Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95458 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 477(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 318(@300wpm)
“So dramatic.” His dark-brown eyes are alight with amusement. “I’m not tossing you in the river, Atalanta. I’m taking you to the underside of Cypress Bridge. There’s a walkway under there. It’s only for maintenance, and it’s not like crossing the river has been a regular occurrence even before the barrier solidified, so no one should know about it to watch for you. Follow it to the other side of the river and you’ll find a path up. It’s a little tricky, but nothing you can’t handle.”
I’m not sure I believe him, and it’s a testament to just what a dick he is that he didn’t tell me the plan before letting me jump to conclusions, but I don’t have any other options.
I help him launch the boat and climb in. I wasn’t given a coat after they bandaged me up again, and the wind feels like shards of ice slicing into me. I huddle in an effort to escape it. “You know, this season always makes me wish I lived somewhere warm all year round. Fuck the cold.”
“I find it invigorating.” He seems like it, too, his cheeks pinked in the cold, his eyes bright. “Keeps me sharp.”
“If you say so.”
He cuts through the water, the motor damn near silent. It’s hard to gauge the time of day with the cloud cover, but I think it’s nearing dark. There’s no one around to see us as we veer up the river toward Cypress Bridge.
Despite my doubts, there actually is a small, grated platform with a ladder leading up to a walkway that runs the length of the bridge. It’s rusted and looks less than sturdy, but it’s better than the alternative.
Achilles shrugs out of his coat and tosses it to me. “You won’t find a stash of weapons in Briseis’s place, but it should be safe enough.” He rattles off an address on the outskirts of the upper warehouse district. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” I pull the coat on, the leftover warmth from his body already beating back the worst of the chill. The insulation will do the rest. I step carefully onto the platform and pause. “Achilles?”
“Yeah?” His tone is a study in casual.
Suspicion takes root. I frown down at him. “How much trouble are you going to be in for helping me?”
“Hopefully none at all.” He grins. “But if there is trouble, we’re more than capable of handling it.”
The surge of warmth in my chest staggers me. I don’t know these people, not really, but I like what I do know of them. I just hadn’t realized they felt the same way. “Hades is going to be furious.”
“Probably.” He almost sounds like he relishes the incoming argument. “Like I said, we can handle it.”
“Thank you. To all three of you.”
“Thank us by staying alive.” He pushes the boat back from the platform. “Good luck, Atalanta.”
I watch as he turns and heads back downstream, disappearing in short order around the curve of the river. After so many years of functioning on my own, with only Hecate as relief from the loneliness, it’s odd to discover there are actually people I care about in this city beyond her. People who seem to care about me, too. It won’t matter in the long run; it changes nothing. The realization feels monumental all the same.
“Time to move,” I mutter. I turn to the ladder, blow on my hands to put some feeling back in my fingertips, and begin to climb.
Interlude 2
Persephone
“You need to rest.”
I turn to face my husband, the love of my life, the best man I’ve ever known. “You first.”
Hades grimaces. “We still haven’t found Circe’s people in the lower city. And there’s the woman herself to deal with once that’s done. I’ll rest when the lower city is safe.”
“Exactly.”
He huffs out a breath. “I’m not pregnant with twins.”
I press my hands to my stomach instinctively. I’m not far enough along to feel the babies move. They aren’t even really babies yet, but the love I already feel for them goes beyond measure. It has my chest trying to close, my throat burning, a sensation as deep and uncomfortable as fury. This entire experience would be fraught enough to navigate with my husband’s overreactions to anything resembling a threat to me and the pregnancy without there being a very real and present threat to both.
Hades presses himself to my back and wraps his arms around me, his hands resting gently over mine. “Promise me you’ll stay in the house while I’m out today.”
I hate this. I hate even more that I don’t have a good reason to deny him. My husband isn’t the one putting me in a cage currently—Circe is. “Being in the house didn’t stop her from sending pictures from her snipers to Callisto. It didn’t stop her people from attacking the club.”