Chapter 33 A Siren’s Promise
A SIREN’S PROMISE
As the last standing Cyclops’s wail echoed through the Dolomites Coliseum, I desperately wished I was still drunk.
The stadium silently watched the sands with horror. All chants had died out hours ago.
Kharon and Augustus sat ramrod straight on either side of me, electricity humming in a dome above the blood-covered sand.
No one spoke.
One thing was now disturbingly clear—Ares was nicknamed the God of War for a reason.
He’d been in the arena for about five hours. Five long, painful, heinous hours.
Bright sunlight illuminated the four dead Cyclopes that were strewn around him. Each of them had been tortured to death by his touch.
There was no reason his round was still happening; he could have ended it in five minutes if he wanted to. The problem was, he didn’t want to.
My fingers tingled as Nyx slithered tightly around my shoulders, her scales warm.
The stale taste of ambrosia was sour in my throat as I watched the heinous show.
A black Spartan helmet with a red spiky middle gleamed atop Ares’s head, and it was the only armor he wore.
An ornate golden broadsword was also strapped across his wide muscular back, but he hadn’t unsheathed it.
Not once.
Ares had used his bare hands to murder four Cyclopes.
Now he was working on the fifth.
The rumor that he could torture people to insanity with a single graze of his fingers was right. He also didn’t appear to have a protector. Are the other rumors about him having an enormous invisible Colchian dragon true?
Blood dripped from his eyes like tears as he used his powers—his hand rested casually on the arm of the last living Cyclops.
The creature jerked in the sand as it screamed in agony.
Augustus rubbed my back soothingly.
I studied his profile.
Ares is his father.
His eyes were deep pools of obsidian.
“Are you … okay, my carus?” he asked softly.
His scar stood out in stark relief across the bridge of his nose and cheek.
How did he get it?
I leaned my head against his shoulder.
“That’s my girl.” He gently kissed my forehead.
My stomach pinched.
Down below, the God of War let out a battle cry.
Augustus was the spitting image of him.
They had the same tan skin, harsh features, and build. They both held themselves ramrod straight, postures perfect, shoulders wide.
Scars slashed across their faces.
But where one reveled in unbound cruelty, the other had a raccoon protector who sat on his shoulder all day playing with his hair.
I’d forgotten what it meant that Augustus was the heir to the infamous House of Ares. The leader of the younger Chthonics.
Augustus wasn’t just the son of the psychopath torturing for fun—he was his prodigy.
Yet he also spoke about ancient myths with a passion, gifted me a graphing calculator, and gently tucked me into bed at night.
Augustus stared down at me, his gaze intense like he could read my thoughts.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered.
I’m not.
That was the problem.
The death rattle stopped as the Cyclops finally fell silent, and I turned to watch. Its single eye was open wide and unseeing.
Ares sauntered lazily out of the arena.
There was a spattering of applause, but the stadium was still mostly quiet—numb shock hung in the air. The fight had been hideously clinical, yet deeply depraved.
There was a sudden clamor of cheers as the Chthonic leaders all got to their feet.
I couldn’t look away from the dead Cyclopes.
Were they afraid as they died?
Kharon bent down and said something to Augustus, but I couldn’t hear him above the ringing in my ear.
A thick wave of melancholy washed over me.
Did they wonder why so many people were watching, but no one helped?
My eyes blurred.
Time moved at a strange pace.
The guards escorted us to a much more crowded symposium.
Bodies swirled around us as lively harp music played. Hundreds of candles were flickering on the tables, casting the room in a soft light.
Golden celebratory tinsel had been strung along the room’s columns and ceiling. Sirens whirled around brandishing platters overflowing with food.
I pushed through the crush to find a table, fighting through a sea of bodies, drowning in tortured feelings.
Familiar pastel eyes peered into mine. “Alexis?” the siren whispered, lips trembling.
I wiped at my eyes, hiding the tears.
“Lena?” I said, a kernel of warmth lighting inside my chest. The festering sadness receded.
I blinked and we were hugging, holding on to each other as tightly as we could in the middle of the dance floor.
Her breath hitched. “You’re a Chthonic now.”
“I am.”
“Everyone’s talking about your fight in Rome—how you defended the humans. How powerful you are.”
“Really?” I laughed awkwardly. “They have it wrong.”
Her eyes searched mine. “No, they don’t,” she said softly, her voice full of sincerity.
I held on to her, feeling weak.
“How … have you been?” I whispered.
She shook her head, long hair sparkling. “Better than you … Most creatures think this entire operation is a sham. The Olympians are up to something.”
Someone made a commotion to the side.
Zeus was pointing at us.
I smiled back at her sadly. “I think they’re right.”
“How can I help?” She hugged me tighter, squeezing like she was afraid to let me go.
