The War God's Woman 2

37. The Decoy

Lamia and Ezekiel were crouched in the dark, listening to the sounds of Deimos breathing. Ezekiel was shivering, his teeth chattering together, as he huddled against Lamia. She stroked his head and hummed a tune that Ezekiel had never heard before.  The exhausted gangster closed his eyes – listening to her.

"That was nice." He murmured when she was finished.

"I used to sing songs for my children, to help them fall asleep..."

Before Orion had slain them.

Lamia's hands shook but she continued to stroke soothing spirals over Ezekiel's face and ears.

"Is that what all mothers do?" Ezekiel asked, his voice quiet.

"Why do you ask?"

"I never knew mine."

Lamia's gaze softened.

"What happened to her?" She asked gently. She felt Ezekiel shrug.

"I was found on the street as a baby." He swallowed.

"Who raised you?"

"Adults came and went. I remember a few of them. But only Skelrun really stuck around. He found me fighting on the street. He said I fought like a cornered dog."

Lamia picked up on softening in Ezekiel's voice.

"You loved him?"

"I'd have followed him to the end of the world."

The clank of chains made them both shiver. Lamia hissed in warning, but Deimos cackled – the sound seeming to circle them in the dark.

"We're never getting out of this hell."

"You will." Just not her. Lamia had made up her mind.

"H-how?" Ezekiel's teeth were chattering from the cold.

"I still have one trick." She purred. 

She'd been saving them, saving them for her revenge plan. But Hera had died on her own. Along with Zeus. So, Lamia's revenge had come to nothing. "I still have your friend's eyes."

"You have Sage's eyes?" Ezekiel grimaced, repulsed by the idea. Lamia trailed spirals across his cheeks and up his forehead. "Why did you keep them?" He asked.

"The same reason I plucked them out of your friend's head. To use them." Lamia hummed her lullaby once more, the melody calming Ezekiel's fears. The gangster closed his eyes and slept on the demon's lap.

As he slept, Lamia plotted her next move. Lamia had enchanted Sage's eyes, preserving them and ensuring that they were still cursed – meaning whoever they bound to would be lost in an intense obsession for the Mad Dog. Lamia smiled. The next time Orion came to taunt them, she'd bind them to him. Then, the star immortal would fall for his mortal prisoner...

Ezekiel would escape the star prison. And Orion was suffer the torments of obsession. 

Lamia smiled in the dark, her snake-eyes glowing. 

**

                                                Zahira was glaring at her bracelet. She'd been summoned to Sophia's apartment. She'd tried to refuse but Poseidon's attendants had over-powered her with ease, snatching her from the hospital where she'd been visiting Sage. Now Zahira stood in the foyer, dwarfed beside an outlandish mosaic that depicted the sea god. She twisted the bracelet, picking at her skin in her agitation.