Chapter 40
Chapter forty
HYPNOS
Iliana’s words repeated in Hypnos’ head.
I’m fine. Just…tired.
Iliana didn’t want him. She feared his power. Feared him.
Unless I ask him to. Just for my protection.
Her earlier words rang in Hypnos’ mind as he watched Iliana curl between Thanatos and Anubis. Even asleep, she gravitated to them, her body relaxing against their warmth while his touch remained purely functional.
His job was to keep the curse at bay. That was the only reason she allowed him close. She accepted his help for survival, not out of trust or comfort. He offered her peace every night, but she’d made it conditional.
Conditional on her desperation.
“You seem distant tonight. Troubled. What is weighing on you?”
Pasithea’s voice, soft and sympathetic, penetrated his defenses in his half-asleep state as he watched over Iliana.
“Leave me alone,” he responded mentally, the words coming out emotionless. He couldn’t even muster heat behind them.
“I am only saying what you already seem to know,” she said, gentle and understanding. “Look at her, Hypnos. Look how she melts into their arms. Has she looked at you the same way she looks at them?”
He couldn’t deny it. The evidence was right there, staring him in the face.
Iliana’s face was soft and trusting as she slept on Thanatos’ chest. The way she threw her arm out to touch Anubis, who’d moved up closer so she could rest her hand on his fur.
The careful politeness she’d shown him over the past few days was just gratitude mixed with wariness.
“She does not want your touch, does she? You are forcing yourself to stay where you are not wanted. Why do you put yourself through this pain?”
“Stop.”
“I am not trying to hurt you. I am trying to help you see,” she cajoled. “Did she choose to be with you—or does she want something? You deserve more than that.”
Hypnos frowned when he looked at his hand, where it rested on Iliana’s arm.
Seeing the shake, bile rose in his throat.
The sharp taste burned as his vulnerability was revealed.
He steadied it through sheer force of will, pressing his fingers more firmly, as if touch alone could prove Pasithea wrong.
Though his ex-wife wasn’t wrong.
Iliana had flinched earlier when he’d interrupted her and Thanatos. Then he recalled her look of pleasure and humor at seeing Anubis when he joined them.
“Maybe…” he admitted roughly.
Pasithea’s voice was quieter now. “I want you to be happy. And I think you want her to be happy, too. Why are you lingering around her? Is there something holding you here? You seem so miserable.”
The curse.
If he left Iliana to face the curse on her own, she’d die.
Hypnos looked at Iliana’s peaceful face. He saw only the flinches, every careful move she made around him, not her tentative trust.
“I know I used you in the past, but I do not enjoy seeing this done to you. I know what it looks like when someone tolerates your presence out of necessity. Seeing it happen again makes me regret doing it to you. You deserve someone who chooses you, not someone who endures you.”
He remained silent, keeping his eyes on Iliana. He vaguely saw Pasithea move closer to his side, her arms crossed as she looked down at the sleeping group.
“You could leave, you know. Come home. Stop subjecting yourself to this…arrangement. Let them have what they clearly want without you.”
Before he could respond, she was gone, leaving him alone with her words and the sight of Iliana sleeping peacefully in the arms of gods who could give her what he never could.
Trust—the one thing he’d never been able to offer again.