Blood of Hercules (Villains of Lore Book 1)

Alexis

Sitting in dirt, wrists bound before me, I peered up at my kidnapper through the heavy lion’s head.

“I warned you, multiple times—I told you to leave Sparta if you wanted to live,” my captor said bitterly. “But you didn’t listen . . . you had to try and usurp me.”

I blinked again.

Unable to process what was happening.

“Now you’ll die, just like the rest of them.” He gestured at the piles of debris along the walls of the small space. “And so will she. Your idiot mutt friend tried to save you by grabbing me as I leaped. Well, now you’re both dead.”

My eyes widened at a skull leaning against the wall.

It wasn’t junk piled around us; it was bones. Frayed, rotting ropes were tethered to the walls next to them.

He murdered them.

He’s going to kill us.

“But w-why?” I croaked on dry lips, brain frozen in shock.

None of it made any sense.

Storm-gray eyes narrowed, deep-golden skin was drenched in shadows, and a laurel crown gleamed atop blond hair.

Theros smiled cruelly.

“Because I am the heir to the House of Zeus.” His expression was sick. “Only I will wear a crown. I’m the one who inherits our House’s legacy and brings our family honor . . . no abandoned, mangy mutt is going to take my birthright.”

Months ago, when the doctor had said the House of Zeus’s mutts “struggled,” I’d thought it was a strange choice of words.

These bones are the mutts.

The House of Zeus didn’t have a fertility issue—it had a murder issue.

I struggled to put all the pieces together.

It still wasn’t adding up.

“But why the siren? Why did you kill Maximum?”

The boxes of body parts didn’t make any sense.

“What are you talking about?” Theros asked. “I didn’t kill them. I know you read my note—a muse told me—so don’t pretend you weren’t warned.”

Wait, he didn’t leave the boxes?

The handwriting on the note had been different from the box, but I’d assumed that was some type of mind trick to throw me off.

I had two separate stalkers.

Yanking at my restraints, I screamed through gritted teeth at the injustice of it all. Helen was still not moving on the ground.

Theros clicked his tongue. “There’s no use struggling. I’ve done this . . . many times. As you can see, I have a system in place.”

He knelt and picked up a rusty crowbar.

Eyes widening, I struggled harder.

Theros turned and slammed the iron against the metal wall. He banged loudly, a harsh sound echoing through the silent forest.

Far away, something screamed.

Theros smiled at me as he dropped the iron.

“This time,” he said, “it was almost too easy . . . all I had to do was shout that Titans were attacking, and here we are—where the actual Titans will attack. This unprotected area is crawling with them. It was almost as easy as leaping, getting that Titan to attack the circuit—evil Chthonic bastards had to interfere.”

He killed Leo. He was the one who set the Titan after us.

The scream echoed louder.

I struggled harder.

Closer.

He ties them up, then lets the Titans kill them.

He was a monster.

I was going to die.

Yanking at the rope, I screamed, “NYX, WAKE UP!”

She moaned sleepily, then hissed as she realized something was wrong.

“Attack him!”

Theros’s eyes widened—he took a step back.

Icy scales slid across my calf as she launched herself forward.

The air distorted.

A dull sound echoed. Nyx moaned and fell to the dirt with a thud. Behind his shield, Theros looked around nervously. BOOM. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

“COWARD,” I shrieked at the empty space where he’d leaped away.

Outside, bone-chilling screams echoed louder, and Nyx groaned and whispered something inaudible.

Stuck in a lion’s head, I whimpered with dread.

This was really happening.

I was surrounded by the corpses of people who’d been in the same position before me. Helen had tried to help me, and now she was going to die.

I was trapped.

Nyx was incapacitated.

No one knew where we were.

No one was coming to save us.

Bird sounds echoed as dark gray lightened with sunrise.

Dawn had arrived.

Another horrible noise echoed through the woods, much closer than the last. A Titan was fast approaching.

With us tied up like this, it would rip us both apart with its talons.

