twenty-eight -Ares-
twenty-eight
-Ares-
The chains bite into my chest, coiling around me and keeping me to the marble pillar.
I look at all of them. McAllister, his five friends, and a few other men who look more like mercenaries than standard security guards.
I was expecting them to make a move, set a trap, but not so soon.
I’d hoped I’d have the chance to get Brynn out first.
“You have no idea what you just did,” I roar, staring at McAllister, who’s just living his last moments.
He steps forward from the semicircle, walking until he’s right in front of me. Right where I can’t reach him and break him. He traces a finger along the chains, his lips curving into a smile that holds nothing good. “Oh, I know very well what I just did.”
I strain against the bonds. Steel doors have yielded to my strength like pieces of cloth, but somehow these chains only draw me tighter. I try again, but I don’t let my effort show.
Still, these chains aren’t budging, the more I pull the more they tighten. These aren’t normal chains as I first thought; no normal chain would hold me.
At my side, Brynn moves, her hand drifting to the hilt at her waist. My eyes narrow, a silent command for her to stop, but she ignores me, and her blade is aimed at the nearest guard’s throat.
Before she can reach him, another guard catches her wrist. She fights them, and I hear the snap of bones, one of the men screaming in pain.
There are too many of them, and before she gets a chance to do anything, she’s under their control.
I strain against my shackles, but the metal is merciless.
“Quite the fighter,” McAllister says as two more guards drag Brynn closer. Her eyes are blazing with defiance, and the air is thick with her fury, the same as mine.
I move, and the chains cut into my skin, my shirt soaking with my own blood as I pull so hard my palms threaten to tear open.
Why the fuck aren’t they breaking?
They should twist and splinter under my strength, but they do nothing but mark me.
“What’s happening?” Brynn hisses, worry in her voice, reflecting the one in my mind. Only I’m not worried about myself.
McAllister smiles, another smirk raising on his fucking lips. “When you’re a skillful hunter, even gods can fall.”
The word gods lingers in my ears. It’s not a metaphor. This bastard knows exactly what I am.
I glance at the chains, their color like a rainbow on metal, iridescent, almost unnatural, while every ring of the chain is engraved with ancient inscriptions I don’t recognize.
My jaw tightens as pure rage burns through me.
I know what this means. One of my brothers was shot with a bullet made from this very metal.
The only element on earth our bodies yield to.
“Kharon is impressive,” McAllister purrs, like he’s about to start one of his stories again, only this time I need to hear it. “So impressive, once a year isn’t enough. To be honest, I don’t like confined spaces. I like to hunt in the wild more.”
The wild… Elias died in the forest. My mind makes the connection before he gets to say it. Brynn’s gasp echoes in my ears as McAllister continues. She knows it. The bastard is organizing a game parallel to Kharon, stealing the players I selected. That’s where Elias died.
“The game I orchestrate is much simpler. Six contestants and six hunters,” McAllister continues, and heat coils in my chest, my muscles shift beneath my shirt, and I pull on the pillar, but it does nothing except for marble dust to come down from the ceiling.
The damn thing still stands, and somehow, I’m too weak to make another move.
I feel the blood from where the chains dig into my flesh, coating my skin and soaking through my clothes, the feel of it igniting my fury even further.
“You’ve recreated Kharon,” I say, my voice more of a roar, “without understanding its purpose.”
“Oh, I understand perfectly,” McAllister replies. “Control, power, the thrill of playing god. Something noble. Something few people have access to.”
My vision narrows, fueled by the promise of revenge as I see Brynn struggle in the guard’s grip. Her defiance sparks flames inside of me, and I can feel veins standing out along my neck, my eyes turning dark, but the power is just not there. Somehow, it’s not enough to break the chains.
McAllister shifts his gaze to Brynn. “Tonight’s entertainment will be your little warrior. While you, God of War,” he turns back to me, “will have the privilege of watching to see if she survives or if I bring her dead body to your feet.”
Blood and the taste of ash coil in my throat. I would spit lava on him right now.
McAllister walks around her like a vulture. The second, he brushes his fingers against her shoulder, I scream in rage, straining the chains until the clothes are ripped off me where the metal meets the fabric.
