Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

"Come now, Menoetius, surely you want something." Rhea's purr was more like nails on a chalkboard as I narrowed my eyes and kept my back to her, arms wrapped around my knees as I sat facing the corner of my cold dark cell in Tartarus.

At that time, Tartarus wasn't as high tech and sterile as it is now. Back then, it was a hole in the side of a mountain with electrified bars preventing entry. Of course, that hadn't been enough to keep the Titans at bay.

I remembered the day the Titans escaped Tartarus. The cold fear that ripped through the air. Other inmates either fled or pledged allegiance to the Titans for fear of their own lives. Tartarus rocked and shook with the fury that was the Titans. I felt power rushing through the realm, felt the barriers go down like a weight off my shoulders, and felt my soul stirring, a tiny part of me wanting to crawl out of that hole and follow the others.

But by that time, Hades had already broken me. There was no reason for me to escape. What would be the point? Where would I go? What would I do? Rhea seemed to think she could persuade me. She arrived at my cell the day after they broke free from their prisons. She'd shut off the electricity and broken the iron bars off my cell, had come inside to coax me from the corner.

"I can give you a new body," she urged, coming over to crouch down behind me, placing her hand on my shoulder, "One that isn't used. One that isn't scarred. I can give you the body of your dreams. You can have anything and everything you could ever want, sweetheart." I curled my lip in repugnance, shrugging off her touch and tightening my grip around my knees. Her words were hardly encouraging. What could this bitch possibly want me to do? Join her stupid army against Hades and his children? Against the world that wanted them locked away?

"I have no need of a new body." My voice was a hoarse growl. Rhea tsked for a moment, then tilted her head to study me before a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She drew closer to me and I attempted to scrunch myself further into the corner from her, to no avail.

"I can give you the hybrid," she whispered and a chill crept up my spine, my eyes widening for a split second before I ground my teeth together, "I hear you quite fancied him. Iapetus even says he's the reason you died in the first place." I didn't respond to her, even though a deep buried part of me screamed in outrage. How dare she use Hannibal to get me out of here. And how dare she blame Hannibal for my death. It was my own stupidity that led me to this dark cell...

And yet, her purred words somehow coaxed out a bitter side of me that agreed. I'd died for nothing; because in the end, Hannibal had ended up enslaved, ended up tortured and betrayed, used and hurt. If he'd just fought harder, none of this would've happened... No, if I had just fought harder, Hannibal never would've been hurt.

Besides, what did it matter in the end? Hannibal had never, and would never, look at me the way I wanted him to. He would rip my throat open and bleed me dry before ever looking at me with anything, but disgust and disdain.

"It won't work," I told Rhea coldly. Rhea shook her head, reaching up to brush the hair back from my face, and I flinched away from her. Her expression became a warped version of sorrow, because all the gods knew Rhea was never sincere.

"Of course it will," she whispered, "I can make the hybrid love you the way you love him. You can have him and do whatever it is you wish with him." Her words, instead of coaxing me, infuriated me. I shot her a look of fury.

"I would do nothing to him."

"Not what I mean," Rhea soothed, reaching up to touch my back and I bared my fangs at her, but she didn't retaliate angrily, "Sweet, nephew, your hybrid can love you. Truly. We can make him love you. You can live the life you've always dreamed. You can hold the hybrid the way you've always wanted to. I will give you land of your own where you and your hybrid could spend eternity together." Her words succeeded in making me laugh out loud, this time, causing anger to flash through her eyes.