Page 34 of His Eternal Claim

I freeze.

My brows pull together.

Because that, that doesn’t sound like my Selene.

There is no fire. No venom. No sharp tongue. No trembling rage like that day.

My grip tightens around the phone.

“What happened?”

There is a long pause. Because my Selene would’ve told me to go to hell by now. Would’ve cursed me. Mocked me. Fought me. But this? This voice sounds like something broken. And broken things make me murderous.

She laughs.

But even that sounds hollow.

“Why do you care?” My eyes darken.

“Don’t play games with me, Dolcezza,” I growl, standing and moving to the window, where rain blurs the lights of Rome. “I saw the fucking picture and the ring. Why is his hand on you?”

She lets out a choked, dry sob that makes the whiskey I drank turn to acid in my gut.

“You’re such a monster,” she whispers, and the venom is finally there, but it’s weak, diluted by a bone-deep exhaustion. “Wasn’t it enough? You broke me. You ruined everything. You said you loved me, but that was all a lie, I know. But what wrong have I done, Zagreus, that now you’re punishing me this way?”

I freeze.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Don’t act confused! It’s beneath you, Zagreus!” she screams, her voice cracking into pieces that pierce me. “You threatened my Father. You tore our legacy apart. You forced my hand. You made me choose between my soul and my family’s survival. You lied about loving me, ’cause you wanted to break me.”

“I haven’t spoken to your Father in weeks, Selene,” I say, my voice calm. George Visconti appealed to the Cosa Nostra for his position, but I revoked it. “I didn’t send anyone.”

“Liar!” she shrieks. “You’re all the same. You and your Father. You’re my ruin, you monster! You ruined everything!”

“My Father?” I repeat the words, and the air in the room feels thin, like I’m standing on the peak of a mountain about to be struck by lightning. “Tell me exactly what happened. Now.”

Her breathing is ragged, shallow.

“He came to the house,” she says, her voice flat. Dead. “While you were out playing at being king… your Father came.”

“He asked for my hand in marriage to Corvin, and when I refused, he tried to kill her, Zagreus. Your fucking Father tried to kill my Mother! He burned the west wing with her inside! If Adrian hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t pulled her out…”

The phone in my hand feels like a live wire.

I stare at the photograph on my desk. The white dress. The fake smile. The ring.

A ransom. She’s getting married to him because he pulled her Mother out of the fire my Father set. This can’t happen. I made sure she was protected. This was our unspoken vow. My Father said he wouldn’t harm her or her family if I married Crystella. This was the price I paid.

“I’ll kill him,” I whisper.

“He’s your Father!” she cries out, the tears finally flowing, audible and agonizing. “And you’re just like him! I hate you, Zagreus! I hate that I ever let you touch me! I hate that I can still smell you on my skin while I’m standing next to a man I have to marry just to keep my family from crumbling!”

She hangs up.

She thinks I did this.

She thinks I’m the one who threw her to the wolves. I pick up the whiskey glass and hurl it at the window. This is the birth of a God of Ruin.