Page 71 of Bonds of Hercules
I sprinted, kneeling over Patro protectively as I fired at the Titans.
You’re losing time. Stop pretending.
I threw the weapons down with disgust.
As gently as possible, I picked up Patro’s ruined body.
Alexis was running away, glancing back over her shoulder.
I expected tears, a look of betrayal.
Her expression was blank.
The acceptance on her face was worse than anything I could have ever imagined. She understood—she saw my ruined soul better than I did.
She was running for her life, abandoned by the mentors who were supposed to shield her from harm, but she was strong, she’d be fine.
You’re a dishonest man.
It was an unadulterated lie.
Domus.
I was so powerful I didn’t need to say the word aloud to leap away.
Rome disappeared, replaced with sterile white walls and medical equipment covered in the symbol of Spartan healing, a staff with wings—the Rod of Asclepius.
Tenderly, I laid Patro down on a gurney.
Alexis had just learned the harshest truth of all.
Agony had a second name—Chthonic.
Either we were the loneliest beings on earth, or we loved obsessively, with our entire soul.
Complete devotion ornothing.
There was no in-between.
Dostoevsky was wrong; it was not the liar who suffered, but the man who accepted the truth. No one else could know such damnation.
Olympian doctors swarmed around Patro, and I fell to my knees beside his hospital bed.
Head bowed. Hands clasped together. Tears streamed down my muzzle as I prayed to Kronos for the life of the man who owned my soul.
And the woman I’d left behind.
12
FIGHTING TO THE DEATH, AND OTHER WOMANLY PURSUITS
ALEXIS
Sprinting, I veered left down a narrow opening between buildings.
Titans were on my heels, and guns were clutched in my hands.
I should leap away, but then Augustus would be right that I needed men to look after me.
