I headedinside, andthedoor shut behind me, the only sound in a house that was deceptively quiet. Under normal circumstances,I’dhave welcomed it. Today? It was borderline oppressive.
After depositing my fifth of scotch on the obsidian console table near the doorway, Ipeered up thegrand staircase. Torn between leaving myHeartspitein isolation to protect my inner chaos or tempering Mother’s blatant disapproval, I hovered at the bottom of the steps.
Thud.
My hand grippedthe banister hard enough to make the wood groan under my palm. Initially, mybrain wanted to rationalize the sound away. Nothing more than Jamie being a clumsy twit—except he wasn’t clumsy and rarely a twit. Charlee pitching a fit? Too quiet.
Fuck.
Taking the steps two at a time,Imade my way to myHeartspite’sroom. Pushingthe door open,I had been prepared to unleash a barrage of verbal admonishments. However, the scene before merenderedall words dead in my throat.
Jamie was chained to the bedpost, silenced by a patch of duct tapeover his mouth. His eyesmetmine before he pointedly looked to his right. I followed his gaze, and what little remained unmarred of my heart was set ablaze with fury.
There on the floor, unmoving, was Charlee. MyHeartspitewas as still as the dead,and hovering over her?
“Rob?” Confusion swept across my face.
Laughter erupted from him, sinister and crackling, dryer than decaying bones. The image of him shimmered like a mirageuntil his true identity was revealed,like wiping away a foggy mirror. Patrick, no longer Rob, stood before me. The god of deception.
“Hello, brother,” he greeted me with a crooked grin. “I believe you’re intimately familiar with my wife, Zelena.” He gestured to the woman standing behind him. The same one I had fucked in the courthouse bathroom, whom I had known as Clarissa. Now, I recognized her as the goddess of jealousy and envy.
It was like a puzzle coming together to unlock multiple chokepoints at once. Every click slid home with startling clarity. I had been played. Blinded by my own reckless chaos, I had failed to see beyond the veils they had placed right in front of me.
Stepping over Charlee’sprone form, Zelena’s hideous smile displayed too many teeth, crooked with petty indifference to the goddess lying at her feet.
“So nice to see you again, Eryx,” she purred while eyeing me from head to toe. “I’ve been looking forward to a repeat ofour last rendezvous.”
Ignoring her presence, my eyes remained on my brother. What I had mistaken for disapproval fromMother had been a stern warning of what had awaited me here.
Another flick of my eyes to where Charleeremained, thefaint warmth of her aura of immortalitywasthe only reason Ididn’tinflict apocalyptic discord upon the earth.
Instead, the room rattled like an earthquake around us, myfeet steady on the floordespite the vibrations rockingit.My fraying self-control mirrored the destruction of our surroundings. Dust rained down from the ceiling fromcrackeddrywall.
My voice dropped low, filledwith trembling rage. “Your deceit will cost you, brother.No onetouches what is mine, not even those I share blood with.”
Yet Patrick stood there looking unrepentant. “Oh, butwhere’sthefun inplaying by the rules? It wasall ingood fun, wasn’t itsweetums?” He looked atZelena, who merely hummed with approvalasher foot nudged oneof Charlee’s limp hands.
I snapped.
The lights cut out in the room, pitching us all into darkness thicker than Mother’s domain could ever be. Adelightful cacophony followed. Crashes of furniture moving on my command, the crunch of bones as Zelena’s body suffered under the violent force of a dresser. Swords that had been wielded by the ancients, unsheathed from their wall mounts,found a new home in Patrick’s flesh.
Wet gasps of pain echoed in the black depths of this room. A shame thatnone of it was fatal, but the message had been delivered.I’dallowthem to suffer while Itendedwhat I feared losing most.
Moving without needing to see,I closed the distance between myHeartspiteand me. Dropping to a knee, I reached down and laid one hand on the side of her face, my thumb brushing a few strands of hair away from her cheek.
“Consequences come for usall,Heartspite,” I vowed, my voice thick with regret.
My hand lingered on the delicate surface of her skin before I rose to my feet again.
“Patrick and Zelena, as the god of discord, I am hereby binding you to an existence of your own doing.”
A pained chuckle came from my brother, and a pathetic whimper from hiswife.
“It was all fun and games, brother. Please,” Patrick grunted out. “A little mercy?—”
I cut his plea short, no longer wishing to entertain his appeal forleniency. With a single snap of my finger thatcracked like thunder in the room, his presence vanished. Let him rot in a special pocket of reality where even he couldn’t deceive himself.
It wouldn’thold himforever, but it guaranteed a lesson well served.
