35
ADONIS
I’ve never known fear like what I feel in the ten minutes it takes for the paramedics to arrive. They’re not the same people who help the main population of Olympus; these are a team specific to the Thirteen. It’s the only reason I trust them enough to move back from Eris’s unconscious body as they sweep in.
That and the fact Zeus followed them in.
He looks like shit, and I don’t give a fuck because Eris is dying on her floor and it’s his fault. I surge to my feet and am on him in a handful of steps. He doesn’t bother to fight me as I slam him against the wall. Later, that will bother me. Right now, I flat-out don’t give a fuck.
“You did this.”
He looks past me to where the paramedics have strapped Eris to a gurney. “I had nothing to do with this.”
I slam him against the wall again. “Don’t lie to me. I know the ultimatum you gave her.”
Zeus finally focuses on me. His blue eyes flash. “Then you know I gave her three days.” He shoves me off, easily breaking my hold. “Then you know I would never endanger my sister.”
“Not without cause.” My heart is in my throat as the paramedics wheel her out of the penthouse just as three people rush in. I immediately recognize Ares and her two partners. She’s pale, but takes in the situation in a single glance. “Achilles, you and Patroclus secure the attacker. Alive. I want answers and I want them as soon as possible.”
For once, Achilles doesn’t have an arrogant remark in response. He moves efficiently to the downed attacker and checks the zip tie I fastened around their wrists. Apparently satisfied, he hauls them up and passes them to Patroclus, who keeps them on their feet with a stern hand on their shoulder.
The lead paramedic pauses. “We won’t know the full extent of the damage until we get her into surgery and get that knife out,” she says to Zeus and Ares. “Would one of you like to ride with us to the hospital?”
“I will.” Zeus straightens his jacket that I rumpled when I slammed him into the wall and turns away from me as if he’s not concerned I might attack his exposed back.
I actually take a step forward before Pandora catches my elbow. She shakes her head. “Don’t.”
“Easy for you to say. I—”
She digs her nails into my skin and narrows her eyes. “Do not tell me what is or isn’t easy for me to say.” She shifts closer. “Fighting right now delays her getting to the hospital. Have your pissing match with Zeus after we know she’s okay.”
Zeus disappears through the door while she holds me back. I wait a beat and then step away from her. If I hadn’t had such a nice chat with her while we disposed of the poisoned food, I would have been here when the attacker first showed up. I could have stopped them.
Ares turns to us, her hazel eyes narrowed. “I’m going to have some questions for all three of you, but it can wait until after Eris gets out of surgery.” Her voice breaks a little on the last word.
Achilles clasps her shoulder. “She’s going to be fine. Just like Patroclus was fine after the tournament.”
Her face goes hard as she looks down to where Theseus is leaning against the wall. “If my sister—” Her voice breaks off and she swears. “I will finish the job I started in the maze.”
I tense, fully expecting Theseus to say or do something to escalate the situation. His obvious contempt for the Thirteen is inflammatory, to say the least. But he doesn’t say anything at all. He just nods at Ares and watches her sweep out of the room with her men and their prisoner at her back.
The door slamming shut springs us into motion. Pandora and I hurry to Theseus. We go to our knees on either side of him. She reaches for him, but stops before touching him. “Are you hurt? Your knee?”
“No.” He struggles to sit up straighter and winces. “Maybe. Not my knee, but that fucker got in a good kick.” He gingerly touches his right side. “Might have cracked a rib.” He turns his attention to me. “Did you recognize him?”
“No. I’ve never seen him before.” Which only means he wasn’t one of Athena’s. My stomach drops out. Eris has to be okay, but the thought of how close I came to losing them both leaves me shaky. “Let’s get you to the hospital, too.”
“No.”
I blink. “What do you mean, no?”
“No.” He nods at Pandora and they share a look I can’t quite decipher. Theseus clears his throat. “I have something I have to take care of first.”
I look between them. “Eris just got stabbed. What could you possibly have to do that’s more important than coming to the hospital with me?” I knew he was a hard man, of course, but this is another realm entirely. If not for the panicked way he’d commanded Eris to stay with us, I would think he’s entirely unaffected.
Pandora presses her lips together, dark eyes worried. “Are you sure?”
I feel like I’ve missed an entire conversation. “Are you sure of what?”
Theseus ignores me. “Yeah.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No. I got it.”
Frustration lances my throat, hot and cloying. “What the fuck are you talking about? Go where?” I grit out.
He finally looks at me. “This has gone far enough. I’m going to deal with Minos.”
“Deal with Minos.” Surely he doesn’t mean—
“Not permanently.” Theseus takes my hand and allows me to leverage him to his feet. “I don’t have it in me to do that to him, even if he deserves it. I’ll meet you both at the hospital in a little while. Be there for our woman when she wakes up, even if I can’t be.”
Our woman.
The two words toll through me, changing something forever. He’s right, though. Eris is ours. All of ours. I clear my throat. “What are you doing? If you aren’t going to kill him—”
He rolls his shoulders. “I’m going to make sure this never happens again. Not to her.” Theseus stalks out of the penthouse before I can figure out a response to that. It’s only when the door closes behind him that I realize he still had Eris’s blood on his hands.
“He can’t stop it.” I feel numb. It won’t last, but it’s almost pleasant for this beat of silence before we have to move, before reality comes crashing back in. “He can’t stop anything.”
“You’d be surprised what Theseus can do when he sets his mind to it.” Pandora can’t quite mask the worry on her face, though. “Come on. I want to be there for Eris when she wakes up.”
I look at the bloodstain on the marble floor. “Go on ahead. I’m going to clean this up.”
“Adonis,” she says softly.
