Venus Rising: Book 3 Aphrodite Trilogy (The Daughters of Zeus 6)

by Kaitlin Bevis

  “You okay?” Adonis grunted. “Stupid question, I can feel that you’re not okay.”

  I nodded, taking deep breaths in an attempt to remain conscious. Between teleporting, nearly drowning, and my link to Adonis’s pain, I was in pretty rough shape.

  “What is this place?” I demanded, forcing myself to focus on something else. Anything else. Every second I spent dwelling on the fact that I was injured, powerless, and locked in a small room with Adonis of all people, threatened to throw me over the edge.

  A large window filled one wall, but all I could see in it was my own reflection. If I squinted, I could make out the lights on the ceiling beyond, but no details.

  “A hospital?” Adonis motioned a pale arm toward the metal slab sitting in the center of the room.

  An autopsy table. A million useless facts about the use and function of this particular model flooded my mind when I studied it. I blinked, jerking my head away. A row of overhead metal cabinets lined the windowless room. When I tried to open one, I found it locked.

  “I wouldn’t mess with those.” Adonis threw an anxious glance at the door. Sweat plastered his whisper-fine white hair to his forehead. Unfamiliar silver eyes stared out from a pale, white face.

  Once, he’d had the golden coloring of a demigod. When I turned him into a god, those features had bleached and faded. He’d always favored the ancient statues of gods in build, but now he matched them in coloring. The effect was unsettling.

  I did this, I realized. Not just in the larger picture. I’d made him a god, which led to him being trapped here and locked up by his own people. Worse, I’d made him into a weak god, all but trembling as he lived my pain. Any chance he’d had to fight back had probably been drained out of him by my own fight against the ocean waves.

  He deserved worse. I worked my jaw, tearing my gaze away from him to the door. Glass filled the top half of the door, but all I could see through it were the shadows of the two demigods I’d seen standing out there before.

  “Those guards at the door.” I felt a sinking feeling in my chest. “They’re not going to leave, are they?”

  “Nope,” Adonis said darkly.

  “Have they said what they want?”

  Adonis’s pale eyes slid over to me. “Narcissus said he wants to see what makes gods tick.”

  And they’d thrown me in here with him. Guess that meant my cover was blown after all.

  Chapter VI

  Medea

  THE RHYTHMIC BEEPING of hospital equipment woke me up in a panic. Crying out, I peered through tangled dark hair to take in the IVs, the smell of disinfectant emanating from the spackled tile floor, the uncomfortable slab of a bed beneath me, and the chatter of nurses in the hallway beyond the wooden door.

  No. I was never going back here. Never. They couldn’t do this to me!

  I surged forward, ripping at the IV. The needle tore out of my arm in a spray of red droplets, but I was way too far gone to feel it. An alarm went off somewhere to my right, and footsteps pounded toward my room. The wooden door burst open and the red-headed nurse from so many of my memories turned nightmares pushed into the room.

  Oh gods. It had all been a lie. A dream! Jason saving me from this terrible place, the romance, the betrayal, the friends I’d made. Nothing was real and I was—I was—

  A shattered wail rose from my throat as the nurse came at me, hands out, speaking in soothing tones.

  No! No! No! They were going to cut me open, drain me dry, take me apart, piece by piece. I’d go to sleep for months! I couldn’t do that again!

  Otrera burst into the room, shoving past the objecting nurse. She was tall, strong, and wore tight workout pants and an oversized sweatshirt declaring that ‘a woman’s place is in the resistance.’ Her skin glimmered in a dusky gold almost as dark as her eyes, and her multitude of dark gold braids were pulled back into a single ponytail.

  At the sight of her, I broke down weeping with relief. It was real. DAMNED, the island, all of it. And Otrera, fierce, brave, ultra-protective Otrera, was here. She’d never let anyone hurt me.

  Unless she figured out that I’d killed Glauce.

  “Oh gods!” I wept. “I thought—I thought—” Words tumbled off my tongue in no particular order, conveying more sound than meaning.

