The air between us felt too thin, charged with a static that made my skin itch. I hated that his offer tempted me. “I don’t drink with crashing Alphas. Enjoy the view, Lord Stormwright. Alone.”
Without allowing him to answer, I turned on my heel and walked away. It took everything I had not to run. I forced my legs to move in a rhythm that screamed ‘indifference’ rather than ‘flight’, counting every step until I reached the elevator.
I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I could feel his gaze on my spine, a brand burning through the silk of my dress.
He didn’t tell me to stop. He didn’t call out to me. But when I stepped into the elevator, I found myself looking back at him. Our eyes met. And something dark and twisted landed in my gut. I knew right then and there that this wasn’t over.
2
Clouded with Wine
Alexander
There was nothing quite like the parties thrown by House Poseidon. A mix of orgiastic nonsense and underhanded politics, they were the place to be for anyone involved in the Olympian Houses. They should have been off-limits to any Alpha. But in his territory, Orion Maris did what he wanted. And what he wanted, apparently, was to have House Zeus as his guests.
Fortunately, we weren’t required to participate in his exorbitant bash. The moment our helicopter landed, there was already staff waiting to guide us inside. As expected of the head of House Poseidon.
Before I could leave the helicopter, Nikos’s hand landed on my arm. “Are you sure about this, Alexander? This is Orion Maris we’re talking about. Can we really trust him?”
If anyone but Nikos had asked that, I’d have dismissed the question. But this was my brother. He was the one man I trusted with my life, my anchor in the constant storm of our existence.
“We can’t,” I replied. “That’s why we’re here. Trust has nothing to do with it. This is about mutual interest.”
“His interests change with the tides.” Nikos curled his lip in a tight grimace. “He’s too unpredictable.”
“So are we,” I shot back with a smile.
He smiled back and nodded. In House Zeus, half-siblings were usually rivals, sharpening their knives on each other from birth. But Nikos had never cared for the throne. He cared for order, for strength, and for me. That was our best weapon and something no other house leader had.
Nikos shoved the helicopter doors open and stepped out. Him first, as he always preferred, when my safety was presumably at risk. He took his role as head of my security seriously.
But I’d never been one to let anyone take chances in my place. I followed him only seconds after. As my feet hit the tarmac, Orion’s staff shot into motion. A man in a crisp blue uniform emerged from the waiting group. He stopped a respectful five feet away and gave a sharp, clean bow.
“Lord Stormwright. Lord Maris is ready for you.”
The aide turned and led us away from the helicopter deck. We passed through a set of sliding glass doors and into an impossibly white corridor. The chaotic thrum of the party vanished, replaced by a sudden, pressurized silence. Even the aide’s footsteps seemed quiet now. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d have said it was on purpose. After all, neither the ocean nor the storm was ever quiet.
The aide stopped at a heavy, soundproofed door and gestured for us to enter. He did not follow us inside. The door hissed shut behind us, sealing us in.
The first thing I saw was the light. It pulsed from the center of the room, a soft, internal glow emanating from a suspended sphere of smoky quartz. Inside it, constellations of light swirled and shifted. It was a live data feed. Hephaestus-tech, but a custom build. I had one of my own, back in New York, but nothing quite so advanced. No doubt, House Poseidon needed a little something extra, isolated as they were in the middle of the ocean.
“Alexander. Nikos.” Orion stood on the far side of the sphere, his silhouette fractured by the swirling light. “How nice to have two sons of House Zeus on theOdyssey. Welcome to my little corner of the world. Whiskey?”
I knew better than to appreciate Orion’s acknowledgment of Nikos. To people like him, everything was a weapon. Especially ancestry. But I couldn’t let him get to me.
“I appreciate the offer, Orion.” I moved to stand opposite him, the data sphere pulsing between us. “But I think we both know you didn’t invite me here for the quality of your liquor.”
A small, appreciative smile touched Orion’s lips as he turned to face me. “No. I didn’t. I invited you because the pond is getting crowded, and some of the fish are growing teeth.”
He swept his hand toward the sphere. A set of brilliant stars swirled inside it in an almost panicked rhythm. To the right, a growing cluster of smaller, dimmer stars began to move. They were merging their individual glows into a new, brighter nebula.
“The Alpha Houses have held power for millennia. But no longer. The other Olympian Houses are moving.”
“This isn’t anything new,” I replied. “House Athena has been a locked box for a decade. And Aphrodite answers to no one.”
“We all answer to the same exact thing, and that’s power. Both of you know that very well. And some power… just refuses to be controlled.”
I stared at the one part of the sphere that held no light at all. A patch of absolute darkness. A gravity well that seemed to pull at the nearby lights, absorbing them without emitting anything in return. A void.