Selena's Men (22 page)

Cronus strolled into his throne room satisfied from the bout of amazing sex. He was stopped short by what he saw lying on the large stone slab he had his followers erect to offer sacrifices in order to get his powers back. The small woman radiated power. He could smell the unmistakable scent of the demigods he hated more than any others all over her.

He flashed to the table and was happy to see he’d shocked the little goddess who had been strapped down. She turned her silver eyes toward him, eyes that were so like his son’s he wanted to snap her head off and remove them with his bare hands. A little primitive perhaps, but the urge to kill her passed with the knowledge that he’d get to it soon. He’d learned very quickly to be ruthless in order to survive.

“Hello, sweetheart. How are you this fine evening, or should I say morning?” Cronus said.

“Who the hell are you, and why am I here?” Selena snapped.

“Ah yes! You still have no clue, do you?”

“Quit talking in riddles, old man, and get on with it.”

Cronus narrowed his eyes, unable to believe the way the little bitch talked to him. He sealed her lips with a thought and smiled. He enjoyed how her eyes flew up and collided with his and the fear reflecting back gave him a jolt of much-needed power. Fear was exactly what he wanted to see. He couldn’t wait to see how she looked when her intestines lay outside her body and her blood soaked his floors. He planned to watch it all so he could be sure and send a mental picture to her traitor father, and his whore of a wife.

“That is much better.” He nodded at her sealed mouth. “I will tell you a little story. It’s about a boy who betrays his father and sends him to the one place he thought would hold him. This boy thought he was so smart, but the father will have the last laugh.”

Cronus told Selena how he snatched her from her gilded cradle, right out from under her parents’ noses. He smirked when her eyes widened and tears leaked from the corners of her closed lids. He fed off the misery of others and her misery fueled him like no other.

“You see, my dear, your father banished me to hell, but he never thought to make sure I was secure. He assumed in his
almighty
greatness, that he had defeated me and wiped his hands clean. He turned his back on me and pretended I didn’t exist. Those were the first of many mistakes the ungrateful weasel made. However, the biggest…” Cronus stopped and trailed his bloodred fingernails down her torso, popping the buttons on the man’s shirt she wore, and continued. “The biggest mistake was sending me to Hades’s realm. Now he is a true god, and smart, too. Hades, or son, as I like to call him, knew from the start we couldn’t coexist in the same place. So here I am,” he spread his arms wide.

“
Why are you telling me all this
?” Selena spoke directly into his mind.

Cronus jerked at the voice in his head. “I see you have some of your powers, but not enough to save you.” He nodded in satisfaction. “I have no fear of you or your father. You will be dead long before you can spill my secrets.”

Turning, he focused his red gaze on the man hiding in the corner. “Balky, come,” he snapped, watching as Balky shuffled forward a few steps and waited until he spoke.

“I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t needed before I left,” Balky said.

Cronus tilted his head to the side, and with only a thought brought Balky to stand before him. “Were you listening in on my intimate conversation with my granddaughter?”

“No, Sir.”

“Hmm. Be gone then.” He flicked his finger and sent Balky flying backward and out the doors. He smiled when the man cursed.

“Where was I? Oh yes, I remember. Hades helped me get here,” he gestured at their surroundings. “I found out really fast that being over seven feet tall, people fear you. I fed off that fear. It took me a long time, but I am finally almost at full strength. When I finish with you and I suck your essence out, I will be as strong, if not stronger than before.”

“
I am not scared of you, old man. Where are you going to get the fear to help you power up or whatever
?”

“Ah, my dear child, you are so foolish.” He waved his hand. A mass of people on their knees quaking in fear appeared in the once-empty space. “You see, goddess of the moon, I do not need your fear, when I have all of these people who love and fear me in equal parts. Stupid humans will follow any false god in their quest for salvation. I’ve been feeding off their fear by showing them my powers in little bursts. It’s amazing how people will shake and piss themselves when you rip out the heart of a loved one in front of them.”

“
You are a sick bastard
,” Selena said.

Cronus snarled and jumped on top of the table. The solid surface didn’t even shake at his large frame. He straddled her nearly naked form and whispered, “I could fuck you right here, in front of all these people, and not one would raise a hand to help you.”

Gods help him, but his granddaughter had balls. She didn’t even flinch as he trailed his claw down her stomach and slashed the top completely open. She stared up at him with a defiant look that made him smile, showing her his fangs in the process.

He made sure she saw the image of what humans thought the devil looked like, the way he now looked thanks to her father. With the deep red skin and his black eyes, he made the horror movies look tame. His once long blonde hair had also turned charcoal black, but he let it all feed his hatred. He could change his outward appearance to look however he wanted, flashing from a golden-haired young man to a silver haired old man the next, and still she didn’t show any fear.

“I have no taste for women who reek of the abominations my son created.” Cronus hopped off the table and faced his congregations.

“Welcome, my children. Tonight, you will all be a part of my victory and will reap the benefits of being true to me. Now bow your heads and pray.”

“
You are such a coward. You make yourself look like the devil and make those people believe you will save them. You make me sick.”

Cronus had enough of her and her disrespect. Who the hell did she think she was? He raised the table and as it floated in the air he strapped her wrists and ankles to the corners. He looked on in satisfaction and watched her blood bead up and run down her arms and into the bowl below. His followers gasped at his show of power. Fools, all of them! Their blood and their fear would be raising him up and giving him back what his offspring took from him. If he’d been as strong as before he’d just devour her like he’d done his own children, like he should have done her father, but their time would come. Oh, yes, he’d feast on them all.

