Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  I thought about approaching him, but before I could move my feet, Nix leaned over and murmured in my ear. “Soon, Ivy.” His lips brushed over the shell of my ear and I tried not to shiver from revulsion. “You’re almost mine.”

  I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but he had already disappeared into the crowd. Hermes appeared in the next second. He wrapped his hand around my bicep until I winced from the burning pain. He had Ryder in his other hand and he dragged us out of the temple like we were naughty puppies.

  “You’re going to get yourselves killed,” he snarled vehemently.

  Intuition punched through my gut. “You might be right about that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We were silent the rest of the walk to Hermes house. I got the impression he was afraid that we would be overheard.

  Nobody followed us down the road, but plenty of Greeks had moved onto the steps to watch us walk away. Gods and goddesses of course, but there were also servants that paused to watch the show.

  The ones who had given me the most cause for alarm had been the Furies. They watched us with undisguised malice. Their focus had been unnerving, but the power that danced around them in a palpable field of energy had been terrifying.

  Hermes had noticed them too and his tight grip on my arm had eased. I thought he might have felt sorry for me.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” he demanded as soon as we were through the door to his mansion.

  I rubbed my bruised arm and opened my mouth to confess my deal with the Fates when small arms suddenly wrapped around my middle. I inhaled the fresh scent of my little sister and lost a battle to instant tears.

  I struggled to get her to let go of me so I could spin around and hug her back. “Honor,” I croaked. “For real?”

  Her head moved frantically against my back. She held me so tight I could barely breathe, but I didn’t want her to let go.

  “I’m so mad at you!” Her voice was muffled because her face was smashed against my spine.

  I laughed, unable to deny myself this joy for a second longer. “For leaving?” I guessed.

  “You could have at least said goodbye! Or told me the truth! Or like, a part of the truth!”

  I pried her hands from my midsection and turned quickly so I could latch onto her too. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into her golden-streaked, auburn head of curls.

  “I’ll never forgive you,” she hiccupped, still burying her face against me.

  My heart sank and I lost all motivation to finish this damn fight. “Do you mean that?” I knew I sounded pathetic, but Honor had one of the last good opinions of me. And I’d messed that all up. I’d kept secrets from her about her true identity, I fled the country without even sending a text and I maintained radio silence for almost a year. I didn’t blame her for hating me.

  “No,” she admitted. “I’ll forgive you. But I’m going to make you pay for it.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.” A new smile curved my lips and my shattered heart began to glow from the new happiness inside me.

  She finally pulled back and I got to see her beautiful face. Her green eyes shimmered with tears and a vibrancy that always lit her from the inside out. Her lightly freckled nose wrinkled adorably and her pale cheeks were painted with a pretty blush.

  She was everything her DNA said she should be.

  But she was also my sister, so I could forgive her for who her parents were.

  “What do you think of all of this, kid? Pretty crazy, right?”

  “More than crazy,” she whispered. “This is insane.”

  A throat cleared behind me and I remembered that I wasn’t alone. Laughing, I spun us in a circle so Honor could see Hermes and Ryder. Her intelligent eyes scanned them both quickly and her small body buzzed with curiosity.

  “Thought you might want to introduce us, Red,” Ryder smiled at me.

  I grinned at him. I couldn’t stop grinning at him. We were on trial for the murder of a god, but my sister was here now, so everything was better. Or at least mostly better.

  “Honor this is Hermes,” I told her, waving a hand at the disgruntled man. I wasn’t sure if he’d figured out who Honor was yet or if he already knew before Smith arrived with her. “Hermes this is Smith’s daughter, Honor, my little sister.”

  Hermes didn’t immediately respond. He looked Honor over from head to foot, his eyes narrowing as he figured it out. “Smith as in Zeus?”

  “Didn’t you know?” I couldn’t help but find that weird. Why didn’t anyone know about Smith, but me? Why had he gone into hiding for so long, but revealed himself to Ava of all people.

