Thanos (Masters Among Monsters Book 3)

  What is it about that asshole? It wasn’t as if he liked the guy. Hell, the entire time they were in the same breathing space—well, my breathing space—they were going at it head to head. Fighting to one-up each other. Yet here he was with a raging hard-on from thinking about the vampire’s fierce protective streak and the way he’d fought and killed those guards and prince with something akin to orgasmic pleasure.

  Fuck. Yeah, something was definitely going on with him. He shut his eyes and took in a much-needed breath, resting his head back against the wall and letting the calm wash over him. Ever since he’d arrived here, he’d been dealt one shock after another, and while most of what he’d encountered had been anticipated, this one most certainly had not.

  “Elias Fontana…”

  The voice that floated through his subconscious had his shoulders stiffening and his cock deflating in an instant as he struggled to open his eyes. But as with all contact with his goddess, he was trapped there until she was done with him, and for the first time since he’d learned of her, she was…unwelcome.

  “Oh, Elias, how you disappoint me.”

  Likewise, huntress, he thought, searching his mind for her, trying to see she who called herself Artemis.

  “You have strayed, my warrior. Far, far off course. You are slipping—changing. You are questioning yourself.”

  Questioning you, don’t you mean, he thought, and heard her laugh trill through the air around him.

  “Yes. That is exactly what I mean. You know how this is to play out. You have known for years. Yet now you seek to change the outcome. You have begun to question your role.”

  Silence engulfed the space surrounding him, and Elias’s pulse hammered at the base of his throat. Where was she? Had she already gone? But the gooseflesh on his arms told him otherwise. He was still within her presence.

  “You are mine, Elias Fontana. Not theirs. You would be wise to remember this. Remember your purpose.”

  Then show yourself, he thought. Show me who I am fighting for.

  And just like that, she was there, directly within his line of sight. Elias caught and held his breath as her image became clear and the dark tresses flowing out from under a heavy brass galea led no doubt in his mind that this was his huntress—Artemis.

  Her flawlessly sculpted face was only inches from his own as she raised a hand and traced her fingers along his jawline. Elias let his breath out in a hard whoosh as his eyes lowered down her silk chiton that was held in place on each shoulder by broaches made of the same brass as her helmet.

  Her skin was like porcelain, her hair black as night, just as his own. And he knew with complete certainty he was looking at the one from which he’d descended.

  “You should be fighting for yourself, Elias. To rid humanity of the monsters who walk among them. But if you need someone to fight for, I am happy to be she.”

  He struggled to remember the female who’d left him only seconds ago, Isadora, and the Ancient who’d become so intriguing, as he stared into the silver eyes currently locked with his.

  You lied to me, he thought. You said they were monsters, incapable of kindness.

  “They are monsters—”

  Elias shook his head. No. No more than any man. They hunt to survive. But between the ones I have seen, there has been kindness. You failed to mention that in your grand scheme.

  That silver stare of hers narrowed but never wavered from his face as she shoved into his mind, “Perhaps you are not seeing things for what they are. Your view has been somewhat skewed by your emotions. But it is time. Time for you to see why you have been sent. Why the three of you are needed. Remember, when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

  Did she really just quote Nietzsche to me?

  “I did. Take care of yourself, Elias, for nobody else shall. And your faith is about to be tested.”

  As she vanished from sight, the world righted itself again and he was back in Diomêdês’s chambers. But before he could take a step in the direction of the bathroom, to go to Isadora so she would not suspect anything out of the norm, the air around him vibrated and distorted, and less than a second later another entered the room he was standing in. A vampire he’d only seen once before—at his trial.

  It was the third Ancient, Eton.

  Sire to Thanos, whom he had come close to killing.

  And suddenly Elias could see the dark abyss Artemis had talked of in the vampire’s obsidian eyes.

  ISADORA WAS ABOUT to step under the warm spray of the shower when she felt the energy inside the chambers shift. Diomêdês must’ve returned sooner than he expected. She’d been concerned when her Ancient had left her minutes earlier. He’d looked troubled, and she could tell something heavy had been weighing on him, otherwise he never would’ve left her so soon with Elias. Not unless he absolutely had to. There was still too much unknown about the male they’d had in their bed the night before.

