Page 223 of The Games Gods Play
“No.” The word tears from my throat. Then I’m stumbling to get around Cerberus’ body to stop the bone soldier from finishing the job. “Don’t hurt him,” I order.
I don’t care if Cerberus eats me. I can’t let him die.
My protector immediately stands at attention, waiting for my next order.
“Lyra?” Cer’s voice is shaky in my head now. No more fury. No more mindless rage.
“Oh gods,” I whisper.
I reach out, only to jerk away at the sticky feel of blood, and Cer flinches from my touch, whimpering. His rapid pants are shallow and raspy. Ber and Rus are limp on the ground, eyes closed, unconscious and unmoving.
“I did not hurt you.”
I pat his head. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“I could see what I was doing, but I could not stop myself.” His voice is growing fainter.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I’m shaking so hard, my hands keep clenching in jerking spasms, nausea rolling through me. “Can you get us to Hades?”
Where is Hades, anyway?
“Too…weak…”
“What will…fix you?”
“Only…the…” He stops, giving a pathetic little mewl. “Styx.”
Then Cer growls, the sound broken but fierce as he looks at something behind me. The hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up, like I’ve touched a light socket. I don’t have to look to know, but I do anyway.
Zeus.
Oh fuck. I really should have grabbed my axes before coming over to Cerberus.
The god’s expression twitches with a sort of thwarted fury, but that’s not what makes me backpedal. It’s that, with my eyes still filled with Eos’ tears, I’m seeing things now. And what I see is a shimmering veil of mesh over Zeus’ face. In the odd rendering of the tears, it’s all sorts of colors, like looking through a prism, and fitted to his features like it’s been painted on.
What the hells is that?
Cold, heavy dread takes over my limbs, and I can’t move, can’t speak. I really wish freeze wasn’t one of my trauma responses.
Incredulity ripples over Zeus’ features. “I’ll be damned,” he mutters, then points an accusing finger at me. “You are the baby I cursed in my temple? The unlovable one?”
Shit. Now he remembers?
I lift my hands in the air in surrender, turning to face the god more fully.
He laughs, the sound a little out of control. Then he starts muttering and pacing. Something about, “If he knew all along, then he planned to become king.”
While he’s distracted, I roll my last pearl between my fingers, inching closer to Cerberus. I’ll take him with me. To Styx, obviously. Maybe Charon can help him.
I slowly stretch my fingers toward Cer’s head.
“No—” Zeus rounds on me, and his brows snap down in a scowl so dark, so wrathful, it transforms a face that is almost boyish in its handsomeness to twisted and terrifying. “I can’t let him win.”
So fast I barely register the movement, Zeus throws out his arms, and he is covered in head-to-toe armor. My mortal mind and body are too slow to react as lightning flashes from his hands and hits me right in the belly.
When the colossal boom and scorching flash of light recede, I’m not dead.
Not yet.
