Page 143 of Blood of Olympus

“Good, don’t,” I laughed.

“Queenie?” Aros teased, elongating the word in a scarily enticing way.

“I couldn’t possibly fuck a wolf, which leaves me: Kiss Lykos, and Fuck Aros.” I winced as Caelus’ eyes darkened, his shoulders seemingly filling half the room. Lightning flashed in his irises — and Aros laughed, stepping around him to join me in the narrow shower recess, his honeyed-whiskey scent slapping me in the face as hard as Athena had.

“Aros!” I screamed, turning round to flee — but his hand caught mine on the way past, his other grasped my bare hip — and I froze.

“Aros,” Caelus rumbled, just barely maintaining his tenuous grip on his power. “Watch yourself.”

“I’d rather you watch, brother,” he said, sliding that hand up my arm and over my shoulder to land around the front of my throat. He stepped up behind me, so close that I could not refute the fact that he was turned on by this self-inflicted scenario. “Watch as she gasps when I do this” — he squeezed my throat, not hard enough to bruise, but just enough to slightly restrict my ability to breathe — “and how she trembles, when I do this” — his lips brushed against the junction between my shoulder and neck.

And I did, indeed, tremble⁠—

Which finally snapped Caelus’ resolve. His fist flew through the glass, shattering it into tiny shards which scattered across the floor like an avalanche of stars.

Aros immediately relented, hands raised in surrender, even as his thunderous laugh filled the room. Caelus’ arms engulfed me, ignoring the fact that I was entirely clean and wet, and he dry, clothed, and dirty.

Evie’s surprised squeal morphed into a knowing laugh as Aros turned into the flowing stream of water, his pert asscheeks contracting as he danced.

“Thanks, pal! All I wanted was the shower,” he laughed, ignoring Caelus’ wordless growling — more wolf than man.

“Rude, I was next,” Evie grumbled, brushing errant shards off her clothing.

“Would now be a bad time to ask how things went in Strathos?” I asked, wincing.

Caelus frowned as he wrapped me in a fluffy blue towel. “Didn’t Diana tell you?”

“Diana? I haven’t seen her since you left.” I frowned as I dried off, catching the look shared between the two of them, and standing there stark-naked, asked, “What the fuck has Diana done now?”

CHAPTER 35

Nyssa

“The answers you seek are bound to different questions.”

“Well, that’s incredibly vague, Vel,” I answered, wondering where in Tartarus that bloody dragon was hiding. She’s as large as a barn, where could she possibly be? Come to think of it, where was I?

These streets were not familiar, nor were these buildings, almost lost against the inky backdrop. The air lay heavy on my skin, the skies darker than the Underworld — whatever this place was, it swirled around me.

I reached out to touch the face of a dwelling and my fingers slipped through the wall like I’d run them through its reflection on a still lake instead.

“Ask different questions,” she pressed again, more insistent this time.

I pivoted, half-expecting to see her massive head behind me. “Alright, here’s a question: where the fuck are you, you enormous beast?”

“Okay, firstly, that’s rude,” a distinctly not-Velira voice scolded. “Secondly, you’re making this poetic style of speech hard to maintain when you insult me like that. And lastly, for a queen, you can be awfully obtuse.”

“Now who’s being rude?” I frowned, searching the cracks between buildings for my verbal sparring partner.

“Perhaps we’re being as rude as each other,” she offered.

Something tapped my shoulder twice and I whirled, causing the edges of this place to bleed again.

Before me stood someone I was quite certain I’d never met before. She was roughly the same height as I was, with dark eyes that seemed to pierce right through me. Her robes of black and deep red covered her body entirely — only two pale hands peeked out, clasped together at her front.

But the woman’s most striking feature was her hair.

Long black waves hung to her waist — frizzless and shiny — interrupted only by a singular streak of white framing the left side of her face.