“I don’t want her coming back and having the first thing she sees be a reminder of what happened to her.” I can’t go back in time and save her. I can’t fix this, no matter how much I want to. But I can make damned sure she doesn’t have to face the memory all over again when she comes home.
She has to come home. I can’t allow myself to consider another outcome.
Pandora nods slowly. “Okay, that’s smart. Let’s do it together.”
“You don’t have to. I can…”
She’s already moving into the kitchen and poking around beneath the sink until she finds the cleaning supplies. It takes us less than ten minutes to remove every trace of blood from the penthouse. It seems like it should be more difficult to erase evidence of such catastrophic events, but my numbness has me in a stranglehold.
I don’t think I’m going to breathe until I see Eris and can confirm that she’s alive and well. Or as well as can be expected considering tonight’s events.
Pandora takes my hand as we step into the elevator. She’s startlingly warm, and I’m not ashamed to say I cling to her as the car descends. “She has to be okay.” I’ve said it a dozen times since we started cleaning. I don’t seem to be able to say anything else.
“She’s going to be better than okay,” she says firmly, just like she has answered me every other time. “She’s going to come out of surgery spitting mad and ready to make whoever is responsible pay.”
I shake my head slowly. “Best I can tell, the attacker wasn’t there for Eris. If they were, they wouldn’t have panicked when she got stabbed. They would have finished the job. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Pandora tenses beside me. “They were there for Theseus.”
“I think so.” Which means they were sent by one of the Thirteen.
I hate to admit it, but I believe that Zeus isn’t responsible. He would wait until Theseus wasn’t near Eris to have his people strike. No, this was someone else, someone who didn’t necessarily care if Eris—if Aphrodite—was caught in the cross fire.
Maybe even someone who hoped she would be.
“Who sent them?” Pandora looks up at me, her normal happy expression nowhere in evidence. She looks furious enough that I almost take a step back. “You have an idea.”
“It wasn’t either of her siblings. But there are plenty of people among that group who wouldn’t care if she got caught in the cross fire. They wouldn’t shed a tear if she dies.” Artemis, in particular, has plenty of reason to hate Theseus…and Eris for standing in her way when she wanted revenge for her cousin’s death.
“Adonis.” Pandora’s hand becomes a vise around mine. “Right now, she’s alone and helpless on an operating table. Do you think one of them might try to take advantage of that?”
I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Artemis has no overt in at the hospital, but that doesn’t mean she’s not capable of finishing the job. “We need to move. Now.”
My car is in the parking garage. We hurry to it and then we’re flying out the exit and toward the hospital. “Zeus won’t let anyone hurt her.” Maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll actually believe it. He won’t let anyone close…except the nurses and doctors and whoever else is needed in the surgery room. “Godsdamn it.”
“What?” Pandora clutches the handle above the door as I fly around a turn, running a red light. “We’re not going to help Eris if we die on the way there!”
“Everyone is the enemy.” I have to force my foot off the accelerator as we come up against traffic. “That’s what your people wanted, isn’t it? Look at us now. Some doctor or nurse might decide to kill her right there on the table to take her title.”
Pandora looks sick. “It wasn’t my plan. I know that doesn’t make it better, and it might actually make it worse because I came with Minos even knowing there was something going on. But I never wanted anyone hurt.”
It’s so tempting to take my anger and fear out on her. It’s also not fair. I know how these things work better than most. People at the top make the decisions and tip the dominoes over.
It’s everyone else who pays the price.
Ten minutes later, we’re screeching into the hospital parking lot. Pandora has to keep me from sprinting wildly into the hospital, though we move at a quick walk that’s almost a run. She laces her fingers with mine and provides a steadying presence even though her lips are tight and her eyes worried.
We barely make it two steps inside before we’re stopped by two people dressed in black with a patch on their right shoulders of helmet and a sword crossed with a spear. “No civilians. We’re having an emergency.”
“Let them through,” says a tired voice behind them. “They’re with us.”
Ares’s soldiers part to reveal the woman herself. Achilles and Patroclus flank her, both looking just as worried as I feel. She eyes me. “You got here fast.”
“We were motivated.” I step forward. “Any news?”
“No, not yet. We have our team in there, though. The best doctors on the Thirteen’s payroll. They’ll see her through.” Ares speaks in the quiet tone of someone barely hanging on.
“The clause—”
“They are our people,” she repeats. Her eyes are colder than I’ve ever seen them. “And they know I’ll personally put a bullet between their eyes if they try something.”
It’s not a guarantee, but it’s all we have. I’m not a doctor. I can’t perform surgery. I take a shaky breath. “Okay.”
Pandora is squeezing my hand so hard, I’ve lost feeling in my fingers, but her voice is relatively even. “We’ll wait with you until we know she’s safe.” She glances at me, a silent message there that I’m in total agreement with. Neither of us will be sent on our way once Eris wakes up. I don’t care if I have to fight Ares, Achilles, Patroclus, or even Zeus himself. I am getting into that room to see Eris with my own eyes and make sure she knows she’s safe now.
But she’s not the only one I’m worried about.
I allow Pandora to lead me to one of the uncomfortable seats in the waiting room. We sink down and exchange another look. “Will Theseus be okay?”
“I don’t know.” A line appears between her brows. “Minos has been very careful to use disappointment and praise in turn to keep Theseus in line, but that was when Theseus worshipped the ground he walks on. If he confronts Minos directly, that won’t hold. I don’t know what Minos will do.”
Despite my best efforts, I think back to the final Ares trial. The Minotaur fought Achilles, Patroclus, and Helen at the same time. He almost killed Patroclus, and when Helen eliminated him, he kept fighting and might have killed Achilles, too. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole time he enacted such violence, he didn’t have any expression on his face.
“If Minos sets the Minotaur after Theseus, what will happen?”
She flinches. “Blood and tears, Adonis. Blood and tears.”