Medusa's Desire (The Fate of Eros #1) (The Fate of Eros Series)

by E. B. Black

  She shook her head, a naughty smile on her mouth. She wagged her finger. "That's not what I mean. I want you to see the real me. You can't watch my face, but you can still look down at my body while you thrust into me."

  His eyes lit up with understanding as he pushed himself inside and filled her up until her nerves were all on fire. He thrust in and out. Medusa's toes curled and her back arched. He looked down at Medusa's body as he sent waves of pleasure charging through her. She tried to meet his gaze in the mirror. She couldn't see his expression when he was looking down.

  He hadn't gone limp, so that was a good sign, but he was slowing and he looked disturbed. Medusa broke into a sweat. She had warned him of the truth. Hadn't he touched that scaly skin many times? Maybe it looks worse than it feels.

  "Is something wrong?" she asked.

  "No," he insisted, but his voice betrayed the truth.

  He was lying. With each thrust he grew softer, until the two of them continued to awkwardly bang their bodies together in denial over what had just happened. She wanted to cover herself up and take back this moment from existence. She knew he would be frightened by her. Her own mother had been terrified of her, but because he had proved her wrong every other time, she had assumed this would be no different.

  Tears streamed down her face as they pulled apart. Her tears sparkled in the mirror as they fell. She looked beautiful in the mirror, even when she cried, and her reflection mocked her with the image of who she once was.

  "You think I'm repulsive, don't you?" She bit her lip.

  "No, it's not that," Perseus insisted as he rubbed himself to get hard. "I was just surprised."

  She had seen this whole scene play out with Andromeda and she wasn't about to lay there and get humiliated, too. She grabbed the helmet where she discarded it and plopped it on her head. The snakes were smooshed down uncomfortably; one implanted its fangs in her head. She didn't care. The pain matched what was happening in her heart.

  He sighed. "Give me a minute."

  Medusa sobbed. He was trying to be the good guy and keep his promise that he'd always think she was beautiful, but in this situation, it was impossible.

  "Please don't cry," he begged. "I can't take disappointing another woman." He grabbed himself by the hair as if he were going to rip it out of the roots in his head and rocked back and forth.

  "Perseus," Medusa said. She wanted to say something that would make the whole thing better, but no words came to her mind.

  His eyes were glassy. "I have to leave." His voice had no emotion in it.

  "Wait," Medusa said, but the door was open and he was already gone. She should have disappeared, too. She had been rejected by him, and he seemed on the verge of breaking up with her but something drew her towards him anyway. She had to fight him, had to fix things between them if possible, even though he never could love the real her. Maybe when they fought the gods and destroyed them, she could be returned to her human form. She doubted this would happen. Her diaphragm contracted as she swallowed her sobbing. This was her worst nightmare come true.

  She found him in a guest bedroom, sitting by himself in a corner. She tiptoed and held her breath in hopes that he wouldn't hear her. Lost in his own world, he didn't move. He had his sketchpad in hand and he was scribbling lines furiously across it, his brow furrowed.

  Medusa walked as close as she dared and glanced over her shoulder. It felt like someone had squeezed the air out of her lungs. He held the drawing he had made of her face. Her eyes were bright and her smile dazzling, but beneath it, her body was twisted and gnarled. It looked like someone had glued the head of a pretty young girl to the body of a deformed dragon. He had memorized what she looked like. There was no erasing what had happened now.

  She was going to get kicked out of the castle-she knew it. Would he turn her over to the gods for punishment? How could they possibly hurt her more than she was now? She couldn't underestimate them. Whenever she thought that it couldn't get worse, they found a new way to screw her over.

  Perseus had changed. Some of the innocent sparkle of his eye had dimmed. He had been hurt in many ways-abandoned by his father, almost murdered by his grandfather, he had seen his mother molested-but he had never been hurt by a lover. He had trusted her with everything and although she couldn't control who she was, he probably felt betrayed by the truth. She had technically lied to him by hiding how she looked, but she tried to reveal the truth several times in a gentler way. He hadn't listened.

