15. The Collar
The Collar
Alexander
Sometimes, living on Samos felt like a dream. Like the things I’d said and done the day before were only a mirage, and the next morning, I’d start over. A ridiculous form of Groundhog Day.
It would have been an alarming existence for an Alpha, let alone one from House Zeus. But I accepted it. I was lucky Helena had even granted me access to her daughter. Each Groundhog Day was a privilege, not a curse.
Still, that didn’t make it any easier to see Andie’s eyes clear up one day, then go fuzzy another. It hurt, and every single time, I cursed the Olympian gods who’d led us into this nightmare.
My last hope was Danae. Even after Andie’s outburst, she hadn’t given up. If anything, she was even more determined. I should have known better than to think the solution would be so straightforward.
“I’m sorry, Alexander,” she told me, one week after she’d started her work. “Your aura just doesn’t work for the collar. It’ll only make her worse, not better.”
The workshop smelled of a week’s worth of failure — burnt circuitry, overworked crystals, the acrid residue of Hephaestus-craft driven repeatedly past its limits.
Three shattered crystals were already in the corner container.
Danae stood with her back to me, both hands braced against the edge of her main bench.
“The frequency.” I wanted the full shape of the problem. “Explain it.”
She pulled a readout from the data-sphere and slid it across the bench toward the edge nearest me.
Two waveforms overlapped on the display — one running flat and clean, one spiking in jagged peaks.
She kept her eyes on her instruments. “The collar works by introducing the stabilizing frequency of House Zeus into Andie’s brain.
But it carries too much charge. In every simulation, it doesn’t stabilize the interference pattern. It amplifies it.”
It made so much sense it hurt. “The curse interprets my aura as a mating claim. If we did this, Andie—”
“Would be in agony.” Danae cut me off. “I’ve run it forty-seven times.”
The number sat between us. Forty-seven runs over seven days, and she’d said nothing until she had no remaining argument against the result. That was Danae’s particular form of loyalty — not comfort, but absolute refusal to present a conclusion before the data demanded it.
I forced my errant emotions back and struggled to find a solution. The concept was sound. House Zeus could help her. But the problem was me. I was still Andie’s mate and still the cause of the curse.
What the collar needed was a different House Zeus signature. One that could contain something as old and powerful as House Hera’s curse.
I had felt it. I knew exactly what that signature should be like because I had experienced its power.
In Maracaibo, my father’s aura filled every cubic inch of that lake. I had been completely unable to move, not because the force was aggressive but because it was total. It simply occupied the space I was in. There had been no seam to find, no angle to push against.
That was the frequency Danae needed.
I let out a slow breath. “If the source signature were different,” I said. “Same House, another person. Would the imprint hold?”
Danae turned from her instruments and studied me with narrowed eyes. “In theory, yes. I’d have to double-check, of course, to make sure the volatility is contained. But I’d say it would hold.”
It was the only thing I needed to hear. Turning on my heel, I walked out of the workshop and reached for my phone.
My father answered before the second ring finished.
“Alexander,” he drawled. “I was wondering when you’d call.”
He sounded completely calm, the exact same way he had when we’d first met in Venezuela. His concern, whether it had been real or fake, seemed to have completely vanished.
“I need you on Samos,” I told him without preamble. “Danae Wayland is calibrating a device for Andie. It requires a House Zeus aura signature. Mine generates the wrong frequency. Yours won’t.”
For a few seconds, my father said nothing. I wasn’t fooled. Argos Stormwright processed things at the speed of someone who’d been reading rooms since before I was born. The pause was an instrument.
“You’re asking me to come to Helena’s sanctuary,” he finally offered.
“Yes.”
The second pause was longer. I stood in the corridor and waited. Somewhere far inside the Heraion, one of the peacocks called once and went silent.
“Your own aura is inadequate,” my father said at last.
The word ‘inadequate’ landed exactly the way he’d aimed it. “That’s what I said.”
Argos released a low, humorless laugh. “The priestesses will hate this.”
“Yes.”
“Helena will be overjoyed.”
“She’ll survive it.”
“Just as long as your mate does, right?” Argos asked, his voice now softer. “I’ll arrive tomorrow morning. You’re welcome, Alexander.”
The line went dead.
I held the phone in my hand for a moment. Tomorrow my father would walk through this temple. The priestesses would glare at us both, and the Heraion’s stones would vibrate in displeasure.
But my father would help, and Danae would get the signature she needed.
The next day, I stood at the temple’s entrance, watching my father’s helicopter descend toward the designated landing area. The rotor wash sent peacocks scattering and made the cypress trees bend like supplicants. Even the air felt heavier as Argos Stormwright approached.
The moment his feet touched Samos soil, I sensed it.
Somehow, his overwhelming presence felt less heavy.
It was still just as powerful as it had been in Maracaibo, but it didn’t weigh on me quite as much.
The ritual in Venezuela had done its job.
It was a shame that, in the end, it had been for nothing.
The House Hera priestesses who’d gathered to receive him shifted uncomfortably. But the Heraion itself was surprisingly quiet. Perhaps it knew Argos had come to help.
Argos strode toward us with the confidence of a man who’d never questioned his right to occupy any space. His eyes swept over the assembled priestesses with casual dismissal before settling on me.
“Hello, Father,” I said. My words came out sharper than I’d intended.
“What’s that insolent tone?” Argos’s voice carried across the courtyard. “You disrespectful boy. You really should be grateful you’re my blood. Otherwise, I would have never set foot in this place.”
Helena Winters stepped forward before I could respond. She wore her formal House Hera robes, but underneath the mask, she was likely as nervous as I was. “We’re all grateful for your assistance, Argos. Welcome to Samos.”
