Bracing her hand against the rock wall, she opened her eyes as water cascaded down her face, dragging her makeup with it. Hope was a dangerous thing. Hope had brought her to Zagreus. Hope had convinced her to accept his deal. And hope was keeping her alive, day after miserable day, because it gave her something to think about other than how wretched her life had become.
But that hope was fading. Zagreus wasn’t going to live up to his end of their bargain. She’d seen it in his eyes last night when she’d asked him how things were going on his end. She’d felt it with every strike of that flogger. But mostly she sensed it in what was left of her heart. And the longer she stayed here…the longer she did what he commanded without taking a stand, the more of herself she was going to lose until she really was nothing but a cold, black ember like the wood in his fireplace.
This wasn’t who she was supposed to be. This wasn’t the woman her mother had raised. And if either of her parents could see her now…
She closed her eyes, dropped her head under the spray again, and pursed her lips to hold back the groan from working its way up her throat. She’d done all this for them. But they wouldn’t want this. They wouldn’t understand. And every minute she stood here, bending to Zagreus’s will, was another minute she moved further away from what was left of their memory.
“What we did yesterday doesn’t matter. It’s what we do today that determines who we are.”
Her mother’s voice rolled through her mind, and her thoughts centered on Nick in the dungeon below.
She couldn’t free him. She couldn’t save him without killing them both. But she could do something to ease his suffering. Something no one else dared do.
Nerves bunched and gathered in her stomach, making her pulse beat faster, making her breaths come quicker. She opened her eyes and stared at the rocks in front of her while her heart pounded hard, wondering if she had the strength to really go through with it.
CHAPTER SIX
Seated on the floor in his cell, his back resting against the cool rocks, Nick squinted through the darkness to look up at the ceiling above his head.
He couldn’t see it, but he knew the chains shackled to his wrists looped up through hooks in the ceiling, then disappeared into small pipes high along the wall. Right now the chains were loose, allowing enough slack so he could sit and move around the back half of the room, but the tension was controlled by a button near his cell door. A button he’d stared at hour upon hour, trying to figure how in all of hell he could access it from clear across the room.
His gaze strayed to his arms resting on his bent knees, then to the metal cuffs, barely visible in the dark. The only light shone from beneath the door and the one small window that looked out at the hall, but it was enough so he could see his callused palms as he turned his wrists, then the scabs on the backs of his hands.
Ancient Greek text ran down his forearms and intertwined his fingers. Text that marked him as an Argonaut. Text that had dictated his life until he’d been brought here, made him think he could be a leader for his people, made him think he was something honorable.
But he wasn’t honorable. He wasn’t even an Argonaut. He was Krónos’s son—which, in a sick sort of way, explained a lot—and though just the thought turned his stomach, right about now he wasn’t averse to a little of his so-called father’s power. Because if he could figure out how the fuck to harness some of those almighty gifts Zagreus thought he had in him, he could break out of this shithole and rain holy hell down on the Prince of Darkness and any other god who got in his way.
Metal scraped metal across the room. Lifting his head, Nick tensed and squinted through the darkness to see what was happening.
The door creaked, and torchlight from the hallway flooded the opening, forcing him to blink several times at the increased light. But he didn’t need to see who was stepping into his room to know who it was. He could smell her. The sweet scent of jasmine preceded her everywhere she went, and his entire body responded in an instant, tightening in anticipation.
“Stand.” Cynna’s velvety voice slid over him like a caress, bringing every inch of his skin to life.
Slowly, he pushed to his feet, the chains on his wrists rattling as he moved. Torture at night wasn’t a surprise. He’d learned not to relax even in utter darkness, because he never knew when they were going to come for him, but her being here now was a shocker. As was the fact the door was closing behind her, locking them in together alone.