Chapter 58
Lyssa
There’s no way around it. I’ll have to welcome the centaur onto the Alastor.
For an hour I’ve been trying to work out a solution to Nestor’s proposition, but I can’t shift the memory of the feast, the sound of the centaur’s legs breaking, the maniacal look on Hercules’s face.
Epizon is right. There’s nobody in Olympus who shares Nestor’s pain or need for revenge more than I do. And anyway, if Artemis wants her on the ship, then she’ll end up on the ship regardless.
I’m standing with my back to the rails a few feet from Alexios, leaning on my elbows, waiting for the centaur to return, and trying not to glare at the back mast, where Epizon and Lucas are pulling off the final piece they’ve cut.
Restlessness winning, I push myself off the rail and hesitantly step toward the mast. Alexios moves with me, but keeps his distance, and I’m grateful for the space. As much space as is possible between us, anyway.
“Are you done?” I ask as Lucas and Epizon move toward the longboat.
“Yes, captain. This is it,” Lucas says, waving a small patch of wood at me. “I’ll attach it now, and then you can test it.” His voice is brimming with excitement.
Epizon lets him hurry off, and looks between me and the mast. He gestures at it, and I take a deep breath before moving closer.
It now has shallow, square patches of wood missing in a neat line spiraling up the pole like steps. If I’m being completely honest, there is something aesthetically pleasing about it. But not enough to make me comfortable with there being holes in the mast of my ship.
I almost don’t want to touch the mast, just in case. In case my bond is damaged, or broken. In case my ship is angry with me. My crew may believe it was a risk worth taking, but they don’t know the Alastor like I do.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and lay my hand on the wood, concentrating.
The thriving hum of the ship fills me at once, the sense of the massive sails and unending sky fierce and strong.
Relief washes through me as I break the connection, my hand dropping back to my side. They were right. Thank the Fates. Lucas was right.
I let out a long breath. Now let’s just hope he’s right about the longboat too.
“Everything good, captain?” Epizon asks.
I turn to him with a small smile. “Yup.”
“Good. Now, let’s finish this longboat.” He moves across the deck quickly to help Lucas, and I lean my shoulder against the mast. For the first time, some excitement replaces the fear. If I can Rage-power the little boat… It would be like having a miniature Alastor.
A small flash of white light catches my attention, and I turn to where Nestor is now standing on the deck, exactly where she was before. The centaur bows her head.
“Captain Lyssa,” she says.
“Nestor.” I incline my head in return. “Welcome back.” I’ve barely finished the sentence before Epizon has bounded across the deck. He bows low to her.
“Welcome,” he breathes reverently. Len and Lucas materialize either side of us.
“I have decided to accept your help, with gratitude,” I say to her.
She dips her head again. “You will not regret it. I will make sure your father does not see the end of the Trials.”
My fists clench at my sides as anger shoots through my body. “I appreciate the conviction, but do not refer to him as my father.”
Nestor flicks her tail. “I do not understand. Is my knowledge of your family incorrect?”
“No. But we refer to him as Hercules, or ‘that monstrous fucking asshole,’ here. Not as my father.” The word tastes sour on my lips as I spit it.
Nestor says nothing a moment, then blinks. “I see. It may take me a short while to understand some of the customs on this ship. We are a private race, and unfamiliar with the ways of modern humans.”
“Epizon and Len will fill you in, I’m sure. In the meantime, I am your captain. You obey all direct orders from me while you’re on the Alastor.”
“I understand.”
I throw a glare at Alexios. “See? She understands.”
“You two are in love, yes? You do not appear to be. Are you currently disagreeing?”
I put my hands on my hips and look skyward. Fucking Artemis, and fucking Athena, and fucking… all of them. My crew has gone from three to six in under a week, and all my privacy is gone. Evaporated. Stolen, by bored fucking gods.
I’m not going to be able to keep secrets from someone living on my own ship.
“I need a drink.” I say the words to the clouds above me. It’s an under-exaggeration. I need more than a drink. So much more.
My entire life has been turned upside down. I need a blowout. I need to explode. I need to take my ship and blast through the skies until there’s no energy left.
“You need to win the next trial,” says Nestor. “Drinking will probably not help.”
“Lucas?” I look at him. “You’re going to have to share quarters with Len so Nestor has a room.”
“What?” Len protests instantly. Lucas looks at the satyr awkwardly. “So because I’m the smallest, I have to share?” Len scrapes his hooves on the deck.
“No. You have to share because I’m already sharing,” I growl, glaring at Alexios, “and Epizon is second-in-command.”
Epizon looks at Lucas. “Maybe you can share with me, Lucas. Satyrs get up to some… unsavory things in private. And Len’s room looks and smells like a forest.”
The little satyr begins a tirade of spluttering indignation, and I shoot Epizon a grateful look. Lucas beams at him.
“Thank you, Epizon. I’ll not get in your way.”
“I am sorry for causing disruption to you and your crew,” says Nestor, formally. We all look at her.