We’d be easy to kill.

You can do this, Alexis. Think. Think.

I looked around, but there was nothing I could reach to help me. No sharp edge to dig the rope against. There was no slack around my wrists—they were bound painfully tight. Theros knew what he was doing.

Breathing roughly through my nose, I bowed my head and muttered a prayer.

You know exactly what you need to do. It’s your only chance of saving Helen. Charlie is waiting for you to come home.

I did.

But I didn’t want to do it.

It’s not fair.

The Titan screamed. It was approaching. Fast.

DO IT.

Clenching my jaw as tightly as possible, refusing to think about it, I lifted my tied hands above my head and slammed them down as hard as I could against the floor.

Shrieking, I did it again.

And again.

Time distorted in a blur of déjà vu.

I was ten years old, banging my wrists against rocks to get out of ropes; I was almost twenty years old, slamming my hands down against the ground to dislocate my thumbs; I sobbed, snot running down my face; I bellowed through the pain.

Again and again.

Pulling, I yanked while I fractured bones.

I shrieked at the blinding agony, then tugged harder.

Shattered bones poked through rope-burned skin.

Millimeter by millimeter, mangled hands slipped through a much too small opening.

Helen woke up and started shouting something, but I couldn’t comprehend anything she was saying over the screaming pain.

My vision blurred like I was going to pass out, and I blinked rapidly.

No. Stay awake. Keep it together. She needs you.

I pulled with all my might. Shaking, panting, covered in sweat, I kept bludgeoning myself for what felt like an eternity.

Helen screamed.

Yelling, I yanked with everything I had—bloody hands finally slipped out—I threw myself across the shed.

On my knees, I swiped at the patch of disturbed dirt until I felt Nyx. Jerkily, I grabbed her and pushed her into the front of my dress so I couldn’t lose her. As I stumbled to my feet, she moaned in pain, but slithered down and wrapped tightly around my leg.

I was free.

But Helen was still tied up, and I had no way of getting her out. The crowbar was the only instrument, and it wasn’t sharp enough to cut through the rope.

She shouted something, but my ear rang louder.

I couldn’t understand.

Moaning in pain, I ripped off her elephant head. Her wide tear-filled eyes stared at my ruined hands with horror.

A long moment passed, then she shook her head like she was coming out of a daze.

“Knife!” she said, and I read her lips. “I have a knife on my inner thigh. Patro makes me carry it for protection.”

God help me.

I jerkily pushed up her dress and stared down at my mangled hands, then at the thin weapon. There was no way I could hold it. Not like this. It wasn’t humanly possible.

You’re not fully human.

You’re Spartan.

I didn’t move.

Pain throbbed in both my hands, my vision blurred, the world spun.

Just fucking do it, Alexis, don’t you dare think about it.

I was paralyzed.

Helen stared at the weapon, then at my bloody hands. Her lips quivered with sorrow.

A Titan screamed outside, the sound close. Very close.

Tears filled her eyes, and she slumped with despair, like she knew she was doomed.

Don’t think. Just fucking act. Right now. Or she’s going to die.

I forced my fingers to pick up the knife.

Shrieking through gritted teeth, I clenched my ruined hand tighter around the thin hilt and started sawing at the piece of rope between Helen’s hands.

The knife was sharp, but the rope was thick, and the cutting motion sent unimaginable waves of agony streaking up my forearm. My fingers slipped up the hilt. Sharp pain stung as I accidentally grabbed the blade.

Blood from the fresh cuts made the handle slippery, so I had to flex my hand to grip it.

Sawing at the rope, I screamed and pushed harder.

This was hell.

The world spun, tears streamed down my cheeks, and darkness made the edges of my vision fuzzy.

CLANG.

The metal shed rocked—something slammed against it from the outside.

I sawed with everything I had, digging the knife into the fraying rope. Ignored the pure agony eating away at my nerves as the world spun faster. My vision unfocused further. Sweat dripped down my face. Black clawed at the edges of my consciousness.

