Daughter of Kaos (The Daughter Trilogy Book 3) (34 page)

lead her.

This is no longer a stalling conversation, this is a fishing expedition.

“No!” she blares. “Safina was a bratty bitch in love with her own chance of ruling. She didn’t

dedicate her time to her mother as she should have, and now she has paid the price. A fitting end to a

spoiled titan if you ask me. Rhea deserves devotion, loyalty, and love. Safina never gave her any of

that the way I do,” she snaps, and the dogs begin barking and growling their fierce roars.

“I’m sorry,” I lie. “I didn’t realize you cared so much for her. It would be nice if she showed you

the same concern. She could have held back her bleeding rain,” I murmur.

Whatever in the hell that is.

“She gave me an answer instead. She gave me a way to have the child I need before her return.

The ambrosia here,” she giggles out, and then light sheds on a shriveling tree covered in a golden

fruit. “Your kind mocked me, and your grandfather poisoned my life when he gave my mother that

nasty, despicable box. I had to watch her be filleted, burned, and then tossed aside like waste. The

morbid humor they found in my absolute misery was tormenting. Rhea was the only one strong

enough to stand up to the tyrants,” she berates.

“I think Rhea is taking advantage of you,” I say soothingly, so as not to agitate her further. “I

think she knew she’d need you one day to wake her from her tomb, and she’ll force you into servitude

with the rest of us if she has her way. What has she done to help you? She’s merely using you.”

I brace myself for another maddened tirade, but she starts laughing instead. She spreads her arms

wide before gleaming at me.

“Look around, goddess. She helped me acquire you to restore my youth and give me back

unlimited strength for my power. She loaned me her creatures, and she sent me her spiraling winds to

pull you to me.

“You think she’s powerless just because she has been entombed? You’re a fool. All that

dispersed energy that came from your fights with her daughter and her creatures was gathered into the

depths of the earth where she slowly claws back to the surface.”

Shit. The harpies, hellhounds, sirens, and all the other mindless drones are hers. Fuck.

“Why break Devin and me up? You drugged us into a pregnancy, why rip us apart?” I say to shift

the conversation and pull her attention back to me when her eyes almost catch Camara’s prying ones.

The lizard slips into a tiny crack, and Camara’s controlling eyes glow from within the dark

crevice.

Again I’m forced to hold back a sigh of relief when the distraction works, and the witch huffs in

distaste.

“I wanted you to have a child, but I didn’t want you to strengthen your bond to each other. I

needed you weak. I would have never dreamt you’d take him back given your long history with such

infidelity issues.

“I could feel the doubt oozing from your touch the moment I gave you a few seeded words. He

would have never left you no matter what you had done. I saw that right away,” she gripes. “Then

you did reconcile, and I had to make a priestess unattainable. Deidra’s death served two purposes in

that way. With the Emperian dead, the priestesses were under guarded protection. No one in and no

one out,” she giggles, and I can see the proud, boasting gaze she’s casting very clearly.

She thinks she knows our steps so well, but the more she talks, the more I realize she doesn’t have

a clue. Her smug candor is almost humorous at this point.

“That’s why you killed Deidra? To keep our bond out of depth?” I inquire.

“No. I said her death served two purposes. When Rhea awakes, there will be no one to stop her.

Deidra was the only power to be able to close her into the belly of the earth, and then it was sealed

with the powers of all her foes.

“Now, no one stands a chance. You were the only one who could have posed the threat of death,

but with your powers blocked, your weakened state, and your thorn prison holding you at bay, killing

you will be almost far too easy.

“I’m not sure why Rhea has shown such concern and caution. Safina must have been much

weaker than I realized because I’ve yet to see anything remarkable about you,” she gloats, and it

forces a stirring inside me.

I smile a little as I feel the old touch rising, and then I decide to use Pyrrha to provoke it more.

“So you knew Kaos?” I murmur. “And Aphrodite?”

She grins menacingly. “I did. I told the fools hunting them to no avail where to find them for

centuries. Most aren’t as good at tracking as I am. It was a gift bestowed upon me by Rhea before the

mutiny.

“For centuries I pointed hunting parties in the direction they needed. I blocked the visions from

your boy’s mind when Safina needed to be completely hidden - yet another gift from Rhea. She has

blessed me well, and if Safina had heeded my advice, she would have lived.

“I told her not to take you on while fully capable of using three. It’s a rare and very powerful

thing. She wouldn’t listen though. Now Rhea will only have me to rule by her side,” she says with

insincere remorse for the loss of Safina.

The stirring burns against me as it creeps through my veins with more of an awakening force. I’m

suddenly bored with the explanations. I’m tired of the taunting, and I’m sick of her thinking I’m

weaker than I am.

The drunken state reminds me of the powerful entities inside of me, and I feel the reuniting force

sweeping across me.

“So, you were too scared to face Kaos and Aphrodite yourself?” I antagonize intentionally.

“Never,” she growls, and her mutts mimic her anger. “They weren’t worth my time,” she

continues with a disgusted and offended tone.

“Not worth your time? So you think you could have beaten them?” I dare.

“I know I could have, very easily. Aphrodite was all hype with no real power over anything other

than men,” she scoffs.

“I used her to open the skies,” I smugly remind.

“You used her strength. The skies never belonged to her, they belonged to Prometheus. Had he

not been in your blood, you wouldn’t have had any such. Soon, the skies will only belong to Rhea,”

she counters.

“What about Kaos? You only said you could have handled Aphrodite. Would Kaos have posed a

larger problem?”

“You insolent little speck. You don’t understand, do you? Kaos was a mischievous toddler in a

morbid immortal’s body. He couldn’t think about anything but mischief and mayhem. I could have

stomped him further into the earth’s surface than where Rhea was left to rot,” she blares.

