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

by Kaitlin Bevis

  “Keep your voice down, Aphrodite.” Adonis didn’t even look up from where he sat staring at the tile floor. I sighed, glancing around as if maybe I’d just missed an obvious route to escape, but no luck. We were surrounded by three walls of solid cinderblock. The fourth held a heavy metal door and a very large two-way mirror. “They don’t seem to like it when we talk.”

  I froze, catching sight of my reflection. The scrapes and bruises left by an unkind sea didn’t startle me. No, the tumble of gold hair, the slim, golden figure, and the wide gold eyes staring back at me from my reflection did. I’d forgotten. In all the chaos, I’d somehow forgotten Persephone was still maintaining my glamour so I looked like Elise.

  Once upon a time, I’d refused to wear full-body glamours. I hated looking like anyone other than myself. Not for pride, but because I needed to take ownership of my reflection. Zeus had created me for his personal entertainment, choosing my every feature for his benefit. It would be easy, so easy to hide within a glamour, to become someone he wouldn’t have touched. But if I did that, I’d be giving him power over me he shouldn’t still have. Now I’d been stuck looking like Elise so long that I sometimes forgot my reflection was a lie. What would happen when I was forced to face myself again in the mirror?

  That’s what you’re worried about? Newsflash, Aphrodite—you might not live long enough to shed this glamour. Two guards waited just outside the room. My cover was blown, the demigods were armed and angry, and I had no way out. I couldn’t—

  Stop. Breathe.

  I closed my eyes, drew in a long breath, and held it for a moment. “She brought me here on purpose.”

  “How do you know?” The harsh light reflected off Adonis’s silver hair and pale skin as he slumped against the wall.

  I narrowed my eyes at the question. Couldn’t he tell I was trying to find some comfort in a nearly hopeless situation? And Adonis called me self-absorbed. “What do you mean, how do I know?”

  Adonis’s strange, colorless eyes met mine before sliding away. “Maybe you were too close when the island teleported, and you just got caught up in it.”

  “You’re not helping,” I snapped, resisting the urge to shiver beneath his unnatural gaze. “Besides, I wasn’t alone, remember? If it’d just been a matter of Medea snatching up every organism attached to the island, Ares would have ‘ported with me.” Leaving him and taking me spoke of intention.

  “Yeah, well, she brought me here, too. ‘On purpose’ doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.”

  “Thanks for that.” I resumed pacing, trying to keep my panic at bay. There were no windows in this room. No clock. No way to mark the time. I had no idea how long we’d been stuck in here, but we’d long since given up on the idea we might be overheard. Our resources were few enough as it was. We needed to be able to plan freely. “Either way, I need to know why I’m here.” Did she still think I was Elise? If so, she’d been trying to “save” me from Ares. But if she figured out what I was . . .

  She’d hate me. No question. But enough to want me dead that badly? That didn’t feel right.

  You’re talking about the girl who poisoned Glauce.

  I didn’t know that for sure. I just suspected.

  She left Jason with the Pantheon. On purpose. Adonis had been certain of that.

  Good for her. The more space between her and that leech, the better. Maybe leaving him meant she saw reason in negotiating. Maybe she’d brought me back to have something else to hold over the Pantheon. That would make the most sense. Otherwise, why lock me up with Adonis?

  The fluorescent light above Adonis flickered, but he didn’t seem to notice. “If she brought you here on purpose, where is she?”

  “I don’t know!” Moving an entire land mass took a ton of power. What if she hadn’t survived it? How long were they going to keep me here? What were they going to do? Would Poseidon and the others be able to find me? “Oh gods.” I slid to the floor, burying my face in my hands. “How are we going to get out of this?”

  Fabric shifted as Adonis stood and made his way across the room. He sat beside me, his shoulder bumping against mine companionably. I tried not to shudder.

  “It’s going to be—” He broke off. “Damn it.”

