For the briefest moment, while he had held Helen’s life in his hands, he had not been able to hear his son, but now, the sound of his wailing had returned. He thought that it was louder, or perhaps he was just nearing it. Either way, by the time he came to his chambers, every muscle in his body was on edge, wound tight with anger, and while he did not mind anger, it did nothing to encourage the swelling of his cock.
He took a few deep breaths and managed to ease the set of his jaw before he opened the doors to his room to find Ariadne.
She was seated in a chair, her arms and legs bound, her mouth gagged. Other than the restraints, she was in pristine condition. Not a single scratch or drop of blood marred her skin.
When her eyes lifted to his, they were full of hatred and fear, and he smiled, closing the door behind him.
“I have thought about this moment often,” he said. “It is exactly as I imagined.”
As he moved toward her, she slid her feet against the floor and her body into the back of the chair.
He chuckled at her attempted retreat.
When he was close, he withdrew a knife and cut the gag from her mouth, slicing her cheek, though to his disappointment, Ariadne did not react. Instead, she glared at him and spit in his face.
Still, he laughed—and he had every reason to. She had nowhere to go. She was his to control, his to punish.
He gripped her face, his fingers pressing into the bloody wound on her cheek. Her pained yelp sent a thrill straight to his cock.
He held her harder. “You know how I like a good fight.”
“Where is my sister, you bastard?”
He studied her. It wasn’t the name-calling that angered him but the worry over her sister.
“You should be far more concerned about what I have planned for you,” he said.
“You think I’m afraid of you?” she asked.
“You will be,” he said. “Until then, remember that you are afraid of what I can do to your sister.”
He pressed his mouth to hers, his fingers digging so hard into her skin, he felt as though he were holding her skull, but then her teeth sank into his lip, and he pushed her away, her chair tilting back until she crashed to the floor.
“You keep fighting like you think it will deter me,” he said, standing over her. “But really, it just makes me want to fuck you.”
He bent and cut the ties that held her to the chair. Her arms and legs were still bound, but she managed to resist, thrashing about. Finally, he managed to throw her over his shoulder and carry her to his bed.
“No, please,” she said, her voice rising with hysteria. The sound made him want to groan, his cock throbbing with pleasure.
“And now she begs,” he said as he straddled her, forcing her hands over her head, hooking her bindings to an anchor in the wall.
“Don’t,” she breathed. “Don’t.”
He paused as she begged, his face inches from hers.
“You could have had a day to adjust,” he said. “But you chose this.”
His words made her fight harder. She jerked beneath him, trying to throw him off, but her efforts were useless. He shifted down until he came to her legs, keeping them bound until he had one secured and then restrained the other.
With her secured and spread before him, he cut away her clothes, and while she cried beneath him, he devoured her body.
When Theseus left Ariadne an hour later, he discovered his son was still crying. The sound had a visceral effect on his body, both because of its keen pitch but also because his wife had failed to subdue him.
All the tension he had managed to release on Ariadne suddenly came back. In a rush of anger, he made his way to Phaedra’s quarters, which were down the hall from his own.
“Phaedra!” he shouted. “Shut him up. Do you hear me? Shut him up!”
When he reached the door, he found it was locked.
“Unlock the fucking door!”
He could feel his face burn as he yelled, and still his son cried.
“You bitch,” he said as he stepped back, kicking in the door—and froze.
He had expected to find Phaedra attempting to console Acamas. Instead, he found her sitting slumped on the floor at the end of her four-poster bed, a sheet wrapped tightly around her neck.
She was dead.
CHAPTER XXXIII
DIONYSUS
Dionysus woke to a burn in his shoulder. He groaned, shifting to relieve the pain, and opened his eyes to see bright blue sky overhead. For a brief moment, he struggled to remember where he was, but the sound of a voice—though unfamiliar—reminded him.
“His highness awakes!” A rugged face appeared over him as he was hauled into a sitting position.
He was on a ship, his hands tied behind his back and his feet bound. Several strangers stared back at him, but they all had one thing in common—a tattoo of a dolphin on their forearm, branding them as Tyrrhenian pirates.
The pirate behind him grabbed a handful of his hair. “His head will fetch a pretty price!” he said. “Look! He wears gold in his braids!”
“There’s nothing pretty about it,” said another pirate.
Dionysus remained silent, assessing the crew. There were about fifteen on the deck, and there would be even more below deck. They carried a variety of weapons but mostly guns. The bullets could not wound him—unless of course they had somehow gotten their hands on Hydra venom.
He shuddered at the thought of feeling that kind of pain again.
When Dionysus looked to his left, he noticed that he was not alone. Another prisoner sat beside him, similarly restrained, though her mouth was gagged.
