines of Boreus and Alexandros were separated and spun from yours, you became quite ill, much to Hades’s dismay.”

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