CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Pet
When Ares is fast asleep, I slide from the bed and throw on my robe. After softly padding downstairs, I search the house for Hermes. I find him by the indoor pool, getting high, or drunk, or both. He’s so different from the man I’d come to know in the house and at The Ranch. Gone are his tailored suits, his slicked back hair, and cleanly shaven face. Instead, he’s sporting scruff, his hair has been left to curl in an unruly state, and his face is hard in the moonlight.
I enter the room. The huge windows overlook the gardens, and moonlight spills through the stained-glass roof. The scent of weed hangs heavily in the air, and the sweet smell tickles my sinuses. I’ve don’t remember doing drugs. From what D told me, I hardly ever drank. My career never allowed for either, and I have no doubt I was ambitious enough to ensure that never happened.
“What the fuck do you want?”
“A minute.” My voice tremors. I clear it and take several steps closer. “That’s all.”
“You have thirty seconds.”
“I know about Athena. I know all about your plans to sell me to Vladik.”
“Don’t you know, little mouse,” he says through his teeth, “the best-laid plans are often ruined when your captive is set free and you’re betrayed by your own fucking brother.”
“I can’t speak for him. I still don’t know why exactly he put me through all of that only to let me go, and he’d probably punish me for being down here—”
“Ten seconds.” Hermes raises his arm and looks at his wristwatch, but it’s no longer attached to his arm. I follow his gaze and find the gold timepiece sitting at the bottom of the pool, along with his shoes.
I sit beside him, ignoring the way my skin prickles with the desire to run. “I want to help.”
He laughs humorlessly. “And how exactly do you plan to help, little mouse?”
“I want you to sell me to Vladik.”
This time he does laugh. He loses it. I take the joint from his hands and put it to my lips, drawing in a huge puff of smoke that burns my lungs. I cough and splutter, almost dropping the marijuana in the pool. He yanks on my arm and pulls me closer. I gasp. Hermes doesn’t let me go, he grips my bicep tightly.Too tight. My muscles ache and burn beneath his touch as he leans into my face. “I’m warning you right now, if you’re fucking with me so help me, Hades, I will drown you in this goddamn pool before you can blink.”
“I’m not fucking with you.”
“Bullshit.” He releases my arm but snatches the joint. “Why are you here?”
“I told you. I want to help.”
“You don’t even know her.” Hermes takes a long draw on the smoke, holding his breath. When he finally releases it, he says, “Why would you agree to be sold to help a woman you’ve never met?”
“Let’s just say I know something about being captive. People shouldn’t be locked in cages.” I glance up at the stained-glass throwing refracted light all around the room. “Even gilded ones.”
“If you hate it so much, then why did you come back?”
“Because I love him,” I answer without pause. “Because I had no choice, and even if I did, he would have taken me anyway.”
He hands me the smoke again, and I take a long, deep draw. It fills my lungs, setting them alight as surely as fire burns through dry leaves.
I cough and beat my chest. Hermes laughs again and snatches the spliff from me. “I still don’t know why you’d be willing to help me.”
“I’m not helping you. I’m not even doing it for Ares. I’m doing it for her.”
“You realize you’re going to get fucked, right? Every day, sometimes more than once, Vladik will shove his putrid Russian dick in your ass and rape you until you bleed.”