Chapter 34 #2
Her chin tipped up as though she could fight weariness with stubbornness alone. “It doesn’t matter. We’re arranging for reinforcements—”
“It matters, Athena.”
“It doesn—”
“Athena.” Something in the tone of my voice — my expression, perhaps — gave her pause. “You haven’t received a report from activities on the Isle yet, have you?”
She shook her head, gaze sharpening like knives.
“You may want to sit down.”
“That bad?” she asked, as a crease formed between her brows.
I exhaled heavily before answering, steeling myself for the inevitable. “The arches are complete and the shades returned to their allocated afterlives.”
“I don’t understand… that’s wonderful news. It’s what Heph and his boy have been working towards this whole war. Now that they’re done, we could use Heph—”
“Athena.”
That one word — that one tone — said more than just the goddess’ name, and she clocked it instantaneously.
Athena shook her head roughly, jarringly staggering backwards as she repeated, “No, no, no.” Her gaze latched onto mine, more intensely blue than I’d ever seen them.
“Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m overreacting. ”
My lips pressed together, downturned at the corners, as they fought off a tremble. “I can’t do that,” I whispered. “The cost of the final arch was Hephaestus’ soul.”
I was prepared to withstand sharp words and hurled accusations — I was not prepared for the sting of Athena’s palm across my cheek.
I clutched the searing welt, gasping, as Velira snapped her teeth at the goddess, who — to her credit — immediately blanched with regret.
“My queen, I—”
Vel’s rolling growl cut her off, and she conceded a metre.
“Nyssa, I’m so sorry.”
I waved Vel back, eyeing the goddess who currently could not even bear to look at me for fear of rebuke. “I guess I deserved that,” I muttered, startling Athena so badly her horrified gaze whipped back to mine. “If I explain to you what happened, do you swear to keep your hands to yourself?”
The goddess nodded rapidly, looking more like a seizure than assent.
“He gave his life to save his son, who was hellbent on sacrificing himself to finish the final gateway. I couldn’t do it myself… I tried… and I would have given everything to do so, but neither Archimedes nor his father would allow that.”
Ever the wise, Athena deduced what I had not articulated. “The gates required your soul? Your essence? And you almost killed yourself trying to give enough for three,” she said, eyes flitting down my gold-stained clothes. “So Hephaestus gave what you could not.”
I nodded, a tear slipping free. “And in doing so, also repaired his son’s curse.”
“Oh,” Athena whispered. “He’d have preferred no other way to go out than that.”
“Archimedes now wrestles with that sacrifice.”
“He’ll get through it,” she said, resolute. “You did.”
I wasn’t so sure.
“I should go check on him,” I murmured.
Again, her eyes dropped to encompass my whole body. “Not like that. Wash up first, maybe take a nap. Give your powers some time to replenish and any wounds you’ve given yourself time to heal. I can send Apollo in, if you’d like?”
“No, it’s fine, thank you. I’ll take your suggestions under consideration,” I said, a slight smile pulling at my lips. “I fear queens should smell better than this.”
Athena grasped my metaphorical olive branch and returned the gesture. “You smell of justice, defiance, and courage, Nyssa. The realms couldn’t ask for a better smelling queen.”
“Perhaps, just a little soap.”
She chuckled. “Perhaps, just a little soap.”
Just as Velira said, Evadne was waiting for me at the door to my room. She jolted to attention as I rounded the corner, silent but watchful.
“Come in, Evie,” I sighed. “No use freezing your ass off out there all night.”
“Aros would have my” — her brows slammed down — “well, I was going to say ‘balls’ but since I don’t have them, and I’d rather not say my brother has access to any of my other parts, I’ll just say: Aros would have my hide if I left you unguarded for the night.”
A sharp laugh exited my nose in the form of a snort as she rambled. “Well you might as well be on guard from in here — where you have access to a pillow and a shower.”
“Most gracious… your grace.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “As you can see, words aren’t my strength tonight.”
“That’s alright, Evie,” I laughed. “Silence is just fine by me.” I quirked a dark brow.
“But I’m definitely snagging the first shower,” I said, scouring the room for a change of clothes.
My gaze snagged on a navy scrap of fabric hanging on the arm of a chair and I smiled softly to myself as faint trace of caramel filled the air when I ran my fingers over it.
“By all means,” she said with an exaggerated bow. “You look like you need it.” Her nose wrinkled as she straightened. “Smell like it, too.”
“Hey now, I’ll have you know that the goddess Athena said I smell like justice and courage, thank you very much.”
“Maybe if Justice and Courage got blind drunk in a derelict tavern, took on all of its fiercest patrons in a bar fight instigated by beating the biggest guy in there in an arm wrestle, made out a little bit, then ended the night swimming in a golden marsh.”
Momentarily stunned into silence, my brows flew up my forehead. “Found your words, did you?”
She had the wherewithal to blush. “So it would seem,” and then burst out laughing.
Some minutes later, I was scrubbing Justice and Courage off my skin, scouring the golden ichor with my fingernails until the water sluicing down the drain ran clear.
