Daris stood there, his eyes downcast as Hermes held the tip of his blade to Daris’s left eye. “Maybe I’ll just slit his throat. What say you, niece? Despite your pretty request, I’ve yet tomake him immortal. Shame…” He turned back to Terena, an innocent smile on his face.
Sonah blanched and her head snapped around to her sister. Terena rushed forward, hand outstretched and her face stricken with terror.
“Stop!” she screamed, her chest rising and falling rapidly with her breaths. Her wild eyes shifted between Hermes and Daris.
“I won’t hurt Sonah,” Hermes said conversationally, then clicked his tongue. “But I have no issue with killing your lover. I’m curious how far you’d let me go before?—”
“I’ll come with you!” Terena shouted. Her voice cracked and Sonah’s heart broke to see the pain on her face. Tears flowed freely as she looked at the god with hate in her eyes. “You filthy piece of shit, I will come with you!” She yelled out that last part so fiercely, Daris’s face lifted at last.
“Don’t you fucking do it!” Daris shouted, his voice desperate. He fought against Hermes’s hold. “He won’t hurt me! Don’t you fucking do it, Ren!”
“Awww! I ammoved! Sincerely, the love between you two, I mean…” Hermes pounded his chest as he tilted his head. “I feel it. Right here. Terena—do you see what you’ve inspired? It’s almost enough to make me let you all go, but… alas, I don’t think I will.”
“You coward,” Terena said, her voice shaking with rage and fear. Her eyes sparked red as she glared at the god. “Let him go.”
“You see,” Hermes said with feigned sincerity, belying the anger in his glare. “I would, but I can’t. He bound himself to me.”
“What? Why? He’s my?—”
“Hewas,” Hermes tutted, his expression contrite. A wicked smile transformed his face and Sonah shuddered as she watched the interaction. “He’s mine now.”
Terena’s nose scrunched. Daris’s face blanked, but Sonah saw his body shaking against whatever hold Hermes had over him.
“What? That makes no sense. You don’t need a guardian.”
Hermes stood there with a self-satisfied smile on his face.
Terena’s eyes shot to Daris, standing like a stone sentinel at the god’s side. Rage rolled off him in waves as he looked away from her. Terena shuddered.
“Daris,” she called out, her voice little more than a whisper. She’d moved closer, standing near the center of the room.
Daris’s body shifted infinitesimally, straining against something they could not see.
“What did you do?” Terena’s voice broke.
“I’m waiting,” Hermes said in a tone devoid of feeling.
Terena’s eyes snapped to him, mouth open.
“Why?”
Hermes watched her in silence. Sonah swore for a moment that disappeared in a blink, regret and panic passed over his features before they hardened.
“I learned it from your commander,” Hermes replied as if sharing a fun fact. “He took your sister, and here you are, back in his arms. Well, almost. I wantedyouback. So I took your lover.”
The bastard had the audacity to hold out his arms, tilting his head as he smirked at Terena.
“Now, you’re back inmyarms.”
“You sneaky shit,” she said softly but in the tense silence that followed, they all heard. Sonah closed her eyes.
The insult transformed Hermes from playful god into wrath personified.
Sonah called out to Hermes but her words were cut off with Rydon’s hand over her mouth. He bent close to whisper in her ear and she shivered.
“You will pull his attention away and Terena will have you to worry about as well. We will help her, I promise you, but keep still for now.”
Hermes bent closer to Daris, speaking to him in hushed tones and Rydon pulled his hand away at last.
