Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69923 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Are you listening to me?” I headbutted his liver, yanking a grunt out of him. I had a good angle from my position in the back of the cart. “I’m not going!”
“Rhea and Cronus, woman!” Alexander burst out. “What will it take to shut you up?”
I told him I would if he did something filthy and illegal with a donkey.
“Gag her,” he told Castor. “And tie her up at the back of the cart!”
I got in one last headbutt before Castor dragged me over the bags and secured my chains far enough from Alexander Jackass. That was his surname and legacy, no matter what anyone told me.
“Why do you think she hasn’t tried to escape?” Castor asked the guys. “We’ve witnessed her power. Why doesn’t she use it?”
“My guess is she’s a daughter of Ares,” Alexander replied. I fumed at the way they spoke about me like I wasn’t sitting right there. “You know they can only use their powers under specific circumstances. Like if that hand you have on her hip goes any lower.”
Castor flung away like I burned. “An accident. I’d never try anything on with a traitor.”
It was an accident. His hand ended up there when he was wrestling me to the wood. He didn’t notice in the midst of his conversation. What did surprise me was that Alexander both noticed and bothered to warn him off touching me inappropriately. Maybe I didn’t imagine that moment between us when our gazes locked in that dirty cell.
He did know what Nico tried to do to me, and not only did he approve. He was impressed.
So impressed he’s sentencing me to another kind of prison to uphold a law that should be abolished. Yeah, he can still go fuck a donkey.
I appreciated what the army did to protect us all and our way of life. But now that I knew what it was—what it felt like to kill against my will, I never understood the deserters more. A life where you don’t get to choose... isn’t any kind of life at all.
“It’s also likely,” Jason put in, “that she’s counted up the odds against her and made the wise choice.”
Pushing myself up, I glowered at the source of his comment. Jason said it wasn’t safe for them to transport me three against one wild card, and the man wasn’t one for idle remarks. That morning when Alexander checked me out of the inn, we walked outside to the twenty-man escort waiting to take little old me to Deucalion Academy.
How badly I wanted to shout that I wasn’t dangerous. But of course that was the furthest thing from the truth.
I kicked the bag filled with my required items. Alexander took great pleasure in describing my course schedule too. Lots of training, fighting, and learning to kill in the most brutal institution of all the dominions. One flash of fear and an opponent would see talons where my fingernails should be. One well-timed “boo!” and huge beast eyes would glare at my scarer.
They would see something they weren’t supposed to. They would ask questions they shouldn’t. And the goddess would make me kill them.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” I shouted through my gag. “Please, let me go!”
“What was that?” Alexander cupped his ear. “Speak up, Aella. Can’t quite hear you.”
I kicked the bag, imagining it was his head. Was there a worse man alive than Alexander Jackass?
“Just relax,” he called back. “Enjoy the view.”
I flipped on my back to make sure my obscene gesture pointed where it was meant. I got a chuckle for my troubles.
Screaming in frustration, I threw myself against the cart and gave in to my surroundings. Let one thing be said about my home, there was no part of Olympia that wasn’t beautiful. According to long-ago tales from my mother, the reason there were so few children of Demeter was because the goddess chose to scatter herself among the dancing trees, fields of grain, and each petal of sweet-smelling flowers. She’d make roses, daisies, and chrysanthemums rain in my tiny, cramped room as she told me that’s why every blade of grass was vibrant with life. They were touched by a goddess.
I could believe it as we rumbled down the dirt path. The leaves swirling in the wind were greener than green. One look evoked lily pads floating on a clear stream; the first cut into a juicy, ripe avocado sailed from the island where they grew; the shore lapping at your toes; snow dripping off stems.
Alexander’s eyes.
I jerked at the sudden intrusive thought, a frown marring my lips. Where had that come from?
“...is the way...” Voices floated on the air. “...say no...”
I raised my head, and there it was, shining on the horizon. My prison: Deucalion Academy.
Though, I don’t think anyone who wasn’t forced through the gates would see it that way. I wasn’t gazing at a schoolhouse the likes of which I remembered—a little stone hut with no windows, creaky desks, and a teacher who didn’t care to stop scratching his butt in our eyeline when he turned to write on the board.