Contents
Chapter 3: The Hunted
Overview
In Montana, Alexis confronts Kharon, tasering him as their violent tension crescendos into a kiss at Augustus’s command. Augustus pushes to return her to safety, but Alexis rejects his help and attempts to teleport home. The leap catastrophically misfires, depositing her in a dark tunnel where she chooses danger over escape.
Summary
In Montana dusk, Kharon restrains Alexis, his scarred, blood-smeared body revealing a brutal past. Alexis fires Hades’s pistol and misses, then shocks him with Persephone’s Taser. Kharon endures the electricity, turning the standoff into a perilous, charged game as Nyx urges Alexis to keep attacking.
Amid crackling current, Kharon closes in and brushes his lips against Alexis. Augustus arrives and, with unnerving authority, orders Kharon to kiss her. The kiss explodes with electricity and hunger before Augustus halts it. He reprimands Kharon for frightening Alexis and points out her bleeding bullet wound, insisting they return to the outpost.
Despite the danger, Alexis resists Augustus’s plan, rejecting reliance on the husbands who betrayed her. She tries to teleport herself with “Domus,” focusing on Hades and Persephone as home. The leap goes horribly wrong; pain shreds her senses as she crashes into darkness.
Alexis awakens in a humid, torchlit rock tunnel with steel beams, violently ill and disoriented as a woman’s screams echo from a dark dead end opposite a lighted exit. Choosing purpose over safety, Alexis turns toward the screams and moves deeper into danger.
Who Appears
- Alexis (Hercules)Bleeding and defiant; tases Kharon, shares a charged kiss, refuses rescue, and mis-teleports into a perilous tunnel.
- KharonImmortal husband; endures tasering, provokes and kisses Alexis under Augustus’s order, then prepares to leave before Alexis vanishes.
- AugustusHusband and leaderly presence; commands the kiss, urges return to outpost, tries to leap them to safety.
- NyxSerpentine companion; cheers Alexis’s attack, offers snark and concern, urges her to flee the tunnel.
- PocoAugustus’s creature; pops up and screeches, reacting to the intimate chaos.