The stirring is now a deadly boil against the inside of my skin. I feel Aphrodite sharing her space

very willingly. Just as soon as the power starts to rise, it’s sucked free from me.

The naga’s venom is still pumping through my veins, and my weakened state is still a grave

problem.

“And Asteria?” I release in an attempt to stir any other entity.

She laughs as if she’s mocking the very name of the other titan.

“Asteria,” she scoffs. “She was useless. Pointless if you ask me. No one feared her as much as

they feared the idea of her. Again, too much hype.”

Her insolence pisses off the powerful one she just dismissed, but it’s still not enough to break

them free from the block I’ve forced them under.

Damn it.

The ground below me rattles lightly, and I feel the volcano’s instability from the potent powers

overwhelming it. A vine falls free from the caged prison’s border, and I have to roll under it to escape

the thorny promise of death.

Pyrrha chuckles as if it delights her to see me advertising my fear. The lizard bearing Camara’s

eyes starts to lunge from the wall in a panicked reflexive motion, but she sees I’m alright and creeps

back into her hiding place.

“You’re right to be scared, Aphrodite,” she grimly murmurs with sadistic joy.

“I’m not scared,” I grumble. “I just don’t feel like tasting Athena’s poison for a third time.”

“Oh yes,” she chimes in sardonically. “You have managed to stay alive twice despite the poison

intended for your kind. Safina didn’t study you like I did though. She didn’t learn all and see all as I

have. She left too much room for surprise, and you do love surprising people. I, however, have left no

room for error.”

I smirk a little at her smug declaration that will soon be proven to have been in vain. So many

things I wish I could gloat about right now. The first would be how Aphrodite summoned my child

early to save her life.

“You’d be surprised at the mysteries my life still holds,” I murmur with intended snarkiness.

“Unlikely,” she asserts with an unimpressed nature. “I’ve anticipated your every move, your

every breath and everything in between. There’s nothing I haven’t accounted for,” she boasts. “Now,

if you don’t mind, I’ll take my child. I’m tired of waiting, and the naga’s venom has a secret side

effect on a woman bearing child when provoked by someone such as myself,” she giddily adds.

Oh no. It’s too soon for her to find out.

Camara just found me, and the others could be anyone in the world right now. It could take them

hours or even days to get here - wherever
here
is.

I start scrambling to find a way to distract her further, but her eyes darken to a blackened state.

There’s no white left in her eyes, and it’s enough to make my sweltering skin crawl.

Her lips are moving, and I feel whispers coming from the ground. No words, just breaths escape

as a chill slides over my skin.

I feel my breath catching as something unseen travels into my mouth and slides down to my

stomach. Then I screech when I’m frozen by the power searching recklessly within me.

The walls of my stomach contort reflexively from each blow, and then I hear Pyrrha screaming in

disbelief.

“Where’s my baby! Where is she? This isn’t right! I timed it. I put her inside of you. I know

exactly when she was conceived. Give me my damn child!” she blares, and I smirk a little as her

power slithers from my empty womb and back to her.

Her face ages a couple more years, and her veins pump vigorously for a minute to account for the

power she just wasted.

“Surprise,” I mock, and then a breathless and sardonic laugh squeaks out.

“You filthy whore. Where’s my baby?” her feral voice demands.

I start laughing which only taunts and antagonizes the bitch in her. I can see her fury blazing

through her eyes, and I can taste her livid ferocity.

“She’s safe. You’ll never find her. I knew you wanted her, and so did my goddess,” I sigh out

through my vicious laughter.

“You sniveling bitch. I’ll-”

She stops short when her threats only increase the roaring laughter exuding from me. She tilts her

head and narrows her eyes to gauge my peculiar hysteria.

I grab my side as if it aches from the crude outburst, and I see her jaw clenching.

“You’ll tell me where she is,” she growls.

My laughter rolls free even more at her incredulous remark. The gall is profound in itself, and

her face almost beams with anger.

“I wouldn’t tell you even if you threw me to the vicious hounds,” I laugh out. “I’ll die to protect

her without waver.”

“Oh, you’ll tell me,” her reaper tone announces, and then she smirks a little too smugly for my

comfort which slowly ceases my laughter. “Tell me, have you ever heard of the Jaculus?”

“No,” I warily respond.

She grins maliciously, and I feel small prickles against my scalp as the howling winds escaping

from the cracked volcanic floor beneath my feet send a new wave of chills.

“It’s funny you know so little about yourself, Aphrodite. Your
goddess
, as you so boast her to be,

banished them - the Jaculus - from the surface when their king refused to join her in bed, for he truly

loved a woodland nymph.

“She tried to force him, but he proved to be immune to her
charm,
so to speak. She found an Arae

- a curser - to draw out the immortal beauty of this once glorious tribe full of gorgeous men, and she

turned them into monsters no woman would cast a glance upon.

“She sent them to the bellies of the underworld to live in the shadows for all time, shielded from

the scrutinizing and horrified eyes of the surface. The dragon’s breath was bestowed upon them by

Tartarus once they were cast out of the surface world.

“It’s a twisted web in this world. The Jaculus have been waiting a long time to exact their

revenge, and I’m sure you’ll see why soon enough,” she gloats, and then she steps to the side as the

torrential, ghastly moans grow closer.

The chilling moans fade into laughter as a gasp-worthy man walks up. His eyes are almost

deformed as one is sealed shut, and the other is drooping lazily.

His body is marred by an overwhelming amount of branded tattoos, and his bald head displays the

branded mark of the grim reaper’s scythe very proudly.

He stalks toward me with his menacing grin, and the vines around me wilt under his steaming