He turned his back on his followers. They were all alike, lambs being led to the slaughter. Show them a little miracle, and poof, they panted after you. He held their leashes in the palm of his hand, just as he held their souls. They didn’t know the only place he would be sending them was to hell with Hades. That was the deal, and when Cronus made vows! Well, sometimes he honored them.

He flashed to his bedchamber and saw his creations slept on. They were almost perfect in their physical appearances. It was too bad they were all so stupid. He tapped his chin and reconsidered. No, mindless minions are so much better, he thought, and rubbed his hands together.

* * * *

Selena seethed as the giant spoke of her and her father, or who he said was her father. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what he told her, and if it were true, then she wasn’t just a girl with special abilities. She was a goddess for crying out loud. She tried to stay still and not panic, which was a little difficult since she’d been strapped to a stone table that was now floating over a large freaking bowl collecting her blood.

If she truly were a goddess, then maybe she could get herself out of this mess. Where the hell were Max and Malcolm? With a shudder, she realized they’d probably been killed. She sniffed and willed her tears away. There would be plenty of time to mourn them after she killed the man who claimed to be her grandfather.

Sending a small burst of healing power into her wrists, she sealed the wounds on the inside but left the blood trailing down her arms. The chains bit into the flesh at her ankles, sending jolts of fire up her legs. She concentrated, trying to find her inner strength and relieve the weight on her wrists. Cronus believed she hadn’t come into her powers, and she was glad he seemed to be as arrogant as he accused her father of being. Thinking of her real father, she brought up a mental picture of the god called Zeus. Maybe she should’ve studied him more, but she’d always felt a stronger connection with the goddesses. She thought back to her joining with Max and Malcolm and the yellow glow that had surrounded them. At first, she’d thought it was the lighting from outside or possibly the bursts of lights exploding behind her eyes. Now, she realized they’d awakened the powers within her.

Opening her eyes, Selena looked over the crowd of kneeling people. She wished she could talk, but the big bastard had left her mouth sealed. Several women eyed her with what could only be called envy, and she silently offered to trade spots with them.

“
Hello, Goddess
.”

Selena jolted at the soft voice in her head. She twisted her head back and forth, looking for the speaker, and belatedly realized it was spoken directly into her mind.

“
Don’t look directly at me. I will tell you where to look and what to look for, but don’t let on that we are speaking
,” a lilting voice said. “
I am in the very back with red hair. Don’t look,”
she yelled.

Selena winced at the high-pitched scream and realized she couldn’t lift her eyes to see who spoke anyway.

“
Who or what are you
?” Selena asked.

“
It doesn’t matter who I am, but my name is Jaklyn. I will try to help you, but I fear it is too late
.”

“
Am I still breathing
?” Selena questioned. “
Then it is not too late
.”

Centering herself, she concentrated on breathing and giving the appearance of being defeated. She let her body sag from the chains, nearly screaming at the pain that stabbed into her wrists, but she blocked it. She left her physical body and sighed at the immediate relief of pain as floated toward the back of the large room. A glimmer of power emanated from a woman surrounded by men, a lock of red hair peeking out beneath the hood of her robe. Selena probed her mind and found the one she had been searching for.

“
Very good, goddess, I see you have control of some of your abilities
.”

Selena barely prevented her immediate retreat when the woman spoke into her mind again. “
Do you know how to get out of here
?” Selena asked.

“We wait.”

“What the fuck. That is your plan?”

“Yep, that is the plan.”

“What are we waiting for
?” Selena strained to hear as the silence stretched. She was so focused on listening, she didn’t hear or see when her hair was jerked back and a demon licked the blood from her arm.

“
Get back to your body now, goddess
,” Jaklyn yelled through their link.

With a thought, Selena opened her eyes to see one of the ugliest things she’d ever seen in her entire life. The man-beast had to be at least seven feet tall with knots of flesh all over his body that looked like open wounds. She gagged when he breathed directly into her face, and then inhaled her scent. She wished Cronus would have sealed her nose along with her mouth.

“You smell good,” the beast said.

Too bad Selena couldn’t say the same. The man smelled like ass. Not just ass, but ass that hadn’t been washed in years. Okay, so maybe she’d never actually smelled ass like that, but really, he smelled awful.

She pinned him with her laser-like gaze and waltzed into his tiny little mind. What she found amazed her. He had no thoughts, just orders to capture, hurt or kill. Digging further into his cavernous mind, she found what she’d been looking for. In a far corner she saw him bowing before Cronus, accepting all the god offered, and judging from the size of that thing, her grandpa offered a lot. Gah! A girl should never have to see her grandpa’s manly bits. She fast-forwarded the vision, knowing there wasn’t enough power in the world to scrub her eyes clean.

Through this beast’s eyes, she saw Cronus spend himself all over the beast, which lapped it up like a treat, and then left the man kneeling on the stone floor. Cronus turned and walked over to a large bowl in the center of the room. She couldn’t see what he looked at, but from the satisfied smile on his face that had nothing to do with what he’d just done all over the beast, she assumed it couldn’t be good.

Selena watched as Cronus slapped his hands together and rubbed them in glee like a little child. She wished she could’ve been there with him and shoved his face into the water, or whatever the bowl contained. Fantasizing about what she’d do to the god, she jerked when her chains tightened further. She pulled out of the beast’s mind to see Cronus had returned, and by the looks of him, he had just spent himself again. He shoved the beast away from her, and honestly, she wanted to weep at the fresh air she inhaled.