if he were reliving every memory he had of the two of us together in his den of torture. “Missed the fire in those endless green eyes and the way it snuffed out as the fight finally left you. There is so much I still want to do to you…” He reached forward to hook his finger underneath my chin. Knowing it was futile, I still let loose whatever fire I could, the flames surging out of the corners of my mouth. “So much fire…”
He leaned closer until he towered above me, the sheer delight in his eyes enough to inspire my rage. But with no way to unleash it, it was little more than a storm in my belly that could not reach him. I tried to scream in frustration, but the gag withheld it as well, little more than a muffled cry escaping.
“I’m afraid we don’t have much time together,” he said, drawing a cruel finger along the angle of my jaw. It continued down my neck to the curve of my breast, then stopped on top of my heart. With a violent motion, he slammed me against the stony wall, his fingertips biting into my skin so hard it nearly bled. “Phobos grows nearer by the second.”
As he dug his fingers into my chest, a sense of dread and terror unlike anything I could have imagined drowned me. I could not breathe. I could not blink. All I could manage to do was stare up into his empty dark eyes and pray for him to end me, for that would be the only way I would find peace.
The will to die was so strong…
“I told you that a small part of me cared for you in a way you would not understand, and it was that part that did all it could to dim what I am in your presence. To try to stifle my being enough that it didn’t break you, as it threatens to now.” Unable to control my body, I shook and shivered until I convulsed, my head banging against the wall at my back. “I do not wish to break you, Khara,” he said, his free hand pressing on my forehead to hold my head still. A whimper escaped me as he leaned in closer, his tongue dragging along my bottom lip. I feared what was to come next. “This torture is not a punishment, vasilissa mou. It is a gift.”
My knees gave out, but Deimos held me firmly to the wall.
“Remember that it was I that did this to you,” he said before releasing me and letting me fall to my knees, arms yanked up high behind my back. “You will need my gift if I fail and my brother finds you.”
He opened his bedroom door and lingered for a moment. Emotions my brain was too addled to understand looked back at me from his dark eyes.
“I have always loved you, Khara…in my own way.”
He shut the door behind him, closing me in with my racing heart, my ragged breath, and the realization that Deimos had orchestrated this entire scene in order to give me a power that I did not already possess.
One I would need to face his brother, the god of fear.
15
“What. The. Fuck?”
Oz’s angry tone snapped me to attention, and I looked up to see glowing white eyes of rage staring back at me. Before I could even attempt an explanation—not that I could offer one with a gag in my mouth—he stormed over to the wall and, with some effort and creative leverage, ripped the chains from the stone. Rocks and dust rained down around me. Once my body was free, he hooked his hands beneath my arms and hauled me to my feet, my wrists and ankles still shackled.
I attempted to tell him where Deimos kept the keys, but my words were unintelligible. He reached behind my head and unfastened the gag. With a gentleness I had not expected, he withdrew it from my mouth, being careful not to break my teeth in the process. My jaw ached from the position it had been forced into, and I slowly closed and opened it until the joints worked properly.
“You were saying…?” The brightness of his eyes had dulled enough for me to look at him without being blinded, but his rage was as palpable as ever.
“The keys are over there.” I jerked my head toward the adjacent wall and the torture devices hanging there.