Page 31

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

P ersephone

I am forced to sit through another dinner, and another horror.

Nothing is as it seems here. Olympus might possess exquisite beauty, but it houses truly terrible monsters. The kind that even nightmares make quiver, pleading for reprieve.

My dinner threatens to rise as it has every night since my arrival, and Leuce’s hand grips my thigh under the table as though to hold me in place. Her touch is the only thing that grounds me. That keeps me steady.

But tonight is especially hard.

Tonight, a young girl, no more than seventeen, screams for the man she calls ‘daddy’, as he fights for his life against another much larger, much stronger man. A man who looks like a gladiator of old, adorned in bloodstained leather and armed with a short, fat sword.

The first night in Olympus, I’d received dinner in my rooms. The first night I witnessed Zeus’ idea of entertainment, on only my second night in the realm, I’d vomited in my soup bowl.

My third night in Olympus, I’d been so sick with horror I’d been incapable of sleep though I’d managed to keep the contents of my stomach harrowingly put.

Honestly, it’s a feat I didn’t vomit then, too, considering the horror I’d been forced to listen to.

I say listen, because I hadn’t been able to make myself watch.

Tonight, though, I can’t look away. Looking away somehow feels disrespectful to the young woman who screams, begging for mercy from Gods who have none.

But I feel none of the bloodlust that surges through the sea of onlookers.

Hundreds—no, thousands of bodies fill the stands of the coliseum.

This is clearly an event the realm looks most forward to, as everyone is dressed in their finest togas, bodies adorned in gems and gold that glitter in the hot sun that spills over the arena, inspiring a thirst for blood the sand-packed floor eagerly drinks.

How are there so many people? They can’t all be Gods. Can they?

Another scream captures my attention as the hairs on my body stand with a shiver so violent, the little food I’d eaten threatens to rocket back up.

I swallow it back, feeling a prickly heat at the base of my spine as I do.

Far below in the arena, the gladiator lumbers toward the man as the girl sobs a prayer no one bothers to hear.

I shift in my seat, ignoring the way Leuce’s fingertips now dig into my thigh. I can feel Hydra’s agitation growing—a response to my own.

“Don’t,” Leuce hisses through her teeth. “You can’t save them.”

“How can you say that?”

“Look at them.” Her eyes break from mine to do a swift sweep of the stands, and the spectators who fill them. “This is their normal.”

“This is not normal. It’s wrong.”

“It’s Zeus. And he is their king.” The words grind from between her teeth. “Oppose him and I am not certain I can save you from his wrath.”

“They—they’re human, Leuce.”

A flash of pain lights her eyes before it’s pulled back behind the shutters. Her jaw steels. “Humans who find themselves in Olympus never leave, Persephone. Even when they die, they remain here at the mercy of Zeus.”

“But—” I flinch as the girl charges into the center of the arena as the gladiator cuts yet another slide into the man’s flesh. Blood pours in a hundred rivers from his wounds, feeding the ravenous arena.

The man falls to his knees, and his head tips to the side. His eyes lock on his daughter, and I swear even though no sound escapes his lips, I can hear him plead, ‘No.’

The girl doesn’t listen, running harder as tears and horror streak her face. Her dress isn’t anything I’ve seen in Olympus. It’s simple, falling to mid-thigh and a pale, delicate pink. Her blonde hair is dusted with the blow of hot sand and sprinkle of tears, bangs pasted to her forehead.

As she runs for her father, her dress lifts to show more of her thighs.

The gladiator grins a hungry grin that turns my stomach violently.

When the girl is only a few steps away, he swings his blade down across the man’s throat.

Blood sprays across the girl’s dress and the scream that spills from her is something that will haunt my nightmares until I take my last breath.

There is a moment where time hangs suspended.

Noise flatlines in my ears as silence rings so loud it feasts on the cheers of the crowd.

The man’s lifeless body falls to the sand and the girl falls to her knees with him. She throws her body onto his, her arms winding around his form as though she can hold the broken pieces of him together. Her body shudders with her sobs.