  Otrera sat next to me on the bed, shushing me as her fingers stroked my hair. When I regained some semblance of coherence, she spoke. “You had a seizure or something after you moved the island.” She leaned back to give me an incredulous look, her eyebrows raised almost to her hairline. “A little warning next time?”

  “Sorry.” I stiffened when the red-headed nurse approached, ostensibly to patch up my arm, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. “She doesn’t touch me.”

  “Medea . . .” Otrera said with a sigh.

  “She doesn’t touch me.”

  Otrera rolled her eyes. “You heard her. Go get someone else.”

  The nurse, charmed to obey, scurried out of the room.

  “Happy?” Otrera grabbed a pack of gauze and tossed it toward me.

  My arm was already healing, but I dabbed up the blood anyway because it seemed to make Otrera feel better. “You didn’t have to bring me here. I heal.”

  “Yeah, well, the last person I saw have a seizure ended up dead despite your oh-so-special magical blood, so excuse me if I wasn’t willing to take chances.”

  I tugged at the neck of my hospital gown, feeling claustrophobic. The image of Glauce writhing on the floor still burned in my mind.

  I’d done that.

  “Of course you didn’t just have a seizure,” Otrera added, gold eyes narrowing. “You threw up blood, which was pretty disgusting. And then they hooked you up to that—” she pointed to the IV “—because you were all dehydrated and stuff from throwing up blood.” Otrera shuddered. “But once they’re all done patching you up, from you know, throwing up blood—”

  “Did I throw up blood, Otrera?”

  “Shut up, it was disgusting.” The athletic demigoddess motioned my arm. “So is ripping out your own IV, for the record. Anyway, once you’re all patched up, you’re allowed to leave. No one wants your parts.” She wrinkled her nose at the word. “Gods.”

  I laughed, despite myself, and when a new nurse came in, I meekly acquiesced to her attention.

  “So what happened after I passed out?” I asked, trying to focus on anything but the medical professional fiddling with my arm.

  “And threw up blood?” Otrera asked holding up a finger.

  I rolled my eyes, smiling. “Yeah, after that.”

  “I changed and took a long shower.”

  I shoved her arm.

  “Fine, fine.” Otrera puffed her cheeks and let out a long breath that somehow conveyed epic levels of chaos and drama. “Where to begin? Let’s see. Narcissus took advantage of your lapse in consciousness to completely take over. He’s been giving everyone orders, and—” her gold eyes looked troubled “—Elise washed up on the beach. She looked a step away from death. He brought her here, but I don’t think she’s safe. Everyone is getting all worked up, and—” She broke off, shaking her head. “What is happening to us? Jason’s gone, Glauce is dead, and you’re—” She waved her arm at me. “And everything’s just gone to hell.”

  I swore. I’d teleported Elise with the island, knowing full well she’d be treated with suspicion. But I hadn’t expected to pass out and leave her to deal with the islanders on her own. “We’ve got to get Elise out of here, Otrera. Before anyone talks to her.”

  Otrera gave me a speculative look, but didn’t ask any more questions until the nurse left. “What is going on?”

  When I opened my mouth to reply, she shut me down with a glare. “The truth. You’ve been acting weird since before Glauce died. You left Jason in the hands of t
he Pantheon. Then you came back and said we have the missing gods somewhere on the island? And Elise . . . Elise was gone. That god teleported away with her. But you brought her back on purpose. You must have. And now you don’t want anyone talking to her? Why?”

  Could I trust her? Maybe I’d trusted Jason too easily, but there was something to be said for trusting too late. I couldn’t do this alone. Especially if Narcissus got his hands on “Elise.”

  “I found out what happened to the missing gods,” I confessed to Otrera, speaking in a low voice. “They’re here. In this hospital. Otrera, Jason was torturing them.” I swallowed hard, thinking of that poor goddess with the scars and pockmarks crisscrossing her unconscious body. “Experimenting on them. He was using my blood to make more Steele and poison and a bunch of other things I didn’t get a good look at. I couldn’t—” I looked down. “It’s not right.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded. “Going after the goddess on the cruise because we were worried about her exposing us was one thing. We all voted on that. This? Abducting gods, holding them prisoner? Medical experiments? We didn’t sign up for that.”

