“And where were you when this jailbreak occurred?” Chaos leans back in his cushy desk chair, staring idly out at the enormous fountain in front of the casino. The light and water show is in full swing beyond the windows, and he’s fixated on it. It’s almost as if he’s bored by my news that four of the most dangerous creatures in existence have liberated themselves from my custody.
“I was here at the Pandemonium, where I always am. You already know this. And I wasn’t aware of the breach because the casino’s security demanded most of my attention last night.”
“Hmm,” he murmurs, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. How he manages to sound judgmental in a single syllable is beyond me. “Are your guards not pulling their weight? Typhon alone should be able to handle an unruly Titan or two.”
I grit my teeth. “Typhon is still recovering from the last mission you sent us on, in case you’ve forgotten.” The arms of the chair creak under my tightening grip, and it’s all I can do not to critique Chaos’ demands that led us into that fight to begin with. His power might extend to every corner of existence, but Chaos himself lives in his own little bubble. Nothing seems to matter to him beyond his unending rivalry with Fate, and when he isn’t obsessing over that, he fixates on the workings of the casino and his relationship with his new bride.
“Which you failed,” he says, barely turning his head to glance at me. He idly reaches out to the bowl of foil-wrapped chocolates on one side of his desk, unwraps one, and pops it into his mouth. The foil flutters to the surface of his desk to join a loose pile of previous wrappers that have accumulated like autumn leaves on top of his blotter.
A dozen retorts boil up to the tip of my tongue, only a few of them from my own mind. I hold them all back, opting to change the subject. “Pan attempted to hold them back, but wasn’t a match for all four. He lost his horns in the process.”
Chaos gives a slight nod as he slowly chews his candy, then swallows and shifts his attention out a different window, to the rooftop patio that adjoins both his office and his penthouse apartment next door. His mate, Sybil, is relaxing in a bikini on a floating lounge chair in the pool, the bright Nevada sun glinting off her translucent wet skin. One leg trails into the water, but the leg doesn’t end in a foot—instead a tentacle-like tail extends several feet down from her knee, slowly rotating to propel her in a lazy circle around the surface of the water.
“You should probably go after them,” Chaos says distractedly.
No shit.
“Sir, I think we need to consider the possibility of a different kind of breach. The prison should be impenetrable. Something weakened the doors. There are signs of fate magic at work.”
His head snaps around so fast my vision swims when he pins me with a look. “What did you say?” His very voice resonates deep inside my mind, and all the guards lurking with their ears to the door of this conversation stagger back and disappear from my awareness.
Fucking hell. I wanted his attention, but I never want this level of attention from my maker. It’s painful when Chaos focuses his attention entirely on you even for a second.
But the cat is out of the bag. “Fate, sir. Ever since you ordered me to go after Andrew Vincent when we caught him counting cards three years ago, things have been off. Typhon is still out of commission, so I’m short-staffed, and… well, I don’t want to discount the possibility that that fight on Bear Island just riled Fate up even more, even though we lost. That Fate might be trying to get under your skin.”
And Fate’s getting to Chaos by getting under my skin. The problem is, even knowing this is probably what’s happening, I can’t stop thinking about Nemea. Fate and Chaos have been at odds since the beginning of time, but their grudge match has reached new heights within the past several years. Meanwhile, everyone in the world gets caught in their tangled mess.
I used to believe I was immune. Chaos made me, after all; surely that made me strong enough to avoid Fate’s meddling. The guy is still in complete denial about how he managed to get hooked up with Sybil, though. Fate may not have directly chosen the primordial demigoddess whose hip Chaos has been attached to for nearly four years now, but the goddess we fought on that island was directly involved, which means fate magic brought the pair together.
“Fate magic,” I repeat. “Shit’s been happening that can’t be explained any other way. If you’re not doing it, then we can’t rule out that Fate is involved.”
“Fate.” The word drips like acid off his tongue, another resonant vibration accompanying it that makes goosebumps rise on my skin. I clench my teeth, holding his steady glare. “And how, pray tell, do you think I could have missed such an offense occurring in my own domain?”
I blink at him, stunned by his obtuseness, then glance past his shoulder through the window that overlooks his pool. Sybil is still slowly floating around, a cocktail in one hand with a straw to her lips. Her other hand applies sunscreen to her exposed, green-tinged skin while a second tentacle holds a book in front of her face. I’m not about to outright accuse my own maker of being oblivious, but the evidence speaks for itself.
Or it should, anyway.
