by Leia Stone
We’d shared saliva, that was almost like we’d kissed right?
#NotReally
Something told me if he ever kissed me, I’d probably explode from the pure ecstasy of it. And it would be #TotallyWorthIt
When he was done drinking, the rain suddenly stopped, not a cloud in sight.
“Maisey?” He leaned close to me and got right in my face.
He used my name! “Yes?”
Oh my God, please kiss me, fucking kiss me hard and good.
“When we get inside the cave. Don’t. Touch. Anything.” He growled and I felt my passion deflate like a balloon. “Zeus designed this cave to kill me, so don’t test it.” Then he pulled back, stomping back off down the path and taking his heat with him.
#Seriously #FuckThisGuy
Damn. It took me a moment to regain my wits, but that pull was there, always there dragging me with him.
“If it’s designed to kill you, then why are we doing it? Surely a favor from Thanatos can’t be worth risking our lives?” I’d caught up to him now and he looked down at me, all covered in rainwater, his thick, gorgeous hair splayed out wildly.
“A favor from the god of death is worth almost anything.” He paused. “And I want to see if I can break all of Zeus’s pussy-ass booby traps.”
I snorted, “You totally just said pussy-ass. You got that from me.” A thousands-year-old god trapped in a twenty-five year-old body and he was saying pussy-ass. It was comical.
His hand came out then and splayed on my belly, stopping me mid-step. “Shhh.”
I went silent, listening … to nothing.
“I don’t hear anything.” My heart hammered in my chest.
He shrugged. “Best to stay quiet for the rest of the hike, just in case.”
Fucker.
With a frown, I followed my beast into a volcano.
We entered some kind of cave opening and Cronus stood before a seemingly plain muddy, earthen wall. He just stared at it, like it might come alive.
“Regalti,” he whispered.
Was that Italian?
Nothing happened.
“Unimos.”
“Khula.”
He went on like this for what seemed like forever. I think I actually napped for a little bit. That hike had worn me out. Being carried was exhausting.
“Are you sure this is the entrance? Can’t you just … smash it open?” I asked finally. I was going to need a snack soon.
He spun around and pinned me with a glare. “This entrance was designed to kill me. For the past ten minutes I’ve been holding up a protective shield should anything fly out and impale us. I can’t simply smash the opening.”
I held up my hands in defense. “Okay, okay. Maybe try blood. That worked for me.” I winked.
And a shitload of liquor. Not everyone gets attached to a god for their twenty-first birthday, but I was special like that. Something dawned in his eyes and he reached out lightning-quick and snatched my palm into his.
“Yes. You’re a demi-god. Selene’s lineage runs through your veins. Zeus would have made it so his minions could get in and help him store the items.”
Huh? I was really going to have to get around to googling Selene later.
“First of all, I am not a Zeus minion. Secondly, you’re not suggesting that I bleed on this door, right?” I tried to yank my hand back, but he held it.
“Come on, human. A tiny drop of blood ... just to see what it does?” He gave me a look then, a look that smoldered, a look that said he knew just how attractive he was and the effect it had on me.
Fuck that. I wasn’t going to fall prey to his pretty eyes and pouty lips.
I yanked my hand from his and crossed my arms.
“No.”
“I’ll carry you down the mountain when we are done. Otherwise you are walking.”
My eyes widened as he went for the kill. That bastard knew me too well already.
“Fine! One drop and I want some damn food soon.” Might as well throw lunch into the deal.
He nodded and I extended my hand.
“If this adheres me to another god, I’m done,” I declared as he grabbed his giant blade that had been in some sort of sheath—had Thanatos given him that?—and held it over my palm.
“Be careful, you could take off my whole hand with that thing!”
“Look, a bird!” Cronus shouted behind me.
I spun and pain sliced across my palm.
“Ow! You tricked me.” I turned back to look at him incredulously.
He re-sheathed his sword as I stared at the small pool of blood in my palm. Way more than a fucking drop.
“Sorry, it was better that way.”
Placing his palm behind mine, he pressed it to the muddy wall.
“You better have some disinfectant in your pocket. This is how people get a staph infection—”
“Shh,” he hissed.
A low hum had sounded just beyond the wall and no doubt my face was doing a wide-eyed shocked thing. The wall was vibrating against my hand. This felt oddly similar to what I remembered from my drunken portal opening the night I released Cronus.
Because I now knew that portals and gods were real and there was no going back from that. The vibrating turned into a roar and I yanked my hand back just in time to see the mud crumble and fall to our feet, leaving a golden shimmering door in its wake.
I gasped, but then my shock quickly faded.
There were ornate carvings all around the edge, but in the center was engraved four words. They were not in English though.
“What does it say?” I asked him, hesitantly leaning closer.
He was surprisingly quiet.
“If you can’t read it, that’s okay,” I replied. Maybe it wasn’t a language he could read either.
Finally he cleared his throat. “It says, Cronus is a dick. Roughly translated.”
I snorted, clearing my throat. “Uh, so what did you do to piss off Zeus?”
My giant god was glaring at the words.
“I tried to keep his ego in check.”