  She stormed out. She needed to hurt something or she'd lose her mind. She saw a pretty girl sitting in the dining room. She was visiting from a local village and being courted by one of the young men here. No one would miss her. She could arrange for her servant to be eaten by wolves and everyone would think she perished in the same way, too.

  Medusa grabbed her by the throat, crushing her wind-pipes so she couldn't scream. She lifted the girl in the air and threw off her helmet, forcing her to look down at her naked body. Her eyes widened in horror; she was more terrified of Medusa's appearance than the fact that she was running out of oxygen.

  Medusa cackled under her breath, so only this mysterious girl could hear her losing her sanity. "Let me end it all quickly for you."

  Medusa lifted her head and their gazes met. Her body froze like a corpse's as rigor mortis set in. Her mouth opened and her eyes widened as she struggled to release the scream that would never come. Her skin hardened and grayed. It was over. Medusa crushed her into dust and spread her remains through the forest.

  Her servant was taken care of soon after.

  Maybe Perseus would find out what she had just done, but it didn't matter anymore. Her days in his arms were numbered.

  Medusa wandered around the marketplace. She wouldn't go back. Perseus had rejected her and now she would leave him. She deserved to be treated better than this.

  But as she wandered around the stalls, with no one to complain to and rubbed the baby jumping in her belly-she knew she had to try to give it another shot. At least until she told Perseus she was pregnant. Her child deserved to know his father and she had no plan of where to go. She couldn't talk to anyone, so she returned to the house.

  She found Perseus ripping up the sketch he had created. He threw the pieces in a fire and crushed Medusa's heart in the process. He was trying to burn his memory of her away and rid himself of the ick of being intimate with a monster.

  He stomped out of the room. At first, Medusa thought he was going back to bed to find her and break up their relationship officially, but he breezed right past his room. He went to the other end of the castle and knocked on Andromeda's door. Vomit rose in her throat. She wanted to burn or cut herself, but nothing could erase the pain she was about to experience.

  Andromeda opened the door, a frown on her face. She gave one look to Perseus and tried to slam the door in his face, but he stepped in the way.

  Andromeda crossed her arms. "Leave me alone. I can't take any more of your rejection. All I've done is try to be good enough for you, but you're the one who doesn't deserve me this time."

  He grabbed her by her shoulders and pulled her close. Desperation flashed in his eyes. "You're right. I'm sorry, but I promise this time will be different if you give me a chance."

  Andromeda rolled her eyes. "Uh-huh. How can I be so sure?"

  He pressed his lips against hers, causing her eyes to pop open in shock. Her body crumpled in his grasp as she wrapped her arms around him and stuck her tongue in his mouth. They ran their hands through each other's hair as they moaned. Perseus lifted Andromeda in his arms and carried her across the threshold.

  Medusa walked inside behind them as they fell onto the bed. She closed the door that the two of them had left open. Seeing them like this hurt her more than it had last time because he was doing it to erase the memory of what it was like to be with her. She wished that his love for Medusa would make him stop. He was just acting out because he was frightened, but maybe he wasn't as disgusted as he seemed. He'd g
et used to her appearance, eventually, right?

  Medusa flinched as Perseus ripped Andromeda's nightgown while he was yanking it over her head. Medusa swallowed her sobs painfully as he squeezed Andromeda's breasts and rubbed her body. When he took her nipples in her mouth, Medusa's mind screamed that he would stop any moment now. He couldn't go through with this after all he had promised her.

  Andromeda yanked Perseus' chiton off and looked down at his erection. He stood hard for her, excitement glowing in his eyes.

  I can't be losing him like this. Medusa closed her eyes and chanted the words over and over again. Maybe if she said it enough times, it would stop.

  Perseus pinned Andromeda onto the bed and positioned himself over her. He thrust into her, gyrating his hips back and forth. He didn't go limp.

