A lifetime of imprisonment in the Underworld would have been preferable to this torment.
Seconds were bleeding out around me.
There wasn’t time.
Patro’s chest wasn’t moving.
Spartans could survive extreme physical damage, but we weren’t invincible. If his spinal cord was severed, lungs punctured, blood pooling internally, he could fall into a perpetual coma.
If Patro perished, so would I, as I refused to exist in a world that didn’t have him in it.
He was the reason I woke up, the reason I bothered to breathe, the source of any joy I’d ever found in this miserable wasteland of a civilization. Hewasmy beating heart.
Time seemed to slow.
Both Titans paused mid-step.
Alexis’s curls stilled around her face.
Falling bricks hung suspended in the air above Patro’s body.
Everything funneled down to this moment as my thoughts raced.
Patro was obsessed with claiming Alexis; the girl standing in the middle of the street in imminent danger. She’d lived with us for months—shefit—she didn’t disrupt the obsession, the devotion we had for each other. He thought she could become moreto us, and he just wanted a chance for us to have the happy ending Sparta didn’t want us to have.
But Augustus and Kharon were unyielding.
And they’d claimed her first.
Now Patro was having nightmares again. He was unraveling, and I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t give him what he wanted—her.
My madness was rising in response.
Dark possessiveinclinationspounded through my soul. The urge to lock Patro away and keep him safe from all harm was becoming harder to ignore.
The passion—the possessiverageof the House of Ares—seethed inside of me, day and night. I tried to hide the feelings, but they wouldn’t stay buried.
How Augustus maintained his facade was beyond me. To the world, he was calm, stoic.
I still remembered how Augustus had sobbed, spit falling from his lips, tears dripping from his eyes, as he screamed in agony while Ares slashed his face with a poisoned Vulcan blade, the metal forged to scar immortals.
Growing up, Augustus could never hide his madness.
I was made in his shadow, and I followed his example.
But somewhere along the way, Augustus started hiding his wrath, and I stopped being able to contain mine.
Now I had a decision to make. Patro would want me to help Alexis, he was convinced she was our salvation. I cared for her; I did.
Do not lie to yourself.
What I felt for Patro was unfathomable.
Maybe in the future I could care enough for Alexis, but not now.
There was no choice. Not if I was an honest man.
The Titans screeched, heads turning, as everything snapped back into motion.