He growled when suddenly a whistling sound sailed past my ear. Cronus threw his arms out, a shockwave of power bursting from his palms.
Some kind of metal projectiles had shot from the walls beside us, but Cronus had thwarted them.
“We need to hurry,” he grunted, picking up my bloody hand and using it to grasp the golden door handle. A burning pain shot through my palm and up my wrist.
“OW!” I yanked my hand back, but not before things started clicking and opening and hissing.
Cronus looked back at me. “Are you hurt?” He looked confused. Like how could something so small hurt me?
Half human, asshole.
I just nodded.
Reaching into his waist belt, he pulled his massive blade again. Then he reached out and grabbed a chunk of my hair, slicing the bottom two inches off.
“What the fuck, man!” I shoved him backward, planting my bloody palm on his chest and pushing as hard as I could.
He didn’t move. He just stood there blinking at me with annoyance.
Finally, he reached out and grabbed my injured palm, then he laid the chunk of my beautiful ten-thousand-Instagram-likes hair on the cut.
“Gross, what the hell?” I tried to yank my palm back.
The second my hair hit the blood of my skin, a blue glow emanated from my palm and the cut started to close. An itchy tingle worked its way up my arm before settling into warmth in my chest. Then Cronus brought his mouth to my hand and blew warm air across my skin. I peered down. The hair was gone and my palm was healed.
My mouth went slack. #Rapunzel #PrincessRightHere
“How?” I muttered.
Cronus turned to open the door, which had clicked ajar two inches while I stared at my palm in complete and utter shock.
“I’m hallucinating,” I decided.
He shook his head at me. “Not this again.” He opened the door an inch and peeked inside. “You’re
a descendant of the moon goddess. I already told you your hair has some mild powers.”
My eyes bugged. “Mild powers. You liar! You said it would glow and that at most I was ‘genetically blessed.’”
The god looked back at me, “You are genetically blessed, and your hair holds a bit of magic.”
“A bit!”
Oh my God. Could I cure cancer? Heal the sick? This shit was insane.
Cronus fully turned and placed a hand on either side of my shoulders. “Look, we don’t have time for your nervous breakdown right now. Your hair can heal you and you alone. It’s not that big of a deal. Witches could also use it in spells. It may have some other properties, but I haven’t heard of them, so they can’t be that powerful.”
Holy shit. This was nuts.
#Breathe.
Cronus placed me in front of him, facing the crack in the open door. “I’m going to need you to go first.”
I looked back at him incredulously. “How chivalrous of you.”
“I will protect you from danger. We’re on borrowed time, might I add.”
Ugh.
With a growl, I wrenched the door open fully and stepped one foot into the dark cave.
“Hello!” I shouted.
Cronus’ hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Shhh, do you want to wake every creature guarding this place?”
Creature. He said creature! #FuckThisImOut
I went to back up, slamming my body against his chest, but he pushed me forward as we walked as one.
With a whoosh, orange fiery lights erupted along the cave walls, illuminating a massive space.
“Holy shit!” I breathed.
Treasure upon treasure was stacked high across the space. A hundred-foot-wide circle was filled to the brim with crystals, knives, goblets, jewels. The real treasure seemed to glow behind a black curtain, pink light filtering out, and I wanted to go inside, but I knew he wouldn’t let me.
Cronus swam into view. “Don’t. Touch. Anything. Your presence got us in here, but I’m sure Zeus has been alerted. Let me get the Elixir and then we are gone. I should be able to get a little further away from you in this particular room due to the magical wards. Everything inside is close and linked, so our bond believes the same.”
I nodded nervously. He moved toward the black curtain and the pink light. “Wait! Why can only a Titan fetch the elixir?”
His head swiveled to look back at me; his expression was like he wanted to rip my head clean off my body. “Seriously? You want a lesson in magical artifacts right now?”
I winced. “Okay, maybe we can chat about this later...”
He met my stare with one that was unreadable. “Just stay here. Understand?”
I nodded.
“Say you won’t touch anything,” he pushed.
Geeze with this guy. #NoTrust “I won’t touch anything!” I spat.
He took off behind the curtain while I stayed where I was.
Don’t touch anything. Not a thing.
I’m not stupid.
After a full two minutes of standing there, I started to worry. Feeling a tug at our bond, I moved one step closer.
“Dude, you okay?” I called out into the dark curtain opening.
No reply. He couldn’t have gone that far or I would have felt it through the bond. Right?
Shit. What if he’d been caught in a booby-trap or some creature had gotten him?
At the thought of creatures, I suddenly spun around, my heart in my throat.
“Cronus!” I shouted, a bit louder this time.
Nothing.
Fuck that. I burst forward, walking quickly along the path to the curtain, suddenly convinced that I was being followed by some terrifying monster. I went around a pile of golden daggers and was about to part the curtain when a glowing box caught my eye to the right.
Maisey...
A female voice whispered from the box.
What the…?
I dropped my hands and inched closer to the box, turning away from the curtain. “Hello?” I whisper-screamed.
