The great doors of the palace swung open as Hades trudged up the front steps, though there were no doormen in sight. The servants were all invisible—at least, that was my theory. We trooped into the gigantic foyer after him. The painted eyes of the gods stared down at us from their portraits on the walls. I couldn’t help checking out the one of Artemis, with her bow in one hand and the other resting on the head of a hunting dog. She had black hair and serious grey eyes. I couldn’t imagine being that person. To be honest, she looked like a judgemental bitch. The only thing we had in common was the colour of our hair.
Hades paused with his foot on the bottom step of the sweeping staircase. “There’s not much of the night still remaining, but you are welcome to find yourselves a bed. Or food will be laid out for you if you prefer.” He indicated the door to the dining room with a sweep of his hand. “I’m sorry to be a bad host, but I must bid you goodnight.”
Syl looked at Lucas. “Sleep sounds good to me.”
“Well, bed, at least,” he said, with a grin. Werewolves. Too much was never enough.
They headed up the stairs after Hades, and soon Jake and I were alone in the foyer. Hades’ family—my family?—glowered down at us from the walls, but I was done thinking about the gods and the mess my life was in. The best thing that had happened to me in a long time was standing right in front of me, and I was ready to carpe the hell out of that diem.
“I can’t believe you’re back,” I said, as he closed the distance between us. I leaned my bow against the wall, then placed my hands flat against his muscled chest, feeling the strong heartbeat there. He was alive and well and here. “I missed you.”
He covered my hands with his own, then turned one over and placed a kiss in my palm, his eyes never leaving mine. My own heartbeat sped up in response. I could drown in those blue, blue eyes. He kissed the other hand, drawing a small shiver from me. He grinned at my reaction, but I couldn’t help it. All my senses were tuned to him.
Still smiling, he released my hands and drew me into his arms. “I missed you, too. I thought about you constantly. I was worried you’d rush off and do something stupid.”
“Because I have such a great track record in that department?”
He cupped my face in both hands and stared into my eyes, his expression serious. “Because you are the bravest, most resourceful woman I’ve ever met, and I knew you would move heaven and earth for me.” Then he grinned. “And because you have a terrible track record of doing stupid things and getting yourself into trouble. You need someone sensible to keep an eye on you.”
“I’m pretty sure Syl thinks that’s her job.”
“I had someone else in mind for the role.”
I could have reminded him that he was the one who’d gone rushing into a den of shadow shapers trying to rescue Apollo, so he could hardly claim to be all that sensible. But I kind of liked the idea of having him around on a more permanent basis. And I really liked the way he was looking at me, as if he were a starving man, and I was the most tempting morsel he’d ever seen. So I let that one slide.
“So, what will it be?” I asked. “Food or sleep?”
“Are they my only two options?” His voice was a throaty growl, and my breath caught in my throat.
And then my stomach rumbled, almost loud enough to shake the paintings down off the walls.
He laughed. “Sounds like food it is, then.”
Goddammit. I flushed as he took my hand and led me into the dining room. Was Hades just pulling my leg? If I was Artemis, wouldn’t I be more … I don’t know … suave? In control? Surely a real goddess wouldn’t have her amorous moments interrupted by her own digestive system. At least I’d stopped glowing once the battle with the shadow shapers was over. That would have been hard to explain away, and I really didn’t want to get into the explanations with Jake—at least not until I’d had a few more explanations myself. Hades and I were well overdue for that chat.
A fruit platter, trays of little cakes, plus a selection of cheeses were laid out at one end of the enormous dining table. Tea and coffee were provided in elegant silver pots. It was the perfect supper—nothing too heavy, but enough to satisfy those late-night hunger pangs. My stomach rumbled again at the sight. Some goddess I was. Wasn’t I supposed to exist on ambrosia and the prayers of my worshippers or some shit like that?
“The invisible servants strike again,” I said, helping myself to some grapes and slices of apple. “How do they always have food ready exactly when it’s required?”