  “This is Zeus’ daughter? A child he had with your mother?” I nodded slowly, hoping he would stop freaking out. He stumbled back to a cream settee and plopped down. “We’re all dead,” he muttered into his hands.

  “What does he mean?” Honor whispered loudly.

  Nerves jumped in my blood, but I couldn’t guess. “I have no idea.”

  “Who’s that?” Honor’s attention had already swung to Ryder.

  He smiled at me, encouraging me to tell her. So I opened my mouth and said, “He’s my… uh…” I couldn’t think of what to call him. He was so much more than my friend, but we hadn’t been able to define our relationship in all the craziness that had been going on. I had almost explained him as my musician, but that just made me want to jump off a cliff. I was spending way too much time on this mountain.

  “I’m her boyfriend,” Ryder filled in the blanks for me.

  “Are you?” I whispered, happy all over again for a different reason.

  “Unless you’d prefer to stay friends?” Ryder sounded serious, but I saw the teasing glint in his eyes, the small twitch of his mouth.

  “We were never very good at being friends,” I countered.

  “Then we better do this instead.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “So he’s your boyfriend?” Honor’s loud voice interrupted our private moment, but I couldn’t be mad. Ryder was my boyfriend and I was finally reunited with my sister. If it weren’t for the god of the sea trying to own me and the murder charge on my head, my life would be so good right now. “Good job, Ivy.”

  I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing and shared an amused look with Ryder. He mouthed good job and gave me the thumbs up when my sister’s head was turned.

  The doors opened and I felt the rush of balmy air coast over my skin. Smith moved into the room, dissolving all elements of the happy reunion with my sister. His chiseled face was a picture of concern, but the tension in his body instantly pulled goosebumps from my skin.

  “Daddy!” Honor smiled.

  He spared her a soft smile before turning to me. “We don’t have much time.”

  Hermes stood slowly to his feet and waved an arm toward a sunken living room space. “Let’s have a seat.”

  We followed him into the luxurious space, but only Honor took a seat. Smith seemed too wired to relax and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to be ready to run at all times.

  Ryder stood next to me with his arms crossed aggressively over his chest. “Are you expecting me to bow?”

  Smith jerked his head back as if surprised by Ryder’s hostility, although he recovered quickly. With twitching lips, he asked, “Would you like to bow?”

  Ryder ignored him, which I guessed didn’t happen very often. “I’d like to know what’s going on.”

  “They call you the musician,” Smith mused, “but it’s only coincidence that you are one. Did you know that? You could have been anything.”

  Ryder’s shoulders twitched with impatience, but I found this new piece of information fascinating. “So he’s not the second coming of Orpheus?”

  Smith shook his head. “It’s convenient for them to believe that. But the truth is that whenever a Siren reaches the pinnacle of her power, say she becomes strong enough to enslave an entire world of humans, another is born i
mmune to her power.”

  “So Ryder was born because of me? But he’s older than me.”

  “We knew you were coming, Ivy,” Smith said solemnly. “Your father wasn’t human. He was a god. He was Pontus, the primordial sea god, and he was as ancient as anything. Unfortunately his mortality killed him… as it does sometimes. When your mother fell in love with Max, we knew that it would only be a matter of time before something like you happened. Thankfully, Calliope had already run from the mountain. She had already found Ryder’s father. The entire chain of events had been put into motion before you were ever conceived.”

  “Something like me?” The words were ragged whispers torn from my throat. I had been reduced to an event or a natural disaster. I was not a person anymore. I was an apocalypse.

  “Maybe I should start from the beginning,” Smith suggested.

  Ryder wrapped an arm around my waist and growled, “That sounds like a good idea.”