  Medusa thought about throwing off her helmet and turning the two of them into stone. She was tired of watching this, but she wouldn't get her lover back that way. She'd be more alone than she'd ever been before. She couldn't go back to her sisters and no one could know she was still alive. Perseus was the only person she had to interact with and love.

  She held on to one last hope. Maybe he wouldn't finish. Oh Hades, please don't let him finish!

  They thrusted together-his hardness pressing against her softness. The room filled with the overpowering stench of sex and Medusa gagged on it. Andromeda arched her back-sweat glistening on her skin; their voices rose up in shouts.

  Medusa saw Perseus make the face-the one he made when he was finishing. She knew that he had come inside of Andromeda and that all was lost. He had cheated on her. It was official.

  Medusa was tired of being right about the horrible things that were going to happen to her. Why couldn't men surprise her with help and support, instead of being reliable in one constant betrayal? Her father hadn't been any less of a disappointment. She had known from the beginning that it was a mistake saving Andromeda and she had been punished in every way possible for it. She had known falling in love would hurt her in the end.

  Medusa wished to run out the door, but she had closed it, effectively locking herself inside. Invisible people aren't supposed to open doors; she might have already raised questions when she closed it. She was trapped, watching the erotic nightmare that would replay itself over and over in her mind for the rest of her life. She had lost everything once again.

  Perseus rolled over and the two gazed at each other with sappy smiles on their faces.

  Chapter 23

  Medusa refused to move or even breathe until the two of them had fallen asleep. She opened the door slowly. When she confirmed that the hallway was empty, she ran down it on her tiptoes and threw herself onto Perseus' bed. She sobbed quietly enough not to disturb any of the servants. Perseus didn't return to their bedroom for the next few days and the two of them didn't speak.

  Medusa wanted to run away, but she had nowhere to go. There was no future for her out in the world. She could hide in the desert, but she'd be lonely. At least there were people in this place, even if none of them ever saw her.

  Andromeda had a smug smile on her face each morning, but Perseus' eyes were dead. She wrapped her arms around him as he guided her to the breakfast table. She savored her food, while he chewed on it with the enthusiasm of someone eating dirt.

  Medusa woke one morning to find one of the statues of her in crumbled pieces on the ground. Snake heads and limbs bent in grotesque directions were piled in a jumbled mess. Perseus stood over it with a mallet slung over his shoulder. His eyes were glazed over. Servants walked past him, staring and whispering over the scene in front of them.

  He spent the rest of the day walking around in a daze. He kept staring at a piece of the statue-one of her eyes-that he had kept in his pocket and stroked with his thumb.

  He was sitting by the fireplace alone, late at night, staring at a blank sheet of paper when he finally acknowledged her presence. He had ignored her for so long that she was shocked he even noticed that she was still there.

  "I've been waiting for you to leave me." His voice was soft. "It's what I deserve. There is no number of apologies that can make up for what I have done. As the days went by and you stayed here and I didn't speak, my guilt kept growing."

  Medusa gritted her teeth. Those words meant nothing to her. They were a mockery. She spat words back at him. "No, it's me that should be sorry as my presence is so inconvenient for you. It's me that should apologize for falling in love when I had no right to as a monster. You should finish the job and kill me. You've already hurt me in every other way imaginable. If you get rid of me then the gods will never know what happened and you can continue to live your perfect life with your pretty princess."

  Perseus flinched. He ran his hands through his hair and looked down at his fingers as if they belonged to someone else. "What I did was wrong. I thought I was a stronger man than that. I don't blame you for being angry with me. I shouldn't have panicked."

  Medusa crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. "Most people try to run when they realize how hideous I am. Unfortunately, for them, they don't usually make it, but I thought you'd be the first to stay." She thought about all the people she had turned and the expressions on their faces as they became statues.

  Perseus looked in her direction, horrified. "You think I panicked because I thought you were ugly? That wasn't it at all."

  Medusa stared at him icily. "I was there. I know what happened."

