Page 21 of Bonds of Hercules
A light shone at the end of one.An exit.
A scream echoed from the other one; it was dark.A dead end.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I looked between the two options.
“We need to get out of here—run, Alexis. Now,” Nyx hissed as she slithered down my legs onto the floor.
With a deep breath, I staggered forward in agony.
I made my choice.
Unlike Icarus, I didn’t fall to my demise trying to escape—I walked into it willingly.
4
THE ELDEST HEIR
AUGUSTUS: TWENTY-FOURHOURSLATER, ASSEMBLY OFDEATHUNOFFICIALOUTPOST, SIBERIA
Silently, I slipped around the corner and crept forward.
Poco was asleep, his chubby raccoon arms wrapped tightly around my calf.
“I found her unconscious in an alcove in the dungeon beneath our palace at Crete,” Hades said as he paced outside the medic room. “She jumped from Montana to Greece while injured … She’s lucky she’s not in a coma.”
He was speaking to Ares—my father.
The jagged scar across Ares’s mouth pulled tight as he listened to Hades, red rings flaring around his eyes.
Memories of torture played.
Every member of the House of War had a facial scar—he demanded it.
Lights flickered and there was a loud sputtering as the generator struggled to sustain power.
As I crept through the shadows, all three of Cerberus’s heads turned to me.
Animals could sense the Chthonic power in my eyes, and their instincts warned them I was a predator not to be messed with.
Unaware of his protector’s stand-off, Hades leaned closer to Ares. “Thank Kronos I found Alexis when I did.”
“Yes,” Ares said like he was carefully choosing each word. “It’s a good thing …youwere the one to find her.”
Pain pierced my skull.
Migraines from the strength of my Chthonic abilities had plagued me all my life, but they were sharper now. Ever since the marriage bond, blood dripped from my eyes whenever I used my abilities or felt strong emotions.
My power had increased, in the most awful of ways—Kronos himself was punishing me for trapping my wife.
Hades made a strange face.
Does he have a secret?
The door slammed open and a doctor rushed out, bright light flooding the hall.
On the doctor’s Olympian white coat was the ancient symbol of Spartan healing—the Rod of Asclepius—it was a glowing staff with a snake wrapped around it, framed with wings.
The wings represented creatures. A snake for Chthonics. Olympians were the rod.
