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The pit disappeared in a puff of smoke.Gone.
I gaped at the floor. “What the fuck is going on!”
“Whoo!” Castor burst into the room, running straight for and launching onto my bed. “Did you see that? Was it as great as it sounded? Haha! That bitch’s scream could be heard for miles.” I squeaked when he loomed over me, crouching not unlike a monkey. “You’re fun, Aella Vanda. So many enemies, so many lurking, so many people to burn.” His eyes were wilder than his grin. “Burn, burn, burn, burn”—he clapped, startling a cry out of me—“burn!
“We’re going to feed the pits of Tartarus with your enemies.” He giggled. “And we’re going to have so much fun doing it.” Castor popped a kiss on the tip of my nose. “You’re welcome.”
“Castor, easy.” Sebastian blew through the door and slammed it shut. “You’re overwhelming the poor girl, and she doesn’t have time for that.”
“Sebastian, what’s going on? Where is everyone?” I wanted to sit up, but Castor was still perched over me. This grinning psycho was night and day the sleeping, bored son of Hades I’d been dealing with for months. “Where’s my mom? Where’s Alex? Where—?”
“Aella,” he sliced in, grabbing my hands. “You need to listen. You’re in danger. Worse than you can possibly believe, and the time to save yourself isnow.”
“What? Save myself how?”
His eyes burned. “Make a deal with me. Pledge your power to me.”
“Get out.” I threw him off.
“Gods, no— That’s not what I mean!” Frustration laced his voice. “This isn’t me being a self-serving bastard. I’m serious, Vanda. I’m trying to help you.”
I rolled my eyes. I was always well enough to do that. “You’re trying to help me by using my power for your gain? Do you also want to help me learn to fly by kicking me off a cliff?”
He shook his head, the corner of his mouth quirking up. “There you go again. You’re quick, Vanda. Clever, smart, brave, and not the least bit afraid of me. You know you can hold your own with me, so making a deal with me tosave your lifeshouldn’t scare you.” He twisted, glaring at the door. “But not doing it quickly should!”
“I’m not making any kind of deal with you. You lied to my face, and made me think Alex hated me when he was the one who sent you to help me in the first place. I want you gone.” I folded my arms. “Now.”
“You need to let that go. We don’t have time for this.”
I pointed to the door. “Bye.”
“Argh!” He jerked his head. “Castor, watch the door.”
Castor popped off me, whistling a jaunty tune. He was having a grand ole time.
“All right, Vanda, you want to do this, let’s do this.” Sebastian got in my face, blowing my brows up. “I lied about Alex because being close to him means being close to his father. Maximos Damien is a cruel and dangerous man, which he’s more than proven to you on his own.” The words tumbled out of his mouth, almost too fast for me to catch up. “He’s obsessed with staying in power, and he exploits every loophole in the lawshecreates to make it so.
“He did the same thing when he found our hiding place, clapped my mother in chains, and sentenced her to a lifetime of hard labor. Anyone under that sentence can be bought as an indentured servant to a noble family. Guess who bought her?”
My throat constricted. “Maximos.”
He nodded, vein ticcing in his jaw. “He used and abused her and her power for years until she finally couldn’t take it anymore... and killed herself.”
“Oh my gods,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry—”
“This isn’t about me,” he snapped. “Don’t you see, Aella?Youhave broken laws. You used a curse, you brought down the barriers, you infiltrated the academy under false pretenses, you put the entire world in danger by unleashing Pandora. Fuck’s sake, even your existence is illegal. Olympians do not marry and have children with mundanes. They simply don’t.” He grasped my shoulders, spreading fear into me for the first time.
“No one but you, me, and your dead father knows what happened in that chamber—the others were all asleep. But this is what the council does know. You entered a forbidden chamber, taking two imperial heirs and the high priestess of the Volana pack with you.
“When you emerged, five instructors and three Experts turned up dead, the high priestess disappeared, and those two imperial heirs”—he gave me a hard look—“lost their power.”
I opened my mouth... but I couldn’t speak.
“Yes,” Sebastian continued. “You brought back Golden Boy, Cirillo, Nitsa, Tycho, Ionna, and Theron. You also saved your mother. But the rest of them are now as mortal as her. And if you think Maximos hated you before...”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The man flat-out tried to murder me for putting my grubby half-mortal hands on his son. Knowing that I’m the reason he lost his power...
“What’s he going to do to me?” I rasped, voice low.