  He reached out and stroked her arm. She jumped out of his reach. She couldn't allow him to fool her using his gentle caresses.

  "I wish I had cleared this whole thing up earlier," he said. "I wasn't disgusted by your body. I was terrified of what the gods had done to you. It's like knowing that there is hunger out there, but not truly understanding how the poor and homeless suffer until you see them lying in their own filth with their stomachs distended, being eaten by flies because they are too weak to move. Looking at you was like seeing that suffering and finding out that it was someone you love dying.

  "I didn't really get what you struggled with until I saw it for myself. It hurt me to know that someone I loved could be tormented by the gods this way.

  "And there's nothing I can do to save you from it. That's what frightened me the most. I am helpless against it.

  "I got scared that what had happened to you could happen to my mother and Dictys. My actions could lead to more people I love being tormented. I wanted to forget what I saw and I thought maybe I could do that by trying to live a normal life.

  "I thought if I sought comfort in Andromeda's arms that the whole thing would go away, but it made everything worse. It made me realize that even though I didn't kill you, I was a cruel man. I was so upset that I had destroyed you that much more.

  "I felt like my father. Zeus killed his own dad and I killed my grandfather. He sleeps around and betrays his lovers. I've hurt you and Andromeda more than anyone has. All that I've done is unforgivable and selfish.

  "I wanted to destroy your curse, so I took a mallet and destroyed one of your statues. In my head, it made sense to me, as if I were symbolically destroying your pain, but the result wasn't that. I imagined you dead, lying on the ground, by my hand because I couldn't rescue you. Every day that I failed to handle this correctly, was another day that I was messing up.

  "You, on the other hand, the true victim of this whole thing, continue to stand strong. You didn't make a scene. You weren't rash like I was.

  "Never has another woman changed my life as much as you. I always thought I was so brave, until I met you. You amaze me every day-the way you stand even when the whole world is against you.

  "You're so beautiful and it scared me that someone so great could be brought down this way by the gods. I've been abandoned by them and gotten angry with them, but I've never actually been tortured by them. It meant that any of us, no matter how high up we are, could be annihilated by them at any time. I should be fighting them like you are, instead of cowering, but I got overwhelmed."<
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  Tears streamed down Medusa's face. She hadn't expected this speech and it hurt to hear it. "So you were so horrified by my mangled body that you couldn't handle it? Don't you understand? I showed you how I looked because I wanted you to love me the way I am. You rejected me instead. You love what you see in the mirror, but that's not all that makes me who I am."

  "I wasn't disgusted, though," Perseus said. "I was awed. The woman I saw in front of me was even more amazing than the one in the mirror.

  "I once believed that I deserved you, but I know that it's no longer the case. I shouldn't dare say this, but I still love you. I couldn't speak to you after what I had done with Andromeda because I was unworthy. I think that's part of the reason I did it. I'm not good enough and I wanted to give you a reason to leave me, but the truth is I can't live without you.

  "I don't blame you if you never forgive me. I'm not the man I thought I was. Everyone has their faults, but mine are enormous."

  Medusa crossed her arms and paced the room. She wasn't sure what to say because she had been feeling the same way, like not only was Perseus better than her, but that he must have figured it out himself. She had even behaved as destructively as he did when she was at her worst. She remembered the people she had killed and how she had savored the feeling of having control over someone else's life. In the end, it always made her feel more worthless than she had in the beginning.

  She considered telling Perseus about those murders as a way of helping him feel better, but she realized, once again, her sin was worse than his and as king it would be his duty to punish her for attacking the citizens of his kingdom. Even if he didn't kill her, she didn't want to force him into a position to make that choice.

  She lifted his chin and kissed him gently on the lips. His eyes glowed with love. "I'll give you one more chance, but you can not sleep with Andromeda or any other woman again. If it happens, even one more time, I will leave you forever."

  He shook all over and pulled her close. He was breathing harshly. "I never thought you would take me back. This whole thing feels like a dream."