Page 281 of Blood of Hercules
They’re speaking a language.
An icy sensation washed down my spine like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head.
“Did you have th-them—” I struggled to calm my racing heart. “—following me?”
His nails bit into my ankles. “Maybe,” Kharon said with feigned casualness.
He was a terrible liar.
My neck was prickling constantly. I heard them everywhere for months.
The voices weren’t in my head—they were real.Kharon had been stalking me.
Nightmares of glowing red eyes, pressure on my foot, a strange obsession, skeletal creatures, and whispers had plagued me every time I slept.
In the dreams, the devil had warned me he was going to take care of me.
Oh my god, was Kharon touching me while I slept, and I could feel his obsession with me and see his hellhounds? Sometimes there were two men—was that them?
Was it all real?
As I hyperventilated, my eyes widened. “Did you w-watch me sleep at Corfu?”
Kharon’s fingers stilled where they were trailing over my skin.
“Maybe,” he said.
I wanted to die.
He’s been stalking me.
Every. Single. Night.
I gasped for air. “Did you both—ever... watch me?”
Kharon gently kissed the sensitive flesh of my inner thigh. “Maybe,” he rasped again.
It was more horrible than I could have ever imagined.
They were actually villains.
“I need to leave,” I said shakily as I struggled to calm down. A panic attack burned inside my sternum.
Augustus picked me up into his arms. “Shhh. Relax, my carus. This villa is our home.” He cradled me against his chest. “It’s now your home as well—you willneverspend the night in a cardboard box, ever again. We’re going to take care of you.”
I fought to get out of Augustus’s hold, but steel muscles flexed. His grip was painful as he pinned me to his chest.
The panic attack got ten times worse.
Why won’t he let me go?
The edges of my vision got fuzzy, heart hammering, fear choking me.
“Breathe slowly, please,” Augustus begged. “You’re hurting yourself.”
“Let me go,” I gasped, voice far away as the world collapsed around me.
Augustus’s arms flexed, holding me in place.