  From all outward appearances, it seemed Elias was no longer a threat to herself and Diomêdês—but the others? She wasn’t convinced Elias felt any hesitation at ending any of them. Or at least making them suffer. He’d been so set in his convictions that she very much doubted one night in her bed would’ve changed his mind. But perhaps if she showed him the other side, made him doubt those convictions some, he would be less willing to hurt them. Any of them.

  A paralyzing growl tore through the air, and any thoughts she may have had that Diomêdês was the one who’d entered the chambers vanished. The viciousness of the sound had the hair on her arms standing on end, and knowing there was no time to walk from one room to the other, Isadora faded, fully clothed, into the living space of the chambers—and when she appeared, what she saw just about knocked her on her ass.

  Eton was now in the room with her and Elias, but it wasn’t the handsome young Ancient she was accustomed to seeing. She could smell the acrid bitterness of blood on Thanos’s sire, and see the stain of it up his arms and on the sleeves of his shirt. But what were most alarming were Eton’s hands. His fingers were crooked, bent and twisted at painful angles, and the nails protruding from them were more like claws than the usual nails of their kind. He had Elias caged against one of the chamber walls, and his body heaved with aggression and fury.

  From where she was standing, she could see muscles rippling just beneath Eton’s shirt, and she desperately tried to stay calm as he lowered his head and snapped his teeth by Elias’s jaw.

  She tried to think of the best course of action, but was finding it difficult to focus on anything other than the immediate danger in front of her. She’d seen the Ancients when angered or upset in the past. But this was way beyond that. She’d never seen or felt anything like the vengeance and malice pouring off Eton—if this even is Eton. He seemed possessed.

  Her arms shook as fear took her over. Diomêdês, she thought, trying to reach out to her Ancient. I need you here—now.

  As Eton caught her plea, his head snapped around and he straightened to his full height as he zeroed in on her, his eyes flaming a fiery red. She’d been right: she’d never seen this side of Eton before. His skin was drawn tight across those high cheekbones of his, almost to the point where it looked about to crack and peel away from the bones, and those eyes were barely slits as he stared her down. Eton’s new form, his new face, was terrifying, and this thing he’d morphed into had her fangs elongating and her own nails extending.

  Her body grew taut, preparing to defend itself and more than likely fail. And then Eton, or whoever he was right then, dropped his gaze to her hands, and Isadora thought she caught his head tilt a fraction of an inch in contemplation before he took a step toward her.

  Oh gods, this is how we are going to die, she thought, and visualized her Ancient. I won’t even see him before the two of us are wiped out. Before our lives are extinguished after centuries together.

  Eton halted in his movements at her thought, and as he leaned down and shoved his face in close to hers, she snarled, prepa
ring herself for death, but then the fire staring her down flashed to blue. That color she recognized in an instant, and right then she knew exactly who was looking back at her—Eton.

  The pain and sorrow in those eyes were unlike anything she’d seen before, and as Thanos’s Ancient struggled to the surface of this fiend, she tried to make sense of everything she was witnessing.

  Before she had a chance, though, the red flashed back, and Eton whirled away from her and took Elias’s wrist.

  And not a second later, the two of them had faded from sight.

  LEO STARED AT Paris and wished he had the ability to see inside his friend’s mind. It appeared, however, the only two minds he could get inside of were the two his blood was now linked with. Vasilios and Alasdair.

  Paris hadn’t said a word since they’d both deduced the odds were stacked against him when it came to which god was likely his predecessor, because, Let’s face it, Leo thought, vampires are scary enough. But the god of the Underworld—that has to be downright horrifying.

  “Paris, listen, maybe this isn’t a bad thing. I mean, he’s not the devil per se…”

  Paris turned in Leo’s direction, and the grim expression there made it apparent he was not feeling any more comforted. Maybe it’d just be better if I changed the topic for now. “Can I ask you something?”

  Paris nodded and then reached up to twist the long length of his hair around and around again.

