Chapter 38 Seductive Propositions
SEDUCTIVE PROPOSITIONS
Drex and I stood next to a marble pillar on the edge of the room, out of the way of the dance floor.
A stack of speakers sat in the corner with an unused electric guitar plugged into it. I stared at it.
A canorous piano melody tinkled through the room, and the musician was good, but not as talented as Kharon.
On the dance floor, I caught glimpses of pastel eyes and long shimmering hair, but whenever Lena came into focus, she was pulled away, disappearing into the crush of bodies.
Olympians, sirens, and all manner of creatures spun languidly to funereal hymns. Sparta was nothing if not morbid.
“Drex, I have pointers for you!” Agatha called from a few feet away, where she was talking to Hermos and Patro.
Patro scanned the room, meeting my gaze—he looked away.
Emotions welled up in my throat.
Drex blushed at Agatha’s attention. “I’ll be back,” he said as he threw back his glass of ambrosia with one nervous gulp and walked away.
Tomorrow it would be his turn in the arena.
Leaning against the pillar, I opened my mouth to tell him to hurry—and erupted into a coughing fit.
Napalm and kerosene still stung the back of my throat.
I rubbed my tingling palms against my toga, vision warping. The dance floor was on fire, water dripped from the ceiling, the droplets mixed with flames. Heat scorched my cheeks.
I reared back.
The room was normal. Spartans laughed and danced with abandon.
Everything was fine, except … it wasn’t.
Little fires burned everywhere.
The battle was raging, and the Chthonics were losing.
Drex, Kharon, and Augustus each had to fight, and then it would be my turn in the arena. Twelve labors.
Patro rocked back and forth, listening to something Drex was saying to Agatha—a pool of crimson was gathering at his feet, leaking out the holes of his laces—and there were bloody boot prints across the floor where he’d walked.
Patro glanced at me again, despair in his eyes.
His ankle should have been healing already.
My fingers tingled—I looked down and nearly fell over—a faint glow emitted from them.
“Are you seeing this?” I whispered.
Nyx slithered up my forearm, head resting against my palm. “It’s warm,” she hissed with awe.
We both watched, entranced.
I blinked—the light was gone.
“Do it again,” Nyx demanded.
Scrunching my face, I tried to concentrate, but nothing happened. Sweat beaded across my forehead as I remembered the anglerfish. A hideous deep-sea creature.
“Make it glow,” Nyx ordered.
“I can’t.” My hands (antennas) continued to stare back at me, the skin a normal innocuous hue.
“False. Failure is not an option—believe in yourself,” Nyx hissed, scales sliding around my throat as she tightened.
I gasped as I tried to yank Nyx away from my neck. “How … suffocating … helping?”
Nyx constricted violently. “I’m motivating you,” she said calmly.
This was officially the worst pep talk I’d ever received (why was I kinda feeling inspired?).
“Uh—madam?” A short man—a creature with curling horns on his skull—stopped in front of me. “Do you require help?”
I didn’t need a mirror to know my face was turning bright purple.
The man’s eyes widened as I gasped and asphyxiated in front of him, mouth gurgling unattractively.
“Wait,” he said as he looked down at my short exercise toga like he was seeing it for the first time, and his face paled. “You’re one of the psycho Chthonics.”
I smiled at him.
The man turned, running into a siren and tripping over himself in his haste to get away from me—leaving me to die.
Nyx burst into laughter, finally loosening her grip. “Did you see how scared he was of you?”
I held on to the pillar for dear life as I choked. After a while, the imminent sense of certain doom passed, and I chuckled along with her. It was a little funny.
“Is there a reason we just had intense pain around our throats—” Augustus loomed over me, dark eyes flashing.
“What the fuck was that?” Kharon asked coldly, holding the two glasses of ambrosia that he’d gone to get for us. “Did someone attack you?”
My skin prickled as I remembered how he’d recently squeezed my throat.