  “No.” Otrera’s voice went hard. “We didn’t.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Did Jason kill Glauce?”

  “H—her heart,” I stammered, using the lie I’d devised to cover my poison. I’d even grabbed heart medication from the pharmacy and added it to her shipment to make it look authentic.

  Otrera gave me a flat look. “Come on, Medea. If Glauce had a heart condition, don’t you think the entire island would have known it within fifteen minutes? She loved attention. I can’t see her quietly suffering while her life-saving medication was delayed for weeks on end. Can you?”

  A thousand pre-scripted justifications rushed to my tongue. Glauce could have been too embarrassed. People were weird about medical stuff. She never did any physical labor. Just shield duty. There were dozens of things that pointed to a heart problem. But . . . Otrera wasn’t blaming me. She was blaming Jason. Maybe I should just let her.

  “Jason was almost always with her toward the end,” Otrera continued. “Testing the shield. I think he manufactured an emergency to justify a meeting with the gods. I think he knew it wasn’t going to go well. It was a stunt, frickin’ politics, to get everyone to agree to this pointless war.”

  I probably looked like a fish with my constant gaping.

  “You knew.” She lowered her voice again. “And that’s why you left him, isn’t it?”

  It’s not like I meant to kill her. Why not let Jason take the fall? “He deserved it.”

  Otrera’s gold eyes glittered with rage. “Damn right he did. When do you think you’ll be up to teleporting again? We have to get out of here. Let them—” she reached back to tighten her golden ponytail “—destroy each other. I want out.”

  “Not without Elise. She’s—” I broke off, studying the demigoddess.

  Narrow, gold eyes set in an angular face stared back at me, a picture of determination. Swallowing hard, I made a decision.

  I was going to trust her.

  “I think Elise is one of the gods. I think she was here looking for her people.”

  “Elise can’t be a god,” Otrera objected. “She was near death when she arrived here. We all saw that. Gods heal.”

  I met her eyes. “Not if our poison works.”

  Otrera blanched. “So you think Tantalus was right? That they were stealing our faces and spying on us.”

  “They’re looking for their people.” I swung my legs over the bed. “People we stole. We know the goddess was poisoned, the god wasn’t. He could have flattened us at any time.”

  Otrera raised a slim, gold eyebrow at that. “You think they’re still powerful enough to do that?”

  “Absolutely.” I shivered, thinking back to the meeting where I’d felt Persephone’s power. “If they haven’t killed us yet, it’s because they don’t want to. They can’t lie, remember? Persephone said she wants to avoid bloodshed, so it must be true. But if they find out what we’ve been doing to their people, that’s all over.” I grabbed Otrera’s hands, staring into her eyes because it was so important she understood this part. “Jason lied to us. He said the gods were weak, but they’re not. I felt it. We have no chance against them. If we don’t accept their terms, lock them into those promises before they find their people—and believe me, they will find them—then we’re all dead.”

  Otrera swallowed hard. “Narcissus is never going to agree to destroy all the weapons. No one will. As far as they’re concerned, that Steele is the only thing keeping us safe.”

  “Then we have to go around them. Like you said. Let’s get out of here. Let them destroy each other. But not without making our own deal with the gods. If they find out what we’ve done, they’ll hunt us to the ends of the earth. We need her to make that deal.”

  “You can’t just spring her, Medea. I don’t think you get how angry people are.”

  “We can’t leave her with Narcissus long enough for her to be questioned.”

  Otrera stared at me. “Medea, you’ve been out cold for most of the day.”

  I swore. “Let’s hope it’s not too late.”

