Pandora's Mistake (Fate of Eros #0) (The Fate of Eros Series)

by Black, E. B.

  If Prometheus hadn't been strapped down, he would have searched for Pandora and found the bruises under her clothes. He would beat Epimetheus for mistreating such a gift, until he was incapable of ever doing it again. What was happening to him? He had never wished violence on his brother in the past!

  Prometheus groaned softly. He knew he would also find the burn on her skin that he had caused. He already regretted it.

  He shouldn't have panicked. It was the kind of thing Zeus would want. He wished for Prometheus to turn against his own creation. He had given up everything for them and the worst thing that would happen would be to regret it.

  Pandora was dangerous enough to destroy him. She was even beginning to tear his relationship with his brother apart.

  Epimetheus' mouth stretched into a tight line. "I can't have you mistreating her because of your conspiracy theories about Zeus."

  Prometheus chuckled. "Oh, yes, I'm so paranoid, thinking Zeus wants to hurt us. After all, it's not like I'm pecked to death daily through my liver by a raven sent from him."

  "That's not my point," Epimetheus said. "I think Zeus has gotten his fill of revenge for now. He gave me Pandora as a peace offering."

  Prometheus raised one of his eyebrows. "Is that what he told you? You really are a fool. I guarantee that she can do something that will hurt you and humanity worse than anything that's happened to us thus far. With me tied up and dying each day, Zeus knows I can't rescue you from it."

  "Or maybe you should try giving Pandora a chance. Don't judge her until you've gotten to know her."

  "I have no doubts that she's a beautiful person. Zeus would make sure to wrap whatever evil he has in pretty packaging. He'll spring it on us once we trust her." Prometheus sighed. "But I'll try to be nice to her for your sake. I can't betray you, brother. You have been loyal to me."

  But please keep her away from me, he wanted to say. If you let me borrow your wife too much, I'll probably steal her for myself.

  Epimetheus poured some water he held in a bucket into Prometheus' mouth for him to have a swallow. "I ask nothing else of you. Thank you. Pandora will return tomorrow to tend to your wounds again."

  Prometheus was trapped and he had no idea whether he was excited or terrified of it.

  Chapter 4

  Pandora poured water onto her naked body. The stream that dripped from her muddied the ground near the entrance of the cave. Goosebumps spread across her bare skin. A selfish part of her wished to light a fire, so she could wash and warm up at the same time, but the coolness was good for the burns on her arm.

  She had waited to bathe until Epimetheus left. She didn't like the way he stared and moaned when she scrubbed herself naked. She was relieved to have the option of bathing alone for once.

  As she washed her stomach, a soft noise reached her ears. It sounded as if someone were singing. If someone were singing, she couldn't possibly be in the cave alone. Someone watching her, possibly rubbing themselves like Epimetheus did when he watched her.

  The hairs on the back of Pandora's neck stood as she tilted her head and strained her ears to listen to the noise more closely. She couldn't make out the words.

  She dropped the bucket she was using to pour water on herself. Droplets splashed on the ground.

  She whirled around. "Who's there?"

  The noise stopped and she saw no movements. Had she hallucinated? After several minutes of silence, she decided to continue washing.

  But it wasn't long before the soft singing greeted her ears once again. She spun, unashamed of her nakedness, more concerned about the safety of her life. She stomped farther inside and grabbed an axe Epimetheus had left behind. Her hands shook as she carried it only a foot above the ground. It was too heavy to lift over her shoulders, but the sharp blade made her feel more in control of the situation anyway.

  Zeus had told her stories of demons that liked to hide in dark corners and whisper evil words to the innocent to steal their purity. Epimetheus had talked to her about men, how he had once been forced to string up a guy who trespassed into the cave and tried to steal all his possessions. He had gouged out the man's eyes, cut off his penis, and ripped off his thumbs and big toes. The man was forced to crawl back to where he came from, crippled and blind. No one had bothered him since.

  The trespasser must know that Epimetheus wass out hunting and assumed she was his possession to be stolen. She narrowed her eyes. She was not some kind of prey. She would show whatever it was her strength.

