Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hours passed in silence. The thoughts in my head were the equivalent of a malfunctioning pinball machine. One moment, things had been going well with Eryx, and a connection lit up between us. The next moment? I plummeted back into this damn cage again.
Getting two hearts to speak to each other was my specialty. Yet right now, the failure of getting Eryx to feel anything resembling warmth consistently pressed down on me. Was I losing my touch? I’d seen gods go impotent, but I had never considered that it could happen to me—metaphorically speaking.
The urge to find a way to reach out to Pia was overwhelming, but being stuck in this damning enclosure gave me few options. I was left at the mercy of Eryx’s mood swings and the absurdly unhelpful nest of blankets and pillows.
All my interactions with Eryx replayed on a loop inside my mind, from the moment he opened his front door until he unleashed his fury on the mirror that still lay in a thousand tiny shards.
I hadn’t pegged him for the type to have mommy issues, though you’d be surprised how many gods did.
Nyx wasn’t known for her maternal softness, which was either damning in and of itself or entirely irrelevant.
Though the presence of the water fountain out front in her honor weighed heavily on my mind.
Managing to drill down my best guesses to Eryx being a mama’s boy, a god too scared of his very nature, or the most heartless bastard I’d ever encountered, none were reassuring. The thought occurred to me that he could be all three, and that was downright frightening.
Somewhere in my confused state, I kept circling back to how Pia seemed so certain there was a piece of him worthy of desire, experiencing it for himself, and being another heart’s fondest calling.
I could fix this, couldn’t I? I could fix him.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I was gratefully back in my simple dark wash jeans I had arrived in and my favorite white zip-up hoodie.
The smallest of favors he had granted me before he left.
Across the front of my sweatshirt, in baby blue lettering proudly displayed, read “Solis Lake,” and on the back was the academy’s golden crest.
My fingernail tapped against my front teeth in an uneven rhythm while staring off at nothing in particular, allowing my thoughts to wander aimlessly.
The rest of the house was mostly silent except for the occasional sound of doors opening and closing, mouselike footsteps in the hall from scurrying staff members, and every so often, the ominous groan of pipes.
Time became meaningless being isolated like this. It could have been minutes or hours.
Sprawled out amongst the plethora of pillows, I stared at the top of the cage where all the bars arched into a central point above me. Where they merged was a large gold plate, the engraving reading:
To Eryxander the Great,
May even chaos slip through these bars.
- P.
I rolled my eyes. Whoever “P” was deserved a lifetime stay in this cage as far as I was concerned. Had this been some sort of ridiculous housewarming gift for Eryx or just a kinky friend?
The world may never know.
Closing my eyes, I never quite fell asleep. Fitful rest came, but my thoughts refused to be silenced.
“Got a heart, don’t you?”
Such a stupid question, but not as idiotic as my response had been.
A heart born of love and war was a complicated contraption. My mother enabled attraction’s intoxicating hold, and I made two hearts slaves to it. My father reveled in battle-born bloodshed and fury, and from him, I learned to keep desire’s heat burning in one’s veins.
So why couldn’t I crack open the heart of this one man when mine was just as hardened?
The question remained unanswered and forgotten when the door opened, its handle rattled just enough to coax my eyes open.
Inside stepped my last success story, the man with a sweet tooth for both confectionery fruit and a man named Dale.
I sat upright, seeing my favoritest butler ever, if only because he was the only butler I had Double-Tapped.
The visit was all too short. Eryx had the decency to send him here with meager rations that would barely satisfy a raccoon. And because even the god of discord didn’t care for things to be messy, Jamie granted me passage to the ensuite facilities.
Brief freedom came paired with a dark warning.
“Before Mr. Nightvale left to take care of a business matter, he wished me to pass along a message, should you consider fleeing. He told me to tell you that your ‘immortality would become a suffering even Prometheus could not endure.’”
Jamie’s flat and professional delivery of the threat did nothing to prevent my face from paling slightly.
The mention of the great Titan—whose lore spoke to how he endured death via a bird’s pecker to his liver, only to be revived the next day, and the cycle repeated—left something to be desired on a personal level.
Empty threat or promise of a god ruined by his own nature?
A flicker of apology in the butler’s eyes told me the sentiment wasn’t shared. I nodded in acknowledgment of what potential consequences loomed. That simple dip of my chin prompted Jamie to grant me a temporary reprieve from this damning metal beast.
Once inside the bathroom, he had the kindness to try and make conversation through the closed door.
“Dale is coming to town for Valentine’s Day tomorrow.” A pause, then spoken softer, “Thought you’d like to know.”
Was it already the eve before my favorite day of the year? I suppose time flew when you’re locked away by one emotionally erratic captor.
Drying my hands on the thighs of my jeans, a little smile tugged at my lips. It reminded me of how impactful my role as the goddess of desire was, why I continued to draw hearts together at the sacrifice of my own.
