Chapter 28

28

SELENE

I yearned to shout at Hector to hide, but it was far too late for that. The intruder was already inside the room, armored feet clattering against the smooth marble floor. The steps slowed, then picked up speed. They’d spotted me now.

Rising, I turned toward them and whipped out my dagger. The armored vampire loomed before me, steel plates glinting in the sunlight streaming in through the barred window. A low growl rumbled from the depths of the helmet, and goosebumps cascaded down my arms.

“Achilles,” I said. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re the one who did this.”

In fact, it was the only thing that made sense. The Olympians had made it clear—none of them would bring harm to Hestia. They loved her, as much as any of them could even feel love, I supposed. That only left the guards. Achilles prowled around more than the rest of them.

“I’m not Achilles,” came a deep, muffled voice. The vampire tore the helmet off his head and tossed it into the corner. It clattered as it tumbled across the floor, and it was all I could do not to gape. A familiar head of silver hair curled across his face, softening the anger that tightened his features. With the way his eyes glowed, he looked positively livid .

“Ares.” I lifted the dagger, angling my body in front of Hestia. The shock of it nearly stole my breath away, and my mind failed to make sense of it. Yes, Ares was an Olympian. And yes, he was a close ally of Zeus. But it was unfathomable that he would bring harm to his closest friend. It was…savagery.

So much more savagery than I thought even he was capable of.

Ares stepped out of the path of the sunlight, unlatched the steel breastplate, and launched it across the room to join the helmet, extracting his own wooden dagger. He narrowed his eyes at me menacingly. “Get the fuck away from her.”

I straightened. “I think not.”

He launched toward me faster than I’d anticipated, and his fingers latched around my arm. Grinding my teeth, I spun to the side and pointed my dagger at his face. He had his own weapon pointing at my chest in the same instant. I froze, swallowing. If he moved, my stake would tear right through his eye. But if I even so much as flinched, his dagger would pierce me.

And so we stood there frozen like that, our eyes locked, our cold breaths mingling. Rage and fear burned through me. My canines ached, desperate for violence. I wanted to sink my teeth into his flesh and make him pay for what he’d done.

To Hestia. To my mother.

To me.

Ares tightened his grip on my arm and yanked me closer. He angled the tip of his stake so that it dug into my neck. “I will say this one more time, High Queen Selene. Get out of my fucking way.”

“Never,” I hissed at him. “I don’t know what your cruel plan is here, Ares, but you’ll leave Hestia out of it. She’s done nothing wrong.”

And even though she was one of them—even though she sat in their halls and drank their wine and their blood—the instinct to protect her overpowered everything else. She was an innocent in this, whatever this was. And I would always be a shield for someone who needed me.

A strange look crossed Ares’s face. “What do you mean?”

“I think it’s pretty fucking clear what I mean. I said—”

“I heard what you said.” Glowering at me, he lowered his face to mine—so close I could feel his breath on my skin. “You’re scolding me? Look what you’ve done to her.”

I blinked and reared back.

And then the most shocking sound of them all filled the space behind me. Hestia giggled. It was a soft, sweet sound, a lilting melody that felt so out of place in this dark, cruel world. It had been a long, long time since I’d heard someone laugh like that. The royal halls of Troy had never been the sort of place that one might giggle.

“You two…I never imagined you’d actually agree on something,” Hestia said after a moment. “Let go of her, Ares. She’s not the one who did this to me.”

Ares frowned over my shoulder at her. “But—”

Hestia sighed. “Her bird led her here. To help. Selene even fed me her blood, but it didn’t do much to heal me.”

He dragged his eyes back to my face. “You let Hestia drink from your veins?”

“I did, but—”

Ares released me, lowering his dagger from my neck. In an instant, he crossed the floor and knelt beside Hestia. He gathered her broken body into his arms and held her close, his expression softening.

A strange sense of relief went through me. Ares was a monster, but he wasn’t that kind of monster, the kind who’d gladly torment the ones he claimed the love. He must have been watching me back at the palace, and he’d followed me here. I should have suspected he’d do that. The bastard didn’t seem capable of leaving me alone.

He pressed his face into Hestia’s hair, closing his eyes.