  "Come out and face me," Pandora called. "Only cowards hide in the shadows."

  As she walked towards the back of the cave, the sound grew louder. It wasn't singing; it was people whispering, but their voices were melodious.

  She kicked off the furs she had hidden her jar inside of. Maybe this was one of the creatures Zeus taught her about. He said her jar was precious and that people or creatures would try to steal it. They wanted to smash it to get into what was inside. Although she didn't know what it contained, Zeus said it was precious to him. She sighed in relief after she saw that it was unmoved and intact.

  Her foot brushed the side of the jar as she guarded it.

  "Pandora!" a deep voice shouted into her ear.

  She jumped backwards and almost knocked the jar over. She swung her axe wildly in a circle in an attempt to kill whoever had approached her. It hit nothing and she almost dropped it in her hysteria.

  She had heard a voice. It had been right next to her. Zeus had never said her attackers would be invisible. She should be able to see him.

  She dropped to her knees and the axe fell from her grasp. She hugged the jar to her chest. The second she touched it, she felt a shock travel from her fingers straight to her heart. It was electric and it stung a little. She shuddered and heard the same voice shout into her ear again. "Pandora!"

  She jumped as she realized that the noises were coming from the jar. The melodious whispering had grown louder-they were chanting her name.

  "Who are you?" she screamed at it, but the voices grew more desperate.

  She covered her ears. "Leave me alone! I know what this is!" Zeus had warned her that the temptation to open the jar would be great. It was why everyone wanted it.

  She covered the jar in furs. "But I won't give in to your evil." The voices were more muffled than before. In fact, if she sang to herself loudly, she couldn't hear them at all.

  "I will follow Zeus and everything he says! After all, it was the mistake of trusting Epimetheus' word over Zeus' that got me burned. I should have known that Zeus only punishes evil creatures like Prometheus." She went back to the front of the cave and continued scrubbing herself. By the time she finished, the voices were gone.

  Pandora waited for Epimetheus to return home later. When he did, they ate the roasted pig leg they had cooked earlier that day on the mountain. The flesh made drool fall out of Pandora's mouth as she ate it. Epimetheus devoured it as if he hadn't eaten in a lifetime.

  Instead of hitting Pandora for her messiness, Epimetheus pressed his lips against her body for the first time. He kissed the burns that distorted the silvery flecks in her arm and the feeling was pleasant.

  If he acted like this more often and stopped having violent mood swings, then maybe she wouldn't mind being his wife after all.

  Chapter 5

  Prometheus woke and wrinkled his nose. The smells of blood, bird droppings, and burning air mixed in his nostrils. This happened every morning after he died. On good days, he didn't die until dark, his stomach chewed through. He would open his eyes the next morning only to be forced to inhale the crusty leftovers. On bad days, he would experience this multiple times in one day.

  This time it was a bit different. He could also smell something lovely-like a woman. As he breathed the scent, a shiver traveled through his body.

  Pandora's beautiful face and sparkling, silver skin filled his vision. She pressed a damp cloth against his forehead.

  She knelt next to him. He desperately wished he could sit do
wn beside her. It made him feel vulnerable to always lay spread eagle and chained to the ground. But he supposed that was the point. Zeus loved to humiliate him.

  Yet again, she had a chunk of meat cooking on a tree branch. He wondered whether he could make the fire above him large enough to cook the meat faster without burning anything else in the process.

  As soon as she noticed he was awake, she shrieked a little and dropped the cloth. She stood and raced backwards.

  It wasn't far enough away for her to be safe if Prometheus had wanted to harm her.

  He closed his eyes, wishing she didn't have that kind of reaction to him, but he couldn't blame her.

  "Come back." Prometheus' throat was dry. His hoarse voice made him sound more desperate than he wanted it to. "I won't hurt you. I made a promise to my brother."

  He was not going to admit that he probably wouldn't have harmed her anyway. He wanted to study her more than anything.

