Chapter 26 Ophelia
Ophelia
"What the fuck are you doing?" The words tear from my throat before I can stop them. "Hades will kill you if you get involved in this."
Aphrodite's perfect smile doesn't waver. "Will he?"
"Yeah," I snap. "He'll rip you to fucking pieces." I shiver thinking back to the destruction I've seen him dish out. "Your face isn't going to be pretty for long."
"And if he doesn't, I will." Zeus growls, his voice carrying thunderous commands even when he's powerless. "You'll wish you'd never set foot in this temple."
"Threats." She sighs, examining her perfectly manicured nails. "How predictable. For what it's worth, I'm not doing this because I want to. I owe Demeter a blood debt." She throws her hands up slightly. "Can't get out of it, which means I'm here."
"What debt?" I demand, pressing my back against the cold stone wall. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, but there's nowhere to go. The door is locked. Zeus is trapped in his circle. And I'm so weak I'm shaking just standing.
"That's between Demeter and me." Aphrodite takes a step closer, and I catch the scent of her heady perfume. It's intoxicating, makes my head swim. "But a blood debt is a blood debt, and it must be paid."
"I'll pay it for you." Zeus's offer makes both of us look at him. "Whatever Demeter holds over you, I'll clear it. Just help us get out of here."
Something flickers across Aphrodite's beautiful face. Hope, maybe. Or longing.
Then Demeter laughs, and the cold, sharp sound slices through the temple like a blade. Aphrodite's face returns to serene indifference.
"Oh, Zeus," Demeter says. "Always trying to buy your way out of things. We all know that is not how blood debts work."
She smiles, and I see a few lines around her mouth: more signs that the power she stole from me is fading.
"Besides, Aphrodite can't help you. Even if she wanted to." Demeter reaches out, trailing her fingers along Aphrodite's perfect cheek. "Our dear goddess of love can't access her powers unless I permit it."
Ice slides down my spine.
"You bound her powers?" I stare at Aphrodite, searching for any sign of resistance, of fight. "How is that even possible? How are you doing this?"
"Ancient magic," Demeter says simply. "The kind that predates even Olympus."
Zeus chuckles sardonically. "I highly doubt that, Demeter."
She glares. "Your pride has always been your most annoying trait. It's also going to be your downfall."
Aphrodite sighs. "Can we get this over with?"
Demeter's smile is radiant and terrible. She gives a nod. "Let's begin. Touch the girl. Use your power. Make her want him." I shrink back, trying to make myself as small as possible. "And then do the same to Zeus. Make them insatiable with lust. We need to ensure conception."
Aphrodite steps forward, but I notice her hand shaking.
"No." The word bursts from Aphrodite before she can stop it. "Demeter, this is rape. You're asking me to—"
"I'm asking you to fulfill your blood debt." Demeter's voice hardens. "I'm asking you to help me reclaim what was stolen from me. My daughter. My power. My rightful place in this world."
"You'll kill me," I say to Aphrodite. "If you do this, you will have signed my death." I turn to Demeter. "Please," I beg. I am not above that. "I'm your daughter."
Demeter turns to me, and for a moment I see something raw in her eyes. Something that might be pain.
Then it's gone, replaced by cold fury.
"You stopped being my daughter the moment you sided with the God of Death," she says. "The moment you chose him over me. Over life itself. You're nothing but a vessel now, Ophelia. A means to an end."
The words hit like physical blows.
I knew she was using me. Knew she didn't care about me, and that maybe she never had, but still. Her words break something inside of me.
My mother hates me.
Both of them did. The mortal one who tried to kill me, and the divine one who's trying to use me as a breeding vessel.
That betrayal hurts, a lot. But I bury it down. There's time to deal with my never-ending trauma later. Right now, I've got to survive.
"Aphrodite." Demeter's voice snaps like a whip. "Now."
Aphrodite looks at me, and I see genuine anguish in her perfect features. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "I'm so sorry."
She takes a step toward me.
Then another.
Her power rolls off her in waves: desire, lust, and want so potent I can taste them on my tongue.
I don't want this.
I don't want this.
I don't—
"I'm pregnant!" The words burst out of me before I can stop to think.
Everyone freezes.
The temple goes so silent I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
"What?" Demeter's voice is very, very quiet.
"I'm pregnant." I press my hand against my stomach, praying they can't see how it trembles. "So you can't." I swallow down the bile building in my throat. "The prophecy requires you to need me to conceive Zeus's child, but if I'm already pregnant—"
"You're lying." Demeter doesn't sound certain.
"Am I?" I meet her eyes, putting every ounce of conviction I can muster into my voice. "Think about it. Hades and I have been together. Multiple times. It's more than possible. Why wouldn't he want a child, to divert the prophecy? It's why I ran. He tricked me."
Demeter turns to Aphrodite. "Tell me if she's lying."
Aphrodite shakes her head slowly. "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?"
