Heart (32 page)

“Are you here to kill me?” I asked because it
seemed so absurd.

“I am,” she replied definitely.

“But why?” I should have been reaching for a
weapon or screaming for help, but I couldn’t get beyond her intent
to kill me. I wasn’t her enemy. We were on the same side!

This was ridiculous.

“I protect Olympus,” she declared. She lifted
her square jaw and dared me to argue. “You have become a threat to
the mountain. I cannot let you live.”

My heart kicked in my chest. “I’m not a
threat,” I said quickly. “Not at all! I don’t want to hurt the
mountain or the people on the mountain! I just want to go home. I
swear to you that you’re safe from me. I want nothing to do with
this place ever again.”

“This place is your home,” she growled.

Ugh, I forgot how upset they got when I told
them I wanted nothing to do with them. “I know that,” I said
patiently. “But it’s not safe for me here. And I’m not even talking
about you!”

“You could still plague us,” she hissed,
“from your sea.”

“But I won’t,” I promised. Fear had finally
set in and my hands started shaking. I could protect myself. I
could hurt Eryn if I wanted to. Her scarred face winked at me,
telling the story of past pain.

I wasn’t Nix.

I couldn’t hurt her because I didn’t want to.
And if she forced my hand, I had no idea how potent my powers would
manifest. I could do so much more damage than I intended to.

Something like indecision flashed across her
face, but she still took a step forward and lifted her
sword-wielding arms. “I have my orders,” she murmured.

I had nothing on me so the second she lifted
her right hand to swing her sword I threw both arms over my face
and screamed. Energy and power burst out of me in a concentrated
stream of aggression.

I heard her choke on water. She made the wet
gurgling sound that could only be associated with drowning.

I dropped my arms and watched her stumble to
one knee. She leaned over and choked up mouthful after mouthful of
water. The sticky sea water landed on the hem of my gown as I
rushed to her side.

I didn’t know what to do. I tried to pull my
power back, drain the water from her shaking body, but I was too
hysterical to do anything quickly. I had just meant to warn her,
not murder her.

I patted her broad shoulder with my trembling
hand and tried to calm my nerves so that I could work quicker.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I just… I didn’t
mean to hurt you.”

Finally the well in her lungs seemed to go
dry. She made a high-pitched wheezing sound with each breath she
took and her shoulders were racked with weighted breaths. “But you
did,” she rasped. “You… you’re faster… than me…”

“It was a gut reaction.” I looked around
frantically, afraid that someone had seen me and would drag me back
to Hera. “I… I didn’t mean to. I swear.”

Slowly I became aware of how hot her skin
beneath my hand had grown. When I took a moment and forced my mind
to pay attention, I could see that the length of her entire body
was wrapped in an orange glow. She was still shaking, but not from
weakness anymore.

Out of all of the Greek myths, the Furies
were something that scared me the most. Their destruction was
absolute. They were awesome with their power, with their sword
skills and death count. They could raze cities or kingdoms or
worlds when unleashed.

Save for the gods, nothing could stand up to
the Furies.

And yet, I had attacked one… after she told
me she wanted to kill me.

So yeah, I was pretty much dead.

I took a step back. I wiped my raw hand on my
gown and ignored the pain that burned from my palm to my elbow.

“You should have killed me, Siren,” she
growled.

I jumped back another few feet, just as she
swung her sword into an arc landing lithely on her toes. She lunged
for me and I just managed to scramble out of her reach.

She was toying with me now. I caught the
pleasure in her burning eyes. I felt her excitement ripple through
the air and promise pain.

I turned around and sprinted forward. The
slits in my skirt made it easy to run, but I was wearing loose
sandals and the terrain was unfamiliar.

I scraped my arm against the side of a
building when I tried to run behind it. My body bounced back from
the impact and I stumbled again. My arms flailed as I tried to keep
my balance.

The ground was too uneven and I tripped in an
awkward crash, landing on my butt.