“I hope you both have a reunion worthy of a thousand chocolate-covered strawberries,” I called out from inside the bathroom. “Has Eryx actually given you permission to have the day off?” That in and of itself would be a Valentine’s Day Miracle.
Silence.
“Mr. Peterson?” I turned and stared at the stark white door, unsure of what I expected.
More silence.
My footsteps were slower than a dying man’s last breath, afraid to make even so much as a shuffling sound against the tile floor. Extending my hand towards the brass handle, my trembling fingers rested on it.
Rational thought would have suggested that he had left the room, but I wasn’t feeling so rational after time spent with discord’s poster child.
Before I could turn the handle, it shifted under my touch, and the door swung inward wildly. The sudden intrusion sent me stumbling backwards to avoid getting smacked in the face. My hands steadied me against the sink vanity, eyes wide with shock.
An unfamiliar woman filled the doorway, rail thin with blonde hair from a box and an unkind smile.
“Ooh, look what we have here,” she purred with excitement. Then, with the speed of a feline, she lunged at me. Her hands grabbed my upper arms, pointed nails digging into my skin, threatening to draw blood.
A shriek tore from my throat, instinct overrode thought as I thrashed in her unyielding hold. For a toothpick, she had far more strength than she should, the strength of a god. The realization was chilling.
“Let. Go. Of. Me!” I cried out in a panic, every word punctuated by another jerk of my limbs in an effort to free myself.
The woman pulled me out of the bathroom, hauling me into the center of the room. Digging my heels in, I made her work for every inch of ground.
Shifting my gaze over the top of her bony shoulder, I saw Jamie with another man. The stranger stood a few inches taller, but was all dark and menacing in his build.
With chilling efficiency, this man had subdued the butler by wrapping thick chains around his torso and one of the bedposts.
Alarmed protests became muffled by the slap of a silver strip of duct tape over Jamie’s mouth.
The binding metal links around him groaned with every struggle, a sound so sinister it may as well have been perverse laughter if such a thing were possible.
The unfamiliar bastard patted Jamie’s cheek with lazy condescension. “These are Caucasus chains, forged to restrain a Titan. Your enthusiastic struggles only bind them tighter. But, by all means, resist their hold until they burst you like an overripe tomato.”
Given the alarming shade of red that painted Jamie’s face, it was a testament to the truth of what this man said.
“Let him go! What has he ever done to you?” I spat out with more bravery in my tone than I actually felt.
My outburst drew the asshole’s attention. His head snapped towards me with supernatural sharpness, godlike in its fluidity. Eyes darker than the deepest parts of the galaxy drilled into me with keen interest that made my spine turn into an icicle.
Blondie smirked with too much amusement. “Don’t worry, dear. Our interest isn’t in pudgy over there. We have much higher standards.”
She lifted a hand to grab my jaw, and I swore her fingers lengthened to more fully cage the lower half of my face. Leaning in, her nose traced my cheek, a gesture more intimate than the caress of an executioner’s blade.
If my stomach weren’t already tangled in knots of disgust, she took it a step further and whispered in my ear. “You’re such a pretty toy for Eryx. I’m sure he won’t mind if we play with you for a little while.”
Her partner came up beside her and eased her away from me. She flashed a thin-lipped pout and whined at the enforcement of personal space, something I welcomed a great deal.
Not hesitating once her grip loosened, I tore myself away in a mad scramble to put as much distance between us as possible.
“Don’t touch me, you freakshows!” I hissed at them, all while my eyes darted around for anything useful to defend myself with.
First viable weapon? A broom. It rested against the wall, not far from the mess of mirror fragments. I snatched it up, pointing it menacingly at these two intruders like I was the damn Wicked Witch of the West. If only I had a house and some flying monkeys.
Unfortunately, not only was I ill-equipped with fictional primates, but my upper hand in the situation was short-lived. Whoever this man was, his powers were honed to break down defenses. In the blink of an eye, illusions of him multiplied like being stuck in a room of funhouse mirrors.
I swung wildly at any of the clones of him, the wooden handle of the broom slicing through the air but never striking true.
Until one of his hands clamped down around it, and all the copies of him snapped back into his one true form.
We engaged in the shortest bout of tug of war before he wrenched the broomstick out of my hands.
The force of it caused me to stumble several steps closer to him.
Before I could correct my footing, stars exploded across my vision and heat blossomed across my cheek.
It jarred me enough to drop me to the floor.
Lying there, trying to stop my world from spinning, I struggled to hear past the roar of blood in my ears.
My eyes teared up involuntarily from the strike, leaving my vision compromised.
I wouldn’t have noticed the woman step closer to me if it had not been for the neon green pumps she wore that even a blind man would see in the dark.
Scrambling to get up, her stiletto heel dug into my back between my shoulder blades. Applying more pressure than needed with her foot, she sneered at me, “Stay down.”
Movement registered from the corner of my eye. The man wielded the broom like a baseball bat. I opened my mouth to scream, but my world went blessedly black.