Page 100 of Bonds of Hercules
I wasn’t. Not when it really mattered.
On the floor, Patro struggled to sit up as he looked at me. “I’m … so sorry. For everything,” he whispered brokenly.
For the first time, Patro looked so young.
He was only twenty-two years old.
We were about the same age.
I tried to tell him it was fine, but the words got stuck in my throat. My back was still wrapped in bandages, and Titans were still shrieking in my ear.
Instead, I looked around the room. “Stop fighting. All of you.”
“Why, Alexis?” Augustus asked, his voice strained with confusion. “Theyleftyou to die.”
“Because—” I took a deep breath. “I won’t treat any of you like you treated me.”
Taking a step back, I put more space between us. “I won’t be another reason for your violence—I won’t be like you two.”
“And just …whatare we, carissima?” Kharon’s tone was poisonous, shadows crawling across him.
“Belligerent,” I said as I held up my fingers and ticked them off. “Misogynistic, cruel, hyperaggressive, despotic megalomaniacs. You don’t evenknowwhat happened, yet you would attack Achilles and Patro.”
As I spoke, Fluffy Jr. moved so he stood in front of me protectively, and Nyx slithered up my leg.
Augustus glanced down, then back up to me, face paling like he’d seen a ghost.
“Poco,” he whispered.
The raccoon climbed up my back, then stood up on my shoulder with his tiny fists resting on his hips.
Kharon’s face dropped as his hellhounds slunk across the atrium to flank me. Bony tails lowered as they growled menacingly.
I reached down, one hand resting on a hellhound’s surprisingly warm head.
“We … protect,” the hellhound said in a garbled voice.
I smiled with gratitude, then straightened.
“Let’s go.” I gestured to Fluffy Jr., my voice echoing in the atrium, the meaning clear.
Kharon made a strangled sound.
“Wait,” Augustus whispered.
Achilles helped Patro to his feet, the two of them watching us silently.
I shook my head.
My husbands looked on with devastation as I walked away with their protectors at my side.
17
THE HUNTER
KHARON: EARLYJUNE
Thud.
