Page 15 of Scion of Chaos

Maybe I’m a fool, but if I’m right about this hunch, I need to go find Fate and get some answers, which I’m not about to do without my boss’ leave. I’m not afraid to speak my mind around him, but going against his wishes is entirely different.

Half a dozen voices clamor inside my head in irritation while my vision grows darker.“Tell him about Nemea and he’ll believe you,”Pan says.

“Never. He’s the last person we should tell about her.”

“He can help us protect her,”he insists.

“He’ll just try to use her against Fate if he knows.”

Pan has no response to that, because he knows I’m right—the escaped Titans would drop in priority if Chaos thought he had a way to put one over on Fate for once.

I struggle to remain conscious, continuing to stare him down, but this is a game I will never win. His irises split into shards that fly into a void, sucking me in. The world falls away, leaving me spinning into the very void whence I originated.

When I finally manage to snap back into my body, I’m standing in a different part of the office with a chocolatey sweet taste coating my tongue and a belch that tastes of cinnamon liquor burning its way up my aching throat. Sybil has moved to a chaise beside the pool and is flipping through a magazine, the sun having advanced across the sky far enough to cast a little shade beneath the umbrellas. It’s been at least an hour since I arrived, but I only remember fifteen minutes of the visit.

“What the fuck did you assholes do?”I gripe to the entities in residence in my head, aiming most of my ire at Pan.

“You never let us have a say. Can you blame us for taking over? The faun was right,”Chrysaor says. The murmurs of agreement from the others sound like bees buzzing at the back of my skull.

“Fuck. Don’t listen to them,” I mutter.

Chaos chuckles and I turn, finding him relaxed on the leather sofa behind me, all the way across the office from his desk, with an ankle propped on one knee. “My discussion with them was quite illuminating. I want you to bring her to me.”

I clench my teeth. “No.”

“It took some effort to get them to stop bickering, but once they did, we managed to get to the heart of things. I believe you may be right about Fate, if what your guards say is true. You were able to breach Bear Island’s protective barrier with ease becauseshesummoned you. But whether Fate had a hand in the Titans’ escape is immaterial. Whatever she is, Nemea is part of the battle now, so I intend to take advantage of whatever she represents, fated or not. Youwillbring her to me where I can control what effect she has on this development, either by neutralizing her or turning her into another weapon in my arsenal. Tipping the balance, as it were. Meanwhile, you need to return to your guards and work on becoming a more cohesive team so you can prevail in the coming fight.”

I’m too angry to question whether he’s talking about fighting the Titans, or Fate themselves. I restrain my urge to vocally object. I won’t show my cards, but over my rotting corpse will I simply hand Nemea over to him.

I tap my temple. “We have cohesion. My guards are all right up here. We couldn’tbeany more fuckingcohesive.”

He lifts an eyebrow and taps on his raised knee. “You missed Hyperion and his brothers’ escape. You aren’t attuned enough to what goes on inside your own head, Vesh. In the human world, that would call for therapy. But I know you’re not likely to agree to go talk to someone, so I’m ordering you to bring the girl to me so I can determine for myself whether she’s any threat. That way if she is, I can ensure we use her to our advantage. And perhaps she’ll serve as incentive for you to get your head on straight.”

We engage in another staring match until I turn away before he can suck me under again. But I know better than to agree to anything. The second Nemea leaves the island, she’ll be at risk, especially if I bring her here. The one saving grace is that Chaos knows he can’t just go get her, otherwise he would. Bear Island is as off-limits to him as it should have been to me and Pan.

“We need to have a serious discussion about boundaries,”I say to the hooligans in my head as I head back to my apartment.

“He’s right, and you know it,” Pan says. “What do you even remember about that night? I can tell you exactly where I was, and where I wound up after. Where wereyou?”

I was at the Pandemonium, of course, the massive resort casino in Las Vegas which is the seat of power for one of the strongest primordials in existence. It’s a far cry from the gambling dens in Greece during the early days of my service to Chaos, but it stretches me thin to handle security for the place, even with the help of the others. We can’t be everywhere at once, so the casino is typically staffed with either human or higher races security, and I only pull out the powers of Tartarus in emergencies.

But two nights ago, we had a particularly belligerent dragon shifter who refused to be subdued after hitting the free flowing drinks and the craps table for about twelve hours straight. Despite his slight build, he proved too much for the normal guards, and since Typhon is still recuperating, I didn’t want to call on the prison guards to help and risk leaving the prison too lightly guarded.

None of the prison’s other staff besides can leave their posts for more than the briefest of breaks to take over. The Titans may be the most dangerous of the inmates, but there are others who come close, including a fifth Titan who was given his own dedicated cell and punishment after a particularly egregious slight to the gods eons ago.

I had no reason to expect I’d need any help with a single unruly dragon. He wasn’t even a red one, who are known for their tempers and ability to rile up a crowd. In fact, I believe he was purple, which is a color normally reserved for female dragons. My recollection after the fact makes me doubt the events right down to the gender of the creature I had to subdue, and my head throbs with the effort of remembering. He—or she, or they—were in their human form, with a cocky smile and wild purple hair. The dice had come up box cars for the sixth time in a row when I made it down to the floor to escort them out. After exiting, they took a swing at me, and the next thing I remembered was waking up face-down in the fountain, several human staff frantically trying to drag me out of the water.

I knew better than to blame the dragon for the blackout. Idon’tblack out, for one thing. Nothing—literallynothingin the mortal world—can lay me out like that. It takes the power of a god, or a primordial like Chaos himself, to do that kind of damage, and since we hadn’t clocked any gods visiting the Pandemonium that night, that left the likelihood of the damage coming frominsidemy head.

And of course once Typhon’s calls got through and I delved inward to investigate, I discovered my remaining guards embroiled in a battle like I haven’t seen since that fateful night on Bear Island.

Would I have withstood it if I’d been more attuned to the others? I have no idea. Most of them are more nuisance than they’re any help lately. But I suppose I’ve grown complacent over the years working security in an establishment largely frequented by mortals. As for the prison, it pretty much runs itself, leaving my team and I to simply oversee that things don’t change. It takes very little actual effort to stay on top of things, and the mortal guards of the Pandemonium are paid well enough to handle most issues, so I’ve enjoyed my solitude.

But that’s no longer enough. I let down my guard, and so did the others, and now we have to pick up the pieces.

What’s worse is that I gave into the carnal need that overtook me when Typhon and I tracked down Pan and found him balls-deep in that woman, a woman whose entire essence matched my ideal so perfectly I didn’t even hesitate to take her.

In all the eons of my existence, it has never once occurred to me that I could have a mate. I’m not the kind of creature that gets to find love, much less a partner who makes sense. But if Chaos can find one, doesn’t it stand to reason that I could too?

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