Page 132 of For the Gods' Sake

“Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse and unrecognizable. Sensing the Fates had nothing more to say to me and that pushing them might be the wrong thing, I stood.

I heard the snap of the gate behind me and turned to find Rose standing on the inside, arms crossed and staring up at the Fates. “Keep in mind how much those favors are worth, yeah?” she said, eyes on Clotho the entire time, as if she was making her remember each and every request she’d completed without protest.

She turned with me, following me out of the Fates lair and back through a portal into the entry of her home.

“It’ll work.” Rose’s voice cut through my thoughts, forcing me back to reality.

I ran a hand down my face, my body twisting with agony. “I can only hope.”

Chapter 35

Reyna

I was feeling very cold.

Which was odd because I normally ran quite hot. It was a good thing, seeing as Olympus was normally full of blasts of crisp air. If I planned to spend time here, to even move in, that was a good thing.

Especially if the weather was going to be as torrid as it was now. Though I’d hope Adrian made a habit of keeping his windows closed when the storm was going to bethisbad, wind and rain whipping and sloshing around, ruining his office.

I didn’t know why my mind went there, when, again, I was feeling very cold and a little lightheaded. I blinked quickly, the fog clearing from my eyes as my chin dipped.

There were feathers sticking out of my stomach.

Well, feathers attached to a stick.

No. The end of an arrow.

“Adrian,” I called, my mind going straight to him for clarification and comfort. “Why is there an arrowsticking out of my stomach?”

The second I said it, the pain crashed down on me, the realization making way for the full force of my injuries. I could feel the blood now, oozing down my stomach.

“Reyna, honey, it’s going to be okay,” Adrian said, now standing in front of me and holding my shoulders in a bruising grip. My eyes were still on the arrow as he eased me to the ground, making me kneel with him.

My body was shaking, though I wasn’t sure if it was me or Adrian doing it. Because as I looked up, my eyes hit his chest first and it was vibrating under uneven breaths.

I trusted him. But my stomach and thighs felt warm and sticky. “I don’t know if it is.” Adrian’s face crumbled. “That’s a lot of blood.”

“Wake him up,now,” Adrian demanded, speaking to someone behind him. My vision was growing too blurry to see who. He ran his hands over my arms, saying words of comfort, promises that I’d be okay. I really tried to believe him, but every time the fear in my chest eased at his words, another spurt of blood would fall down my stomach and remind me what situation I was in.

After a moment, Adrian looked over his shoulder again.

The hair on my arms stood with the rise of static in the room. Adrian’s power flaring. “Heal her.Now.You don’t have any heirs? Fine, I’ll lock you up and torture you for the rest of your miserable life.Heal.Her.”

A moment later, Sebastian came into my vision, held by the back of his shirt by Dominic, dragged across the floor. I jerked away from him, which only made the painworse. I whimpered helplessly as darts of agony shot through my limbs and my lap felt even warmer with a renewed rush of blood. The only part of me that felt even remotely warm, really.

“Honey, it’s okay,” Adrian said through a hoarse voice when I tried to move away from Sebastian’s outstretched hand again, burrowing deeper into his arms. “Let him touch you.” He twisted me in his arms so that my side was pressed to his chest, his grip bruising, like he couldn’t hold me to him tight enough.

A large hand came down on my shoulder a second later, pushing a pulse of power through my body. Itfeltbright, that was the only way I could describe it. Almost hot, like the sun would be. I tried not to squirm away from it, only held steady by Adrian’s lips pressing into my temple.

The energy spread over my chest and other arm, then down to my stomach where it seemed to halt around my diaphragm. My vision was growing even more blurry, though I wasn’t sure if it was from dizziness or the rain flying into the room from the broken windows.

The point was, it was bad enough that I was reduced to touch and hearing. And I heard Sebastian’s gruff yet lyrical voice curse softly, before saying, “I have to try and remove the arrow.”

I tensed, already fearing the pain that would bring, and Adrian held me closer. Enough that his heart started pounding against my shoulder.

“Won’t that make the bleeding worse?” Someone—Daphne, I thought—asked.

“If I heal her, it will close up the wound,” Sebastian said. I knew he was being forced into this, threatened with torture, his voice hard. “I can’t do that withsomething getting in the way.”

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