“I’ll fucking kill you. I’ll rip your fucking heart out and make you eat it. I swear.”
“She was supposed to be dead anyway,” he goes on as if he didn’t even hear my threat, his tone accusatory. “I know she’s been in Kharon. I also know she was supposed to be dead.”
“You fucking hacked into my systems,” I growl, low enough to rattle the marble floor.
It’s only as if my accusations amuse him. “I’ve been inside your systems, for years. Your programmer left a few windows unlocked, and I took the opportunity. Just to watch you cheat.” He pauses, and I hate that he calls me out on this.
In all my existence, I only cheated because of Brynn. I broke everything I believed in to protect her, and now this fucking bastard thinks he has this against me. But the secret will die with him. I’ll kill everyone present here, every single one of these bastards, even if I die in the process.
McAllister goes on. “Everyone's death is recorded on camera except Cynthia Aaron’s. I wasn’t sure at first, but over the years we’ve developed very advanced surveillance systems. Some of them even recognize the predictability of movement.
Her gestures in Kharon match the ones you two use during training. ”
My eyes narrow, realizing we’ve been watched outside of Kharon, too. There was no way he could have had access to my house. That means he watched us while we trained at the abandoned house. I didn’t have surveillance there, but he must’ve planted something.
“To be honest, I would’ve wanted to wait until Brynn’s leg had healed completely. But considering your visit, our plans had to change.”
“Let her go. I’m the one you want, not her,” I groan, feeling like I’m going insane with rage.
“We’re hunters, Ares. She was brave enough to stand up to you. We want you both. You’re both prey,” he says, and the word prey is like poison in my soul when I know it refers to Brynn.
I lift my head, forcing my muscles to tear through the chain once more, but they only drain the last of my powers.
“Stop, please,” Brynn begs, noticing the blood spewing from my torn clothes. I meet her eyes and notice something: she’s afraid, but not for herself—for me. For the God bound in chains.
I try to calm down. I don’t want to agitate her more and risk her doing something stupid.
“We wanted to wait until next year before Kharon, make her the star of the show, along with other players. But I know she’s strong.
We’ve all watched footage of her fighting.
So the rules of the hunt will be different this time.
She will be the star of the show tonight.
The only one.” McAllister says, satisfaction obvious in his voice.
“You fucking coward,” I bark. “She’s a fucking woman, you piece of shit.”
“Quite a woman indeed,” he continues, and I can see Benedict smile along with another bastard that stands beside them.
“That’s why we decided to be generous and give her a ten-minute head start.
” McAllister looks at his wristwatch. “Starting… now,” he announces, and the guard keeping Brynn lets her go.
But she doesn’t move, doesn’t want to leave me. Her eyes are on me, her body leaning my way, refusing to run. Not for her own protection. But to protect me.
I see the intent in her eyes. She will fight to the death.
“Run,” the word tears from my throat, knowing that they start hunting her in ten minutes, whether she spends them here or not. At least she has a chance if she runs.
“We’re fair people. The same rules as in Kharon apply.
No firearms. Just your own weapons. And since we can’t have the last one survive, as Ares does in his game, here you’ll have to cross the north section of the valley.
There’s a hunter's cabin there. Reach it, and you win the game.” One of the guards hands her her knife.
She looks at him as if she’d gouge his eyes out with her bare hands first. But she doesn’t have time for this.
“RUN!” I command again, more urgently this time, channeling every ounce of authority into one single word. I will break free somehow. Whatever it takes. Whatever it would cost me. But I need time, and I need her to survive.
She still hesitates, looking at me like leaving would betray me the same way she thinks she betrayed Elias.
While I know she didn’t betray any of us.
I can see her counting the guards, her mind working through scenarios of how she could fight her way to me. I know that look. I’ve seen it on countless warriors right before they make a fatal mistake.
“Brynn! No!” I order, and my heart breaks for betraying her intentions, but I’m only doing it so because she doesn’t have a chance of fighting now with everyone here.
“GO! NOW!” The roar that accompanies my command is inhuman, the voice of the God of War summoning armies.
Even the marble floor beneath me cracks from the force of it.
The men present here shrink back as they witness a fraction of my true nature.