A blur of expensive suit rounds the desk and my chair tips, landing so hard on the floor air rushes from my lungs. I can’t take in another breath because his hand is wrapped around my throat, pinning me to the plush carpet.
“You would be wise not to speak ill of my mate.”
My eyebrows lift and I manage to rasp out a rough, “Fate magic at work. ‘S all I’m saying.”
Maybe I’m a fool, but if I’m right about this hunch, I need to go find Fate and get some answers, which I’m not about to do without my boss’ leave. I’m not afraid to speak my mind around him, but going against his wishes is entirely different.
Half a dozen voices clamor inside my head in irritation while my vision grows darker. “Tell him about Nemea and he’ll believe you,” Pan says.
“Never. He’s the last person we should tell about her.”
“He can help us protect her,” he insists.
“He’ll just try to use her against Fate if he knows.”
Pan has no response to that, because he knows I’m right—the escaped Titans would drop in priority if Chaos thought he had a way to put one over on Fate for once.
I struggle to remain conscious, continuing to stare him down, but this is a game I will never win. His irises split into shards that fly into a void, sucking me in. The world falls away, leaving me spinning into the very void whence I originated.
When I finally manage to snap back into my body, I’m standing in a different part of the office with a chocolatey sweet taste coating my tongue and a belch that tastes of cinnamon liquor burning its way up my aching throat. Sybil has moved to a chaise beside the pool and is flipping through a magazine, the sun having advanced across the sky far enough to cast a little shade beneath the umbrellas. It’s been at least an hour since I arrived, but I only remember fifteen minutes of the visit.
“What the fuck did you assholes do?” I gripe to the entities in residence in my head, aiming most of my ire at Pan.
“You never let us have a say. Can you blame us for taking over? The faun was right,” Chrysaor says. The murmurs of agreement from the others sound like bees buzzing at the back of my skull.
“Fuck. Don’t listen to them,” I mutter.
Chaos chuckles and I turn, finding him relaxed on the leather sofa behind me, all the way across the office from his desk, with an ankle propped on one knee. “My discussion with them was quite illuminating. I want you to bring her to me.”
I clench my teeth. “No.”
“It took some effort to get them to stop bickering, but once they did, we managed to get to the heart of things. I believe you may be right about Fate, if what your guards say is true. You were able to breach Bear Island’s protective barrier with ease because she summoned you. But whether Fate had a hand in the Titans’ escape is immaterial. Whatever she is, Nemea is part of the battle now, so I intend to take advantage of whatever she represents, fated or not. You will bring her to me where I can control what effect she has on this development, either by neutralizing her or turning her into another weapon in my arsenal. Tipping the balance, as it were. Meanwhile, you need to return to your guards and work on becoming a more cohesive team so you can prevail in the coming fight.”
I’m too angry to question whether he’s talking about fighting the Titans, or Fate themselves. I restrain my urge to vocally object. I won’t show my cards, but over my rotting corpse will I simply hand Nemea over to him.
I tap my temple. “We have cohesion. My guards are all right up here. We couldn’t be any more fucking cohesive.”
He lifts an eyebrow and taps on his raised knee. “You missed Hyperion and his brothers’ escape. You aren’t attuned enough to what goes on inside your own head, Vesh. In the human world, that would call for therapy. But I know you’re not likely to agree to go talk to someone, so I’m ordering you to bring the girl to me so I can determine for myself whether she’s any threat. That way if she is, I can ensure we use her to our advantage. And perhaps she’ll serve as incentive for you to get your head on straight.”
We engage in another staring match until I turn away before he can suck me under again. But I know better than to agree to anything. The second Nemea leaves the island, she’ll be at risk, especially if I bring her here. The one saving grace is that Chaos knows he can’t just go get her, otherwise he would. Bear Island is as off-limits to him as it should have been to me and Pan.
“We need to have a serious discussion about boundaries,” I say to the hooligans in my head as I head back to my apartment.
“He’s right, and you know it,” Pan says. “What do you even remember about that night? I can tell you exactly where I was, and where I wound up after. Where were you?”
I was at the Pandemonium, of course, the massive resort casino in Las Vegas which is the seat of power for one of the strongest primordials in existence. It’s a far cry from the gambling dens in Greece during the early days of my service to Chaos, but it stretches me thin to handle security for the place, even with the help of the others. We can’t be everywhere at once, so the casino is typically staffed with either human or higher races security, and I only pull out the powers of Tartarus in emergencies.