Awestruck, all I could do was stand there in the center of the room and watch a wicked king nearly weep from finding his dearest friend alive. She clutched him back and buried her face in his chest. A sob shook her shoulders, and Ares gently patted her head, murmuring comforting words into her ear.

Slowly, I backed toward the door, feeling like an intruder. I had so many questions but now was not the time to ask them. Hestia was clearly traumatized by what had happened to her. She needed safety, rest, and a great deal more blood.

My boots scuffed the floor as I turned to leave. Before I could make it out the door, Hestia was calling after me.

“Wait, please don’t go,” she said, her voice still frail despite the blood I’d given her.

I turned back toward them. Ares had stood, and he was helping her to her feet. The chains of her restraints rattled, echoing through the empty room. She reached for me and winced when the manacles scraped her raw wrists.

I hesitated, glancing at Ares. He was very pointedly ignoring my presence, having moved on to examining the chain’s attachments to the wall. But Hestia was shivering and trembling on her feet. Fuck’s sake . All I wanted was to get out of here—and Ares was here to help her—but if she was asking for my help, I couldn’t very well turn my back on her.

I crossed the room and wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady. She felt so frail, almost bone thin. In her portraits, she’d seemed bursting with life. Bright eyes, ruddy cheeks.

“When was the last time you fed?” I asked her.

“I don’t know how many days it’s been. However long I’ve been here, I guess.”

With a grunt, Ares yanked the chains out of the wall. Bits of stone tumbled to the floor, nearly hitting my feet in the process. Hestia flinched. The motion had made the manacles rub her skin again, and it was so raw that even the slightest movement must burn like the fires of Mount Olympus.

“We need to get these manacles off,” Ares said.

They were so tightly clamped to her wrists, it would be impossible to rip them apart by force. Ares carefully lifted her arm to inspect the lock.

“All right,” I said. Apparently, we were ‘ we’ right now, at least until Hestia was safe. “Any idea how to do that?”

He glanced up at me and snarled. “We track down whoever did this and rip his fucking head off repeatedly until he gives us the key.”

My lips twitched. “That’s one way to do it.”

“I don’t know who it was, Ares,” Hestia said, sagging more heavily against my shoulder.

I quickly filled Ares in on what Hestia had told me, finishing with, “This person came here yesterday. So it couldn’t have been Hera.”

Ares frowned at me. I gave him a frank look in return, daring him to blame me for Hera’s death. When he’d believed she’d killed Hestia, he’d been more than happy to watch her burn beneath the blood moon skies. But now, everything had changed. Hestia was alive, and Hera hadn’t done this to her—unless she’d been working with someone else.

But that seemed unlikely.

“It’s one of them,” Ares said firmly.

“One of—?”

“One of them ,” he said, more emphatically this time. “One of the Olympians.”

I opened my mouth, then shut it. And then I blew out a breath, gathering my thoughts. I hadn’t expected him to jump to that conclusion so easily. “I thought the same, but you said none of you would harm Hestia. Repeatedly …What if you’re right? There’s more than just monarchs on this island. There are guards, like Achilles.”

Ares scoffed. “Achilles isn’t strong enough to do this to an Olympian. He’s a bloodborn vampire.”

“And yet Hestia isn’t a fighter,” I argued.

She gave me a wan smile. “I know I don’t look like it now, but I am a fighter. Ares trained me. But…you are right about one thing. Whoever did this caught me off guard. I was sleeping when they attacked me, and they’ve been drugging me ever since. Strength doesn’t really matter. It could have been a guard.”

A smug sense of satisfaction tempted me to smile. I hated what had happened to Hestia, but I’d take my wins against Ares where I could.

He narrowed his gaze at me, seemingly detecting my reaction. “Perhaps it actually was you, and helping Hestia is just a ruse to get me to trust you.”

“Oh? Well, perhaps I could say the same about you.” My lip curled back. I didn’t think for one second he’d done it, but if he wanted to throw the blame in my face, I could throw it right back at him. Whatever game he played, I’d match him.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hestia muttered. “Can you two please stop? It was neither one of you. The attacker tried to obscure their scent, but I’d know Ares anywhere. And as for you, well…” Hestia looked up at the ceiling, where Hector swooped in low circles, watching the proceedings with a careful eye. “I trust animals more than vampires, and he seems to vouch for you. It was clearly someone else.”

