Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore Book 1)

Augustus: A few hours earlier

Alexis was fast asleep.

I left her side.

Moving silently behind the library stacks, I grabbed the unsuspecting doctor by the back of the neck.

“Domus,” I whispered as he struggled.

Boom.

We leaped away from the academy in a cloud of smoke.

Throwing the pathetic man down onto the rough concrete floor, I locked manacles around his wrists before he could react.

He squinted up at me and visibly relaxed. “Oh thank Kronos, I thought you were Kharon.”

I stared down at him in silence.

Slowly, he tensed as he took in my unmasked expression.

“Fronti nulla fides,” I whispered viciously.

Do not trust the appearance.

His eyes filled with terror.

I was done pretending.

He shouted and yanked, steel chains rattling as he fought to get away from me.

“Do you treat all your female patients so roughly?” I asked, my voice echoing around the cavernous room of my dungeon. “You didn’t need to expose her FUCKING BREASTS,” I bellowed in his face, “to treat her shoulder wound.”

He whimpered and pissed himself.

“P-P-P-Please, on Kronos’s honor, I won’t do it again,” he said.

The House of Hermes’s fish flashed on his white coat pocket as he trembled with fear.

“Don’t hurt me,” he begged. “She’s just an Olympian mutt, she doesn’t matter—she didn’t even know. It wasn’t a big deal. I just wanted to see her chest. Just a glimpse. There are so few Spartan women,” he babbled.

I tasted bile.

To think what he would have done if we hadn’t been there to stop him. What he could also do to Helen.

He was a highly respected doctor who often worked closely with all the Houses.

“Kronos, please,” he begged, tears pouring down his face. “It wasn’t a big deal. She doesn’t matter.”

“Kronos won’t save you,” I said darkly. “He doesn’t care about dirty, dishonorable perverts like you.”

Pain scoured my chest as I activated my powers.

He struggled harder and screamed. “Someone h-help me! Please!”

I grabbed his chin roughly and yanked his head back, staring into his eyes.

“I’ll let you in on a secret,” I said, my voice flat and cold. “Alexis Hert matters more than you could ever imagine—and she’s mine to protect. Do you know what that means? You violated one of my own.”

His eyes went impossibly wide. He whimpered louder as he realized the gravity of his mistake, and the true nature of the man in front of him.

Pain burned in my chest.

I slammed past his barely existent mental defenses and speared into his mind. His eyes exploded from the force of my intrusion.

“TEAR YOURSELF TO SHREDS,” I bellowed inside his head.

Chains rattled.

He ripped at his own flesh.

I stood still and watched as justice was served.

And smiled.