  “Did Thanos…” Leo paused, remembering the careless way the hooded vampire had tossed Paris at Vasilios’s feet. “Did he hurt you when you were with him? Did he give you his blood? Try to feed from you?”

  “No,” Paris said. “None of that. He was…”

  When his words trailed off and Paris lowered his head, Leo said, “Yes?”

  “He was kind to me.”

  Okay, Leo thought. That’s not what I expected. Every time he’d been in that male’s presence he’d been an arrogant, seductive know-it-all. Not… “Kind?”

  Paris got to his feet and started to wring his hands in front of himself. “Well, I mean, not at first. He was kind of scary and standoffish, but then we had a few drinks and he was really very interesting. And yes, kind.”

  Leo scoffed and shook his head. What was it with these fucking vampires? Did they sit around and pick out who to be dicks to? Was that normal or was it because… “That’s right, you’re the third, so of course he’d be drawn to you. Unable to hurt you. Fucking Elias. He really should’ve sat us down and explained all this shit. I swear, I forget more than I remember.”

  Paris looked down at him with questions swirling in his brown eyes, and it wasn’t lost on Leo how bizarre this situation was. They’d spent time talking about boyfriends and relationships in the past, but never ones quite as, well, complicated as these.

  “What do you mean, he’s drawn to me?”

  “You might want to sit down for this.” Leo patted the seat beside him, and once Paris’s jean-clad ass was planted, he said, “The two that were out there. The ones you asked me about, and whether they’d hurt me or not. I…” Shit. Actually saying what he’d done with Alasdair and Vasilios made everything that much more real. Didn’t it?

  “Yes?” Paris prompted.

  “Umm, well. Alasdair you’d met before at my place, and he was the one who took me because whatever we are, these demigods— Okay, does that sound as weird to you as it does to me?”

  “Fuck yes,” Paris said, and let out a breath.

  “Yeah.” Leo shook his head. “Well, however we were created, it was with the purpose to draw one of them to us. One of the first-sired vampires—Alasdair, Isadora, or Thanos. The gene…the godly one, I guess, was dormant until our twenty-seventh birthday. That’s when Alasdair found me and—”

  “That was when I escaped the cell and ran straight into Thanos’s bedroom.”

  Leo nodded.

  “And Elias and that woman? He was telling me the truth back in his office, where he had her tied up?”

  “Yes,” Leo said. “He met her years ago, and then she left, I assume, and was able to because it wasn’t time. That was the night before he started teaching our class. This has all been predestined, from what I understand.” Leo ran a hand through his hair. “We were created to eliminate them.”

  Paris’s mouth opened and shut, but nothing came out. He looked like a fish out of water, trying to work out how to use the oxygen it was sucking in.

  He wiped his palms on his legs and shook his head. “But why would I want to hurt Thanos? He’s done nothing to me. I can’t even kill a spider.”

  Now that was the damn truth. There’d been many occasions Paris had called Leo to his office back at the museum to step on an eight-legged friend. “I have no idea. But just because the gods want us to do it, doesn’t mean we have to. I already told them to fuck off. There’s no way I plan to go along with their psychotic scheme.”

  “But won’t that piss them off or something?”

  “Mine’s already pissed off because I drank Vasilios’s blood.” And that was what finally broke through Paris’s timidity.

  “You did what?”

  “Oh, yeah. Well, it seemed the smartest thing to do at the time.”

  “As opposed to?”

  “Dying? Letting Elias die. Letting you die…” Leo thought about his next comment a beat or two before he decided, fuck it. It was time to admit what else was going on with him. Paris would find out sooner or later anyway. “Plus, I kind of wanted it.”

  Paris’s eyes narrowed on him, and Leo shrugged under the judgment in them.

  “You wanted it?”

  “Yeah. Alasdair, he…he’s like no one I’ve ever met before.”

  “Uh, because he’s a vampire.”

  Leo gave his friend a droll look. “No. It’s more than that. There’s this…I don’t know, struggle inside of him. Like he’s trying to fight how he feels about me, him, even the big guy.”

