“Fuck if I’d go without sex just to shoot a bow,” Solron growled.
She was bleeding out on the floor, but she was still Solron. Artemis rushed over and shoved me out of the way.
“Move, Hephaestus. I have more experience with this than you do. Hestia demanded I learn from her after I kept sending my handmaidens to her. Does your friend have that man handled?”
“Charley, do you have this?” I asked.
She didn’t break her chant. Her hands were still over Finn, glowing white. I had a feeling she could handle her mate just fine. River raved about how she healed a Hellhound with internal bleeding way faster than she could.
Solron was getting delirious from how much blood she had lost. She was babbling and spitting blood.
“I’m not a virgin, and I’m totally into a lot of sex with men, but please don’t let me die on this floor. I may end up Queen of Hell.”
I knew what everyone thought about Artemis. They thought she hated men and forbade her followers from having sex. Artemis was fine with men unless they hurt women, and let’s be honest, men did that a lot. Her handmaidens joined her because they didn’t want to be with men in that way. I didn’t think she would hold it against them if they did and wanted to leave.
Artemis just chuckled and placed her hands over Solron’s neck.
“I don’t care if you’re not a virgin, and I only care about sex with men when it’s not consensual, or they only care about their own pleasure. I’m not going to let you die on this floor just for that.”
“Oh, god, sometimes we like to pretend it’s not consensual, but the sexing is excellent. Bael will get mad if you let me die.”
Artemis just chuckled and removed her hands.
“You say this one is from Hell? It sounds like an interesting place. Your wound is healed, but you’re going to need someone like you to replace the blood you lost. I have a setup at my place.”
Barbatos stepped forward.
“Mine will work. Take us there. Bael will have my head if she dies. This was supposed to be playtime for her.”
I knew he was serious. I’d never met this mysterious king of Hell, but I had a feeling if Solron died, Olympus and the Underworld wouldn’t be safe from him. It relieved me when Barbatos carried Solron through to Artemis’s estate. If she learned from Hestia, then Solron was in excellent hands.
I went to check on Finn. Finn and Solron were heroes. As much as I wanted to be the one to kill Ares, I was now just glad he was dead. I wish it had been slower and more painful, but it was over.
Everyone in the room was now dead, but Ares’s careless flinging of magic injured every single person in this room. It wasn’t as bad as Solron or Finn, but if I could have killed Ares again for River’s injuries, I would have. She had a black eye and a busted lip. Even Pavlina, who had been across the room with Athena, had gotten blasted.
Pavlina was feeling well enough to make a mess hacking Athena’s head off. What was she doing?
“Pavlina, sweetie, what are you doing with Athena’s body?” I asked.
“The Gorgon sisters need to see it. Maybe it’ll calm them down a little.”
“I agree,” Tryphon said. “They can turn it to stone or punt it around like a football, but they need to see it.”
“Maybe they will stop being bitches to everyone if they get her head,” Demos said.
I found the entire thing a little vile, but I also knew the Underworld was full of people my family had hurt, and a severed head wasn’t going to make up for it.
I surveyed the room. There were four dead bodies and blood everywhere. The magic that had been flung in self-defense had scorched the walls or taken huge gouges out of it. Even if you removed the bodies and managed to get all the blood from the floors and walls, it would still be clear something awful went down here.
Zeus, Ares, Athena, and Poseidon were all dead. Really, they walked straight into their deaths, and they could have defended themselves much better against my weapons if they had learned how. They were still stuck in the old ways. They’d been to Earth and witnessed humans fighting with fists and weapons. My family always thought their magic was superior and never learned how to fight any other way. It was their downfall.
We used to use bows for hunting. Artemis was the only one who kept that up and used hers as a weapon. She trained an entire army of handmaidens to use them too. I learned human weapons pretty early on and how to craft them. I learned how to fuse Olympian magic into metal and weapons.
And I used it to make weapons capable of killing four members of my family. I tried to tell myself they had it coming and this would bring about a new society, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
And now, we had to leave the scene of this slaughter and go outside to see how many Olympians showed up when they felt four life forces go out and see if any more people needed to be killed.
Chapter 25
Kimon
T
his was total shit. As soon as Ares went crazy, I had a choice to take him out or protect my baby bird. I saw a blast of his magic hit her right in the face and made my choice. I pulled her to the floor and shielded her with my body. There were plenty of other people who could take him out. I was not losing her now that I found her.
My back was lacerated and bleeding. Unless one of these witches or Olympians wanted to dole out some healing magic, I was going to need stitches. Still, I’d take every one of these wounds because it meant they didn’t hit my baby bird. If I could kill Ares again for the wounds on her face, I would have. Instead, I settled for kicking his dead body and spitting on his corpse.
We weren’t done yet. We still had to meet Apollo, Dionysus, Hermes, and Hera at the house's front. We all just thought we knew who we were going to have to kill. Zeus, Ares, Poseidon, and Athena were a given. Honestly, I thought Hera would be too, but it sounded like she was just as sick of their shit as we were. I was also wrong about Artemis.
Finn and Solron took nasty wounds from Ares. They would have been fatal if it weren’t for Charley and Artemis. Finn was out of the woods but still weak. As much as we needed the witches with us, none of us were about to ask Charley to leave him. We didn’t know the first thing about magical healing, and he might still need her.
Hephaestus cut a hole in the air that opened up to a bedroom suite.
“This is my old room. Take him there to recover.”
Finn groaned as Charley helped him to his feet.
“No, you need us,” he said.
“He’s stubborn,” Charley said. “He’ll prop himself up with his gun if needed.”
“We need him alive. He saved our lives. Go, rest.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead. Does your bedroom have a view of the front of the house?”
“Well, yeah. It has an excellent view.”
Finn just shrugged.
“As she said, I can prop myself up with my gun. I’m a trained sniper. If things go wrong, I’ve got your six.”
Hephaestus would stand there and argue all day, but that fucking gun of his was pretty useful. We didn’t have them in the Underworld, but if it could take someone out from a bedroom window, we could use it if any more of these Olympians pulled an Ares with their magic.
Charley knew it too, and so did Finn. My baby bird wasn’t the only one who wasn’t afraid to stand up to an Olympian.