He knew who she was immediately, though he had never actually seen her before. Her beauty was enough to speak for itself.
Medusa.
“You should thank us,” said another pirate. “She bites.”
“Is that why she has a black eye?” Dionysus asked.
“Bitch deserved it,” said one.
“I suppose that depends on why she decided to bite you,” said Dionysus. “And given that she has been kidnapped, I imagine she had reason.”
The pirate offered a humorless chuckle.
“You seem to know a lot, prince. Did you intend to be a hero? Because if so, I will warn you, it won’t end well for you.”
“Bold of you to think you can fight me.”
“Well, you are the one in chains.”
There was a beat of silence, and then one of the pirates nodded toward him.
“The man is a god.”
A few of the men laughed. “What kind of god gets captured so easily?”
The kind that listened to their oracle.
Dionysus had not decided if he regretted that decision yet.
In truth, he could free himself from these bindings easily, but he had to think about Medusa before he made a move to escape. One of the challenges was that they were in the middle of the ocean. If they were going to run, he’d prefer to be within view of land.
“When we found him, he wore Hermes’s sandals,” the pirate explained. “What kind of mortal wears Hermes’s sandals?”
“A favored one,” said the pirate. He turned to look at Dionysus. “Are you favored, prince?”
“If I was favored, I would not be here,” said Dionysus.
“See, Leo? Even the prince agrees.”
Again, Dionysus glanced at Medusa. He had expected to see a thin and frail woman, someone whose traumas would make her meek and afraid, but instead she looked fierce and determined. He got the impression that if he had not arrived, she would have escaped on her own.
Dionysus waited until the pirates seemed distracted before turning to whisper to Medusa.
“Can you swim?” Dionysus asked.
She stared at him, her strange eyes assessing. They were like yellow starbursts—both beautiful and unnerving. She did not trust him, but he did not blame her.
Finally, she nodded.
“Good,” he said.
He was quiet after that, waiting. He listened to the pirates’ conversations and learned that they were crossing into the Aegean. Dionysus felt a little relief at that news, though he wondered why, and if they were heading to New Athens specifically to trade Medusa to Theseus. While it would be nice to have the pirates take him right to the shores of his home, facing him and his demigods would not.
As the sun set, Dionysus noticed clouds gathering on the horizon, and it wasn’t long before it was dark, and the sky was filled with lightning.
Dread filled his stomach. This was not a normal storm.
“Those clouds came up quick,” said one of the pirates, a note of fear in his voice. Normally, a seafarer would try to outrun a storm, but there were some—those that were divine in nature—that were impossible to outrun, and this one was supernatural. It meant they had caught the attention of some kind of sea deity. Dionysus just hoped it wasn’t Poseidon.
When the ship began to rock and the waves grew tall, to the point that the water came up over the rails, he knew it was time to move.
A flood of crewmen were suddenly on deck, racing to bring the sails down, secure hatches, and stow loose goods.
Then it started to rain. It came down in a sheet, almost as though someone were dumping a continuous stream of water into the ocean. It was so thick, Dionysus could barely see. The only thing that helped was the lightning, which cracked across the sky, almost like frost on glass. It was beautiful but also terrifying.
“I told you!” Leo said. “I told you he was a god!”
“You’re a fucking idiot, Leo!” another pirate called.
But Leo was the only one who wasn’t an idiot.
“We are moving fast,” one of the pirates cried. “It’s almost like this storm is dragging us to the coastline!”
A few heads turned toward Dionysus, suspicious.
“Unless the water is wine, it’s not me,” he said, but he decided it was time to make their escape. As much as he wanted to be on land, he did not want to be on this ship when it crashed.
Normally, while he was in Poseidon’s territory, he would not dare use his magic, because he did not wish to draw his attention, but if the storm was the work of the God of the Sea, then it was already too late. So he turned his bindings into vines, breaking them with ease. He did the same with the ones around his legs. When he looked at Medusa, he nodded to her wrists, and the ropes turned to vines. She tore them easily and then ripped the gag from her mouth.
“Stay down,” he said. “Wait for my orders.”
The pirates were so busy with the storm, they did not see him rise to his feet. Not that it would have done them any good. By the time they did notice, he had transformed into a jaguar and attacked his first victim.
He launched himself at the pirate, grabbing him by the nape of his neck before taking him down. He only had enough time to utter one scream before he was silent. It was enough of a disturbance to catch the attention of the rest of the crew and suddenly, Dionysus found himself under a spray of bullets. He was relieved to find they were not in possession of Hydra venom, and just as the bullets pierced his skin, they were quickly pushed out of his body as he healed.