Chapter 16 Your Pain is Mine
YOUR PAIN IS MINE
ALEXIS
“Maybe,” I said, “you two don’t know me at all—and you never will.”
Kharon’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “Is that a threat?” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Princess.”
“I don’t know.” I glared up at him. “Is it? You tell me.”
The moment stretched.
“I’m too tired for this,” Augustus said, raking his hand through his long hair. “It’s been long enough since I last leapt—I’m going to deliver the Titans.” He turned and wrenched open a narrow door. “Try not to kill each other before I return.”
He stomped down the stairs.
Chains rattled and there was a muffled screech.
A crack echoed as he leapt away.
Shivering, I climbed out of the bed. My back throbbed with pain as I quickly pulled on a sweat suit that Augustus had laid out on the bedside table.
Nyx hissed as she slithered around my ankles, climbing up my body, and wrapping herself around my stomach.
I pulled the sweatshirt down on top of her.
Crack.
Augustus reappeared in a cloud of smoke. “Are you strong enough to leap the three of us back to the villa?” he asked as he stared at Kharon’s missing ear.
Kharon scoffed. “Clearly.”
I could leap us back.
No one bothered to ask me.
Kharon held out his skeleton-tattooed hand, waiting for both of us to take his arm.
Augustus and I obeyed as the hellhounds stood, their bones clattering as they sat at Kharon’s feet.
Fluffy Jr. pushed his muzzle into Kharon’s stomach and looked up at him with wide trusting eyes.
Poco climbed up onto Fluffy Jr.’s back for purchase and he laid his little black hand on top of Kharon’s finger.
Crack.
The safe house disappeared.
Smoke filled the villa’s atrium, the muted morning light dancing off gilded walls and decorative olive trees.
I pulled my hand away like his touch was toxic (it was).
The sacrifice Kharon made for me was heinous—it was the most generous, worst thing anyone had ever done for me.
“My carus,” Augustus whispered.
Both of them stepped toward me.
I was drowning in them. Again.
“I’d do it a million times over.” Kharon gestured at the side of my face. “Stop overthinking.”
We weren’t good without words, and we weren’t good with them, or maybe I just wasn’t right for them.
They called me princess. They wanted a good Chthonic girl to coddle and protect. To obey.
“I don’t think we work,” I said, cradling my arms in front of my stomach, a subconscious instinct. “This thing between us … isn’t … healthy.”
The tension stretched to a breaking point.
“Alexis—” Augustus’s voice was uncharacteristically quiet, and the golden rays softened the sharp angles of his face. “I don’t think you understand—there’s no going back. We’re trying to be better … for you.”
There was a strange pressure around my heart.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but a sharp zap coursed through our marriage bond.
Both Augustus and Kharon straightened to their full height, shoulders pulled back as they spread their legs wide—faces cruel.
Dread washed over me.
“You’re … okay, thank Kronos—we were so fucking worried, we were about to go get …” Patro’s voice sounded behind me, his words echoing off the marble atrium.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as understanding coursed through me. I froze, rooted to the spot. I didn’t turn around.
Augustus stared over my shoulder at the newcomers, his mask of civility disappearing; Kharon never wore one to begin with.
They were both ready for war.
Hell and Hound bristled. Poco stood up on Fluffy Jr.’s back, flashing a mouth of razor-sharp teeth, and chittered viciously.
Poppae hissed behind me, and Nero growled.
Patro cleared his throat. “Alexis—I’m so sorry. I told Achilles he shouldn’t have left you. I can’t believe—” His voice lowered. “It’s my fault.”
I wanted to turn around.
If Patro was here, then so was Achilles.
I wanted to confront him, but right now, my mentors were the lesser threat.
DANGER DETECTED.
Sirens wailed inside my skull.
The House of Artemis and the House of Ares had never looked so volatile.
The heartless Chthonics were back.
The killers.
I held up both my hands pleadingly to my husbands. “Wait—let’s talk about this. There’s no need to overreact.”
Neither acted like they’d heard me.
Their gazes were laser focused on the men standing behind me.
“Oh shit … it’s about to go down,” Nyx hissed with excitement, nudging against my chin as she poked her head out the top of my sweatshirt to get a better view.
I wanted to glance behind, but I was certain if I took my eyes off my husbands for even a split second, there would be unholy carnage.
My mind raced. I needed to defuse the tension.
“I f-forgive them.” I looked at Kharon imploringly. It wasn’t true. Not really. But I needed to do something. “It’s okay—I’m fine. It all worked out in the end.”
Nothing worked out.
