Captive: Hopeless

Chapter 51 - Revolt

Marcus flitted across the room during the moment it took the others to comprehend what they saw, and he grabbed Kay, lifting her off the ground and kissing her the way a man kisses a woman he will never let go again.

He didn't get to keep her to himself for long, and the others passed her from one to the other.

***

Kay ended up in the one place she never expected to be—Thane's arms. Contrary to what she somehow believed, he was not cold to the touch.

His grip on her loosened enough to let him peer into her eyes.

"I thought I lost you," he said, wiping the hair from her face, but a terrible sorrow remained in his eyes.

Kay smiled at him and touched his cheek, another thing she had never pictured herself doing, but somehow everything had changed.

"Akira is fine. A little worse for wear, but she'll live. I removed her from the tank and gave her a shot of adrenaline to the heart, something she somehow programmed into my head," Kay assured him, and it took a second for her words to sink in.

"Let her be; she is sleeping. Recovering," she deterred Thane as he started to move past her, and he hesitated.

"Akira wanted me to tell you a story you need to hear, and she didn't know she knew."

***

Their eyes met, and something in that expression made him obey. She looked a lot healthier as her succubus fed on their positive energy and healed her at an accelerated rate.

"Father, we only have until high tide tonight, and you must hear us out," Kay said, but from the tone of her voice and the familiar use of "Father," Akira spoke through her.

"Azera had convinced my brothers that you feared their power and wanted to rid the world of them before they became a problem. Just as she persuaded my sisters that you and our brothers plotted to kill them and their offspring. The dark queen cleverly staged several incidents, small things you would not have noticed but our family saw as treason."

Kay seated herself on the chair Marcus provided, quickly drained by Akira's use of her body.

"The dark fae queen kept stirring the pot and duped Lagos into attacking Hermes and his family. But Hermes' spies warned him, and he was prepared for the assault; thus, Lagos died.

"Azera made it look as if you set them up so you would not need to do the dirty work, and the family stood together against you. Someone told you the truth, warning you, and you acted.

"Afraid you could stumble upon the truth, Azera conned you and your bleeding heart into letting her deal justice for you. Except, she had no intention of doing that. She brought Hector's head, and then Phineas', and you told her not to show you the others, which was exactly what she wanted."

Andrea brought her a glass of water, and she drained it.

"Thank you," she said, and Adrian nodded, taking the glass. "She had them captured instead of killing them. As their "kind stepmother," she offered to help hide them from you, give their families asylum, still your wrath, and keep your vengeance from their loved ones.

"Azera imprisoned your children and convinced them it was temporary and for their own good. When they were all safely put away, she killed off their families one by one and made it look like retaliation on your part. The people shuddered at the loss and revolted." Kay flagged, growing weaker, and Claudia took her hand, allowing the succubus to feed off her energy.

"She fed the unrest until you realized she had been unfaithful and had been stealing from you. You moved on, and when Azera killed your new young wife, you banned her. It was a ploy, an excuse to get what she wanted, freedom from you, and the final straw that made you turn your back on her. Finally, she could bring to life her dark empire.

"To keep her good faith, Azera forced your children to fight each other and humans in her arenas, using her power over them to gain more followers. She kept them alive and subjugated until she had enough power on her side to attack you in a battle that would end you, steadily feeding their hatred of you. Knowing that when they were released, she would have the final victory," Kay shuddered slightly.

Akira was almost too weak to continue, but Thane knew better than to suggest that she rest. Nor would Kay bow out.

"As time passed, it revealed more and more of her true nature. Some of your children started questioning her version of events but were helpless. Still believing she had their families in her power, she told them she had captured me, and even though I had been born long after their capture, they did not want me killed and obeyed her will."

Kay shuddered again, and her manner was different this time when she spoke.

"I never knew who the people were that Azera spoke so often to Linda about. Sometimes, when drifting in and out of consciousness, they ignored me. The names were nothing more to me than characters from mythology, but their personalities sounded nothing like those people," she wiped her face, sweat beading on her brow, but Thane didn't interrupt.

"Athena, Hera, Hermes, Achilles, Aeolus, Atlas, Artemis, Herakles, Perseus, Ares, Ananke, Clio, Apollo, Triton, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Gaia. Azera talked about some with a kind of fondness and others with loathing, but I could tell they were like me, held captive in dungeons for her amusement. I assumed she gave them those names, just like she did with me.

"She said more than once that if they stopped their stubborn refusal to bow to her will, she would let them out of their cages. Perhaps she would let them kill a few mortals to blow off steam, but until they complied, they could all rot. Afterward, she'd become melancholic and talk about the days they fought for her in her arenas. She would talk about the crowds and the slaughter, how nothing could defeat them except her.

"Azera would tell stories of how she set them up against each other. Made them hate and distrust one another, but then she would grow bitter. Eventually, they saw through her facade and stopped believing her lies. She always tried to think of a way to make them do her bidding, and she did. When she set everything in place for this final sequence of events, she created a drug which made them do whatever she told them."

Kay held her hand over her heart, and her face drained of color.

"Are you in pain?" Adrian asked before he could.

"Yes, but I must tell you what happened; it is important. Azera tested the drug, and it worked. The night she had me on the rack, someone called her away. She spoke on the phone, and although I was barely conscious, I heard her yell, 'Artemis did what?' Angered, she promised her the drug would work. She shut down the phone and called a Professor called Sims, demanding to know how her prisoners could have built up such a resistance to their 'medication.'"

Kay grew silent, and he stared at her in amazement, finally taking in what she and Akira had just told him. With them sharing a link, the two parts of the puzzle came together while they were comatose. In the place where his heart had been dead for so long, a spark of warmth brought forth something he had not known in ages—hope.

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