Jake poured a cup of coffee and pushed it across to me. “I don’t care, as long as they do.”
I slowed down after my second cake, and finally noticed that he wasn’t eating. I put down my plate and brushed the crumbs off my fingers. “You’re not hungry?”
He stood watching me, his arms folded across his broad chest. “Not for food.”
Oh, we were back to that again, were we? There was a gleam in his eye that brought the blood rushing to my cheeks—and other parts, too. I stepped into his embrace and wound my arms around his neck. Desire ignited in his eyes as he bent his head. My lips parted, eager to taste him again. His kiss wasn’t warm and tender this time, but possessive, almost savage. I pressed myself against the hard planes of his body and gave in to the fire that roared through me at his touch.
“I thought of you constantly,” he said. “Only the hope that I might one day escape and see you again kept me going.” He nuzzled my neck, then bit it, and desire knifed through me, piercing me to the core. I writhed under his hands as they roamed over my body, a slave to the exquisite sensations they produced. Something bumped against the back of my thighs. I was sprawled on it, my quiver of arrows hastily discarded, before I realised it was the dining table.
“Wait,” I gasped. “Stop.”
He looked up from where he was trailing kisses down my bare stomach. “Stop?”
I shoved him away, breathing hard. “Jacob Steele, when the invisible servants arrive in an hour or two with the eggs and bacon, they are not going to find me spreadeagled on this table.”
“I’d eat that breakfast,” he growled.
The naked hunger in his eyes almost melted my resolve, but I stood up and pulled my shirt back down. I was not a teenager. I could wait the two minutes it would take to find a bedroom. Probably.
“Come with me.” Grabbing my bow and quiver, I took his hand and dragged him toward the staircase and the bedrooms above. “Breakfast will be served upstairs.”
21
I woke next morning to an odd weight on my chest, and a furnace at my back. I opened my eyes on an unfamiliar room. Large windows showed sunlit trees outside. Inside, potted ferns and vases of flowers were dotted around the room on shelves and tables, bright against the soft green walls. I blinked, trying to get my bearings. The weight was Jake’s arm, tucked possessively around my body, and the heat that warmed my back was Jake himself, pressed against me as if he never intended to let me go again.
From where I lay, I could see my jeans and bra on the floor. No doubt the rest of my clothes were somewhere around. I was pretty sure we hadn’t actually started undressing each other until we got into the room. My bow and quiver leaned against the wall by the door.
That had been … quite a night. Well worth missing a little sleep for. I drew in a deep, satisfied breath, rejoicing in the feel of Jake’s skin on mine, the hard length of his body wrapped around me, legs entwined. His breath stirred the hair on my neck. I could stay like this all day. Warm. Protected. Loved.
I closed my eyes again, snuggling a little closer into Jake, expecting to drift off into sleep again. Unfortunately, my brain had other ideas. Now that I was awake, it began obsessing over my change in status, probing the echoing recesses of my memory for any glimpses of my former life. Why hadn’t my memories returned with my powers?
It was no use. After ten minutes of this, I was wide awake. Carefully, I wriggled out from under Jake’s arm. He murmured a protest, but settled again as I sli
d out of the bed. In sleep, he looked younger, less careworn, his forehead smooth and expression soft. His long, dark lashes lay on his cheeks, as dark as the stubble on his strong, square jaw. An urge to kiss him awake seized me, but I resisted. He needed his sleep. Instead, I leaned over, my unbound hair trailing over his tanned chest and neck, and dropped a featherlight kiss on his forehead.
After a shower in the white and gold bathroom off our bedroom, I regathered my clothes and got dressed. My stomach rumbled as I laced my boots. I needed food and answers, not necessarily in that order. Hades had better be awake.
Downstairs, I peeked into the dining room, but for once, the invisible servants let me down. The long table was bare, not a scrap of food in sight. Maybe I needn’t have worried about finding a bedroom last night. I grinned. I would never forget that look of raw need on Jake’s face as long as I lived.
