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Chapter 5
Poseidon
Elyse was in a state. And rightfully so because it fucking had me fuming with rage. X had found her alone and nearly finished her off. I’d insisted one of the gods stay by her side at all times, but, of course, Elyse broke those rules. Insisting she needed to be alone, lying that Heracles was with her, but he wasn’t. I should have been furious, but I was just glad she’d survived. Thank Zeus.
I clenched my fists, knowing X had worked out a way to stop us from sensing his energy when he fought Elyse because he knew he stood no chance against us as a team. So, he waited, biding his time to pick her off when she was on her own.
When I arrived at the training center, Elyse sat against the wall, cradling her arm as if it was broken, her brow furrowed with agony. It only took one look at the shattered mirror and blood to see there’d been a struggle. Without a word, I checked her injuries. Lots of small cuts, a split lip, and bruises, but when I lifted her elbow, she winced.
“He said he was coming to get me,” she murmured in a trembling voice while I helped her remove the shard of glass wedged underneath her shoulder blade. It took a bit of wrestling to remove it. Using her towel, I wiped the blood and pressed the folded material to the wound until the blood coagulated. One thing I had to say—Elyse had a hell of a pain tolerance. She gritted her teeth during the whole ordeal and gripped my arm.
“He’s not going to get you,” I replied.
And I meant every word. Over my dead body was X going to take Elyse away from me.
“Did you call the others?” she asked, a gentle concern in her eyes, and I adored how even when she was in pain and danger, she worried for others, wanting to put us at ease.
“They’re on their way.”
The moment she’d phoned me, I called Ares and Heracles. I’d even sent a message to Hades, although I doubted my brother would ever do anything about it. The bastard had run away at the first sign of trouble. Classic Hades. But he still needed to know Elyse had been hurt. Even if just to rub it in his face that it was his fault.
Yeah, I felt sorry for the guy. He’d been through hell and back, and I was part of the reason he’d been there in the first place. He cared for Elyse—more than he wanted to admit. But he didn’t have to be a dick about everything. Sometimes shit happened, but you turned around and faced your problems.
“What are we going to do?” Elyse asked, her voice soft and almost deflated, which wasn’t like her. But I understood her fear. This was her last life, and even the smallest mistake could be deadly. She gave me a detailed rendition of what had happened.
“We’re going to take care of this,” I insisted, determined.
I wasn’t going to let this shit with X go on any longer—it had been long enough, and with Elyse only having one more life left, the one she was living now, we couldn’t afford to take any chances. Not after I’d found the one person who lit the fire in my heart after so long.
Before she could respond, the training center door flew open, and Ares stalked in. He looked more than furious. His eyes were on fire, his cheeks red with fury, his chest sticking out.
“If I get my hands on X, he’s going to wish he never split off from Hades in the first place,” he thundered.
“Calm down, bro,” Heracles said, following Ares inside. “What happened here?”
I gave them a quick rundown of what Elyse told me after I’d arrived as I held her in my arms. The fact she wasn’t taking the lead, told me how much this had shaken her.
“We won’t let him get you,” Heracles said.
Ares nodded. His jaw was clenched, as were his fists.
She held on to me tightly. Sure, she was strong and had managed to save herself, but she was on the verge of falling apart.
Ares closed the distance between them and sank down onto his knees in front of her, inching his face closer to her until they were just a breath apart.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, babe,” he said before he nuzzled her neck. Heracles glanced at me when he did.
Did it worry me that she was intimate with me and with Ares? Maybe it should have, but it didn’t. She had a different relationship with each of us—including Apollo and even Hades—and I didn’t mind because I knew what we had wasn’t replicated anywhere else.
Elyse put her free arm around Ares’s neck and shuddered.
When she finally let him go, he stood and gave me the same expression Heracles had given me. We were all thinking the same thing: we had to keep Elyse safe no matter what.
“We’re going to look after you,” Heracles declared as if we’d all discussed it out loud. “We’re not going to leave you alone for him to find you again, and you must keep your word to not sneak off, either. There’ll be one of us with you at all times.”
I was still holding onto her hand. “And we’re going to make sure you have a life, too. We’re not going to let him find you alone again. This isn’t the end, Elyse.”
She nodded. She wasn’t even arguing with us. It said a lot about exactly where she was at and how much X scared her.
