Theta (30 page)

I settled onto the branch, unable to
reconcile the butcher of DC with the kind creature that sought to
warn me against the curse so long ago. That we had spent the past
five years in DC, and he never spoke to me again, struck me as odd.
How had he attended security meetings and never addressed me
directly? As the security chief of SISA, he was entitled to pass
through my royal guard at will, and he had never made any attempt
to visit, either. Nor had he settled on my balcony, as he did
twelve years ago, in his beast form.

What had prevented him from returning as he
promised to do so when I was a child? I packed my bags minutes
after he left and waited for days for him to return to take me
away, as he swore he would.

Alessandra’s hasty explanation only inflamed
my curiosity – and managed to pierce through the callous I was
normally adept at maintaining around my emotions.

Adonis … Mismatch … whoever he was … he
abandoned me when I was six. I still recalled that pain – of having
a friend and hope briefly and then losing both without
explanation.

My stomach felt like it was
eating itself. The scent of a rabbit reached me, and my mouth
watered. I clenched my jaw closed, horrified by the idea of killing
an animal with my bare hands and eating it raw, as if I were …
well, a beast. I was afraid to test my nighttime body. No matter
what Alessandra claimed about this being
natural
, I couldn’t fathom how I had
been a normal human for the entirety of my life and suddenly I
wasn’t.

What of my children? Did they transform when
I did?

Were they safe from whatever was happening
to me?

Questions left me frustrated, and fatigue
wore me down. As a human, I was completely naked, and I’d sat down
at the base of this tree yesterday and sobbed most of the day away,
alone, and scared. The confidence I felt leading an army
disappeared when I considered no one would ever follow a
monster.

A new smell hit me, and my nose wrinkled. I
hunched back against the trunk of the tree and held my breath. Able
to see at night almost as clearly as I could during day, I searched
my surroundings, until I spotted movement.

Humans smell
unappealing,
I thought. A split second
later, I realized it was likely a survival mechanism so I didn’t
try to eat someone.

“
Your Majesty?” The summons
was accompanied by the too loud movement of someone without
discipline walking through the forest.

Kyros wasn’t close enough to hear my
thoughts. I didn’t know if I wanted him to be, either.

A second human’s smell reached me, and I
twisted. This man navigated the forest with stealth. Not even my
acute hearing picked up on his movement until he was within three
meters of me, but I could see him. Herakles was alive, though he
wore bandages across one cheek. The mouthwatering scent of fresh
blood wafted to me, as if he were hurt during the escape from our
meeting with Theodocia.

“
Is she here?” Herakles
called to Kyros.

“
I sense her but can’t see
her.”

Herakles stopped almost directly beneath my
perch. I didn’t move.

He looked up, and his features softened into
a lopsided smile. “Hey, there,” he said.

It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. If I
saw someone who looked like me in the tree above my head, I’d run
away as fast as I could.

“
Come on down, Phoibe,”
Herakles said. He removed his backpack and crouched.

I don’t want you to see me
like this,
I told him.

Kyros reached the massive ginger and spoke
my words aloud.

Herakles snorted in response. “I brought you
dinner.” He pulled a fat, juicy, raw steak from a bag and held it
up.

Gods, I had never smelled anything so
delicious!

“
Come on,” he said again.
He threw the steak into the air.

I snatched it on instinct and tore into it
with my fangs. Before my human side had a chance to be appalled,
I’d ripped the steak apart and swallowed without chewing.

Herakles tossed another up to me, then a
third. After inhaling the large chunks of meat, I immediately felt
stronger. My stomach no longer complained, and my head cleared. I
crept forward on my branch then dropped to the ground near them,
bracing for their reactions.

“
Still prettier than I’ll
ever be,” Herakles said and indicated his face. He tossed the last
of the steaks into the air.

I leapt two meters off the ground with
little effort and snatched the food with my mouth, gobbling it
up.

“
You okay?” he
asked.

I released a sigh.

“
Kyros told me what
happened. I’ve seen your kind before,” Herakles continued. “I can’t
imagine what you’re feeling, but we’re here to take you
home.”

I can’t go back like this.

Kyros verbalized my words.

“
Of course you can. Do you
have any idea how uplifting this will be for morale?”

I made a strange sound of objection that
needed no translation.

“
But it will,” Herakles
said. “Who would you rather follow into battle? A little girl half
your size, or a monster?”

Offended, I hopped up, caught myself with my
wings, and returned to my branch.

“
I mean that nicely,”
Herakles said. “The armies will follow you either way, but seeing
their commander-in-chief strike fear into the enemies with one look
… it’s priceless.”

“
We agree,” Kyros said.
“This might not work in the political arena, but it will with the
military.”

What they said made sense – to an extent.
Was I ready to be a monster, though? To accept this as my fate and
show others what I was? Did this mean the curse was upon me,
despite the measures I’d taken to prevent it from befalling me?
Were my unborn heiresses the reasons why I had changed?

“
She’s thinking,” Kyros
said to an expectant Herakles.

Herakles dug out a canteen of water from his
backpack and tossed it up to me. I accepted it and drank my fill
with some awkwardness, not accustomed to the fangs that were in my
way.

I reviewed what Alessandra had told me, both
of this curse and the day the world was going to end – in four
months, when I was due.

“
What?” Kyros asked,
picking up the thoughts.

Say nothing of Alessandra
to Herakles,
I warned him.
Or I will eat you one night.

He didn’t even blink, accustomed to my
thoughts of murdering him. “That other part though. That sounds
important,” he said.

I know when we must attack, and what will
happen if we don’t.

“
Whatever you’re talking
about, let’s do this at the encampment,” Herakles said, glancing
between Kyros and me. “The forest is infested with SISA and
military patrols.”

