Page 277 of Bonds of Hercules
It was too late for him.
My sternum was already exploding with pain—there’d been blood on my hands.Die. Die. Die.
He convulsed on top of me, foam dripping from his lips. He mouthed words as he choked, silently begging for my help.
I shoved him off me and climbed to my feet.
The guard pleaded for help, his twitches slowing.
I stood over him and watched.
A tumultuous nothingness welled inside my sternum.
He took his last breath and a dark satisfaction filled me, one I didn’t even know I was capable of.
“They’re dead,” Nyx hissed, her scales sliding along my leg.
The room was splattered with blood.
A soft feminine wail filled the room, a hopeless fractured sound.
“I’m not leaving her here.” I felt like my head was underwater as I bent down and pulled the keys out of the guard’s pocket.
Nyx hissed, “Kid … there will be consequences.”
A strange feeling gripped me—fuck the consequences.
“I don’t care,” I said, because I didn’t.
“Then I support you,” Nyx said confidently. “Move quickly.”
The guard’s key unlocked the woman’s chains, and they fell free. Cautiously I removed the last constraint—the metal box at her head.
Rattles echoed.
Three pale snakes slithered out.
I stared at them.
A part of me had known exactly who she was.
There was only one infamous Spartan so powerful, she was incarcerated using Olympian age-control technologies. Excess measures were taken to keep her from maturing. To keep her from breaking out of the Underworld.
Medusa.
A violent criminal.
A traitor.
Synonymous with evil.
But the guards had been violating her, and my gut was telling me that she was just a victim of circumstances. I was too exhausted to question it.
Hades said I needed to claim my destiny.
Well, I was making my choice.
“Hello,” Nyx hissed as she became visible, hovering in front of Medusa’s snakes.
