Augustus looked down at me calmly.
“He was never going to let himself win.” His eyes were pools of crimson-filled darkness. “Not against you—you know that.”
“No.” I stepped back, tripping over a dead lion, stumbling away from it, I used my staff to catch myself.
He followed.
“No. No. No,” I repeated as I kept backing away.
Augustus stalked after me, chasing me across the sand with shackles on his hands.
Step after step.
A predator and his favorite prey.
His voice lingered inside my head like an intrusive caress.
There were no winners here.
I slammed back into stone—I glanced around desperately—Augustus had cornered me.
We were at the very edge of the arena.
Zeus’s podium hovered high above us. He stood at the edge, peering down into Hell, watching us.
Nyx slithered off the rod onto my shoulders.
There was nowhere else to run.
Augustus loomed before me, his face stoic.
“Alexis Hert,” he commanded inside my mind. “You will stab me right now.”
“I can’t.” I shook my head desperately, needing him to understand. “My blood … it could kill you.”
He pressed his lips together into a flat line.
“You won’t. You had your chance, and you didn’t.”
“But I could!”
“But you won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you love me, and I love you—stab me. Now.”
“I refuse!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“I’m not asking.”
There were no traces left of my gentle husband.
The House of Ares—the House of War—was brutal.
“But … but … but …” I racked my brain, searching for a solution, an escape.
Augustus struck, cuff rattling—he grabbed my right hand and wrist, the one that held the rod—he squeezed, his nails digging painfully into my skin.
