Page 90 of Scion of Chaos

I slow my pace, glancing between him and my destination. I haven’t met him yet. Not even the first night when some of the guards spoke through Vesh to introduce themselves. And he was the only one of the group who turned and left the moment they all arrived in the cavern to witness my undoing at the hands of Asterius and Typhon, before Vesh and Erebus took over fucking me.

“Alcides,” I say, meeting and holding his steady gaze. “You wouldn’t keep me here against my will, would you?”

“It is not my call. But one thing I do know is that you are not going through those doors. You don’t know what lies beyond.”

“Freedom lies beyond, and that’s all I care about. Whatever else is out there I can deal with.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t let you breach the doors. The last time they broke, the prison was nearly overrun by the demons that live on the other side. We held them back, but only barely. Without Vesh here, we may not last. The prison would be compromised.”

Demons? I glance at the doors, less certain now about my plan. I haven’t used my power in a fight yet, only accidentally when I felt antagonized. And I’mnota fighter; Chrysaor gave me a chance to test my powers in combat practice today, but I was too busy playing with his dick to take him up on it. I have to suppress the tangled regret of how I left him after the lovely afternoon we spent together, before I learned I was as much a prisoner as the Danaids.

The sick feeling of helplessness threatens to fill me again. I need to get out.

“You don’t understand—Ihaveto go. If I can’t leave, I don’t know what will happen.”

The tower shudders beneath us, the lurch coinciding with another wrench of panic filling my gut. I should try to control it, but right now, all I care about is being set free.

“I have a fair idea of what you are capable of, Nemea. Let’s talk about it.”

“Aren’t you known for getting shit done? I don’t know if I’m in the mood for talking.” My voice is strained, and I take another step closer. He raises the club from his shoulder, hefting it in one hand before dropping the end to rest between his feet, both his hands wrapped around its grip.

“I do what needs to be done. If I need to subdue you, I will. I don’t think our needs would be served by provoking you, but I can’t let you leave, either.”

“He lied to me. I thought he wanted to help me,” I say, my voice cracking and my shoulders sagging. I’m slowly losing my fight with the tangled rage and panic inside me. It unravels, leaving me raw and barren and barely able to stand in the wake of the deceit. “I thought coming here would set me free. That I’d learn what I am and that would mean I finally had choices. I know it’s stupid, but I believed him when he said I could go if I wanted to.”

“I doubt that’s what he said. Vesh doesn’t lie. He likes to stretch the truth when it suits him, though.” He looks disappointed.

“Does it matter what he said if he knew what meaning I would take from it?” I flick my gaze to one side, then the other, frantic to calculate some path around him. I don’t want to hurt him—I don’t want to hurtanyone—but I need to get to that gate.

The sounds of voices calling up the tower sends me into a full-blown panic. A discordant screech like nails down a chalkboard fills the air as I bolt, randomly picking a direction and hoping I’m fast enough to get by him. My vision tunnels around the gate looming too far away to reach, but the need to simply beelsewhereis too great. I lunge, thinking I’m finally going to make it when something massive hooks around my waist and hauls me back.

The breath leaves my lungs under the force of whatever grabbed me. It’s an arm.Hisarm, its iron weight curled tight around my waist, the other clamping over my chest as I lurch and buck, feet flailing in the air in front of me.

“Let me go!”

“Don’t do this,” he says. “Calm down. If you don’t want him to come running and lock this place down, you’ll take a breath and get yourself under control. And believe me, he will come. If he didn’t want you to leave, you won’t be getting out of here anytime soon. And if he thinks you’re a flight risk, you can be damn sure he’ll lock you down even harder.”

Another tremor courses up the tower, shaking through my belly strongly enough to induce nausea. I don’t want to be like this—out of control, destructive, on the verge of dismantling something I first thought beautiful when I arrived.

Not that I could, could I? Do I even want to test my power this way?

My stomach sinks with the conviction that Idon’twant this. The people here have done nothing wrong. They don’t need to be punished for something their warden did.

With my surrender, the power that had flowed out of me reverses course, sucked back in with the slightest force of will, back through the fissures that appeared in my trust at learning I’d been betrayed. The cracks leave me aching and raw, and a defeated sob escapes as I slump in Alcides’ arms. But the vibrations of the bridge beneath my feet ebb and finally still.

“Please don’t make me stay.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you seemed to be enjoying yourself so far. You’ve bonded with most of the guards already—not that you had much choice in that either.” He mutters the last bit almost derisively.

“What do you mean?” I ask, staring blankly at the doors that taunt me with their very presence, as unreachable now as my own agency.

He heaves a gruff sigh and turns me in his arms, keeping one big, muscular bicep hooked firmly around my shoulders. Alcides tips my chin up with one finger and stares into my eyes. My breath catches at the glow of power flickering behind his irises, but more so at the handsome face my sketches did not do justice to. His hardened features have rough edges that seem to spite his otherwise divine beauty; a perfect square jaw left unshaved, high cheekbones smudged with dirt and sweat, dark chestnut hair dulled with dust and grime. His sharp gaze and straight white teeth give away the perfection obscured beneath the mess. The only thing clean about him is the intricate golden belt around his waist.

“We thought we were immune to Fate here, Nemea. Weallbelieved we had control of our lives, despite living in a prison. I am here because I chose to be. Because I deserved to be. And wearegiven choices here. Even though they are empty, meaningless choices, it’s enough to maintain the illusion that our lives are our own. Enough to allow us to keep lying to ourselves. But we all need the lie to survive. You…” He swallows and exhales sharply, shaking his head. “You are the first taste of truth we’ve had in thousands of years, and none of us care that you are nothing but another lie, albeit wearing prettier skin.”

He pauses and darts a glance over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing briefly. The footsteps banging up the staircase slow, then halt. But I don’t hear them retreat. Part of me wants to open my mind to reach for the ones I’m bound to, to find out what he might have communicated to make them stop. But I’m too ashamed of my absolute terror at being trapped here to face them, even within the sanctuary I crafted in my mind. I opened up to them, trusted them, but every instinct in me now wants to run from them.

A shadow passes overhead and I look up, gasping at the shape of the enormous dragon high above. My heart somersaults when it turns and I catch sight of the writhing snakes twisting in the air around the bigger head. Then that head cranes around and focuses on me as Typhon banks in the air, then glides down to land on the bridge behind Alcides, as graceful as if he were no heavier than a feather, despite being as big as a house.

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