  “Yeah, that not being able to lie thing must be hard for you.”

  He cut me a look. I stared steadily ahead, but I could see the moment he decided to ignore the jab out of the corner of my eye. “We’ve gotten out of worse.”

  “Not without dying.” I swallowed hard, remembering the last time the two of us had been locked up together. Artemis crumpled in the corner. Ares desperately fighting the charm compelling him to kill me. Hours of CPR had revived me, but it had taken a one-use-only divine trick to bring Adonis back from the brink. “And even then, there were more of us and less of them.” We were beyond outnumbered here.

  “That just means we need to get more creative. They’re bound to talk to us at some point. Maybe we can trick them somehow.”

  “Well, you’re an expert at that.”

  He worked his jaw, moving away from me.

  Sighing, I lifted my gaze to the tiled ceiling. “I shouldn’t have said that. Not now. We need to figure out what to do. What our options are. This isn’t the time for . . .” I waved my hands trying to encompass the pain, betrayal, and heartbreak in a single motion.

  He’d poisoned me. He’d saved me. I hated Adonis. And at the same time, I didn’t. There were two Adonis’s in my head. The one who’d basically killed me, and the one who’d whispered sweet nothings my ear in the dark of the night. It’d been months, and I still couldn’t reconcile that they were the same person.

  The fact that Ares had worn Adonis’s face for the past couple of months didn’t help. I kept looking at him and remembering all over again that he wasn’t Ares.

  “This,” I said finally, my arms dropping to the tile floor. “Any of this. We need a plan.”

  “Agreed. Especially since I thought we were over this to begin with.”

  “You . . . thought we were over the fact that you drugged me and left me powerless?” I stared at him in disbelief.

  “Hey, you brought me back. You turned me into a god. I know it wasn’t because you love me. I could feel that much. But I thought . . .” Adonis’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I thought you at least understood why I gave you the poison.”

  I pulled my knees to my chest, feeling small. “I understand why you did what you did.”

  When I’d started investigating the missing demigods—unaware they were going missing of their own volition—the demigods on the ship panicked and wanted to kill me right off the bat. Adonis talked them out of that by promising he’d disable my powers, so even if I did catch on to what the demigods were up to, I wouldn’t be a threat to them. He didn’t know that powers were what gods lived off of. Not then. So, he hadn’t been trying to hurt me. But he’d still lied to me at every turn. He’d still drugged me. And to make everything a thousand times worse, he’d still slept with me.

  “But that doesn’t mean I forgive you. Then you died saving me, and I—” I broke off, taking a steadying breath. “I knew I couldn’t survive owing you. Not after what you did to me.” Drugged me, lied to me, slept with me, watched me panic at my powerlessness, knowing he could stop it. Anger surged in my chest. “That’s why I brought you back.”

  “You took a choice from me.” He glanced toward the door. “And now I’ve got to live with that. Not just what I did to you, that’s bad enough. I have to live with becoming the thing I hate. I am my own boogeyman, Aphrodite. You turned me into that.”

  Gods, he really was a professional victim. I’d bound myself to him for gods knew how long. My powers would flow back and forth between the two of us, mostly within him, until his body finished transitioning to a full deity. Until that process completed, everything
he felt, I felt and vice versa. Oh yeah, and I’d done it because my only alternative was death thanks to his poison. Yet he was crying foul? “You did that the second you handed me that water.”

  “I was willing to die for hurting you.” Adonis clasped his hands together in front of him, as if he had to hold himself back from reaching for me. “I wanted to, even. But you didn’t let me. Look, I saved you. I’m still trying to save you. That should count for something.”

  “It does. I just . . . I don’t know what yet.” One of the fluorescent bulbs in the corner gave out, leaving the room that much dimmer. “If we get out of here, you have the rest of eternity to be pissed off at me for bringing you back, okay? You can be mad at me for being mad at you or whatever you want. But for right now, we’re all we’ve got. I can’t contact the Pantheon. My cover is blown. We’re stuck here. We have to work together if we want to get out of here, especially since you’ve got all my power.”