  Although every glance he got of her made him bitter. She was perfect. Her beauty was like Zeus spitting in Prometheus' face. Prometheus' life work had been creating humans and Zeus had created one more beautiful than all the rest combined in a very short period of time.

  She walked closer to him slowly, but still looked as if she was ready to bolt at any moment.

  Prometheus sighed, his heart filled with guilt. "I'm sorry-I shouldn't have hurt you. I'm not only a man, but also a Titan and my strength should not be used to hurt women. I don't like to bully females like my brother does, not even goddesses who could handle it."

  Her body was still tense, but she took several steps closer. "You mean men aren't supposed to beat women? I thought it was because I wasn't showing him that I was obeying him well enough." She knelt beside him.

  He shook his head sadly. "I've never approved of the way my brother treats women. He doesn't know any better, though. Back when he was a boy, one of the other goddesses used to beat him. Even though he's much stronger, he believes that women will hit him if he doesn't try to control them by hurting them first. I can see in his eyes that he sometimes regrets it, though."

  Her eyes were still wide and her arms shook as she leaned down. "So if you don't want to hurt me, does that mean you trust me now?"

  "Hah!" He laughed bitterly. "I will never trust anything that comes from Zeus."

  Pandora flinched.

  The guilt struck Prometheus again and he quickly added,"But I won't hurt you out of love for my brother."

  "Well, isn't that comforting?!" There was sarcasm in her voice.

  Prometheus' eyes flashed. "You don't have to be here. You can leave if you don't believe me. I don't need your help. I've been like this for years and survived just fine."

  She poured another sip of water down his throat and he moaned. She smiled smugly. "It sounds like you do need me."

  Prometheus glared at her. I need to study you more than I need that water, he thought, but I'll never admit that to you!

  Pandora continued, "Zeus warned me that men were incapable of handling things without the nurturing hand of a woman. He created me to show them their weakness."

  Prometheus' eyes narrowed. It sounded like something Zeus would do-use a creation to punish other people. She gave him another sip of water, but this time he spat it on the ground. He didn't care if he was lying down and thirsty; he wouldn't allow her to force him to swallow that liquid. "I've had my fill of messages from Zeus."

  Pandora jumped up and furiously shook her foot where the water had landed. "You're disgusting!"

  Whoops! There went his promise, but he hadn't done it on purpose this time. He just wanted to make a point, which was that she wasn't going to get away with manipulating him.

  "You know, I don't have to take care of you," Pandora said. "I do it as a favor to Epimetheus. What do I get in return? Your spite. You burned my arm and spat on me. You won't even turn down the fire over our heads so that I'll stop sweating."

  That's why her skin was glistening so brightly. Prometheus knew it couldn't have just been the silver in it. Zeus didn't know how to make a woman that beautiful.

  He glanced at her profile again and his heart leaped in his throat. Or could he?

  His brow furrowed as he concentrated on holding in some of his pain. The fire above them died down. "Do you have any other problems with me?"

  Pandora crossed her arms. "Yes. I don't believe that you're actually trapped here. With your powers over fire, you should have been able to escape long ago. You stay here as a way to gain humanity's sympathy."

  Prometheus laughed. "Oh! How could I miss it? Obviously, I'm capable of just walking away and am purposefully not doing so for attention. Thank you for enlightening me."

  Pandora stuck her nose in the air. "You're welcome."

  He glared at her, incensed by her stubbornness. "Don't you think I've tried? Not only are these chains indestructible." He yanked on them so hard that he was forced to cry out as they cut into his wrists. The fire above them burst into such large flames that Pandora was forced to cower to prevent the ashes from lighting her hair on fire. "But I don't have the strength to break free even if I wanted to because I die every day."

  He lit the chains on fire to try to melt the metal. It turned red, but the metal didn't melt off. In fact, it cinched against his wrists even more tightly.

  "Burning off the metal doesn't seem to work either." she murmured. "What about the raven? Can't you kill it?"