  Smith ran a hand over his face and smiled weakly at Honor before turning his attention back to me. “This has only happened once before. Usually the well of power is distributed among the gods. But the Siren’s power is unique in that when created with just the right amount of parentage, it can surpass anything those of us on Olympus wield. See, we are at the mercy of our patrons and you, my dear, are not. The original Sirens were not bound to morals or compassion. When they discovered how powerful they were, I was forced to banish them to an island. An island you recently occupied, Ivy.”

  Thoughts were swirled in my head, colliding together but not making sense. I picked Tortola because I thought it was ironic to choose one of the Virgin Islands. And yet I had been told so many times that Nix couldn’t reach me there. But if my power had been amplified, why had I been able to live in peace?

  Though, maybe it hadn’t only been amplified… maybe it had also been controlled. Energy pinged through my body as the thoughts took hold and became truth. “Queen of the Nesoi,” I whispered.

  Smith nodded. “That is your realm, Ivy. You rule completely there. Not even Nix has power over that water.”

  “But how?”

  “Let me go back to the original three. I banished them to the island and there they ruled. They created all kinds of havoc. They crashed ships, they drowned sailors, and they lived with untamed power. Something had to be done about them, but they were part of the Pantheon… we couldn’t just kill them.”

  “We couldn’t kill them,” Hermes pointed out. “So we hired someone instead.”

  Smith nodded, “The Fates told us of Orpheus, the one man on earth immune to their powers. He had been born out of desperation and destiny. The world was in upheaval, the balance needed to be restored. So we sent him to the Sirens. Orpheus defeated Thelxiepeia, the queen. The other two sisters, Peisinoe and Aglaope, were allowed to live under the authority of Poseidon. We thought Poseidon would bridle their power and keep them under control.”

  “You were wrong.” My heart twisted with empathy. While I could hardly feel sorry for my homicidal ancestors, I could relate to how Nix later abused and exploited them. “Why didn’t you do something about Nix?”

  “We can’t kill each other,” Smith said obviously.

  “I thought only a god could kill another god?” Ryder’s voice was low and gravelly. I wondered what he thought about me now… how the history of my ancestors affected his opinion of me.

  “That is true,” Smith agreed. “But it is our law not to kill each other. We have rather a… sordid past. If we allowed our anger and power to rule our lives, there wouldn’t be any of us left. We’d have killed each other off thousands of years ago.”

  “So what happens to a god that does kill?” I thought of Persephone. “Or a goddess?”

  “They are stripped of their powers, forced to live a mortal life.”

  The worst of all punishments, I thought wryly. “Is that why you chose mortality?”

  Smith shook his head. “I chose mortality in addition to my immortality. While I lived mortal for a season, I always had access to my power. The same is true for Poseidon, Ares and any other god that lives among humanity. When I strip the power it is to leave them as a true mortal. They may not ever reclaim their power.”

  “So Ryder is not really Greek, he’s just…”

  “The balance to your power. He’s the universe’s way of keeping you in check. Should you ever choose to enslave the world as Nix wants you to, he would be the only being capable of ending you.”

  Ryder and I shared a meaningful look. I realized in that moment that the universe or fate or what have you had intended for us to be enemies… at most, we were supposed to keep each other in check.

  Not fall in love.

  “Why didn’t you strip the Nesoi of their powers?” A million thoughts ran through my head. There were too many to catch. I had endless questions.

  “I couldn’t…” Smith took a breath and held my gaze. His powerful chocolate eyes flashed with streaks of light and I realized that it would cost him something to explain this. He couldn’t give me this answer without admitting his own weakness. “I couldn’t get close enough to them without falling under their spell. The only being able to withstand the Nesoi completely is the Orpheus. I have a higher tolerance than others, like my brothers, but if you truly wanted to control me, all you need to do is tap into your power completely. The older you get, the stronger that power becomes.”