Some part of me balked, and I backed up
closer to the trunk of the tree. Was it instinctive for the beast
side of me to want to remain hidden, or was this my fear?

“
We might want to make
ourselves comfortable,” Kyros said and pulled off his backpack.
“She’s not ready.”

Herakles studied me, and I studied him. I
didn’t understand how accepting he was of my appearance, or how he
could look at me with warm compassion when I was still on the verge
of panicking.

“
Okay,” he said. “When
you’re ready. I brought you clothes just in case.” He perched on
the trunk of a fallen tree.

Kyros settled onto the ground.

Why did you not heal
Herakles?
I demanded, waiting for the other
shoe to drop and for the man-god to reveal his true
intentions.

“
He didn’t want us to,”
Kyros said. “He despises gods almost as much as you.”

Herakles uttered a few of his more creative
curses. I didn’t blame him. All things considered, his adopted
daughter was basically a goddess. What did he think of her power?
Was he as confused as I was sometimes when confronted with the
human face of Kyros, knowing he was also possessed by a god?

When they were comfortable, I ventured out
of the tree once more and crouched nearby. Twisting to Kyros, I
motioned for him to tell Herakles what I needed my second in
command to know.

Kyros explained what I had learned about the
last day before the apocalypse. To my dismay, Herakles was already
made aware of my pregnancy. Nothing caused the former Olympian so
much as a flinch, for which I was grateful. He listened carefully,
shifting forward in interest.

When Kyros finished, quiet fell over us. I
began to relax, grateful for their acceptance and company and for
my content stomach.

“
Four months will be
cutting it close,” Herakles said after a thoughtful silence. “We
have one wall buster missile, and I’ve been working on a
recruitment plan with Commander Ronos. With your permission, we’ll
move into the second stage and start actively
recruiting.”

I nodded my assent.

“
We haven’t heard from
Theodocia since the meeting,” he said. “I’d like to return to the
city to find her and assess her insurgent capabilities.”

Herakles going to the city – and discovering
what was happening to Alessandra – would derail my second in
command when I needed him focused here, on the army and our
war.

Kyros glanced at me, aware of my thoughts. I
didn’t bother threatening him again; by this point, he
understood.

Send the person you trust
most in your place,
I said to
Herakles.
I need you here, preparing the
army. More so, because I’m about to become a part-time commander,
if I’m a monster at night.

Kyros obediently relayed my directive.

Disappointed, Herakles nonetheless nodded.
“When I get Theodocia’s numbers, I’ll have a better idea of how
many we need to recruit to have a chance against the military.”

My army was healthy – but relatively small.
In addition to my royal guard, its members included those
disillusioned men and women we’d found in the city and recruited
from around the Atlantic seaboard. Many others were hardened
survivors, criminals, and mercenaries. I doubted we were at a tenth
the strength of the military, let alone military and SISA combined.
In the morning, when I was human again, I’d return to the attack
strategy I’d been building over the past few weeks. With roughly a
quarter of my forces inside the wall already – acting under
Theodocia’s command as a guerrilla insurgency – we had a leg up,
but would suffer in a head-to-head clash.

I was too easily distracted by my beast
senses at night to brainstorm further. It was hard to sit still,
when my instincts wanted me to explore every sound and follow at
least one of the animal scents wafting through the air or perhaps,
just to fly into the night sky.

Why aren’t you surprised by
what I am?
I asked, training my gaze on
Herakles and then waiting for Kyros to verbalize.

“
I’ve seen one of you
before. Adonis,” Herakles said with a scowl. Dark emotion crossed
his features, and he fell silent, tense where he had been relaxed
before my question. He couldn’t have known Adonis long, and even he
didn’t like the butcher.

Would I become like Adonis, now that I was a
monster, too?

Herakles drew a breath. “He’s Alessandra’s
protector now,” he said quietly. “I hope she doesn’t need him in
DC. I hope she’s safe enough to wait four months, so I can protect
her before danger reaches her.”

Kyros frowned and gazed at me. I read what
he wanted to say in his eyes. The human side of him had a good
heart, but I needed Herakles with me. It was for his own safety as
well as the army’s benefit. What would the people’s champion do, if
he discovered the Supreme Magistrate had hurt Alessandra? Run into
the city and get himself killed!

No,
I ordered Kyros.

He looked away. His
disappointment troubled me, because I had the sense he was
disappointed in
me.

Why should I care what one person
thought?

More sensitive to emotions and stimuli, I
rose and paced. Craning my neck back, I eyed the dark sky and had
the sudden urge to fly.

I’ll return,
I told Kyros.

Without waiting for either of them to
respond, I leapt upward and unleashed my wings. Bursting above the
treetops, I experienced a thrill of euphoria as my powerful wings
instinctively knew how to propel me upward. My shoulders soon
burned from the effort, but my beautiful, gray wings remained
sturdy and strong. I paused to catch my breath and gazed down,
startled by how far up I was. My eyes roamed the area around
Herakles and Kyros for some sign of the patrols of which they
spoke.

No one was near, and I suddenly understood
Herakles’ point about the military advantage being a monster could
bring to the table. With my enhanced senses and ability to fly, I
was the perfect scout. No one would ever ambush us again. Being
this high caused my stomach to turn, but when it became more
natural, I’d be able to travel great distances and conduct
reconnaissance with skills no human could match. And if I found a
god possessing a human …

The mere thought caused me to flex my talons
and test the whip-like tail. There was no denying I was a predator.
Common sense told me that my fangs, claws, and barbed tail would
easily overwhelm the natural defenses of pretty much every other
animal – or human – in existence. My advantage at hand-to-hand
combat just obliterated every other attempt I’d made to learn how
to fight from Herakles. All the blocks and punches in the world
wouldn’t stand up against my new, personal arsenal.