“It’s fine,” says Epizon quickly. “Do you have belongings to move onto the ship? We have a large cargo deck to store them if so.”
In which we’re hiding a mysterious psychic creature we stole from a vampire.
I suppress a groan.
“No,” Nestor answers solemnly. “All of my belongings are tied too closely with Cyllarus. They are safe here on Sagittarius until I avenge him and can take pleasure in them once more.”
Well, Nestor is definitely going to change the mood on board the Alastor.
“In that case, captain, we’re ready for you to try the longboat,” says Len, still throwing affronted looks at Epizon.
“Good.” I’m anxious to see if the plan with the longboat has worked.
I hop up on the crate and into the longboat, Alexios behind me. The sail is up, the bench secured and the mast clad in the slightly dark patches of wood from the Alastor, in the same spiral shape.
I lay my hand on the mast and will the boat up. It responds instantly, rising from the deck of the Alastor by a foot. I let go of the mast and the ship hovers in place. So far, so good. I move along the boat, checking the repairs we’ve made to the hull.
“Let me know if you need any help getting angry, darling,” Alexios says, smiling.
I roll my eyes at him and reach out for the mast, then close my eyes and concentrate.
I need nothing to fuel the Rage today. Unspent energy thrums through my body, flowing fast and powerful. I will the ship higher and hear Alexios suck in a breath as we shoot up. A broad smile splits my face as the wind whips through my hair, and we soar skyward.
“Lyssa!”
I open my eyes. Alexios is on the planks in the bottom of the boat. I slow our movement, looking up at the blood-red sail.
It worked. It actually fucking worked.
I laugh. “Lucas is a little genius!”
But now… Now I want to fly. I want to soar. I want to move so fast nobody can catch me, so fast nobody can force me to do anything I don’t want to. I want to be free.
“Gods, I wish you would warn me if you’re going to do that,” says Alexios.
My eyes move to him, fixing on the rise and fall of his still-bare chest, the beads of sweat glistening on his skin. Power flows through me like electricity, into the wood, my own skin humming and heating.
For a moment, I want to toy with him. To drop the boat and watch him scream as we plummet back toward the ground.
I want him on his backside before me, calling me captain.
Epizon isn’t here to cut in, to stop me, to remind me what’s important.
I can show this arrogant prick that he should respect me.
“I don’t need to warn you of anything, Alexios. You’re in my world now, and you’ll fucking do as I say.” Even I can hear the power, the command in my words. For a second, I’m alarmed by it. But then I see his face change as he stares up at me.
“Do you know what you look like?” he breathes.
I don’t need to ask what he means. His pupils are dilated, eyes hungry, and I can see the straining fabric in his trousers.
I grip the mast, feet planted, hair whipping around my face, as something happens to my insides that I do not understand, but am shocked to find that I do not want to stop.
Desire. It’s flowing through my body like the Rage does. A burning desire for control, for release, for just a few minutes of blessed relief from this constant energy.
“Tell me,” I say. I don’t know why I say it. But I do.
“You look like a fucking goddess.”
“And would you do what a goddess told you to do?”
“Right now, yes. I’ll do whatever the fuck you tell me to do.”
“Get on your knees.”
He does. Instantly. Hot, pulsing need pools between my legs, and I’m too caught up, too deep in this surreal haze, to remember that I hate him.
“Take it out on me, Lyssa. Make me pay for what I’ve done to you.” He reaches out, gripping my hips, and stares up into my face.
Fuck. I could. I could take back control, some of the freedom this asshole has taken from me, and make him pay.
“Tell me what to do,” he breathes. “I’ll do it.”
How good would it feel to make this arrogant prick serve me, to take me somewhere where I get to forget for a few minutes? And then… what? Leave him unspent, longing. But what control would that really give me? It wouldn’t change anything.
I breathe hard as I stare into his eyes. I think I can see desperation in them.
No, as soon as whatever this is ends, he’ll be back to the cocky peacock, I’m certain. But for a short time, I could flip this.
My body is screaming at me. The energy, previously anger, has now morphed into something reaching the ends of my fingertips and toes, setting every nerve alight.
I reach out and gently grip his chin, tilting his head back. “Anything?”
“Anything,” he rasps.
My head fills with images. He’s on his knees in them all. I imagine him burying his face between my legs, his cock straining in his pants, untouched, as he uses that infernal fucking tongue of his for some good.
Epizon’s words filter through my haze. “Captain, you’re too high. Artemis told us not to leave the plains—you need to come back down.”
Artemis. The Trials.
I take my hand from the mast and lean over the edge of the boat. He’s right—we are high. The Alastor is far below us, looking tiny so close to the other, larger ships.
“Lyssa, please don’t risk Artemis executing us. Especially as I reckon we can actually win this one.”
Sense forces its way through the desire. Slowly, I begin to lower the boat. “Epizon says we have to go back,” I say, my voice hoarse.
Alexios’s grip on my hips tightens, and for a long moment, we just stare at each other. “Don’t think this is over,” he says eventually. “Captain.”