Page 48 of Gods and Graves

“Did you really think I would let you leave me?” Ares demands, his hand twisting in my hair.

Pain explodes from my scalp, and I cry out, futilely attempting to free myself from his impenetrable hold.

“I allowed you to fuck around with those…those inferior men, even knowing that you belong to me. But no more.”

Roughly, he grabs the front of my shirt and rips it. His free hand immediately begins to grope my bare breast, roughly twisting my nipple.

“Why can’t you just let me love you?” he rasps in my ear as I sob. “YOU STUPID BITCH!”

He pulls my hair even harder and then pushes me away. Before I can even get to my feet, he punches me across the face.

I fall to the ground, blood filling my mouth and tears staining my cheeks.

He straddles me from above and roughly pushes my breasts together.

“You are mine, Winnifred. MINE!” He brings his lips to mine, but it’s not a kiss. His teeth bite down on my lower lip and tug, causing me to cry out. “I chose you. Even before you were born, I knew you were mine.”

As he speaks, his thumbs absently flick my nipples.

And then I say the words that seal my fate once and for all.

“I’ll never be yours.”

The next hour is the worst of my life.

Every punch, every kick, every scratch… I feel it all. Unconsciousness doesn’t claim me, despite how desperately I plead for it to.

“You’ll always be mine, Winnie,” Ares growls, staring hungrily down at my beaten, broken body. His fingers roughly thrust into my pussy, making me scream at the unwelcome intrusion. “Always.”

I snap out of the memories with a gasp. I’m cold everywhere. Can’t think. Can’t breathe. Terror coils around my heart like a venomous snake.

I stare up at the face of my stalker, my tormentor, my murderer.

“Y-you killed me,” I whisper, feeling as if I’m speaking around a thousand tiny knives in my throat.

Slowly, I back away from him, though he doesn’t make a move to follow me, seemingly frozen, shock splayed across his face.

“What?” Everett bellows.

All of my guys move closer, surrounding me, enveloping me in their warmth—though it does very little to thaw my frozen body.

“When he touched me…I…I remembered pieces of my past. Meeting you four. Falling in love. And…” God, I can’t speak. I’m going to be sick. Bile claws at my throat like acid-tipped talons. “Ares became obsessed with me. He stalked me. He…” A sob catches in my throat. “He did things to me and then…”

And then left me for dead.

Hell, he was probably the one to trap me in that room. It wouldn’t surprise me. He was desperate to possess me, own me, make me his.

Zaid’s expression has gone carefully blank. “Thea, are you saying that he…?”

He can’t seem to finish his question.

“He’s going to die,” Rafe vows.

And then everything happens really, really fast.

Everett’s body cracks as it contorts. The shift takes less than five seconds. His skin rips, fur explodes outwards, and three monstrous heads rise from his shoulders—a blue version of Cerberus in all his wrathful glory. Three sets of eyes lock on Ares like he’s dinner.

Rafe slices his palm open with clean precision. Blood streams down his fingers.

Krystian notches an arrow and aims it at the God of War’s chest.

Zaid fades into incorporeal smoke, his shadowy form racing behind Ares.

All of this takes place in less than a few seconds, but I can barely process it all. I’m paralyzed where I stand, fear and anger running amok in my chest.

I can’t look away from Ares.

The monster who watched me while I slept.

Who breathed down my neck from the shadows.

Who whispered my name like a promise and a curse.

Who attacked me.

Who brutalized me.

Who no doubt locked me away for hundreds of years, erasing my memories of my guys and theirs of me.

Did the deep sleep my guys were put under truly cause their memory loss, or was that just a lie Ares told them to hide his wicked deeds?

Now I realize that…I’m angry.

Yes, the fear is still there, potent and stifling, but the rage flooding through my veins eclipses it. Shivers reverberate through me, and something solidifies in my hand.

My dagger.

The same dagger previously tattooed on my skin.

I sprint towards Ares, blade low, body fluid.

He’s fast—but I’m faster. My rage makes me so.

I feign left and drive the dagger towards his ribs. He blocks, but I twist and slide past him, carving a line across his back. He hisses, stumbling.

Krystian fires.

Ares deflects the first arrow, but the second finds a home in his thigh—and the magic goes to work immediately, eating at his flesh with a wet hiss.

Ares grits his teeth and raises a blade of violet flame. It seems to have materialized out of thin air.

I duck just as he swings, heat slashing the air above my head.

“Thea, move!” Rafe grunts, and I roll to the side just as my fae hurls a spear of hardened blood into Ares’s side, momentarily pinning him to the wall behind him.

Everett charges, all three jaws opened wide, and slams into Ares with enough force to break every bone of a mortal.

The wall behind Ares crumbles away, and the two of them fall onto the grassy field outside, nothing but a tangle of limbs.

One of Everett’s heads clamps onto Ares’s shoulder while the other two snap at his arms, holding him still.

Zaid appears beside me, solid again.

“Thea,” he breathes, pulling me into his arms.

“I need to finish this,” I whisper, pulling away and moving towards Ares.

He tortured me.

Assaulted me.

Kidnapped me.

He’ll pay with his life.

“Thea, no,” Zaid tries again, grabbing my arm. “You can’t use your dagger on him. Fuck, you know you can’t. Sweetheart, stop.”

Everett, Rafe, and Krystian have Ares contained, but I have no idea how long that’ll last. Ares is a god, and even three of the most powerful supernaturals are no match for him.

It’s now or never.

I don’t look back at Zaid as I move towards a prone Ares, still lying on his back.

“Thea,” Krystian exclaims, alarmed.

“No!” Everett barks.

I lunge at the God of War.

