Page 285 of Blood of Hercules
My smile fell.
Pride morphed into rage.
Alexis had panicked when she’d realized the depths we’d sunk to wed her. Her pupils had blown wide, and she’d tried to get away from us. Her fear had been unmistakable, and I was glad she’d passed out before she’d hurt herself.
That wasn’t all.
Her wrists were covered in old, jagged scars, and Persephone had said she hadn’t been born with two differently colored eyes. We’d also found her sleeping in a Kronos damnedcardboard boxwith her brother.
Alexis was keeping things from us—unseemly things—things we needed to slaughter people over.
Her silence was unacceptable. She would reveal every one of her secrets, and then we would torture whoever hurt her. Brutally.
That was how this was going to work.
My hands cramped, and I forced myself to soften my punishing hold. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t want to scare her. The problem was I didn’t want to do a lot of things in life, but I still did them.
I hadn’t asked to be born with such...violentinclinations.
But I had been.
Kharon leaned down and petted the invisible heads of his vicious hellhounds.
We had both been raised in the crucible of power. Kronos had forged us with wrath and savagery.
I had a feeling that when Alexis woke up—it would be war.
Guns were strapped to our thighs beneath our ceremonial togas for a reason. We were always ready for conflict. She would learn there was no escaping us.
Ever.
“Amore et melle et felle es fecundissimus,” I whispered down to the sleeping angel in my arms.
Kharon nodded in agreement as he adjusted the weapon holster under his toga.
Love is rich with honey and venom.
It had never been more true.
Chapter 36
The Monster
Alexis
My eyes shot open.
I woke up with a broken gasp.
Sleep paralysis locked my limbs, and every cell in my body screamed with pain. I was still in my wedding toga, tucked beneath silk sheets.
Deep male snores echoed around the cavernous room. The three of us were lying in a decadent four-poster bed.
Memories of my husbands’ smug expressions stabbed at me. Hellfire ignited in my chest, and it burned hot.
Hatred filled me.
They won’t get away with this.They’ll pay for tricking me.
Two new cords—chains—scorched my chest, singeing as they wrapped tighter around my heart like the marriage bond could feel my displeasure.
Augustus and Kharon moaned with pain in their sleep.
There were consequences to marrying a monster.
They’d begun.
For them.