The gladiator punches his fists high into the air and the noise returns with a violence that nearly deafens me permanently.

Tears burn in my eyes and sick rolls in my belly.

Violence riots inside my heart and something dark births inside my soul.

I cut my gaze to Zeus, hatred and grief the like I’ve never experienced burning into him.

His eyes dance on mine as he sucks the flesh from a bone, letting it drop to his plate with a ‘clink’ that nearly makes me flinch. “Always so quiet, my dear child. Do you not like the live performance?”

I hate him. Settling a blank stare on him, I ask, “It’s not live for long, is it?”

Throwing his head back, he laughs. As though I’ve made the joke of the century. While the scene below continues to play.

Bile rises, the acid stinging my throat and making my eyes water.

“I suppose it’s not.” He gives a last chuckle, clearing his throat. His eyes pin to mine, as though boring deep. “But it is enchanting to watch, is it not?”

Leuce’s hand pulses on my thigh. In my mind, Hydra tries to soothe me. “Now is not the time, my Persephone.”

“Not at all.” I refuse to tell him that I think what he does, nightly, is despicable.

Zeus raises a white brow. “Bored, are you?”

“I don’t find joy in watching humans, innocent people, be slaughtered.” The sound of the girl’s screams root themselves like barbs in the dungeon of my memory where I know I’ll never be able to expunge them. Never be able to set them free.

Her father is dead. His victor, painted red in the blood of the man who gave her life, stands over her, chest heaving, eyes wild. His bloody hand stains her blonde hair as he fists it in a greedy grip. He yanks her violently to her feet.

My heart lurches.

Feminine instinct has fear burning like the flames of Tartarus in my gut. No…

“What is he doing?” I demand, furious when Zeus plucks another fleshy bone from his plate.

His lips gleam with the sticky sauce as he sucks the flesh clean, finally responding around the meat in his mouth. “He is claiming his prize.”

Pinpricks of horror needle my flesh. This time, when I lurch to stand, not even Leuce’s hand on my thigh can keep me down.

“What do you mean?”

“He defeated his opponent, and now he will claim his prize.”

My head whips to the scene below as the girl tries to absolutely no avail to free herself from the tangle of the gladiator’s arms. She is so small compared to him. So delicate and?—

“Free her.”

“Oh.” Zeus laughs like I’m a silly little thing. “Now, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

He licks the sauce that glistens from his lips. “The man deserves his prize.”

“He deserves nothing! It wasn’t even a fair fight. A mortal against a monster !”

Zeus’ smile spreads wider. Ice chases the flame inside me, and I fight my flinch, so vicious it threatens to split me into pieces. Beside him, Hera watches me curiously with her cool blue eyes and beside her, Hercules’ attention is riveted on the scene below. A scene I can no longer stomach.

Despicable. They’re all?—

“You think the match unfair?” Zeus asks, and the way he does makes me think he’s backing me into a trap.

Across the table, I see Ares’ stiff form watching closely. Darkness radiates from him, but I don’t know him well enough to know which side he stands. If he stands with his father and mother or if there could be something more, something decent lurking under the stoic exterior.

“Absolutely.” As soon as the word is between us, I regret it.

I regret it because Zeus’ eyes alight with something ugly. Something I very much know I am not going to like.

“Perhaps there is more to you after all, my daughter.” I hate how he insists on claiming me as his. But I refuse to say that I’m anything else. I can’t let him know I know of Uranus. And I refuse to draw attention to my very vulnerable human parents, lest Zeus gets a mind to harm them.

I grind my teeth and wait for him to continue.

He laughs again. The pompous ass.

“I’m elated to tell you that soon, there will be a dinner very much to your liking, then.” A pulsing thrum of something surges around the table, but I can’t tear my eyes from the depths of pure evil that are the twin pools of brilliant blue.

Zeus truly looks like an angel. A thing of beauty and light, practically radiating glory.

I realize, chilled to the marrow of my bone, that it is the perfect disguise for the most tragic of evils. I realize how very led astray humanity has been pulled. For the truest evil is smart enough to bathe in the light.