Augustus’s eyes darted to my ear, then back to the men behind me, and a vein in Kharon’s forehead pulsed.
That was my only warning.
Air whistled against my cheeks as my curls lifted and whipped across my face—in complete silence, too quickly for my eyes to track, Kharon and Augustus moved across the marble.
I turned in slow motion.
“Stop it!” I shouted, as Nyx hissed, “PAINT THE WALLS RED WITH THEIR BLOOD.”
Augustus threw himself at Achilles.
Kharon tackled a heavily bandaged Patro to the floor, and Patro’s metal neck brace clanged.
Nails clacked against marble as the protectors all leapt into action, sprinting after their owners, joining the chaos.
One hellhound tackled Nero and the other tackled Poppae. Guttural growls echoed as the four predators rolled about on the floor, and Poco hissed from within the fray.
“STOP IT!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, because I was so tired of the never-ending violence.
Kharon pinned Patro to the floor, crawling over him viciously to get purchase as he shouted in his face.
Achilles tried to get to Patro, but he fell to his knees as Augustus engaged his power and stared into his eyes.
Kharon bellowed with frustration as he looked down at an injured Patro like he was going to strike, but at the last minute, he held himself back, punching the marble floor instead.
Sharp pain flared through my hand. I covered my mouth.
I just felt … Kharon’s punch, like it was my own.
Across the room, Augustus stood over Achilles with glowing Chthonic eyes.
White lights exploded in my vision—a fresh stabbing sensation pierced behind my eyes—I swallowed a whimper of pain as a migraine slammed into me.
Headaches had recently become an issue for me—around the same time that blood started leaking from Augustus’s eyes.
Clammy and weak, I stood up straighter.
Kharon got to his feet, limping as he backed away from where Patro struggled on the floor, looking near death.
Augustus staggered away from his brother.
Achilles crawled toward Patro.
I ran forward to try to help Patro—Kharon turned with surprise and his elbow slammed into my solar plexus.
All three of us came to a stop.
Kharon clutched his stomach in shock and Augustus also grunted—no one had touched either of them.
Our gazes locked.
Sick realization dawned on their faces.
“Our bond. We’re connected,” Augustus said. “By … pain.” He blinked at me, then keeled over and threw up.
Kharon’s face twisted. “Can you … feel … ours?” he asked me with a look of horror as he glanced down at his ruined knee.
I took a deep breath. It would be just another reason for them to coddle me.
“No.” I cleared my throat and schooled my expression. “Why? Can you feel mine?” I didn’t stutter.
Augustus and Kharon visibly relaxed with relief, shoulders slumping, breath whooshing.
A dark memory surfaced. “Father killed her,” I said calmly to the police officer.
They thought I was a bad liar.
I wasn’t. Not when it really mattered.
On the floor, Patro struggled to sit up as he looked at me. “I’m … so sorry. For everything,” he whispered brokenly.
For the first time, Patro looked so young.
He was only twenty-two years old.
We were about the same age.
I tried to tell him it was fine, but the words got stuck in my throat. My back was still wrapped in bandages, and Titans were still shrieking in my ear.
Instead, I looked around the room. “Stop fighting. All of you.”
“Why, Alexis?” Augustus asked, his voice strained with confusion. “They left you to die.”
“Because—” I took a deep breath. “I won’t treat any of you like you treated me.”
Taking a step back, I put more space between us. “I won’t be another reason for your violence—I won’t be like you two.”
“And just … what are we, carissima?” Kharon’s tone was poisonous, shadows crawling across him.
“Belligerent,” I said as I held up my fingers and ticked them off. “Misogynistic, cruel, hyperaggressive, despotic megalomaniacs. You don’t even know what happened, yet you would attack Achilles and Patro.”
As I spoke, Fluffy Jr. moved so he stood in front of me protectively, and Nyx slithered up my leg.
Augustus glanced down, then back up to me, face paling like he’d seen a ghost.
“Poco,” he whispered.
The raccoon climbed up my back, then stood up on my shoulder with his tiny fists resting on his hips.
Kharon’s face dropped as his hellhounds slunk across the atrium to flank me. Bony tails lowered as they growled menacingly.
I reached down, one hand resting on a hellhound’s surprisingly warm head.
“We … protect,” the hellhound said in a garbled voice.
I smiled with gratitude, then straightened.
“Let’s go.” I gestured to Fluffy Jr., my voice echoing in the atrium, the meaning clear.
Kharon made a strangled sound.
“Wait,” Augustus whispered.
Achilles helped Patro to his feet, the two of them watching us silently.
I shook my head.
My husbands looked on with devastation as I walked away with their protectors at my side.