Poseidon grunted, folding his arms. “Well, none of us would touch a hair on her head. Hestia is—”
“Hestia is what?” a voice boomed from the open doorway.
I tensed, closing my eyes. I shouldn’t be here for this. Ares would see what had happened, and he’d jump to the same conclusion as the others. And he would retaliate. I needed to leave this room, find Orpheus, and get him off this island before Ares killed him. But none of the others would let me walk out that door.
Poseidon cleared his throat. “I’ll go inform Zeus.”
As he left the room, I turned. I caught the look on Ares’s face as his gaze landed on the ashen pile. Pure horror twisted his expression. His brow furrowed, his lips curled back, and lines indented every inch of his face. And for a brief moment, he looked achingly mortal. There was no sign of the cruel vampire monarch there. Just a man who had lost his closest friend.
And then his entire body went rigged. His expression hardened.
Ares lifted his gaze from the floor and aimed it right at me. “You.”
INTERLUDE
At times, it was difficult for the woman to remember how this had truly begun, but that was probably because the voices in her head made things confusing. They were a constant roar, battling for her attention. Everyone had something to say, a story they wanted to tell. Normally, the woman liked to listen, but right now…they needed to shut the fuck up.
She crept through the broken wall and toed the ground just beyond it. And then she waited, breath held in her throat. Long moments stretched by. Nothing happened. Still, she couldn’t force herself to move any further. Despite what the voices had told her, she couldn’t shake the fear. At any moment, a vampire would leap out from the shadows and rip out her throat.
Some of the vampires were dead now—if not all of them, save for the important one. She tried to find a voice to tell her if any others had survived, but that knowledge eluded her.
A blood moon burned through the mist. The woman looked up and blessed it in a language only spoken by those who worshipped Gaia.
“Donai win fer lila.” She lifted her fingers to her lips, then raised them at the sky. From the realm beyond their own, Gaia would see her worship and bless her with safety.
And then she loosed a shaky breath before inching forward.
Tracks covered the ground. Someone else had been here. She knelt beside them, put her fingers to the ground, and closed her eyes, listening. A hundred voices from the mainland battled for her attention. They shouted over each other, all desperate for her to hear what they wanted to say. She clenched her jaw and tried to block them out. Even out here on the island, they were so impossiblyloud. Oh, how could any of them stand it? Having a mind that never settled? Peace and quiet were such blissful things.
She yearned for those days, but they were lost to her. It had been years since she’d known peace. Now she tried her damndest to block out all the noise so she could hear the voiceshere, on this island, in the place where it mattered most.
And yet, silence was her only answer.
The woman smiled. If there were no voices, it could only mean one thing. The plan had worked.
14
SELENE
“No, not me,” I said, my voice tight. “I had nothing to do with this.”
Ares stormed toward me. Rage flashed in his crimson eyes. He fisted his hands, and his body trembled so violently that I was sure the floor was quaking beneath his steps. But I stood my ground. When he reached me, I didn’t flinch back. He grabbed my arm and dragged me close, shaking me.
“You did this.” He held me tighter, lowering his face to mine. “You did this, Selene.”
Hephaestus cleared his throat. “Ares, I don’t think she—”
“Quiet! I demand she speak for herself.”
I lifted my chin, glaring up into his furious eyes. An inexplicable heat crackled through my veins. In the calmest voice I could muster, I said, “I did not do it, Ares. If I had, I would be long gone by now.”
He stared at me for an excruciating moment. The tense silence crowded me, pressing in like a suffocating blanket of fog. Suddenly, he growled and released me, stumbling back a few steps and shoving his fingers into his silver hair.
His gaze landed on Hestia’s remains. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then he choked. Shaking his head, he looked around, his expression full of torment.
“Get an urn.” He swung toward the open door. “We must take care of her before the wind finds its way inside.”
A moment later, he was gone. Hephaestus shifted uneasily on his feet, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked at those remaining in turn. “I’m not sure which of us he was speaking to.”
