Page 31 of Deadly Games
Loki dialed the other number, but was met with the same results. He hurriedly typed out a couple of texts and paced the length of the room.
“Are they usually this hard to reach?”
“No, not both of them,” Loki said, his tone giving me all the more reason to worry. “We’ll just have to wait.”
Chapter 15
Hades
Thousands of books in the school library, and not a single one of them had anything useful to say about my father’s weaknesses. Other than his character, it was hard to imagine he even had one.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
I froze at the sound of my mother’s voice. Usually I welcomed her visits, but today wasn’t one of those times. I turned to face her, noting the concerned look on her face. She’d been distant since I’d brought Kore back, and more so since my trip to the Ether. I knew she disapproved of my actions, namely as they related to avenging her death, but that was all the more reason to go forward.
“I’m not doing anything,” I said, closing the book in my hand before putting it back on the shelf.
“You can’t stop him, Hades. He’s too powerful,” she said, crossing the room.
“You knew,” I muttered. It was a foregone conclusion, but I needed to hear it out loud. “You knew what he was doing. You knew about all the souls he used, and yet you didn’t tell me.”
“And what good would have come of it?” she asked, taking my arm. “You would have only gotten yourself killed trying to stop him.”
“And what of all the souls he’s destroyed in the process?” I challenged, pulling away from her. “It’s wrong.”
“Yes, it is. Your father is a wicked man,” she said, her voice trembling with hatred I felt in the same abundance. It softened as she reached out to caress my cheek, even though her fingers passed through my skin this time with my emotions making the link between us so unstable. “You are the one good thing he’s brought into this world, and one day, youwilloverthrow him. You just need to be wise enough to survive until then.”
“At what cost?” I countered. “How long can I wait and watch him bring our realm and every other to ruin before I become just like him?”
She frowned, watching me in disapproving silence. She seemed about to respond when the door opened and Fenrir walked in.
“There you are,” he muttered. “We need to talk.”
I turned to face him, taken aback by the shift in his energy. Or rather, the familiar energy that was attached to it. In that moment, I knew that he and Kore had cemented their bond, and while it was probably inevitable, the fact that he had gone there without even talking to me made the blood in my veins turn to acid.
“Yes. We certainly do,” I said coldly.
Fenrir paused, looking around the room with suspicion in his gaze. “She’s here, isn’t he?” he asked, his voice lowering with a hint of fear. He’d always been unnerved by my powers, and she was no exception. “Your mother.”
“We’ll speak later,” she sighed, disappearing through the nearest bookshelf. Just as well. I didn’t want her to see what was about to happen.
I was too pissed to offer any answer other than a glare. “And you were in Kore’s bed last night. Seems we’ve both been keeping secrets.”
At first, his expression didn’t change in the slightest. I saw the recognition in his eyes, then the stubborn defiance take its place. “She was in mine, actually,” he said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “What about it?”
“Just like that? No warning, no, ‘Hey, man, is it cool if I fuck your fiancee?’”
“I wasn’t aware I needed your permission,” he said in a curt tone. “And she may be your fiancee, but we’re all bound to her.”
“According to Ares.”
“Her father, if you haven’t forgotten,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “What’s the matter? Are you afraid that if she actually had a choice, I’m the one she’d pick?”
That was it. Something unhinged in me and I found myself across the room with my hands at his throat before I could stop it. The sudden attack caught him offguard, and I slammed him into the bookshelf, a few tomes scattering on the floor. He recovered quickly, landing a swift uppercut to my jaw. My teeth rattled in my skull and my head flew back, but the pain was just driving my rage.
The next hit was mine, and his bloody lip took the edge off my irritation, but not the storm brewing beneath it. That had been a long time coming, and now that it was out in the open, it wasn’t going to stop until it wasallout. Judging from the way he was coming at me, he had the same score to settle.
“You son of a bitch,” he snarled, barely catching himself before he landed on the glass table behind him.