  Prometheus sighed. "I've tried that, too. It's immortal." Prometheus stared at the raven intently, imagining its brain. "I can melt all or part of someone's brain using fire. I can make humans and creatures forget whatever I want." Blood dripped out of the raven's ears as its brain was destroyed. Prometheus stared into its glowing eyes and tried not to shiver. "But regardless of how many times I melt its brain or try to make it forget about pecking me, it still continues on, unaffected. I don't think it's even alive-it must be undead."

  "Hmm," Pandora said. "What about what you did to me?"

  "I can make creatures have a fever." Prometheus imagined the raven's temperature rising. "Until they are sick and collapse. I can blister skin from the heat." The raven pecked harder as a response, breaking through his skin before it should have. Prometheus cried out painfully. This would be one of the days he died more than once. "But the sicker I make it, the harder it pecks me because it knows its strength is waning."

  Prometheus was gasping. He wanted to stop, but he needed to show Pandora the truth. "And when I light it on fire." The raven burst into flames like a torch resting on his stomach. "It still keeps moving." He made the flames so hot that the skin on its body melted and soon all that was left was bone on fire, but it continued to peck away violently at his skin. It drooled more green slime than usual.

  "I've tried to make it love me," Prometheus said. "I can make anything burn with passion for me. But it pecks me faster and I die sooner because it is overcome with bloodlust for me." At this point the raven was enamored with him. He pecked into him repeatedly and quickly. He was definitely going to lose his liver twice that day.

  "Why do you die like this?" she murmured. "When Epimetheus was burned by your fire, he healed almost instantly. Why isn't it the same way for you?"

  "It would be." He frowned. "But do you see that green slime dripping from his mouth? It is a tonic that prevents immortal creatures from regenerating as quickly. Each time he pecks me, he applies another drop of it to my skin. This wouldn't be half as painful without it."

  Pandora shook her head sadly.

  "During moments of desperation," Prometheus whispered, "I've made the fire above our heads so big that it enveloped my body. It didn't even harm me. The one good thing I got from stealing fire from Zeus was an immunity to it hurting me. I can light my entire self on fire and feel nothing, but it also means that I can't kill myself quickly when I can barely take the pain. I have to die one peck at a time, every time."

  He looked at Pandora. He knew it wouldn't be long until the pain was too un
bearable for him to hold conversations anymore. The fire that had been small above them before was burning so bright that sweat trickled down Pandora's forehead and made her hair stick. She still looked beautiful.

  Pity was written across Pandora's face and he hated it. Prometheus had chosen to give humans the power to create fires. He thought everything through, unlike his brother, and knew he'd be punished by Zeus for what he did. She shouldn't feel sorry for him. He had known what the consequences might be, but felt it was worth it.

  A part of him couldn't forgive himself, though, because it was his fault Zeus had gained control in the first place.

  His thoughts drifted back to a time when Hecate had tried to introduce him to one of the humans. He had been busy at work, modeling a woman, which had proved to be a more delicate and difficult procedure than making a man. He had already destroyed three models without ever breathing life into them.

  "This is Ronius," Hecate said, stroking the arm of the human man. Her dogs were nowhere in sight, which was unusual. She stroked this human as if he were one of her pets instead.

  "I already know who he is." Prometheus laughed. "I created him, remember?"

  Hecate's finger ran up the man's chest. Her voices grew hoarse as she transformed into that luscious form of hers that carried the key. "But you don't understand. This man is very special to me." She sucked on her lower lip as she moaned the words "very special."

  The man was kissing up Hecate's arm. His body trembled and his lips were fervent. He didn't dare look into her eyes, but his erection made his worshipful thoughts of her beauty apparent.

  "I'm glad," Prometheus said. "You've spent too much time hating my creation."

  "But not today..." Hecate sighed. "We've spent hours enjoying each other's company. You'd be surprised at the stamina of these mortals. They can go all night if they're needed."

  Hecate grabbed the hand of the man and placed it on her right breast. He doubled over and almost finished right there. He looked as though he had ascended through the gates of Mount Olympus and mounted the throne as he humped her leg.