  “The big guy?”

  “Vasilios,” Leo said. “They’re complicated and…sexy.”

  “And can kill you?”

  “Actually, they can’t kill me now because I’m tied to them. Vasilios’s blood linked us. It also, umm, changed me.”

  Paris scooted away from him, his focus going directly to Leo’s mouth.

  “Oh no.” Leo laughed. “I’m not a vampire or anything. I don’t have fangs. Trust me, I checked. But I can hear them now, talk to them in their minds. I can move fast too. And Paris?” Paris didn’t reply, merely stared at Leo like he’d lost his mind. “I’m super strong. Like, could lift a car strong. It’s like Hulk kind of shit.”

  Paris brought a hand up to scrub it over his face and then took in an unsteady breath before exhaling. “This is fucking nuts, Leo.”

  “I know. But there’s no way I’m going to have my free will taken away from me. I’m going to choose how I want this to play out. Not be told by some almighty who hasn’t even bothered to show himself.”

  Paris looked down at his hands, which were shaking. “I’m scared,” he said, and Leo reached for them.

  “I know. I was too.”

  “What changed?” Paris asked, and Leo squeezed his fingers and gave him a small smile.

  “I did.”

  Paris didn’t say anything to that, just glanced at the door before asking Leo, “Can they hear us out there?”

  “If they’re listening. Why?”

  “Well, I wanted to ask you something.”

  Leo tilted his head to the side and waited. Paris chewed on his lower lip, as though contemplating his next words very carefully, and then asked, “Have you… Do you know Thanos?”

  Ahh, so he is curious about him, Leo thought. And he could tell by the flush that hit his friend’s cheeks that it was the kind of curiosity that he had had when he’d first met Alasdair. “Yes. I’ve met him. A couple of times.”

  “Oh. Umm, you and he didn’t—”

  “God no. I mean, he’s gorgeous with all that blond hair and—shit. I
mean—” Leo cut himself off, annoyed at his own stupidity. “What I mean to say is, I’m not interested in him that way. And never have been.”

  “He has blond hair?” Paris asked, and Leo hoped to God the two beyond that door weren’t listening to him royally fuck this up. Clearly Thanos had been deeply scarred since the last time he’d seen him, and going by the mask and hood and the fact that Paris hadn’t seen him after hours in his presence, Leo had to believe it must have been much worse than he could imagine.

  “Leo?”

  “Oh, sorry. Yes. He has blond hair, down to his shoulders.”

  “Huh…I didn’t imagine that.”

  “No?” Leo said.

  “No. I guess I imagined him with black hair. Like that—your—Alasdair. It would suit his stupid personality better,” Paris muttered. “Pretending to be nice just to hand me over to that other guy, Vasilios. The one who wants to hurt me.”

  Paris shrugged as though he didn’t care. But it was obvious by the slight narrowing of his eyes that he was confused by what had happened between him and Thanos, and that he was hurt by his dismissal.

  “He got weird and closed off, and then he brought me here. I suppose after sitting with him for hours in the dark I just never pictured him with light hair. That’s all.”

  Leo’s gaze shifted to the door, though that seemed a little redundant, considering the two outside of it could fade in at will, and then he turned his attention back to his friend. “He’s closed off because Elias…” Leo paused a moment and then decided there was no point keeping secrets now. “Elias hurt him, nearly killed him. That’s the reason for the mask and hood. That’s why he stopped talking to you. It’s the reason he’s so mad. He worked out who you are.”

  Paris’s eyes widened, his disbelief evident. “What did Elias do to him?”

  “Uh…I think maybe—” Leo was about to say, you should ask Thanos. But before he could get the words out, the vampire in question was in the bathroom standing between the two of them.

  Thanos was a tall male, taller than both Vasilios and Alasdair, and the couple of occasions Leo had come into contact with him, he’d always thought him to be full of arrogance born from having such a handsome face. But now, as Leo sat with his ass planted on the bench and Thanos’s masked face bent low so the thick black material of his hood swirled around him, the shoulders that had once been intimidating looked—defeated.