She stood over me before I’d managed to take
the next breath. The fall had jarred me more than I wanted to admit
and I stared up at her with clouded confusion. How did we get here
so quickly? I hadn’t even put up a fight.

She smiled down at me and the malicious
expression filled her with evil anticipation.

“Why?” I gasped. “I did nothing to you.”

She dropped her second sword, tossing it out
of reach. Then she lifted her remaining blade with two hands above
her head. The orange glow that swathed her body seemed to catch the
fire from the blade. She looked like she had been set aflame, her
wild hair tossed in the wind and her eyes glinted with coming
death.

“You-”

But she never got the chance to finish her
sentence. Her mouth filled with more water, spraying from her
enflamed lips in choking spurts.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as she tried
to fight the drowning sensation. Her arms wobbled overhead before
they fell limply to her side. Her sword clattered away and
extinguished itself.

Confusion invaded my mind and I tried to find
my power that I hadn’t summoned yet. I hadn’t been ready to let her
die, but I wanted answers before I hurt her. I had been building up
to it… as ridiculous as that sounded in my head now.

She had been poised to execute me and I was
still trying to find a reason to stop her.

What was wrong with me?

The truth was that I had trusted her once
upon a time… or as close to trust as I could get. And she had
betrayed me. She said she had taken orders, but from whom? Who
wanted me dead?

Who would send a Fury to kill me?

She fell to her knees, straddling my legs
awkwardly. A large manicured hand pushed her head to the side and
she toppled over, seizing violently on the cobblestone ground.

I pulled my legs free and crawled backwards,
away from her. Sea water mixed with foam and blood. My heart ached
as I watched her begin to die.

“Give me your hand,” a voice demanded.

Without thinking, I put my palm in his
outstretched one and let him haul me to my feet.

“Good girl,” he murmured.

If I hadn’t already felt queasy, the sound of
Nix’s satisfied baritone voice would have done the job just fine. I
did a double take at his smug face before I tried to run away
again.

His hand clamped down over mine, squeezing
until tears pricked at my eyes and I could have sworn he was
seconds from ripping it off my body.

“Finish the job, Meg,” Nix commanded.

A hot blue blade whistled through the air,
swishing against the wind until it met malleable flesh and
crunching bone. I screamed out as I watched Meg behead her sister.
Blood sprayed in long streaks across the ground and the bottom of
my gown, it mixed with the sticky saltwater that turned the fabric
translucent.

I stared at my dress as the blood mingled
with the water, turning a deep shade of purple. I stared until my
vision blurred and hot tears streaked down my cheeks. I stared
because I couldn’t look at Eryn on the ground or the sister that
had betrayed her.

The Fates had predicted this would happen…
the Fates told of this exact moment.

I should have been prepared for it.

I should have figured out a way to stop
it.

“I’ll meet you on the island.” I heard Nix
speak to Meg. I still didn’t know which sister she was because I
couldn’t bring myself to look at her face. Maybe it didn’t matter…
Maybe they were both working with him. “We’ll only be a second
longer.”

“Can you move with her?” the deep female
voice asked in a businesslike tone. She didn’t really care except
that it might get in the way of her getaway.

“Obviously,” he snarled. “Now go!”

I lifted my head just in time to see her leap
into the air and keep going.
She can fly
, I thought idly.
She disappeared into the cloud cover overhead, the only evidence
that she was still there was the occasional glimpse of her glowing
blue sword.

I pulled against Nix’s hold, suddenly
realizing what he intended to do with me. I had no doubt that the
island they talked about was not
my
island.

“Let go of me,” I screamed.

His grip tightened until I had to bend down
to ease the pain. His black eyes found mine and whispered a
thousand evil things. “It’s too late, Ivy. You’re finally
mine.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I’ll never be yours,” I winced. I continued
to struggle even while I couldn’t move, even while he held me so
tightly I knew my bones would start breaking in the next few
minutes.

And he wouldn’t care.

Maybe he was trying to break them.

Maybe it was just the beginning of how he was
going to break me.