I grabbed both shots and threw the contents back swiftly.
“Why are you out of breath?” Augustus asked, undeterred. “What was that pain in your neck we just felt? We know it was yours. Explain.”
I tried to shrug casually but ruined it by having a coughing fit that ended in me gagging with my hands on my knees.
Finally, I came up for air. “Nyx and I were just playing.”
Augustus stared at what was most likely a vibrant mark around my neck. “Did she just … strangle you?” His tone had the deceptive quality that it always did before he absolutely lost it.
“Calm down,” I said.
“I am very fucking calm!” Augustus slashed his hand through the air.
“Convincing,” I said.
“Do you need us to protect you from Nyx?” Kharon asked, his voice deepening. “Are you feeling unsafe?”
I choked, this time from disbelief.
Are these men for real right now?
“We were just playing.” I overenunciated each word. “It was funny.”
Nyx twined lazily around my shoulders. “They do know I could just kill them right now if I wanted to—right?”
Kharon’s face was turning purple.
I sighed; men could never understand what it was like to have a venomous snake bestie. They just didn’t get the lifestyle.
Long moments passed as Augustus closed his eyes, muttering a prayer to Kronos in Latin under his breath.
Finally, Augustus opened his eyes, shoulders relaxing. “Okay,” he breathed out.
“Okay?”
“I trust and respect your judgment.” His face flushed.
Badump-Badump-Badump.
My heart raced, and it wasn’t from fear.
“Would … you like to dance with us?” Kharon asked through gritted teeth, then he bowed to me, holding out black-painted fingernails.
Augustus also held out his hand.
Badump-Badump.
Dazed, I reached out.
Their hands grasped mine. It felt lewd.
The symposium faded out of focus.
No one else existed.
“Let’s dance, darling,” Augustus said, his voice velvet wrapped in silk. He pulled me forward, our chests brushing together.
Kharon moved at my back.
Once again, I was pressed between the two of them.
We twirled around the dance floor.
Augustus held my hand, while his nails dug gently into the small of my back. Kharon clutched my hips from behind.
Four points of contact.
Their fingers flexed, tightening to keep purchase as we spun—stars sparkled in my vision.
Kharon chuckled deeply behind me as Nyx glided off my shoulders onto his.
She was dancing with us.
“Alexis.” Kharon’s breath fanned against my temple as he leaned closer, his voice rough. “If you don’t want to … we’ll make sure you don’t have to compete.”
Augustus held my gaze. “I’d rather go to war—than watch you suffer in the arena sands. Just say the word. We’ll wage it.”
Those words from anyone else would have been over-the-top.
The eldest heir to the House of Ares and the Hunter meant what they said.
My head was spinning, and it wasn’t from the dancing.
Badump-Badump-Badump-Badump.
They were speaking of treason—a lifetime incarceration in the most dangerous prison in the world—just because they wanted to spare me from the cruelty of the Spartan world.
Dangerously out of sorts, I leaned forward, resting my head against Augustus’s chest. He jolted at my touch. His heart raced, matching the beat of my own.
Music played—it was Beethoven.
A phantom pain scorched the shell of my left ear, Kharon’s ear.
It would be so easy to accept what they were offering. Of course I didn’t want to fight. I yearned to sit in a dark room solving esoteric mathematical equations that most likely had no practical implications.
But Ceres was back in a villa, waiting for me to return. She believed in me.
And I didn’t want husbands who tore themselves to pieces just to keep me whole.
“No,” I said calmly as we spun. “I can do it myself.”
Being afraid wasn’t a good enough reason not to fight.
Augustus’s chest vibrated beneath my ear. “We’re here for you. Please don’t forget … we’re yours, Alexis. We’ll do anything for you.”
Kharon made a noise of agreement, his hips brushing against me intimately.
Flushing, a thought struck me—a ridiculously inappropriate thought.
