They were wrong.
I didn’t want to be suppressed. I didn’t want to be contained or controlled or fixed. I wanted to be free, actually free, making my own choices and living with their consequences. If no one would give me that freedom, I would take it for myself.
I closed my eyes again and let the garden’s warmth seep into my tired bones. My mother planned to transfer me to House Hades at the end of the week. Everyone who claimed to love me had agreed that this was the best possible outcome.
I intended to be gone long before they could make good on that plan. I didn’t know how, not yet, but somehow, I would escape.
19
The Strait of Messina
Alexander
Many times, when I looked at the reports about all the Olympian Houses, I thought all of it was a joke.“We’re all the playthings of the gods,”Nikos had told me once, and I’d secretly agreed.
But I’d never felt it more keenly than I did today. The head of House Zeus, reduced to a mere escort. Unable to help his own soulmate and instead delivering her to another Alpha.
It would have been humiliating if it hadn’t hurt so much. But I’d known, when I agreed to this, that there was no other solution. Damon Blackwood’s logic was sound, even if every cell in my body rebelled against it. His shadow power was able to dampen the curse in ways my presence never would. House Zeus’s auradidn’t suppress the curse. It fed it. House Hades was the only that could help her.
So here I was. On a House Zeus charter over the Mediterranean, flying my mate from Samos to House Hades territory. Once we arrived in the United States, Elara Blackwood would be waiting at a private airstrip to take custody of the woman I loved. I’d do everything I could to keep Andie safe, even if that meant handing her to someone else.
Helena had chosen the seating arrangement on the plane. She’d put Andromeda in the forward cabin, herself in the adjacent seat, and me in the rear. We were separated by ten feet of aisle and a silence that weighed more than the aircraft. It was the right call. Every foot of distance between my mate and me was a foot less pressure on the curse.
The plane was a House Zeus model, built for Alphas who couldn’t always contain their power. Hephaestus-forged alloys, capable of absorbing and redirecting electrical discharge without frying navigation systems, lined the hull. The cabin lights ran on shielded circuits. It was the safest aircraft in the world for someone like me, and it still felt like a cage.
“So.” Andromeda’s voice carried from the forward section, aimed at the window rather than at anyone in particular. “How long until we reach House Hades territory?”
For the most part, she’d been quiet since Helena had told her the plan. I hated it. I almost wished she were kicking and clawing at me again. It would have been better than… this.
Helena smoothed the hem of her dress over her knee. “The trip will take ten hours, give or take. Elara will meet us at the airstrip.”
“Elara.” Andromeda repeated the name as if she were testing its weight. “The cousin. The one who volunteered to babysit me.”
“The one who offered to help,” Helena corrected gently.
“Right. Help.” Andromeda finally turned, and her gaze skipped past her mother and landed on me. “At least we’ll finally be free of each other, isn’t that right, Stormwright? You must be relieved.”
I held her stare. The pomegranate-and-white-tea scent of her filled the cabin despite the air filtration. It was threaded with the acrid burn of the curse reacting to my mere existence.
“I’m not relieved,” I said.
“No?” She arched an eyebrow. “You should be. Once this is done, you can go back to running House Zeus. You’ll no longer be inconvenienced by a broken Omega dragging down your reputation.”
Helena put her hand on Andromeda’s arm. “Andie. That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it, Mother?” The edge in her voice sharpened, but she didn’t pull away from Helena’s touch. “Because from whereI’m sitting, it looks like everyone on this plane agreed that I’m too much trouble to keep.”
“No one said that,” I told her.
“You didn’t have to.” She turned back to the window. The Mediterranean stretched below, painfully blue. “Does this arrangement mean I can at least go back to my business? Or is Elara going to lock me in a shadow dungeon and call it therapy?”
“You’ll have your life back,” Helena said. “Your apartment. Your work. Elara will be nearby, not hovering over you. That’s the whole point.”
Andie laughed, a short, bitten-off sound that held no humor at all. “My life. My life was planning weddings and paying rent and having dinner with my fathers on Sundays. Not collars and curses and being shipped across the Atlantic to live under a stranger’s claim.”
“Elara isn’t a stranger,” Helena argued. “I’ve known her for years. She’s competent, she’s decent, and she won’t—”
“Won’t what?” Andie cut her mother off. “Won’t hurt me? Won’t trap me? Won’t make me feel like my own body is trying to eat me alive?” Her shoulders were rigid under the thin fabric of her blouse. “You don’t get to tell me what she won’t do, Mother. Not when everything you’ve ever told me has been a lie.”