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” he grumbled.

  “Your entire body is transforming into another type of being,” I snapped. “Trust me, it’s using power.”

  “So, basically, until I’m done transforming or whatever, I’m worthless. And how the hell are we supposed to work together? I can’t even touch you without you flinching.”

  “No. You can’t.” Why the hell did he think he deserved to touch me? I pushed off the floor to my feet. “I said I understood why you did what you did, Adonis. But it’s going to be a while before being in the same room with you doesn’t turn my stomach. I can’t help it, and you shouldn’t expect any less. This mess we’re in is one hundred percent because of what you did to me. I’d have the power to get out of this if it weren’t for you. So, I get that you’re sorry, but maybe wait until a basic teleport doesn’t make me feel like I’ve been torn to shreds before you expect much else from me. Yeah?”

  He gritted his teeth, but nodded.

  Good enough. “Where are you on the power front?”

  “Not great. Persephone tried teaching me to dreamwalk, but I didn’t have enough power, and I know I can’t teleport.”

  I swore. But it made sense. Infant gods couldn’t really do much other than exist. Why would Adonis be any different? Leaning my head back, I studied the ceiling tiles. The ceilings were high, but maybe if we stood on the table—

  Adonis interrupted my thoughts. “I can kind of . . . weaponize my charm in some apparently new way.” He shrugged, his inflection telling me he was quoting someone, though I couldn’t tell who.

  Weaponize his charm, how? “I doubt they’ll let us interact with anyone vulnerable to charm.” Plus, I was still vulnerable to his charm. I didn’t want him using something that could so easily be turned against me.

  “You’re probably right.” He followed my gaze to the ceiling. “How about you? Power-wise, I mean.”

  “I’ve got nothing. And even if I had an iota of power left, using it would incapacitate me.” Thanks to you, I wanted to add, but refrained.

  He must have heard it in my voice anyway, because he shot me a dirty look. “What if we—”

  The click of the lock turning cut him off. A second later, Narcissus pulled open the door.

  Adonis rose to his feet. “Why are we locked in here? What are you going to do with us? Why—”

  Narcissus didn’t respond. He surged toward me, and I scrambled away until my back met the wall.

  The older demigod was still wearing a suit, of all things, but it was a bit rumpled. He glared at me as though annoyed I was making him take extra steps into the dim room.

  “What are you doing?” Adonis tried to get between us, but Narcissus shoved him to the side with enough force to momentarily stun me through the connection I’d forged when I turned Adonis into a god.

  He grabbed me by the arm. “Come with me.”

  “Hey!” I cried, trying to break free of his grip.

  “What are you doing with her?” Adonis demanded as Narcissus pulled me out the door. “Hey! Hey, Elise didn’t have anything to do with this. Don’t hurt her. Let her go!”

  Adonis’s cries faded as Narcissus marched us away.

  “What are you doing?” I struggled against him, but Narcissus ignored me, marching ahead until we reached the lobby. The door vanished behind us as it closed.

  Shield. But now I knew where we were, I could find it again. I could—

  Everyone had gathered in the narrow lobby. Every demigod on the island was crowded into one place. I could feel the hatred seething within the crowd. I caught a glimpse of one dark head among the golden. Medea.

  She’s okay!

  She stood at the front of the crowd, wide-eyed and pale. The relief that coursed through me was surprising, but I didn’t have time to analyze my feelings before Narcissus yanked me closer with enough force to bruise my arm.

  “Now then,” Narcissus said, brandishing a silver stake. “You might feel a slight pinch.”

  Chapter IX

  Aphrodite

  NO! “WHAT ARE you doing?” Olympian Steele was the only weapon in creation that could kill gods. All it had to do was break the skin. Hephaestus had made the stuff centuries ago, then destroyed every last stake once he realized what he’d created.