I glanced up at Augustus nervously. “Actually … there is something.”
Midnight eyes twinkled. “What is it, my sweet carus?” he asked.
Kharon’s fingers bit harder into my waist.
“If I’m going to die in battle, I want to have sex,” I blurted before I lost my courage.
We stopped spinning.
I studied the floor.
“You’re not going to die.” Augustus’s fingers tilted my chin up, so our gazes met. “We don’t want you to do this because of some misplaced fear of perishing in combat—”
“It’s not that,” I said in a rush. “I’m ready.”
“Carissima,” Kharon whispered against my temple. “You’re playing with fire.”
I cleared my throat, a weakness washing over me.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Nyx hissed as she coiled around my shoulders. “It’s just mating—it’s not that deep. This is so embarrassing to watch … I’ll meet you in the stands tomorrow.” Scales slid down my legs as she slithered away.
“Wait?” I stared down at the empty space where she’d disappeared. “You can’t just leave me?”
“Uh—yes, I can,” Nyx called back. “Bye, bitch.”
There was a commotion a few feet away as an Olympian tripped mid-spin and threw his male partner to the ground—the two men crashed onto the dance floor.
People screamed as they fell over them.
Nyx laughed maniacally as she slithered invisibly through the symposium.
A siren tripped, tossing a tray of ambrosia into the air.
I sighed and turned back to the men—Augustus was staring at my mouth, his eyes half-lidded. Pure want was written across his face.
He was temptation incarnate, and suddenly, I was a sinner.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Augustus asked slowly, hardness pressing against my stomach where he leaned into me.
Kharon shifted his hips against the small of my back, pushing into the curve of my spine. “Oh, princess,” he said with a vicious bite. “The depraved things I’m going to introduce you to.”
“Do it,” I taunted.
Augustus grabbed my hand—he pulled me off the dance floor; we were heading toward the exit.
Kharon gripped the back of my neck tightly.
I glanced up at him—his eyes were a sharp, steel blue—he wore the same expression he did before he hunted Titans, before he went to battle.
Augustus snapped his fingers at some Olympian guards who were slumped by the door.
“We’re going back to our room,” he said. “Escort us.”
The guards jumped to attention. One got the door for us and held it open, the rest hurried after obediently.
My husbands didn’t release me as we moved swiftly through the maze that sprawled beneath the ancient coliseum.
We stopped in front of our room.
A guard fumbled with the key, struggling to open the door.
“Hurry.” Augustus’s deep voice echoed ominously through the narrow stone tunnel.
The guard paled as he desperately jiggled the key in the lock.
“We have to do everything these days.” Augustus stepped forward and took the key, jamming it into the lock, and turning it with sheer brute force.
Hinges groaned as he yanked the heavy door open.
“Lock it up behind us,” Augustus ordered as he pointed at the chain hanging on the stone wall.
“Of course—sir,” the guards chorused in unison, then bowed deeply.
Who’s really captive?
Suddenly, it wasn’t so clear.
Augustus held the door open, escorting me into the dim room, lit only by a single copper sconce, burning low on the far wall.
Kharon’s hand never left my spine as he walked closely behind me.
The heavy door slammed shut.
Fluffy Jr., the hellhounds, and Poco were squeezed into the narrow space at the end of the bed, snoring in an adorable pile of fur and bones.
The lump on Fluffy Jr.’s back still had a faint blue hue, but he wasn’t whimpering, just sleeping soundly. It suddenly struck me that we’d both been glowing lately. Is it connected?
Silence stretched.
My husbands were both looming above me, waiting.
I studied the bed, barely big enough for the three of us, courage flagging.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Pick a number,” Kharon ordered as shadows settled into the sharp edges of his face. “One … or two?”
Augustus clenched his hands into fists.
A sinister aura filled the room.
“Two?” I offered tentatively.
Kharon opened the bathroom door and held it for me, his smile cruel.
“The shower it is.”