“Apparently, she is not happy you woke her.”
“Me?”Thalia shook her head.“You are the one that has been prancing around all morning, making a commotion.”
“Semantics.”Mykonos hopped back down to the ground, stretching out her legs behind her with a shake before freezing. Her hair stood on end and she turned her head over her shoulder, letting out a loudmeow.
“Really?”Thalia glared at her. This cat did not take no for an answer, did she.
“Something is wrong. There is a commotion above deck.”Mykonos raced over to the door, pressing her ear to the wood.
Thalia closed her eyes, directing her focus on the thumping and muffled shouts coming from overhead.Legion.It was the only word she could make out. Gods dammit. The Lernaean Legion had come to kill them, take back what they had lost in an unfairgamble last night. Shooting up from the bed, Thalia grabbed her sword, the amethysts in the hilt refracting a violet hue about the room.
Dafne rustled behind her. “What is going on?” she said in a hushed tone.
“Stay below, sister. Keep this door locked, do you understand?” Thalia slipped on her leather boots and attached a holster to her thigh that held two narrow bronze daggers.
“I can help,” Dafne replied.
She was too frail, too untrained. “No. You will stay here and you do not open this door for anyone except me.”
“Thalia—”
Thalia didn’t hear the rest of what her sister called out before she slammed the door behind her, praying Dafne would indeed lock the bolts and stay put. If the Legion was here, Aarin would come to kill her, unless Thalia could convince him otherwise. Unless she could barter something else away, a trade that even the Legion’s leader could not oppose.
A scream ripped from her throat as Thalia topped the stairs and raced onto the main deck. At the edge of the dock, five men hung from the gallows, blackened entrails spilling from their guts. The corpse in the center was tied by his wrists, only limbs dangled down. A spike nailed the missing head to the hanging beam across, the only thing preventing it from rolling down into the tide-swept ocean beneath. Although his skin had gone a ghostly gray and his eyes bulged from their sockets, Thalia recognized the man.Aarin.
Chills raced along her arms, inching their way up toward her heart. The low sweep of a northern breeze whipped from behind, shielded only by a tall figure that stood behind her.
“The prince,”Mykonos hissed.
Thalia whipped around, the vein in her forehead straining. “What. Did. You. Do?!” she screamed.
“I am not sure I know what you mean.” Cocking a brow up, Dimitris smirked at her. He was wearing the same formal attire as the prior night, though now it was speckled with crimson stains.
Blood trickled down Thalia’s palms from her nails, dug deep from clenching her fists. “Did you kill them?”
He shrugged. “Hmm…looks like quite the painful way to die, doesn’t it?”
What the fuck was wrong with this man? How was he smiling right now?
“Answer me! They are gutted—and not by a sword or a dagger, Dimitris, those are claw marks. I of all people would know. So again, I ask, did you kill them?”
“Possibly,” Dimitris drawled, wiping a trickle of crimson from his wrist. “Or maybe they had a run-in with a street dog. You know how vicious they can get if left unfed.”
“This is not a joking matter! An unprovoked slaughter of their men will send the entire legion after you—after us! Do you honestly think the rest of their crew will not want retaliation?”
“What crew?”
“You didn’t…”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,gatáki. No one will come after us.”
Insolent rake. This stupid, gods-damned insolent rake was going to get them all killed. What made him think he was above the law? Above the oath he took as a prince? As a Grechi?
“I’m glad he did it,” a hushed, but silencing voice echoed from the doorway.
Standing there, wrapped in a ruby quilt and clutching a cup of steaming tea was Dafne. Apparently, her sister was not one for listening to directions either. Herpsychí, the now sleek panther, paws twice the size of her fists, circled around her legs.
“Nyx is very grateful you did as well. What they did to her was worse than anything they did to me. They deserved every shred of their flesh that you inflicted, and maybe the bodies hanging in the harbor will show that type of wicked man that they cannot take what is not theirs.”
