I crossed the room and wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her steady. She felt so frail, almost bone thin. In her portraits, she’d seemed bursting with life. Bright eyes, ruddy cheeks.
“When was the last time you fed?” I asked her.
“I don’t know how many days it’s been. However long I’ve been here, I guess.”
With a grunt, Ares yanked the chains out of the wall. Bits of stone tumbled to the floor, nearly hitting my feet in the process. Hestia flinched. The motion had made the manacles rub her skin again, and it was so raw that even the slightest movement must burn like the fires of Mount Olympus.
“We need to get these manacles off,” Ares said.
They were so tightly clamped to her wrists, it would be impossible to rip them apart by force. Ares carefully lifted her arm to inspect the lock.
“All right,” I said. Apparently, we were ‘we’right now, at least until Hestia was safe. “Any idea how to do that?”
He glanced up at me and snarled. “We track down whoever did this and rip his fucking head off repeatedly until he gives us the key.”
My lips twitched. “That’s one way to do it.”
“I don’t know who it was, Ares,” Hestia said, sagging more heavily against my shoulder.
I quickly filled Ares in on what Hestia had told me, finishing with, “This person came here yesterday. So it couldn’t have been Hera.”
Ares frowned at me. I gave him a frank look in return, daring him to blame me for Hera’s death. When he’d believed she’d killed Hestia, he’d been more than happy to watch her burn beneath the blood moon skies. But now, everything had changed. Hestia was alive, and Hera hadn’t done this to her—unless she’d been working with someone else.
But that seemed unlikely.
“It’s one of them,” Ares said firmly.
“One of—?”
“One ofthem,” he said, more emphatically this time. “One of the Olympians.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. And then I blew out a breath, gathering my thoughts. I hadn’t expected him to jump to that conclusion so easily. “I thought the same, but you said none of you would harm Hestia.Repeatedly…What if you’re right? There’s more than just monarchs on this island. There are guards, like Achilles.”
Ares scoffed. “Achilles isn’t strong enough to do this to an Olympian. He’s a bloodborn vampire.”
“And yet Hestia isn’t a fighter,” I argued.
She gave me a wan smile. “I know I don’t look like it now, but I am a fighter. Ares trained me. But…youareright about one thing. Whoever did this caught me off guard. I was sleeping when they attacked me, and they’ve been drugging me ever since. Strength doesn’t really matter. It could have been a guard.”
A smug sense of satisfaction tempted me to smile. I hated what had happened to Hestia, but I’d take my wins against Ares where I could.
He narrowed his gaze at me, seemingly detecting my reaction. “Perhaps it actually was you, and helping Hestia is just a ruse to get me to trust you.”
“Oh? Well, perhaps I could say the same about you.” My lip curled back. I didn’t think for one second he’d done it, but if he wanted to throw the blame in my face, I could throw it right back at him. Whatever game he played, I’d match him.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Hestia muttered. “Can you two please stop? It was neither one of you. The attacker tried to obscure their scent, but I’d know Ares anywhere. And as for you, well…” Hestia looked up at the ceiling, where Hector swooped in low circles, watching the proceedings with a careful eye. “I trust animals more than vampires, and he seems to vouch for you. It was clearly someone else.”
Ares and I exchanged a glance. I lifted my brow. Tension pulsed through the room. But after a long, agonizing moment, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
“All right.” He shook his head, his expression pained. “But if it was one of the others, we can’t take you back to the palace.”
I nodded, thinking. It was unclear what their motives were for abducting Hestia and torturing her these past few days. They hadn’t killed her—yet. That didn’t mean it wasn’t their endgame, and if we took her back to the palace, they might make a move before we had a chance to find out who was behind this.
“Well, I’m not going to stay here.” Her lip trembled as she took a step back, shaking her head. “They’ll come for me again. And even if they don’t kill me straight away, they’ll force feed me poison until I’m too weak to move.”
I gently laid a hand on her arm. “We’re not going to leave you here. Is there somewhere in the palace you could hide that no one would notice? We could sneak you in while everyone’s asleep and—”
“Someone might see,” Ares abruptly cut in. “And then when evenfall comes, we’ll have to leave her to attend the ceremony with no one to protect her. With her still wearing these chains. I won’t risk it.”