I couldn’t forget Ceres’s scribbles about Zeus and Vyco. I’d been working on a plan. It was a foolish plan, a bad plan, the type of plan that you never told anyone about out loud because it wouldn’t work in real life.
Cyclopes screamed in my subconscious, and I steeled myself.
Only cowards are complicit in the face of injustice. You have to at least try to make a difference.
“I need speakers,” I said quickly to Lena. “The fancy solar-powered ones. I need to plug a device into them.”
I gestured with my hands to show her what the plug-in port looked like.
She nodded, her pastel eyes wide with emotion. “Stay safe—I’ve heard that they want to hurt—”
“No talking to the sirens!” Zeus shouted as he pointed at us.
Another siren appeared. Lena was pulled away into the dancing crowd, but her gaze held mine.
“Speakers,” I mouthed silently.
She nodded back.
“Thank you.” I touched my hand to my heart, vision blurring, as tears once again streamed down my face.
A male siren paused with a tray of ambrosia shots. He pushed a glass into my shaking hands and disappeared.
I threw the liquid back.
It did nothing.
I flagged down another server.
The second glass burned—it did a little something.
I stole a drink off someone’s table.
The third glass numbed—everything.
Someone pulled a chair out for me.
I collapsed into it. I blinked—Augustus and Kharon sat beside me at one of the long wooden tables set up in the middle of the room for the Spartans. They both moved closer to me.
The rest of the Chthonics sat around us.
Patro and Achilles were a few seats down—both glaring.
The former opened and closed his mouth like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know what; the latter smoked a cigarette—his hands were clenched into fists on the table like he was stopping himself from signing angrily.
I tipped my head to them.
Patro frowned at whatever expression he saw on my face.
Achilles remained unmoved, smoke tendrils lazily rising around his muzzle.
We were all prisoners these days.
Hades said something about “the importance of solidarity and appearance of unity.”
I nodded in agreement.
Kharon placed a slice of meat on the empty plate sitting in front of me, and I shoved it into my mouth, not tasting anything. I’d never turn down free food. Ever.
Kharon shot me a worried look. He snapped at a person who passed us without offering me food from his tray. He kept his hand on the back of my necklace.
He handed me a pastry with one hand, fingers caressing the back of my neck with his other.
I ate every morsel he offered.
Augustus stared down at me like he was afraid I’d disappear if he blinked.
Neither of them asked about Lena.
I didn’t offer.
A strange energy wrapped around the three of us. It seemed to be growing with every second we spent together sleeping in the same bed, eating at the same table, sharing a stone bench.
Their thighs brushed against mine on either side.
A small touch.
My nerve endings sizzled.
There was a clatter as a siren put the day’s Falcon Chronicles scroll on the table next to the food—Agatha leaned forward next to Kharon and unrolled it, showing off the headline.
The table craned to look.
Literacy was a curse.
“Hercules’s protector is seriously ill and unfitting of the heir to the House of Hades—how did she choose so poorly?” Below the news line was a picture of me kneeling next to Fluffy Jr., Augustus and Kharon were a blur, caught mid-motion as they moved to stand in front of me.
Kharon banged his fists on the table and swore vehemently.
Augustus still hadn’t blinked.
I reached my hand down under the table, where all our protectors were lying, and pet the top of Fluffy Jr.’s sleeping head.
Poco climbed off my protector and into my lap. He chirped and curled up in a ball, purring.
Agatha unrolled the scroll further—she glanced around with a worried expression.
The next story was worse.
My vision flickered in and out, anxiety mounting with an intensity that even ambrosia couldn’t mask.
The headline read: “Zeus and Federation announce their plan to interrogate younger Chthonics after their rounds.” The picture was of Medusa.
Hades snatched up the scroll and slammed it shut.
His worried gaze met mine.
Persephone huffed and pushed her chair back. “Excuse me,” she said. “I have a reporter to threaten.” She smiled at me, her expression serene. “Don’t worry—I’ll handle this.”
I tried to smile back, but my face didn’t cooperate.
How can she be so calm?
I wished I had a tenth of her composure.
She walked around the table to me and leaned down, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all going to be okay, daughter. Stay calm—never let the Olympians see you sweat.”
I nodded jerkily.
“We’re in this together,” she said softly.
My vision blurred over.
She was everything my childhood self had ever dreamed about.
Persephone straightened. “Kharon, Augustus.” She glared daggers at them. “Treat my daughter right.” It wasn’t a question.
Augustus bowed his head respectfully. “Of course.”
“I’d die for Alexis,” Kharon said calmly, and Hades raised his glass to him, looking relieved. I’d forgotten he was my father’s favorite soldier.
Persephone didn’t look impressed.
As my mother disappeared into the crowd, my thoughts raced. There was nothing she could do. This was bigger than all of us. We both knew it.
The danger had reached a tipping point.
The consequences had arrived.