Chapter 24
As soon as Wren left, the vibe of the table changed. It didn’t help that Tryp was well and truly on the way to being trashed and that Milo’s eyes followed her until she disappeared into the house.
It also didn’t help that something lurched in my chest, compelling me to follow her, and it took an awful lot of willpower to squash it down. Even then, the urge sat there like a weight, rippling over my skin and whispering in my brain to go to her.
The compulsion hadn’t even been this bad with the Goddess. I’d wanted to be with her all the time, but out of devotion, not because the threads of fate were tugging around me like I was caught in a fisherman’s net.
“Well, that was interesting,” Teron said, sipping his drink.
Demke growled beneath his breath. “Interesting isn’t the term I’d use, old friend.”
“The girl didn’t mean it.” I was already jumping to her defense, though I knew in my heart that even if I wasn’t now tied to her, I’d feel the same. She’d looked distraught at the idea.
Giving me a haughty look that he’d perfected so well, he took a sip of his drink. “Purposeful or not, she’s pulled you deep into her web. Even now, I can tell you want to leave and go to her.”
Teron was giving him a sharp look, but I couldn’t deny his words. I was saved from replying by Tryp’s forehead hitting the wooden table top. “I just want to fuck her.”
I rolled my eyes, stroking my fingertips down his muscular back. “You wanted to fuck her before your fates were tied.”
“Didn’t say I didn’t.” He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and our connection told me that he wasn’t quite as dismissive of what had just transpired as he’d like to pretend.
Shaking my head, I looked back at our leader. Demke had guided us from death more times than I cared to admit over the last few Ages. “So, what do we do now?”
“Teron and I stay the hell away from her,” he grumbled, but Teron merely squinted an eye at him.
“I’m not going to do that. She needs medical observation. I can’t do that from six feet away.”
Curling his lip in a sneer, Demke stared down his oldest friend. “I’m not going to lose you too.”
The mirthless smile on Teron’s face was filled with pain. “You think I would wish to stay on this plane of existence without my closest companions, my family? I’d rather go back into the tapestry with them than suffer an even lonelier existence without them.”
Demke’s eyes burned, but he didn’t try to dispute Teron’s words.
I posed the question to Demke about what we would do, but I knew that despite the fact he was our leader, I had a new purpose now. One that had its hooks in my soul and wouldn’t relent until she was safe.
Was it weird to feel relieved? To have a purpose once more? A new Goddess. I shied away from the thought. No, not a new Goddess. I’d had one of those and I didn’t want another. Wren could be something new to me, perhaps something more than anything I’d had before.
I bit through a warm grape, letting the juice pool on my lip. “We should fortify. Strengthen the wards. Put out a call to the people who watch the edges of our territory, in case other Pantheons or the Fates try their hand at entering our territory once more.”
We weren’t going to be naive the way we were once before. We wouldn’t trust their words again. Their “honor.” We’d lost everything by being too trusting of their intentions. Never again.
Demke waved a dismissive hand. “Do it. I will protect you with my dying breath. This you never need to doubt.” Us. Not her. I gritted my teeth, but the reasonable part of my brain fought with the yearning in my chest.
Shaking his head, Teron downed the rest of his drink. “I must go make some calls. Our literal existence hinges on the health of her and the babies. I will give them the best possible care I can.” He stared down Demke as he said the words, the challenge not even veiled by his normal genial personality.
Demke stared back, and for the first time, I wondered if Teron would shirk Demke’s control and fight him for leadership of our little ragtag family. Teron had never been a part of the natural order of our Pantheon. He’d sailed onto our shores in a time long ago, and stolen the heart of the Goddess. She’d absorbed him into our world, into our lives, and when the people of Crete had seen him, they’d worshiped him as a God too. He was from a long-dead race, no longer even remembered, let alone thought of.
Much like us.
Demke didn’t drop his eyes, and I wondered if they really would fight. But while his gaze never moved from Teron’s, his words threw up a white flag. “Of course, old friend.”