But two nights ago, we had a particularly belligerent dragon shifter who refused to be subdued after hitting the free flowing drinks and the craps table for about twelve hours straight. Despite his slight build, he proved too much for the normal guards, and since Typhon is still recuperating, I didn’t want to call on the prison guards to help and risk leaving the prison too lightly guarded.
None of the prison’s other staff besides can leave their posts for more than the briefest of breaks to take over. The Titans may be the most dangerous of the inmates, but there are others who come close, including a fifth Titan who was given his own dedicated cell and punishment after a particularly egregious slight to the gods eons ago.
I had no reason to expect I’d need any help with a single unruly dragon. He wasn’t even a red one, who are known for their tempers and ability to rile up a crowd. In fact, I believe he was purple, which is a color normally reserved for female dragons. My recollection after the fact makes me doubt the events right down to the gender of the creature I had to subdue, and my head throbs with the effort of remembering. He—or she, or they—were in their human form, with a cocky smile and wild purple hair. The dice had come up box cars for the sixth time in a row when I made it down to the floor to escort them out. After exiting, they took a swing at me, and the next thing I remembered was waking up face-down in the fountain, several human staff frantically trying to drag me out of the water.
I knew better than to blame the dragon for the blackout. I don’t black out, for one thing. Nothing—literally nothing in the mortal world—can lay me out like that. It takes the power of a god, or a primordial like Chaos himself, to do that kind of damage, and since we hadn’t clocked any gods visiting the Pandemonium that night, that left the likelihood of the damage coming from inside my head.
And of course once Typhon’s calls got through and I delved inward to investigate, I discovered my remaining guards embroiled in a battle like I haven’t seen since that fateful night on Bear Island.
Would I have withstood it if I’d been more attuned to the others? I have no idea. Most of them are more nuisance than they’re any help lately. But I suppose I’ve grown complacent over the years working security in an establishment largely frequented by mortals. As for the prison, it pretty much runs itself, leaving my team and I to simply oversee that things don’t change. It takes very little actual effort to stay on top of things, and the mortal guards of the Pandemonium are paid well enough to handle most issues, so I’ve enjoyed my solitude.
But that’s no longer enough. I let down my guard, and so did the others, and now we have to pick up the pieces.
What’s worse is that I gave into the carnal need that overtook me when Typhon and I tracked down Pan and found him balls-deep in that woman, a woman whose entire essence matched my ideal so perfectly I didn’t even hesitate to take her.
In all the eons of my existence, it has never once occurred to me that I could have a mate. I’m not the kind of creature that gets to find love, much less a partner who makes sense. But if Chaos can find one, doesn’t it stand to reason that I could too?
And for that matter, all the misfits and outcasts that I share mental space with?
“Get out of my head, you guys,” I snap when that last errant thought crosses my mind—a thought that did not come from me.
“We’re kind of trapped in here. You know this, boss,” Asterius says.
“But we agree with you,” Chrysaor adds. “And we agree with Chaos. We want to meet her.”
“She isn’t yours.”
The thought escapes before I can rein it in. They don’t exactly respond, but I receive an impression of mixed irritation and displeasure, of betrayal and dejectedness, and eventually Campe responds with, “Fuck you, I’ll be the judge of who is for me and who isn’t. Besides, it’d be pretty fucking difficult if our mates were nine different people. One just simplifies things so much, don’t you think?”
“Why in the world would you want to share?” I ask out loud, even though I’ve already accepted the fact that Nemea is likely fated for both me and Pan, and Typhon too, since both Typhon and I were allowed through the barrier to retrieve the missing satyr. I’m not so insensitive as to suggest that it’s foolish for them to even think they could have mates when it’s as surprising to me as it is to anyone. Plus, Alcides seems convinced she’s meant for him simply by virtue of her name. “If I bring her to him, your chances of ever meeting her disappear.”
They back off at that, and I am vaguely aware of more subdued conferring going on between them. I could listen in, but I’m too irritated to focus on them.
Fate’s fingerprints are all over this, but I’m honestly relieved that Chaos’ request precludes me from meeting with his rival. I still reject his alternative of bringing Nemea to him for safe keeping. There has to be a better, safer option for her. Leaving her on the island made sense, but now that he knows about her I’m not so sure. If she’s strong enough to draw two gods to her, I can’t discount the possibility she could draw something worse to her if she tries again.
“There is one place that’s safer,” Asterius murmurs. “One place where she will be well-guarded, and the one place you know neither the Titans nor Chaos will visit.”
The one place only I control.