Well, I thought I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t really be sure with my memory, could I? My smile faded. Damn Hades. I looked for him in the library, but he wasn’t there. I passed the lift to the upper world. Perhaps he’d gone up to the pub. I hesitated, wondering if I should follow him there, but decided to make a proper search of the palace first.
I found him, at last, outside on the terrace, at a sunny table laid with all the breakfast goods I’d expected to see in the dining room. He smiled when he saw me, and waved to the seat on his right.
“Join me? It’s a lovely morning for breakfast in the sun.”
I pulled out the chair and sat, feeling argumentative. “It’s always a lovely morning here. You don’t have bad weather in the underworld.”
Or any weather, really. It wasn’t truly sun, either, but it felt just as good as the real thing. I loaded up a plate with bacon, eggs, and grilled tomatoes and tried to enjoy the warmth on my back. I’d been in such a good mood when I’d woken up, but now my desire to punch something was growing. Hades had better have some damn good answers for me or it might be him.
He watched me shovel bacon until I started to slow, then cleared his throat. “It’s good to have you back, Artemis.”
I gave him a sharp glance. “Don’t call me that. My name is Lexi.”
He arched a puzzled brow. “You enjoyed your time as a human?”
I put the knife and fork down, and took a deep breath. “I still am human, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve got some handy extra powers, but no bloody idea how to use them. And even less idea who the hell I am.”
“I don’t understand.”
Just as well I’d put that knife down. I could happily have driven it right through his hand where it rested on the table. “Oh, you don’t understand? How do you think I feel? I have no memories of my real life, and only fake ones of my pretend life. I’m completely lost here. How could you do this to me? And why in hell did I let you?”
He stared at me in dawning realisation. “You … don’t remember your life as Artemis?”
“No.”
He rubbed his face, then ran his hand through his grey hair, avoiding my gaze the whole time. “Oh, dear.”
“Oh, dear? Is that the best you’ve got? Oh, dear?”
“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He looked miserable, but I was in no mood to let him off the hook just because he felt bad.
“No shit. So what was supposed to happen?”
“It was your idea. You were beside yourself when Apollo disappeared. Zeus, too, of course, but mainly your brother. You were convinced that there must be a traitor among the gods, so you came to me for help.”
“How did I know you weren’t the traitor?”
For a moment he looked offended, then he sighed. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“You were with me when Zeus’s lightning bolt arrived.”
“You have the other one?” Sneaky bastard—he’d never mentioned it before.
“No. What do you mean?”
“Never mind.” I waved a dismissive hand. Right now, I was more interested in the original topic; I could tell him later about our visit to Hestia. “We’ll discuss it later. Go on.”
“Well, Apollo hared off straight away, looking for Zeus, but then, of course, he never came back. So you wanted to try something sneaky.” He smiled fondly at me. “You always were the brainy one. As I said, you thought one of the gods was involved, and there was no way to get close to one without revealing your own godhood, so you asked me to find a way to remove it.”
“Remove it?” That sounded remarkably self-sacrificing for a god.
“Well, not remove it, precisely. More to hide it well enough that you would appear human.”
“And you succeeded.”
“Yes. You suggested somehow severing your bond to your avatar. You really did trust me—you were prepared to let me keep it safe for you. But I came up with something better—a way to hide it deep inside your own body. So deep that your power was hidden.”
Maybe not completely. Jake and Apollo had both commented that something seemed odd about me—even Mrs Emery had noticed something strange. But none of them had realised the truth.
“Most gods don’t have an avatar the way we do,” he continued. “It makes us uniquely vulnerable.”
I was momentarily arrested by “most gods”. “You mean … there are other gods besides the Greek ones?”