Teron disappeared into the house, and then there were four. Milo looked antsy, but bright-eyed and sober for the first afternoon in decades. Even if we died, that would be worth risking it all. The alcoholism wasn’t the problem; it was that he used it as a crutch to stave off the ennui.
Now there was Wren, and while that mightn’t be healthy either, it was all we had.
I looked at Tryp, who seemed oblivious to the tension in our group and was now drinking the rakí straight from the bottle. I no longer needed to worry for Milo, but apparently, Tryp was ready to take his place.
Grabbing the bottle from him, I slid it back up the table to Demke. “I think you’ve had enough,” I murmured to my other half. My lover. The one person I would burn the world for over and over again. Wrapping an arm around his waist, I hoisted him to his feet. “Let’s go sleep off what will probably be an impressive hangover, shall we?”
Tryp nodded. He didn’t say anything. Didn’t weigh in on the tension that was thrumming through our group. He just staggered his way into the house. He must have thrown back a bottle of rakí over lunch, because we didn’t usually get that drunk that quickly. Especially not Tryp and I, who were basically forged in sacrificial wine.
We made it to our wing, and I helped him into his room. We might be partners but everyone needed their own space, and that was especially true when you had to be with the other person every day for centuries.
Tryp pulled me into his room, and I dutifully caught the clothes he was throwing off haphazardly. Placing them in the clothes hamper, I shook my head at the absolute chaos of his room. We really were two sides of the same coin; my room was clean and organized, because it made my mind calm. Tryp lived in a room that wasn’t dirty, but it was chaotic. Stacks of books sat beside random instruments he’d tried and discarded. Clothes lay strewn over pieces of furniture, and I’d be surprised if any remained folded in the armoire.
But mostly, his room was filled to the brim with art supplies and half-finished paintings. Objects he thought were interesting that he might want to paint sat in crates beside portraits that he’d been unhappy with and smeared with red paint.
He was a perfectionist, and sometimes he’d fall into a depression and attempt to draw the Goddess once more, trying to recapture her face from memory. It never worked. While I could remember how she’d made me feel, I could no longer remember her face. Just the rough portrait of her etched on the mural in the room now occupied by another woman.
“Are we being unfaithful to her?”
“The Goddess?” I asked, honestly surprised. Tryp had never been a very devout follower. No, that was unfair. He’d loved the Goddess with a fire that burned so hot, I’d sometimes wondered if we would both burn out right along with her. A lot like Teron, though, his devotion had been for the deity herself, not for the pomp that eventually became her religion.
I sat down on his bed, dragging his body toward mine. “No, Tryp. I think we’ve been the most devout of followers, most faithful of lovers. For years, we’ve loved no one else.” I swallowed hard. “But she’s been dead and gone for over a thousand years. She no more exists now than the temples she was worshiped in. She is dust. Wren is real, here, and she needs us.”
His shoulders heaved as he sucked in deep breaths. I lifted his chin, so he was forced to look at me. “She would want us to do this; we both know it. She would want us to protect Wren, to get long overdue vengeance for our betrayal. More than that, she would probably like Wren. And until we’re woven back onto the same fabric as her, we’re not betraying the Goddess. We are honoring her.” The words were as much for me as they were for him.
He flopped down onto his back, his fist curled in my shirt, and soon enough, I was spooned around him. “I’m sorry, Erus.”
I kissed his full lips. Just a whisper of a kiss. “If I don’t blame Wren, I certainly don’t blame you.”
He rested his forehead against my chin. “I’m sorry that I always give you less than you deserve.”
An odd feeling twisted in my chest like a serpent. “Regrets are for your deathbed, Tryp. Until then, you have time to turn it all around.” I kissed his smooth face, untouched by time. “But you don’t have to apologize to me, my love. Never to me.”
He was already snoring lightly, and I smiled against his skin.