Page 124 of Bonds of Hercules
They don’t.
Alexis grinned at Drex, and I cleared my throat, tamping down the urge to slaughter him violently.
“Thanks again.” She glanced up at me through long lashes. A single curl hung against the delicate column of her neck.
“Anything for you,” I said, feeling faint.
Alexis turned back to the calculator and resumed walking toward the dining room, Charlie and Drex following.
Helen leaned close as she walked past. “You’re actingpathetic,” she whispered. “It’s embarrassing me.”
I nodded dumbly, too busy trying to remember how to inhale.
Seconds later, we were once again alone in the hall.
Kharon’s face twisted, sharpening into cruel edges. “I just remembered—I’ve been waiting to tell you what I saw while we were away.”
“What?”
“Achilles and Patro … want to take her from us.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Alexis,” Kharon said. “Let’s go.” He whirled around and headed down the hall.
I scowled and followed.
No one messed with our wife.
21
OMENS AND WARNINGS
ALEXIS: THENEXTMORNING, ONEDAYUNTIL THEINITIATIONMASSACRE
“Alexis?”
I woke up with a start.
A storm raged outside, making the morning unusually dark, as rain streaked drearily across the window. The hellhounds, Fluffy Jr., and Poco slept in a big pile on the floor.
The room was quiet except for a strange muffled rattling.
Helen and Charlie were absent, probably already at their morning class, but the rest of us had the day off from training because the initiation massacre was in one day.
“Alexis?” Ceres called.
Groggily, I pushed myself out of bed, wrapping a sleepy Nyx around my neck as I went into the adjoining room.
Ceres was sitting on the floor, chewing on a pen, her pink hair askew, surrounded by piles of ancient tomes.
She held up a blank page with a squiggly symbol on it. “Can you believe it?”
“Believe … what?”
She pointed to the two dots on the top of the symbol. “This umlaut! It’s an extremely rare configuration that is seldom seen in this ancient language. Yethereit is. Right in front of me all along. So obvious!”
“What l-language?” I asked, struggling to follow her words because she talked faster than anyone I’d ever known.