“Hand me that green bottle, would you?”
A calloused hand extended into the screened-off shower area a moment later, green bottle procured.
“Thank you,” I said while upending the deliciously scented liquid into my matted hair.
“Fuck, Kiss, Kill,” Evie began from the floor just beyond the screen. “Kronos, Lykos, Aros.”
“Ugh, Evie!” I griped as bubbles seemingly washed away my sins. “That’s an awful one!”
“Just do it,” she laughed. “You just made me choose between Apollo, Poseidon, and Zeus.”
“That one was way easier! As if you wouldn’t kill Zeus and fuck Apollo. Poseidon’s little pin-dick wouldn’t do it for you.”
“True, and I feel like Apollo would be great with his hands.”
“Oh, his fingers are talented alright—”
“Now I hope you’re talking about me,” Aros cut in, slamming the bathroom door wide and sashaying in like he owned the place.
Evie squealed, and I giggled, peering through a freshly rubbed circle of now dry glass.
“Darling, we have discussed this already,” he continued, waggling the fingers of his right hand in the air suggestively. “God of war and violence, remarkable flame-wielder, superb spearman, and possessor of very talented fingers, remember?”
“How could I forget that introduction?”
He winked, as Caelus — my scowling storm-wielder — stepped into the room behind him, officially filling the tiny space to capacity. He stared holes through the glass, possessing me with his gaze even though I knew he couldn’t see more than the faint outline of my body through the steam.
“Who else has talented fingers?” Aros asked, stripping the armour from his torso and dumping it unceremoniously on the floor beside the sink.
“Apollo,” Evie answered matter-of-fact. “We’re playing Fuck, Kiss, Kill, and it was Nyssa’s turn to choose betweek Kronos, Lykos, and you, dear brother.”
Aros whooped while Caelus scowled, liking my options even less than I did.
“Now there’s a batch!” Aros declared, dumping yet more armour and weaponry into the same pile. “Who in Tartarus is our queenie going to choose?”
I groaned, tasting faint notes of whiskey and honey filtering through the steam.
“Who, indeed?” Caelus rumbled, the tone of which set my insides alight.
In equal parts apprehension and reluctance, I mumbled my answer.
“What’s that?” Aros hollered, cupping a hand to his ear. “We couldn’t heeeear you!”
I groaned, eyeing Caelus the whole time. “Kill Kronos, every damn time.”
“Obviously,” Evie snarked.
“Oh, I know where this is going,” Aros smirked, rubbing his hands together, as the last remnants of his periskelis fell to the floor, exposing him in his unabashed entirety.
“Ew, gross!” Evie cried, shielding her eyes.
“Relax, it’s nothing you haven’t all seen before.” He shrugged.
“At least it isn’t waving at us this time,” Caelus grumbled.
“I’m not even going to ask,” she replied.
“Good, don’t,” I laughed.
“Queenie?” Aros teased, elongating the word in a scarily enticing way.
“I couldn’t possibly fuck a wolf, which leaves me: Kiss Lykos, and Fuck Aros.
” I winced as Caelus’ eyes darkened, his shoulders seemingly filling half the room.
Lightning flashed in his irises — and Aros laughed, stepping around him to join me in the narrow shower recess, his honeyed-whiskey scent slapping me in the face as hard as Athena had.
“Aros!” I screamed, turning round to flee — but his hand caught mine on the way past, his other grasped my bare hip — and I froze.
“Aros,” Caelus rumbled, just barely maintaining his tenuous grip on his power. “Watch yourself.”
“I’d rather you watch, brother,” he said, sliding that hand up my arm and over my shoulder to land around the front of my throat.
He stepped up behind me, so close that I could not refute the fact that he was turned on by this self-inflicted scenario.
“Watch as she gasps when I do this” — he squeezed my throat, not hard enough to bruise, but just enough to slightly restrict my ability to breathe — “and how she trembles, when I do this” — his lips brushed against the junction between my shoulder and neck.
And I did, indeed, tremble—
Which finally snapped Caelus’ resolve. His fist flew through the glass, shattering it into tiny shards which scattered across the floor like an avalanche of stars.
Aros immediately relented, hands raised in surrender, even as his thunderous laugh filled the room. Caelus’ arms engulfed me, ignoring the fact that I was entirely clean and wet, and he dry, clothed, and dirty.
Evie’s surprised squeal morphed into a knowing laugh as Aros turned into the flowing stream of water, his pert asscheeks contracting as he danced.
“Thanks, pal! All I wanted was the shower,” he laughed, ignoring Caelus’ wordless growling — more wolf than man.
“Rude, I was next,” Evie grumbled, brushing errant shards off her clothing.
“Would now be a bad time to ask how things went in Strathos?” I asked, wincing.
Caelus frowned as he wrapped me in a fluffy blue towel. “Didn’t Diana tell you?”
“Diana? I haven’t seen her since you left.” I frowned as I dried off, catching the look shared between the two of them, and standing there stark-naked, asked, “What the fuck has Diana done now?”