The box was made of black granite, and something super shiny was under the lid. Shafts of glowing golden light were peeking out.
“Maisey!” This time the voice was stronger, more insistent.
Chills broke out on my arms as I took one step closer, leaning directly over the box. I had no intention of touching the thing, because I was not, in fact, an idiot, when a sliver of my hair fell from my head and landed across the black lid.
Okay, no big deal, I’ll just—
The lid sprang open, shattering light across the space.
“Fuck.” I didn’t even have time to back up out of the light. A black inky blob leapt from the box and wrapped around my abdomen tightly like a snake.
“CRONUS!” I shrieked bloody murder. Where was that motherfucker? Had he portaled to another dimension?
My eyes flicked down to see the box was now gone, completely vanished. A glowing silver necklace lay on the ground where it once had been.
“Maisey!” Cronus finally shouted my name, but I couldn’t reply, because I was currently in a ton of trouble. The blackness was working its way up my ribcage, to my chest and then up my throat. Just as I found my voice again, ready to scream, the fucking necklace leapt off the ground and attached itself around my throat.
No! #ThisIsSomeAlienBullshit
I yanked at the chain, trying to rip it off, but it only cut into my skin. It was no use.
“NO!” Cronus shouted, suddenly swimming into view.
It was all happening so fast, I couldn’t process it. Everything hurt; it burned like my skin had been set on fire.
“What did you do?!” He sounded upset, his gaze falling to the blackness around my chest, then the necklace, and then … for the first time since I met him, he looked scared.
That’s when I lost my shit.
Tears streamed down my face. “Help!” The blackness was at my chin now, burning up my face as it tried to enter my mouth.
Cronus shook himself, snapping out of his shock, and grasped my cheeks. Blue light shot from his palms, nearly blinding me and coating my skin.
“You will not take her!” he roared to some unseen force as the blue light flared along my jaw and the black inky magic pulled itself away from my body to avoid the light. He held my face, firmly cupped in his hands as the blackness started to … divide itself into pieces. Nine pieces to be exact.
I watched as those nine pieces began to mold into...
Chills ran the length of my spine. Those nine pieces were slowly forming humanoid figures.
“What the fuck! What’s happening?” I shouted as the figures began to take shape. Flesh and hair sprouted as they became real.
Cronus looked into my eyes with a menacing expression. “You opened Pandora’s Box. The very thing I was tasked with protecting.”
The sins. The nine sins.
Oh fuck.
Chapter 9
I was frozen. My legs wanted to run, my brain was screaming at me to do something, but somehow I couldn’t move. “Did you say Pandora? As in…?” I hoped I was wrong about my previous thoughts. Maybe this was a totally different, completely non-descript Pandora’s Box. Surely she had more than one box. I mean ... that made sense, right?
His face was a mask of shadows, and he was scaring me a little as he rasped out, “Pandora's Box, container of the nine deadly sins that if opened will end the world.”
I gulped. Well it definitely had opened…
“What do we do?” I gasped, and that seemed to bring him back from wherever he’d gone in his mind.
He focused on me and I flinched at the darkness in his eyes. “The sins tried to manifest in your body but I locked them out. Now, though, they’re going to form their own manifestations, slowly, one by one. And then they’re going to destroy the world.”
Destroy the world?
“The old destroy the world trick,” I said, trying not to faint. “Couldn’t they think of something
else this time?”
Cronus glared at me. “Now is not the time for your sarcasm, Maisey. We have minutes before it’s too late. We need to put them back in the box.”
He started to look around, seemingly for the box.
Oops.
“We can’t,” I said quickly, needing to confess the full magnitude of this shit show. “About the box … it disappeared.”
My hands went to the necklace that was permanently attached to me. “Apparently it prefers to be jewelry.”
Cronus reached out and stroked his fingers across it; the piece heated and vibrated under his touch. Like it … enjoyed it. I was surprised he hadn’t killed me yet, but then I remembered we were bonded and that was only to keep himself alive.
“What part of your body touched the box?” he asked softly, those words threaded with undercurrents of danger.
I gulped. “Uh, my hair.”
Gold burned brightly through his blue irises. “Human, seriously? You may have just ended the world!”
#NotOnMyBuckletList
“There must be something we can do,” I shrieked.
Cronus was looking around the room then, but the grim set of his features told me everything. “Without my brothers and sisters, or the box, the sins are too powerful for me to contain alone.” He muttered a few more phrases, not in English. “The sins should not have been here,” he finally snapped. “They were contained in their own, undetectable chamber deep under the ocean. Far from the Greek gods. Fucking Zeus!”
I swallowed hard, trying to find some moisture in my dry mouth. “Apparently not that undetectable.”
Cronus’ chest rumbled, low growls falling from his lips, and I decided to shut the fuck up. He was not in the mood.
“We need to leave before they finish the first part of their manifestation,” he said, his eyes falling to the necklace again and then to the menacing creatures forming from the blackness. “There’s only one option left to save the world.”
One. One wasn’t many. That wasn’t nearly enough to save the world. I would have felt okay with a hundred options. Even fifty would have been doable. But one. Like … one...