Page 3 of Deadly Games
“There are always four consorts,” he answered. “The soul of the protector split into four quadrants.”
“Split?” I asked, blinking.
Ares studied me for a moment. “There are far more pressing things we should be discussing,” he said, his expression softening once more. I wasn’t sure if I preferred this side of him or not. It was bizarre to have him look at me like that, when he was a stranger. “Come. Allow me to show you our home.”
Our home. The words sounded as foreign as they did bizarre, but I wasn’t going to argue with him until I’d learned a little more about this place and gotten my bearings. Sure, he was playing nice now, but if he was anything like the other gods, that could change at the drop of a hat.
Chapter 2
Hades
“Kore,” I gritted out as soon as I realized she actually planned on going with him.
“Just stay put. I’ll be back,” she said dismissively. When Fenrir slipped alongside her, she made no attempt to pushhimaway.
I stewed in the doorway for a minute after they were gone, planning my next move. Before I could form half a thought, Loki interrupted me with, “What the fuck?”
I gave him an irritated look. He wasn’t saying anything I wasn’t already thinking, but incredulity wasn’t going to get us out of here. “Come on,” I said, opening the door.
“Where are we going?” Loki asked warily. “Ares told us to stay put.”
“No,Koretold us to stay put,” I corrected. “Besides, since when do you do as you’re told?”
“When I’m trapped in the nether realm with the god of war,” he hissed, looking around nervously as he followed me out of the room.
I rolled my eyes and kept walking down the hall. “There’s gotta be a way out.”
“So what? Even if we get out of this place, you heard what he said. That portal could blast us back to Olympus.”
I shot him a silencing glare and continued down the hall. He had a point, but I wasn’t in the mood. If we couldn’t leave, I at least wanted to know the layout of our prison.
“You think there’s any truth to what he said?” Loki asked, slinking alongside me. “The consort thing?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. “He’s probably lying about everything. She’s his daughter. For all we know, she’s in on it.”
“I don’t know. She seemed pretty disgusted by the idea,” he said with a snort.
A fair point. I didn’t really think Kore was plotting against us, but it made more sense than any other explanation, which wasn’t much.
“What are you looking for?”
“I told you. A way out,” I snapped, opening up the nearest door only to find myself confronted with a void even more bleak and piercing than the one we’d come through. I slammed it shut, feeling myself in danger of losing my sanity if I looked too long, and it took a second to get my bearings.
“What the fuck was that?” Loki cried.
“How should I know?”
“Excuse me.”
The unfamiliar voice came from further down the hall and I turned around to find a tall elven woman with two gray horns sticking out of either side of her forehead, watching us through unnaturally blue eyes. “May I help you with something?” she asked in a softly accented voice.
“Who are you?” Loki demanded, raising an eyebrow as he looked her up and down. “The ghost of Bambi?”
She tilted her head but her expression didn’t change. Come to think of it, she didn’t have much of an expression at all and there was something about her pale white skin that didn’t seem natural. The slight shift in her head’s angle made me realize she was wearing a solid porcelain mask.
At least, Ihopedit was a mask.
“I am Legis,” she answered, her sinewy hands folded in front of her. “Guests of Lord Ares must stay in the residential wing of the castle.”