  Chapter VII

  Medea

  I LEFT THE HOSPITAL with Otrera and rushed to the dining hall, still weak from moving the island. Narcissus was already working the demigods. His slimy smile lit the room despite the oppressive gray skies beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows. Demigods sat in rows along the tables, staring at him with undivided attention.

  “Medea.” The immaculately dressed demigod smiled at me as I approached. “I trust you’re feeling better.”

  I forced a smile to my face. “Much.”

  “We were just discussing our Elise problem.”

  Calais, a muscular demigod with a superiority complex stood up. “We can’t just let her wander around the island.”

  “She can’t be trusted,” Neleus agreed, brushing hair away from his narrow face.

  “Are you so sure she knew?” I objected, desperate to buy some time. Squinting eyes and tilted heads alerted me to the fact that emotion had thickened my accent, so I forced myself to slow down. To speak with precision. “The gods are good at what they do. History, our history, is filled with gods glamouring themselves to look like husbands and boyfriends and random forest creatures. How many of you wouldn’t exist right now if that wasn’t the case?”

  “There’s a difference between not noticing a single night and living with someone for months without noticing,” Zeetes, an awkwardly tall demigod, argued.

  “What the hell would you know about spending the night with someone?” Otrera jeered.

  Zeetes’s face darkened. “More than you, you dumb dyke.”

  Otrera raised slim eyebrows and spoke two words. “Twilight. Sparkle.”

  Zeetes paled at the reference to his hidden stash of pony porn.

  I broke in before he could respond. “Remember that when they got here, they’d both been through a lot of trauma. Maybe she wrote off all the differences to that. Or maybe there weren’t major differences. Maybe the gods are just that good.”

  Narcissus raised his hands, his cuff links glittering in the failing light of day, and the islanders stilled. “I’m reasonably certain Elise was as caught off guard by the Pantheon’s deception as the rest of us. She’s a victim and should be treated as one.”

  I stared at him in surprise.

  “I’m not a monster, Medea. I’d like to ask her some questions in case she picked up on something she didn’t realize, but I’m not going to punish the girl. Why, I knew Adonis.” He splayed his hands in a magnanimous gesture. “The boy worked for me, and even I didn’t notice the deception.”

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Otrera regard Na
rcissus with equal parts suspicion and disgust.

  Narcissus didn’t appear to notice. “The gods are, as you say, good at what they do. And what they do best is deception. We cannot trust these beings. We cannot trust their terms.”

  Cries of affirmation rose from the crowd.

  “I say we take this opportunity and use it!” Narcissus pitched his voice louder, going into full-on performance mode. “Medea bought us time. Let them think we’re considering their terms. And when they next meet with us, we’ll be ready. Damn the gods!”

  “Damn the gods,” the others cried.

  The anger in their voices sent chills up my spine. My plan to leave Jason behind with the gods and seize control of the island in his absence suddenly seemed ridiculously naïve. I’d assumed the islanders would listen to me over Narcissus. I lived here. Narcissus barely spent any time on the island. But these people were angry and afraid. Their tropical paradise had been drowned in rain, then relocated to a cold front. They’d just learned the gods sent spies among them, and they weren’t happy I’d left Jason behind. No wonder it was so easy for Narcissus to swoop in and take control.

  “Now,” Narcissus said, quieting the crowd. “Since the gods have proven they can effectively glamour themselves among us, we must first make sure there aren’t any hidden gods in our number. Ordinarily, I’d say we should just try to catch one in a lie. Require everyone to say the sky is green or some such nonsense, but this most recent deception has me wondering if our information is false. Perhaps the gods can lie. Or perhaps they’re so adept at equivocation, lies no longer differentiate them. I propose a scratch test be given to every person on the island.” Narcissus brandished a long, silver stake. Olympian Steele. A weapon capable of killing gods with a single cut. “Starting with Elise.”

  Chapter VIII

  Aphrodite

  “MEDEA BROUGHT me here on purpose,” I reminded myself in an effort to keep my breathing even. She wouldn’t have brought me back to the island just to have me killed, no matter how angry she was. “The question is why.”