Page 109 of Blood of Hercules
Nothing happened.
Coward.
“I want a real strategy,” I said softly.
Patro smacked his hand down on the table.
“There are onlythreestrategies,” he said with a growl. “Fuck them, kill them, or beat them.” Green eyes flashed. “Since you can’t beat them, andrefuseto fuck them, you’re going to have to KILL THEM.” He sat back, panting.
Achilles crossed his arms, biceps bulging obscenely. His gaze was sharp.
The urge to not exist intensified.
I gaped at them in disbelief. “What’s even the point of you being my m-mentors? You’re useless.”
“That’s rich,” Patro snarled. “Coming from an abandoned female mutt—it’s not like youshouldn’t even exist.Oh, wait.”
“Unfortunately, I do,” I mumbled.
Patro pulled at his hair. “Spartan heirs and mutts are raised from birth, training for the massacre and war academy. The only abandoned mutts that ever survive do so because their powers areinsane.”
Drex holding out his hand, red glowing in the fog, three boys falling to their knees, screaming.
“But you”—Patro glared—“are powerless. Frankly, I’m surprised you survived the first two weeks, and I’m still not believing it’s all not been one big fucking fluke.”
My entire existence has been a fluke.
Somehow, my life defies all mathematical odds, and it always gets worse.
“Maybe,” I said slowly, “I won’t... survive the next week.”
A beat passed as my words sank in.
Patro’s eyes sparked with cruelty. “Are you stillthreateningus?” He leaned forward across the table. Achilles clenched his hands into fists.
An ominous melody played in my mind.
For the first time ever, I felt dangerous, like I was playing with a lit match over gasoline.
This is what power feels like.
I liked it.
Achilles unfurled his fist and put a hand on Patro’s shoulder. He pulled him back. The muzzled man drew soothing circles on his spine.
Patro leaned into his touch. “Don’t you fucking dare try to sabotage everything we’ve?—”
BOOM.
Smoke billowed from the hall into the kitchen.
Oh great, another Spartan leaped into the house. It’s probably the stupid doctors. Well, hopefully they’re still alive.
A towering figure in a tattered black cloak walked into the kitchen.
“Honeys, I’m home,” a scratchy masculine voice rasped sarcastically.
No.