Ares and I exchanged a glance. I lifted my brow. Tension pulsed through the room. But after a long, agonizing moment, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“All right.” He shook his head, his expression pained. “But if it was one of the others, we can’t take you back to the palace.”

I nodded, thinking. It was unclear what their motives were for abducting Hestia and torturing her these past few days. They hadn’t killed her—yet. That didn’t mean it wasn’t their endgame, and if we took her back to the palace, they might make a move before we had a chance to find out who was behind this.

“Well, I’m not going to stay here.” Her lip trembled as she took a step back, shaking her head. “They’ll come for me again. And even if they don’t kill me straight away, they’ll force feed me poison until I’m too weak to move.”

I gently laid a hand on her arm. “We’re not going to leave you here. Is there somewhere in the palace you could hide that no one would notice? We could sneak you in while everyone’s asleep and—”

“Someone might see,” Ares abruptly cut in. “And then when evenfall comes, we’ll have to leave her to attend the ceremony with no one to protect her. With her still wearing these chains. I won’t risk it.”

“I’m not sure we have much of a choice,” I argued. “We can’t leave her out here. What about the threshold curse?”

“Hmm. That could work.”

“I don’t want to go back to the palace,” she whispered. “Please. I’m afraid they’ll be waiting for me.”

Ares frowned. “If we get you to the boat, do you think you can make it to Thrinacia? Odysseus is there. He’ll help you.”

She swallowed, her cheeks fading to a pale white. “Yes, I think so. I can do that.”

“I’m sorry.” I looked from Hestia to Ares. “What’s Thrinacia? Who’s Odysseus? And did you forget all the boats were destroyed?”

For the first time since he’d found us here, a slight smile turned up the corners of Ares’s lips. “When you didn’t spot my ship in the cove, I’m surprised you never again questioned how I got here.”

“Ah.” The pieces of a singular puzzle suddenly fit into place. He hadn’t been alarmed by the destruction of the ships, either. “You came a different way.”

“There’s a second cove on the southern side of the island. I left a boat there, along with the two sailors required to man it. After the storm, I checked to make sure everything was intact. The boat survived.”

Of course it did.

“And Thrinacia?” I asked.

“A tiny island not far from here, where one of my closest friends lives. Hestia will be safe with him until Nekros is over and I can take her back to Pergamon. Most don’t even know the place exists.”

I arched a brow. “Does Zeus?”

Ares stilled, a dangerous tension tightening his body. “What are you implying?”

“You know what I’m implying. If one of the Olympians monarchs did this to Hestia, who’s to say it wasn’t him?”

“He wouldn’t,” Ares said evenly, his crimson eyes boring into mine.

I laughed and shook my head. “You know what I don’t understand? Your devotion to him. Every now and then, I see a flicker of something in you. Something almost resembling humanity. But Zeus is the furthest thing from that, by far.”

Ares ground his jaw, his hand flinching to his side. For a moment, the world stilled. Earlier, he’d strapped his wooden dagger to his side, and now, his fingers twitched toward it, as he debated the merits of killing me or not.

I searched his gaze, lowering my hand to my own side. There was something dark in his eyes, even as those golden flecks sparked to life. Despite everything, it sucked all the breath from my lungs. And I couldn’t bring myself to look away from it.

In a whisper, I said, “If you’re willing to destroy everything just to defend his honor, you’re far more enthralled by him than I thought.”

“Selene,” Hestia murmured.

I blinked at the sound of her voice, and the tension cracked. Chain clanking, she placed a soft hand on my arm and squeezed tight.

“Leave it be. Please,” she said. “Now is not the time for this.”

Clenching my jaw, I nodded. She was right. If we wanted to get her to safety, we needed to go now. Without another word, I pulled my cloak from my body and draped it around hers, then passed her my gloves. Ares went to the corner where he’d tossed the armor. He quickly redressed, readying himself to face the sun outside.

When he returned to her side, he gently took her gloved hand in one of his and the chains in the other. “Are you ready?”

She released a rattling sigh. “Not particularly.”

“I won’t let any harm come to you,” Ares said.

Hestia nodded, though her fear was palpable.

A drum sounded in my head as I watched them leave the room. It wasn’t until Ares had vanished from my sight that I realized it was my thunderous heartbeat.