Ares gasps beneath me, the tip of my dagger hovering just above his heart. He’s bleeding from half a dozen wounds—Krystian’s flesh-eating arrows, Rafe’s blood-forged spikes, Everett’s monstrous mauling, and Zaid’s claws—but it’s me he looks at now.

Good.

I want him to see the end coming from the person he thought was the weakest.

“Winnifred… Thea…” he whispers, blood drizzling from his parted lips.

Behind me, my guys seem to be holding their breaths, terrified of making any sudden movements.

“You don’t get to say my name. Either of them,” I whisper, pressing the blade deeper.

Not a killing blow, though. Not yet.

He spits out blood, laughing weakly. “You think you’ve won?”

A feral grin unfurls on my lips. “No. This isn’t a win. This is justice.”

The dagger burns hot in my hand—hotter than ever before, as if it can sense the enormity of the god’s power ripe for the taking. The hilt hums against my skin, channeling something cold and righteous inside of me. The earth beneath us shakes, and the sky above turns still.

I apply a little more pressure, digging the blade in?—

Krystian grabs my wrist, his eyes wild. “Thea, no.”

I snap my head towards him, but he continues to beseech me with his gaze to listen.

“Who knows what the fuck killing him will do to you? Can the dagger handle that much power? Can you ? What about his soul? Will it consume you? Thea, please. Don’t. Please.” Tears begin to stream down his cheeks. “I love you, Thea. I love you. Please don’t do this.”

A tremble works its way through me.

One of Everett’s three heads swivels and pierces me with an unreadable look.

“Don’t,” he growls, his voice a booming baritone.

But if I don’t, then Ares is going to be set free. The guys don’t know how to kill him, and even if they did, they wouldn’t risk angering the gods.

I need to do this.

For them.

For me.

For the past that was stolen from us.

And then the ground groans.

The air tightens, as if it’s being sucked from the world, and goose bumps pebble on my arms.

A void opens directly in front of me—ripping reality apart at the seams—and he steps through.

Hades.

He doesn’t speak at first, but then again, he doesn’t have to. His presence says enough. Everything in nature recoils from him—leaves shrivel, the sunlight dims, and even the clouds seem to float away.

Hades tilts his head slightly as he stares at me. There’s something behind his eyes I’ve never seen before, at least from him. Respect, maybe? Pride? Whatever it is disappears before I can analyze it further, replaced by his impassive mask once more.

His gaze drops to Ares, who moans at his feet.

“So,” Hades says, his voice like stone tumbling down a mountain, “this is what’s become of the God of War.”

“He’s behind all of this,” Krystian snaps, tears forming in his eyes as he glares down at Ares. “He stalked her. Assaulted her. He…”

He looks away with a choked sound, his hand tightening around his bow.

“He called it love,” Rafe adds, disgust curling his lip.

He hasn’t peeled his eyes away from Ares once since we took him down. My blood fae is seconds from losing the remnants of his sanity.

Hades turns towards me, his expression unreadable. “And you? What do you call it?”

“Violation. Control. Obsession.” I glare down at the pathetic waste of space.

Fuck, I want to stab him. End him. I’m not even sure if my dagger is capable of such a thing, but if it is…I want to be the one to do it.

“If he’s the one behind your imprisonment, then we need to figure out a way to drain the power out of him,” Hades says calmly.

Too calmly.

But there’s something in his eyes that makes me pause.

I mentioned before that I’ve never seen Hades angry before.

I think that’s about to change.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Ares snaps, snarling. “The little bitch is lying?—”

Hades lifts one hand, and shadows erupt from the earth like writhing chains. They wrap around Ares’s body, hauling him into the air. I stagger backwards—landing against Everett, who has shifted back into his human form—as Ares floats in the air, thrashing against the restraints.

“You are no longer fit to walk amongst the living,” Hades says simply, his cold, malevolent gaze fixed on Ares. “You’ve dishonored Olympus, your name, and yourself.”

The chains tighten, binding Ares like a fly in a web.

“I will place him in Tartarus,” Hades says to us. “Where time forgets. Where screams echo without end. He will not touch you or your world again.”

Ares’s eyes widen in panic. “You can’t do this! Zeus will never let you!”

A smile slashes across Hades’s face. “You damn well know Zeus won’t stop me.”

His words hold some sort of meaning that I don’t understand, but Ares obviously does.

“Hades, please. Please. I didn’t mean to. Please.”

With a ripple in the air, the earth swallows Ares whole—him and the shadows and his screams of terror.

Silence returns.

Hades stands where he is, his expression carefully blank, his gaze trained on where Ares disappeared.

He’s…gone.

Ares is gone.

I collapse to my knees as relief fills me. The dagger falls from my hand and disappears from sight once more—no doubt becoming a tattoo on my skin yet again.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Hades through numb lips, knowing he just saved my life.

Because if he hadn’t imprisoned Ares, I would’ve killed him. I know I would have.

Hades turns his piercing silver gaze in my direction. “You’re…welcome.”

“Why did you come? Why did you help us?” I ask, tears staining my cheeks.

Hades hesitates and then says simply, “Because I created you, which makes you my responsibility.”

And then in a blink of darkness and ash, he’s gone.

The five of us are left alone beside the shattered wall of the compound. Panting. Bloody. Bruised.

But alive.

Krystian slings his bow back over his shoulder, and it instantly dematerializes.

“Let’s go home,” he says, sounding exhausted.

“Yes,” Rafe agrees.

Everett holds me tighter, his arms the only thing keeping me from falling to the ground.

I can’t peel my gaze away from the scorched earth where Ares disappeared.

He’s gone. He’s really, truly gone.

Does that mean this is over?

Or has it only just begun?