“Of course,” he said, as if it should be obvious. I suppose it was; I just hadn’t thought about it. Having discovered the Greek gods were real, I should have expected the other pantheons to be, too. “The Celtic ones are the closest to us, in that they have complex tattoos that are related to their power. That’s what gave me the idea to hide your avatar in a tattoo, to keep it safe while you were playing human.”
“I assure you I wasn’t ‘playing’ human. It felt bloody real.”
“Yes. That was the point.” He looked away, out across the lawns to the little bit of bushland behind the palace. “Unfortunately, it worked too well. You were supposed to remember who you really were. I gave you enough false memories for a realistic cover story—”
I broke in. “Whose memories were they?”
“Bits and pieces from a few people,” he said. “But most of it was my own invention, based on a house and neighbourhood chosen at random. I never expected you to believe it and actually go to Newport.”
It was my turn to look away, as a lump rose in my throat. His deception was my life and all the people I had loved. Just because they had never actually existed, or had belonged to other people, didn’t make them feel less real to me. I still mourned their loss.
He shook his head. “But something went wrong. It seems memory is a difficult thing to work with, even for a god. You weren’t supposed to forget you were a goddess, even if you couldn’t access your powers. You were supposed to stay in touch with me while you searched Crosston for clues to Apollo’s disappearance. Instead, you disappeared into Crosston and I lost all track of you. For six months, I worried that you had been taken by the shadow shapers, too, despite all our precautions, and then you suddenly turned up in Berkley’s Bay.”
“I didn’t remember you at all,” I said. “And I thought my brother was dead.”
“Yes. You had no idea who you really were, and in the end, I decided it was probably safer for you that way. I tried to find Apollo through other means—using the fireshapers, particularly Jake, who I thought was the best of them. All the while, I hoped that your memory would return.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“Would you have believed me if I had?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I also worried that telling you might damage the magic that was keeping you hidden. Perhaps that was why you’d lost your memory, because it was the only way for the spell to work. If you believed you were a goddess, might it all unravel, and would other gods be able to sense you again? I decided to keep you in the dark until we managed to locate Apollo.” He smiled. “In the end, i
t all worked out for the best. You freed Apollo, even if the path wasn’t as straightforward as we’d envisioned.”
It all worked out for the best. He poured a cup of tea and I watched him add milk and sugar, with my hands clenched in my lap to hide their furious shaking. My life had been destroyed and he thought that was for the best?
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t feel quite so chirpy about the result as you do,” I ground out between gritted teeth. “How do I get my memories back now?” Maybe if I had my real memories back I wouldn’t feel so gutted about losing the life I’d thought I had.
He fiddled with the handle of his cup. “I thought they would have come back as soon as you regained your divinity.”
“So you don’t know how to restore my memory?” My voice was getting shriller. I stared past him at the tree line, blinking furiously. I would not cry in front of him. Cerberus emerged from the trees, nose to the ground and tail wagging, as if he’d caught the scent of something. Probably a lost soul. None of them had memories either. “I thought you were the master of the Lethe and the Pool of Mnemosyne. Memory is your thing.”
“I’m better with dead people,” he said gently. “The living are not of my realm.”
“You made Tegan and everyone forget they saw you kill Anders in the street.”
He sighed. “Making you ‘human’ was a lot trickier than that. And I didn’t actually remove your memories, so I don’t know why they haven’t reappeared. Perhaps it will take a little time. Try to be patient.”
Ha. Patient? Me? And he said he knew me.
“Has your strength returned?” he asked.
“Strength?” I certainly hadn’t noticed any more than normal when I’d tried to break that chain. “No, I don’t think so.” I could get by fine without extra strength. Memories were far more important to me than weightlifting prowess.
Cerberus stood up on his hind legs, resting his front ones against the trunk of a young tree. He pushed, and the sapling fell over. Clearly, there was nothing wrong with his strength. All three mouths closed on various bits of the trunk and pulled with enthusiasm.
Hidden Goddess (Shadows of the Immortals Book 4) Page 18