“Never again,” he growled. “I will never let
you go again. If I have to chain your body to mine, I will, so help
me. You will not escape again.”

I sucked in a breath as I felt the finality
of his words. Something permanent and eternal landed on my
shoulders.

He was right. I would never escape him until
I killed him. I would always be chained to him, figuratively or
literally. I would never be free of him until one of us was
dead.

“You’re hurting me,” I whispered, testing
him. I needed to see where he was at. I needed to see how far gone
to rage he was.

His pressure didn’t ease, but he moved so
that I wasn’t in such an awkward position. “You haven’t thanked me
yet.”

My eyes went big and I licked my lips,
stalling for time. “For what?”

He jerked his chin toward Eryn’s dead
body.

Did he honestly expect me to say thank you
for that?

“I saved your life,” he pointed out. “You
could express your gratitude.”

“I’m not sure that I am,” I answered
honestly.

A slow smile spread across his face,
transforming his ire into amused allure. He was beautiful. I could
admit that. Physically, he was perfect. Dark haired, dark eyed,
golden skin and an aura that captured everyone around him.

But he was also evil… repulsively so. And I
hated that he wanted me so completely, that he couldn’t let me go.
I hated that I had to fight him every step of every day.

I just wanted this to be over.

And maybe that was my problem. I had run from
him every chance I got. I had forced him to chase me.

But I wasn’t helpless and I wasn’t confused
any more. I knew exactly how I wanted this to end.

I was tired of this game he insisted on
playing. Even if Ryder and I made it to Tortola, we would always
live in fear that he would somehow find us or get to us. I would
never be able to breathe easily until I had finished this
completely.

Instead of saying thank you, I asked a
question that bothered me most of all. “Why did you send her to
kill me to only kill her yourself?”

His head jerked back and he shook it slowly.
“I didn’t send her to kill you. I don’t want you dead.”

I looked down at Eryn’s lifeless feet. “Then
who did?”

With the kind of passive nonchalance that I
knew was born from an eternity of family drama, he said, “My guess
is Hera. She thinks you’re Zeus’ child. She wants you dead.”

“I’m not,” I answered needlessly.

He smiled at me, “No, but your sister is.
She’ll figure it out soon enough. I wonder who she’ll send after
little Honor. Maybe a harpy or a minotaur. Or a cyclops. I would
pay good money to see that execution.”

“You’re a monster.” Rage quivered through me.
My power started to build. Water rushed through my veins. It was
the source I called to, the energy I borrowed from. This saltwater
wouldn’t hurt me; it would fuel my vengeance.

“You weren’t expecting something different
from me, were you? After you lied to me for so long?” His grip
tightened again and I winced in agony. “After you dragged Smith
into your deceitful lure and convinced him to help you? Does he
know that you put him under your spell? Or is he too deep to
realize he’s being played?”

“I never played Smith! Unlike you, he doesn’t
want to manipulate my power!”

Nix threw his head back and laughed. “Is that
what he told you? Is that the lie he fed you? He just wanted to get
close to you.” He suddenly let go of me. My hand and arm screamed
with relief, but I only had a second before his hands were back on
me, cradling my face. “He wants what’s mine. He wants to have what
only I can.”

I shuddered from his vile touch. I wanted to
recoil into a ball on the ground. I wanted to run again.

But I knew I couldn’t this time.

“I’m not yours,” I ground out. “I will never
be yours.”

“That’s where you’re-”

“Let go of her,” Ryder’s gravelly order
traveled across the limestone plaza.

I looked up to see him taking the steps from
the temple two at a time. He raced to get to us before Nix could
disappear with me.

I felt a tremor of relief vibrate through
me.

Nix seemed unconcerned. He threw his hand
toward Ryder and I watched in horror as a massive wave of water
crashed over the steps.

It wouldn’t have been enough to kill him, but
when the water receded I expected to find Ryder on the ground,
bleeding and injured.

Instead, he stood his ground on the steps,
protected by a force field of energy. I sucked in my breath,
remembering the night Nix attacked us at the hospital.