Page 39 of Until the End of Ever (To the Cruel Gods #2)

KLEOS

“ C ome on, Grandpa, is that all you got?” Silver taunted.

I rested my head in my hands. Why did I ever doubt this would end any other way?

“I will curse your children, your dog, and your internet connection,” Cassius roared, a pearl of sweat glistening on his forehead as he flexed his bare arm harder.

Silver barely looked winded. It was their fifth round of arm wrestling and she’d won every single time.

Tired of toying with him, my best friend flexed, with little to no effort, slamming the ancient’s hand against the black wooden table.

“Damn you!” Cassius screamed as everyone else laughed. “Again.”

The first round, Lucky and Ronan unwisely opted to bet on the patriarch. Lucian put his money on Silver—so did I. Given how fast she wiped the floor with him, we were all team Silver afterwards, a fact that only served to incense poor Cassius.

“Are your sure your pride can take a sixth beating?” Silver checked.

“ Again ,” Cassius hissed, elbow on the table, hand up. “And this time, I won’t be a gentleman.”

Silver chortled. “Is that what you were calling it?”

Undeterred, he narrowed his eyes. “Do not underestimate my power, little girl.”

“All right, Darth Grand-Vader. Let’s see what you got.”

“I need alcohol to watch this,” I whined.

Zazel whined on my lap, and I took it as an agreement.

Lucky recommended starting the ritual after dinner, when we were all a little tired to make the transition into a trance easier, but she and Lucian both agreed we shouldn’t imbibe any alcohol. We needed to be relaxed, not impaired.

Lucian brought his chin to my shoulder, kissing my neck. “Last round. We’d better get started after. My money’s still on Smol.”

“Wait, are you really going to use your power against her?” Lucky asked, eyes wide. “You could kill her.”

“Only fair, as she’s been destroying him for the last half hour,” Ronan snorted. “Ten golds on Smol, too.”

“Same,” Gideon echoed, rubbing his hands gleefully.

“Smol is not going to be a thing,” Silver grunted, glaring at Lucian for coming up with it.

Given the fact that she was still calling him Daddy, I was pretty certain Smol was here to stay.

“Are you in or out, Valesco?” Ronan asked, one eyebrow raised.

“What’s the point? We’re all betting on Silver so no one’s winning.”

“The point,” Lucian retorted, “is Cassius’s utter humiliation.”

“Pass.” I shook my head, concealing a smile. Poor Cassius.

This time, I both felt and saw trace magic, waves of black mist, dark as shadows, rather than the red hue of Lucian’s power.

My gaze swiftly flew to Silver, and I could see her struggling a little.

She winced, visibly uncomfortable. Rather than making it last, she started to push against Cassius’s hand.

But this time, he managed to push back a little.

“Fuck,” she growled, her arm muscle spasming.

Both of them were groaning, wincing and sweating. In the end, Cassius sighed. “I yield,” he said, letting go.

Silver couldn’t stop the momentum: her hand crashed so hard on the table it cracked it, and the floor underneath. “Sorry, sorry!” She grimaced, bending in two. “But fuck . I feel like I drank an entire brewery.”

“You look like it too,” I added, noting the shadows under her eyes, and her visible pallor. “This might not have been the best idea before a taxing ritual.”

“I took more than I intended to,” Cassius admitted, frowning.

He brought two fingers to Silver’s forehead, his magic just as dark, but as the seconds passed, I could see all traces of fatigue vanishing. Within moments, Silver looked better than ever, glowing and refreshed. I grinned, remembering what gaining energy from Lucian felt like.

“Wow.” Silver blinked twice. “I feel bloody amazing. Thank you.”

“You have far more energy than I expected,” he confessed. “I wasn’t sure where to stop.”

“Well, I guess, thanks for not murdering me, too.” Silver being Silver, she shoved her whole foot in her mouth immediately. “So that’s how you killed all those people back then, huh?”

Lucky and Ronan exchanged a glance. Even Gideon groaned.

But Cassius laughed, sipping his wine. Unlike us, he had no reason to restrain himself tonight. “A little more efficiently. I wasn’t actually trying to kill you.”

Silver nodded. “I guess they mustn’t have suffered, then? I mean, I’m tired, but it didn’t hurt .”

“Really?” Ronan exclaimed, pointing a censuring finger at Lucian. “Then why the hell does it hurt so much when you do it?”

Next to me, Lucian shrugged unapologetically. “Because I have twenty-seven years of experience, as opposed to twenty-seven centuries?”

“Yes, tuning the details takes a degree of finesse. I inherited my power from my uncle, Thanatos—but he’s my father’s twin.

Their abilities mirror each other. With time and control, I can offer a death as painless as sleep.

” Cassius’s smirk twisted into something not kind.

“So, some of the poor little victims of the Great Massacre didn’t suffer, yes. ”

He made it crystal clear that others had.

“You don’t regret it,” Silver accused.

Before she could be any ruder, I intervened. “Silver, we’ve been taught only one aspect of the facts—the death toll, the danger of all-powerful individuals, and the rights of the founders. But it all started because they murdered his wife in cold blood.”

It was rather uncouth to recount his dirty laundry like he wasn’t even there, but I figured explaining that was better than letting Silver bulldoze her way through the conversation.

“What?”

“Not all seven hundred,” Cassius admitted openly. “Only a handful were responsible. The rest, I killed as a warning.”

I shifted on my seat, unsure what to say…what to think.

“I could have killed them all,” he mused. “Every adult new blood in the vale. I would have, too. But my daughter asked me to stop, and I felt the point was made.”

“Wait,” Lucian said. I turned to see him frown. “You stopped because Mother asked you?”

At that, Cassius was amused again. “Depends who you ask. She thinks she used her siren-voice on me. I had a half siren for a wife, and a quarter-siren toddler. As though that could command me. Yes. She asked, and she was right. The vale received a demonstration of the consequences of acting against us— my family, specifically.” He leaned back against his seat, finishing his glass of wine. “That was sufficient.”

Lucian shook his head. “You need to have a conversation with Mother.”

“And you need to have a conversation with your girlfriend, before someone else snatches her up,” Cassius retorted, winking at me before standing.

I flushed.

Cassius paused at the door. “I understand you have a little magical sleepover scheduled. Yell if someone’s dying or if the manor’s on fire.”