Don’t you fucking dare pass out.

There was a horrible noise, and I whipped my head around.

A creature was framed in the door.

Morning light illuminated its gruesome visage. It was tall and skinny, its pale skin covered in dark veins. A mouth wide with serrated teeth, bulging eyes, and razor-sharp talons completed the horrifying picture.

No. No. No. No.

I cut harder, and Helen yanked with all her might, shouting as she slipped free.

There was no time to celebrate.

The Titan lunged.

Turning, knife extended, I slammed it into the monster’s eye. Nails raked across my arm like hot coals, and I screamed.

The Titan stumbled and shrieked, tripping back and falling onto the dirt floor as it clawed at the hilt protruding from its face.

I used the opening.

Grabbing the door of the shed, bloody fingers slipping as I tried to get purchase, I threw my body against the door—slammed it close on the Titan’s head. Black blood splattered. Again and again I threw myself forward and jammed it.

Helen shouted, and the sound pierced through the haze.

Turning, I staggered over to her.

Grabbed her.

Behind me, there was a loud shriek as the Titan started to rise. Without Spartan weapons, there was no way to stop it.

My vision tripled.

Everything spun.

It felt like I was drowning underwater.

You’re trapped. You’re doomed. You have no options left.

But there was one possibility.

A long shot.

More theory than reality.

It shouldn’t have been an actual option.

My thoughts blanked.

I focused only on a singular destination—the feeling of home.

The Titan lunged at us.

“Domus,” I whispered—claws missed us by a fraction of an inch as the world disappeared in an explosion of blinding darkness, and agony tore me to shreds.

I blinked, and I was kneeling on the sands of the Dolomite Coliseum in a cloud of dissipating smoke.

Helen was sobbing beside me.

Nyx grumbled something about being smushed, and she slithered off my leg onto the sand.

I’d somehow leaped with all three of us. I’d done the impossible.

Two men in full-length black togas with long fur capes stared down at us.

Snow flurried.

“Alexis? Helen?” Glacial blue and soulless black eyes widened as they took us in.

I staggered to my feet. Helen remained kneeling, whimpering.

Kharon took a step forward, face contorted as he stared down at my ruined hands and clawed-up arm. Augustus went unnaturally still beside him, and his face paled until his scar was a stark slash of red.

“Who. The. Fuck. Did. THIS. TO. YOU?” Kharon’s raspy voice increased in decibel until he was shouting at me at the top of his lungs. “GIVE ME THEIR NAME.”

Augustus pulled out a gun and unclicked the safety, his eyes wild.

Helen sobbed harder into the sand.

I turned away from the men, searching through the faces standing on the sands.

Fury was a living, pulsing thing.

My blood boiled as my frosty breath lingered in the chilled air.

How dare he. He thinks he can just get away with this?

Members of the twelve Houses were spread out along the oval perimeter of the coliseum sands. House flags waved behind each group.

It was dead silent.

Snowflakes drifted softly.

In the middle of the arena, Drex, Cassius, Alessander, and Titus stood in a line. General Cleandro, Professor Augustus, and Professor Pine, who had a white bandage wrapped around his throat, stood beside them.

Everyone was dressed in long togas with animal furs, and just like the Initiation Ball, no protectors were present.

The graduation ceremony hadn’t started yet.

But I didn’t care.

That wasn’t why I was here.

Drex gestured at me to come join them, and I looked away.

Still searching.

There.

Kharon lunged for me, “ALEXIS—TELL US WHO DID THIS TO YOU!”

I dodged his grip because this was my anger. Not his.

I pointed with a bloody, mangled finger and stalked across the sand toward the fluttering flag that displayed the golden lion of the House of Zeus.

Adrenaline, pain, and rage made me shake.

My target’s jaw dropped as he saw me stalking across the sands toward him, covered in blood, shaking with rage.

You should be very afraid.

Zeus frowned. “What is the meaning of this? What are you⁠—”

I ripped the lion off my head and lunged.