  Raw and strained, Hermes asked, “Ivy, do you understand the destruction Nix could wield if you ever… if he ever…?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. I did understand. I could even see it in my mind’s eye. Energy bubbled beneath my skin and lit up my bones. I felt the thrumming of ancient power react to Smith’s words like a prophetic epiphany. I saw the world on fire. I saw men at my feet and death blanketing every land… every home. I saw Nix on his throne, patrons worshipping his robes and kissing his fingers. But I sat at his right hand, responsible for it all. “And Ryder can’t… harness my power?”

  Smith shook his head, “He can only stop it.”

  Meaning kill me. He would be the only one able to fight through the obsession to murder me.

  Ryder turned me into his body and wrapped his arms around me. He squeezed me to his chest and buried his face in my hair. My heart beat frantically in my chest, but his touch helped ease the panic and dread I felt welling up inside me.

  “Don’t let me go,” I pleaded with him.

  “Never,” he swore. “I’ll never let that happen, Red. Never.”

  “Because you’ll kill me first?” My dry words were meant to be funny, but the truth was too strong to make them anything but terrifying.

  “Because I’ll love you first.” His lips pressed against my ear. “Because I’ll never stop loving you.”

  I looked at Smith over Ryder’s shoulder, “What does that mean for Honor?”

  His gaze went cold again, all warmth left him and he said, “If Ryder should fail…”

  “You had a child to control me?” My mind stopped spinning with questions and flashed red with anger. “You had a child with my mother so that there would be someone able to kill me if need be?”

  He jerked his chin once, unapologetically. “By the time I realized who Max was and what your mother had done, it was too late. Max was not a bad guy, but he was primordial, for god’s sake. His power is the most ancient of all! When I caught up to Ava, Max was dead and Nix owned you. We had no reason to believe that Orpheus lived. I knew the Fates were working with Nix. I did what I could to save the world. I won’t feel bad for that.”

  “And you still think I could destroy everything? You think I would honestly enslave humanity?”

  He took an aggressive step forward. “Look at the women Nix employs. Look at the kind of young girls he produces. Look at your mother. I had no evidence that someone worthy could live through Nix’s… Nix’s… methods.”

  My lungs deflated, all of the air whooshed from inside of me and I felt strangled and choking. Thinkin
g back on my childhood, on the sick things I had seen, the evil that existed around me… Could I blame Smith? Or my mother?

  “What if he would have gotten to her?” I threw my arm in Honor’s direction. She had pulled her knees to her chest and watched us with concerned anguish. “What if he would have taken her from you? Then there would be two of us!”

  “No,” Smith denied immediately. “I would never have let that happen. And Ava took the same oath. We would have done whatever it took to keep Honor with us, out of Nix’s clutches.”

  There was a large part of me that resented him for saying that. As thankful as I was that Honor had a different life than me, that she had been protected and sheltered from the very real monsters I lived with daily, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for myself. Why hadn’t anyone taken an oath like that for me? Why had I been thrown to the wolves?

  Seeming to read my mind, Smith exhaled and said, “It was too late for you, Ivy. As much as it pains me to say, Nix has watched you from the moment you were born. You were always his. I think he could sense the difference in you, even before the Fates got involved. There’s more that you don’t understand. Nix has never been interested in your sister like he has been with you. Honor might rival you with power, but she will never be you. Part of her is her mother, yes, but the other part is me. My powers work in opposition of Ava’s. While she will be incredible one day, she will never have that… twist of obsession that you do. Your father, Pontus, was a sea god. His power is the perfect complement to the Siren inside of you. You never had a choice.”

  My self-pity kicked me in the chest, but I refused to give into it. I didn’t have a choice of who I was, but I had a choice now.

  Ryder’s arms tightened around me, but I pulled back. I didn’t need to be weak now. I didn’t need to wallow or feel sorry for myself. I needed to get my shit together and murder the son of a bitch that wanted to use my power for the worst kind of evil.

  I needed to figure out a way to kill Nix.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Ancient power hummed in my veins while purpose settled in my spirit. The puzzle of my life was almost put together. I had been searching for pieces for as long as I could remember.