It was a far warmer reception than my father would have otherwise received. My father huffed but didn’t bother complaining.
Helena led us from outside through the temple’s winding corridors. We descended a narrow staircase that led away from the main temple complex. The air grew warmer as we went deeper, carrying the distinct scent of smoke and heated metal.
Helena stopped at a reinforced door. She knocked twice before pushing it open. “Your guest has arrived, Miss Wayland. Try not to burn down my temple while you’re working.”
“I make no promises,” Danae called back from somewhere inside.
Helena turned to leave. She probably wouldn’t care if Danae burned the entire Heraion down if it got us the results we wanted.
My father and I stepped through the doorway into Danae’s laboratory. Small fires burned in contained crucibles scattered throughout the room, their flames dancing in response to Danae’s presence. The smoke from various experiments hung thick in the air, making everything slightly hazy.
Danae stood from her workbench, wiping her hands on a cloth streaked with soot. She pushed her glasses up her nose, no doubt already bracing herself for whatever nonsense my father would throw at her.
“So you’re the brilliant Miss Wayland I’ve heard so much about,” my father purred. “I must say, the reputation doesn’t do you justice.”
A faint blush colored Danae’s cheeks. She cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “Lord Stormwright, I appreciate the flattery, but we should stick to the matter at hand. Time is critical for Andie’s condition.”
Argos’s smile widened at her direct response. He seemed genuinely amused rather than offended by her dismissal. “Of course. Show me what you’ve created.”
Danae moved to a secure cabinet at the back of her workspace. She unlocked it with a complicated series of touches that made the Hephaestus technology respond to her alone. When she turned back, she held a small velvet box in her hands.
She opened it carefully, revealing the collar inside.
I stepped closer, studying the device that represented our last hope.
It looked nothing like the crude restraint I’d been imagining.
Instead, Danae had crafted something that resembled fine jewelry.
A delicate choker of interwoven silver and gold strands lay nestled in the velvet.
Small crystals were embedded at regular intervals.
The design was beautiful, elegant, and obviously intended to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Argos’s expression changed completely. The practiced charm fell away, replaced by genuine respect. “Ah. I admit I had my doubts, but you really are as talented as they say.”
Danae met his gaze steadily. “I’m only determined to help my friend, Mr. Stormwright.”
“Excellent.” Argos leaned over the collar to examine it more closely. “I’m just as determined to help my son. So let’s get this show on the road.”
I stared at my father’s back, trying to decode this performance.
Argos Stormwright didn’t help anyone without calculating the benefit to himself first. He certainly didn’t fly to sacred House Hera territory, or submit to uncomfortable proximity with priestesses who despised him, out of paternal affection.
I wondered what his real angle was, what he stood to gain from Andie’s recovery.
But I decided not to question it. Not now, not when we were so close to a potential solution. I would deal with whatever price my father eventually demanded when the time came.
“The collar needs to be calibrated specifically to your aura signature,” Danae explained to Argos. She set the velvet box on her main workbench. “The process requires you to maintain a steady output of your power the entire time.”
Argos shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. “I’ve had perfect control of my abilities for decades, Miss Wayland. Just tell me what you need, and it’ll be done.”
“Sit here.” Danae gestured to a chair she’d positioned in the center of a complex array of measuring equipment. “Alexander, you should observe. You’ll need to understand how the collar functions when we eventually place it on Andie.”
I moved to stand beside Danae’s workbench, watching as my father settled into the chair. He looked completely at ease despite the strange equipment surrounding him.
Danae worked around him without ceremony. She pressed sensor contacts to both his temples, the pulse point at his throat, and the insides of his wrists. When she attached the final contact, she straightened and returned to her instruments.
“Full output on my mark,” she said, her eyes already on her displays. “Sustained and even. I need the raw signature, not a demonstration.”
Argos rested his hands on the arms of the chair, his wrists up. “When you’re ready.”
“Now.”
The shift hit me in the chest before I consciously registered it. His aura expanded outward through the room. My own power stirred in involuntary response, but I fought it back. I pressed it flat and held it there. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally interfere with what Danae was doing.
Along the wall, two of the contained crucibles guttered and then burned higher.
The collar blazed. Its crystals erupted in sequence, blue-white light arcing between them.
The data-sphere’s display filled with waveforms I couldn’t read.
Danae’s hands moved across her instruments with focused, rapid precision.
“Again,” she said, without looking up. “Forty percent. Don’t modulate.”
My father’s hands closed over the arms of the chair, the first visible concession to effort he’d made since he’d sat down. Tiny lightning discharges crawled across his knuckles. The pressure in the room climbed, and I knew the imprint was taking.
“Power down,” Danae said. “Take your time.”
Argos drew his aura back in with the same control with which he’d deployed it. There was no abruptness, no waste. The crystals dimmed in sequence, their white fading to a low and steady pulse. The pressure in my chest eased by degrees. The forge-fires in the crucibles settled.
Danae lifted the collar from its array with both hands and carefully started to analyze it. The room was still around her. My father remained in the chair, unhurried, unreadable, adjusting his cufflinks.
Danae set the collar back in its case. She turned to face us and nodded.
“The imprint is clean.” Her eyes came to mine and held.
“I need the overnight simulation series to confirm stability. But the frequency took.” Her chin dropped slightly as she checked her own results one final time. “In two days, we try.”
Two days.
I didn’t let my relief show. I’d been wrong before in ways that had cost more than I’d anticipated. This island had made me careful about what I allowed myself to feel ahead of evidence. But Danae had not been wrong yet. I couldn’t help but believe her. I couldn’t help but hope.
In two days, I might finally get to keep my mate.