"Pregnancy isn't my domain." Aphrodite's voice is steady now, professional. "I can sense desire, attraction, love, but not whether someone is carrying a child. That's Persephone's power. Or yours. Or Hestia's. Not mine."
Demeter's face goes through several expressions in rapid succession: shock, fury, calculation.
"No." She shakes her head. "You're trying to delay the inevitable."
"Does it matter?" I cut her off. "Even if it's a trick, can you afford to take the risk?
If I am pregnant with Hades's child and you force this, what happens to the prophecy then?
Does it fail? Does it corrupt the ritual?
Can you risk it?" I take a shaky breath.
"If I'm pregnant, Hades will stop at nothing to get me back, and a child will make the bond between us strong. "
I don't actually know that. It's a shot in the dark. But it's all I have.
Her expression hardens into something cold and vicious.
"Fine." She turns toward the door. "We'll know soon enough. I'll have one of my followers bring a pregnancy test. If you're lying—" Her smile is a slash of white teeth. "Well. Then we continue as planned."
She stalks toward the door, her divine form flickering at the edges, that facade of youth and beauty cracking to reveal the aged hands and sagging skin beneath.
"Wait with them," she throws over her shoulder at Aphrodite. "Make sure they don't try anything stupid."
Then she's gone, the door slamming shut behind her with a sound like a death knell.
Silence.
"You could have spoken up sooner," Zeus says dryly. "Would have saved us all some drama."
I turn on him, exhaustion and terror and fury all boiling over at once.
"Spoken up? Are you fucking kidding me? I had sex with Hades forty-eight hours ago.
I have absolutely no idea if I'm actually pregnant.
For all I know, I just bought us ten minutes before Demeter comes back with a test that proves I'm lying and then we're right back where we started. "
"Forty-eight hours?" Zeus's eyebrows rise. "That's not—"
"I know it's not long enough to know!" I'm shaking now, adrenaline and fear making my hands tremble.
"But Demeter doesn't know that. She's also probably assuming that I've been with Hades for months.
" I shake my head. "Semantics don't matter.
All she knows is that if I might be pregnant, she can't risk the ritual.
She won't. She told me she has one shot at this.
Hades screwed her the first time, and she faded into her disciple.
She's not going to allow that to happen again. "
Understanding dawns in Zeus's eyes. "So you bought us time."
"I bought all of us time," I correct, looking at Aphrodite. "Including you."
Aphrodite has been standing very still, but now her legs give out and she sinks down to sit on the stone floor, her sunset-colored dress pooling around her.
"Thank you," she says quietly, shaking. "I didn't want to be involved in this. When she came to me at the party, told me who you were, I tried—"
"Don't thank me yet." I lean back against the wall, trying to stay upright. "We still need to figure out how to get out of here before Demeter comes back."
"There's more here than just Demeter." Aphrodite's voice is urgent now, almost desperate. "You need to understand: this isn't just about the prophecy or bringing her back. There's—"
She stops.
Her whole body goes rigid, like she's been struck by something invisible.
"Aphrodite?" Zeus takes a step forward, but the circle flares, holding him back.
"There's—" She tries again, her face contorting with effort. "The magic—it's not just—"
Then she screams.
The sound is inhuman, agonized. Blood bursts from her nose, streams from her ears. She clutches her head, still screaming, her perfect features twisted in pain.
"Stop!" I lurch forward, but I'm too weak to reach her before she collapses to her knees. "Aphrodite, stop trying to talk!"
She continues trying to finish her sentence, but she's gurgling on blood, thick and red and dripping from her mouth.
"Stop!" I press my hand to her mouth, and she snaps her lips together, choking down the fluid. The pain abates the moment she stops trying to speak.
"Something's blocking her." Zeus's voice is sharp with realization. "Some kind of compulsion or gag order. She physically can't tell us whatever she's trying to say."
"How?" I demand. "How is that possible?"
"Magic." His eyes are hard, calculating.
"Demeter?"
He snorts, shaking his head. "Even at her best, she couldn't block our powers."
"Then who?"
"I don't know," he says. "But there's something much larger at play here than a resurrected goddess and a prophecy."
Aphrodite is curled on the stone floor, blood pooling beneath her, sobbing silently.
I want to comfort her, but the best thing I can do right now is keep my head on straight and figure out how to get us the fuck out of here.
"We need to move," I say. "Before Demeter comes back. Before whoever is really behind this decides we're more trouble than we're worth."
"Agreed." Zeus pulls at his prison again. "But how? I can't break this circle. You have no power. And Aphrodite—"
He gestures at the goddess sobbing on the floor.
"Can't help us without Demeter's permission," I finish bitterly.
We're trapped.
No powers. No way out. No rescue coming because Hades doesn't even know where we are.
And somewhere in this temple, Demeter is getting a pregnancy test that will prove I'm lying.
"Well," I say, sliding down the wall to sit on the cold stone. "This just keeps going from bad to worse."