“Don’t do this…please.”
“Ssshh now, this is the only way.” He whispered down to me and I shook my head not trusting myself to speak from fear of sobbing. Draven was just about to bite into his own arm to speed up my healing process when Alex said,
“Huh uh, I don’t think so. After all, remembering her dripping in that pretty colour will act as great motivation I think!” He said highly amused. I looked past Draven to then see Alex drawing his own blood with a syringe and I knew this would be my only chance to tell Draven what I knew.
“He wants to use you, Draven. He is going to get you to use his blood to release the Titans but you can’t! You can’t do it!” I said whilst Alex was busy gaining the key in his blood to no doubt give to Draven.
“Keira you need to trust in me now…can you do that?” He asked putting his forehead to mine and I couldn’t help it this time… I cried for him.
“But Lucius…he…he…Draven, he killed Lucius!” I said trying to catch my breath on a caught sob.
“Lucius is right where the Fates need him to be and you need to also trust in that.” The tone of Draven’s voice told me all I dreaded to know and confirmed the reason for my broken heart.
Lucius was gone.
I managed to drag myself up against a pillar and was left helpless and healing too slowly to do anything but cruelly watch as Draven took my place. He was stripped to his trousers after he was forced to take back control of his other form. Alex had strapped him down just as I had been and it was painful to watch as Draven took it without putting up a struggle. He just kept his eyes to mine and gave me the strength I needed to watch this.
“I must say, all that planning and all that waiting really paid off. To think that all it really took was one simple spell, one switch of a cursed, purple jade necklace and bam! It draws in a King even as powerful as you like a dog to a bitch in heat.” Alex said walking round Draven and with a long pole in his hand, he started using the burnt blood as a way to draw symbols in the Pentagram.
“You?!” Draven hissed as the realisation hit us both.
“Yes me! Of course after you left your Chosen One for good all I needed was to have a seed planted firmly enough to grow. One that made you believe you needed to be contained and to do that there was no place like Hell’s greatest prison.” Draven growled and tensed at hearing this but as for me I was frozen in shock. I was trying to process everything that had happened and soon realised the depths Alex had gone to just to make it all possible that Draven could get back into Tartarus. That was why when I took off the necklace Draven had stopped needing to be chained to his prison. The curse had been broken but Draven still had the ticket carved into his flesh.
“So now all that is left is to send you back there with the key that is my blood to free its prisoners.” On hearing this from Alex, Draven started to laugh and I frowned unable to see what he could have found funny in that moment.
“You mean ‘prisoner’.” Draven said after the laughing ceased and he turned his deadly purple gaze back to his enemy.
“You don’t get to speak about him!” Alex fumed and Draven taunted him further.
“Belphegor sends his regards asshole!” Draven said and Alex lost it. He punched Draven across the face making me cry out. Draven just laughed harder and it was an unnerving sound that echoed around the room.
“That Gorgon Leech’s shit for brains doesn’t know the first thing about loyalty!”
“Your father was a fool for trusting him but he was an even greater fool for trying to take what’s mine but I gather that foolhardy stupidity runs in the family.” I didn’t understand who they were talking about but I was about to find out.
“We shall see who feels like the fool after you release him and we finally have the Titans on our side.”
“You really think the Titans will follow your rule.” Again Draven laughed and shook his head but Alex was the one who looked smug.
“And who do you think my father really worked for and still does, even as he remains buried deep enough in the belly of Mount Tartarus.”
“You lie.” This time it was Draven who lost his edge of controlling the situation.
“All Cronus has waited for is a key to be passed into Hell. And as my dear mother was mortal with the blood of Kings flowing free in her veins it was left up to my father to create the new King of men. But I still wasn’t granted access into the deeper levels of Hell and neither was my father. So that is where you came in.” Alex said poking his chest at the word ‘you’ that he spat down at him.