  I shrieked as Narcissus pressed the Steele against my upper arm. Despite my kicking and clawing to get free, he held fast. “Wait! Wait! Stop!”

  The Steele sliced across my upper arm. I screamed, trying to lurch away as the shallow indention the Steele left in my glamoured skin filled with blood.

  Dead. I was dead. It would just be a matter of heartbeats before I died.

  My throat swelled with unshed tears. Oh gods, I was never going to see Ares again. Or Persephone. I was never going to see any of them again.

  My knees gave out, but Narcissus held fast, wrenching my arm as I went down. I scrambled to get my legs under me to ease the pressure on my arm.

  “See.” Narcissus held up the stake. “Told you she’s one of us.” He handed the Steele off to another demigod. “Form a line, and we’ll verify the rest of you. Sterilize the stake in between. I’m going to take Elise to the back and ask her a few questions.”

  Wait. What? I glanced down at my arm again, thinking maybe I’d been mistaken, but the shallow cut dribbled blood in garish rows down my arm. It had broken skin. How was I not dead?

  The other golden figures, crowded into the hospital lobby, looked as shocked as I’d felt. But I also glimpsed something else behind their stern faces. Something they were too ashamed to show outright.

  Disappointment.

  They’d watched while I begged and pleaded for my life, hoping I would die.

  How was I not dead?

  I stumbled as Narcissus pushed me along, numb with shock. Maybe . . . Steele reacted to power, and I didn’t have any? Or maybe Steele made by demigods wasn’t as potent as the stuff Hephaestus made? Could we have been worried all this time about an ineffective product? Or what if it was a combination of the two? What the hell had just happened?

  “In here.” Narcissus pushed me into a small, impersonal looking office and locked the door behind me.

  I’d searched this room before when I was looking for Hades and had written it off as unimportant. Two bookshelves full of medical texts stood on either side of the single, shaded window. A filing cabinet sat adjacent to a generic-looking desk, empty save for a computer screen and printer. Even the drawers were empty of everything but pens and notepads. There was nothing that could possibly help me defend myself.

  I forced myself to stand tall as I glared him down. The demigod was well-built, and golden to the extreme like all the others. Gold hair, gold eyes, a golden skin tone. All divine markers so the gods didn’t accidentally mess with another god’s kid.

  Narcissus was a first-generation demigod with low-level
charm. Powers weren’t supposed to pass from one generation to the next, but before he died, Zeus had screwed all that up by breeding with demigods. Each generation was more powerful than the last. Get far enough along in the genome, and two demigods could give birth to a fully powered something else entirely.

  Like Medea.

  “You know,” Narcissus said conversationally, passing me a small square of gauze. “A few of the islanders find it hard to believe you didn’t notice Adonis had been replaced.”

  “Well, I wasn’t conscious when the switch happened, on account of being stabbed,” I snapped, holding down the gauze. The small, cotton square turned red in an instant. I grimaced, applying more pressure.

  “And the months that followed?”

  I glared at him, but didn’t respond. It wasn’t like I’d wanted to impersonate a demigoddess and infiltrate their camp. But Adonis had poisoned me, so when I was stabbed and too weak to heal or teleport away, the only option left had been to come to this island. And they wouldn’t have treated me if they’d known what I was.

  The intel I gathered in my time here was just a bonus.

  Narcissus inclined his head. “I’ve heard you’re something of a divine sympathizer. Were you aware you were bedding a god?”

  My mind flashed to Ares. His gentle fingers burning against my skin, the compassion in his dark eyes. The truth could stretch a million different ways, but I couldn’t stomach pretending to be his victim. “Was your mother?”

  He flashed me a cold smile. “You know what’s nice? At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether or not you’re telling the truth.” He passed me another piece of gauze and a bandage.

  “Oh?” I peeled the bandage free of the backing. The stupid cut was still bleeding. “Why’s that?”