I straightened up, totally incredulous at that whopper. “By repeatedly trying to kill me?”
He shrugged. “Tough love. Much as Persephone went astray due to Kyrillos’ influence—”
Hades growled at that.
“I hate to see my daughter die.” Zeus leaned forward. “You can be part of this new world. If you stand down and don’t perform the ritual.”
“You and Kyrillos,” Hades added. “He got the same offer.”
Zeus’ lips thinned but he didn’t say anything.
Both gods turned their attention back to the food, giving me, I guess, time to think it over.
I tried to wrap my head around things. I could understand them deciding to kill humans, out of spite or lack of attention. That made sense. But I came up short at how they thought I could go along with this. I may have been a goddess, but I was also most definitely human. Sure, I had a vested interest in the well-being of my god friends, but in the division of these battle lines, I was Team Humanity all the way.
My head throbbed. Were they blithely assuming I’d say “Thanks ever so”? This was possibly the most insulting, condescending interaction I’d ever had with gods. And there had been many.
My arms now itched so madly that if I could have ripped the skin from my bones, I would have happily done that. Instead, I jammed my hands under my butt and shook my head. “Let’s see,” I said. “Uh, no way.”
Hades snorted like he wasn’t surprised, but Zeus actually seemed to be. “Perhaps you don’t understand the choice I’m offering here. The correct decision brings you back into the safety and security of your family. The other … does not.”
That was actually kind of funny. “Secure? Like mob secure? One wrong move and I’m sleeping with the fishes?”
Zeus’ brow creased in confusion. “Why would you sleep in water?”
Hades looked at his brother like he was a moron. “It’s The Godfather … Forget it. She obviously has a death wish.”
“No. She doesn’t.” I said. I pushed away from the table and stood up, bracing my hands on the tabletop as I leaned toward them. “Since I very much want to live, how about this counter offer? Not only am I going to defeat you both, I’m now going to destroy you. I won’t let your selfishness …” I gripped the table, practically trembling in my rage, “your utter self-centeredness hurt humanity. No matter what it takes, I’ll find a way past your ward, unite with Kai, and win.”
I eyed a slender silver olive fork tossed in among the Kalamatas. I wanted to savage someone but its tines wouldn’t inflict the messy, and therefore more painful, ongoing trauma I was after.
Zeus looked amused at my outburst. “You indolent whelp. Who do you think you are?”
I stood tall and steady. “I am the goddess of ushering in a spring in a world free from destruction of gods. A world that allows humans to bloom. But ultimately, Pops? I’m your daughter. And I am about to show you the true meaning of teenage rebellion.”
I would have liked to leave on that high note, but Zeus had to have the last word.
My father toasted me mockingly with his glass. “Then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die.”
“Next week,” Hades interrupted.
Zeus glowered at him. “Yes, obviously, but I was using a metaphor.”
“No,” his brother replied. “You were paraphrasing. Badly.”
That’s when they lunged for each other, and I left.
Actually, I scurried out shaking with adrenaline, and then just shaking because the edges of my vision had begun to blur. I wanted to be away from the restaurant if I passed out.
What scared me the most was that, for all my talk of humanity, I’d never felt so inhuman as I had back there, so driven by a primal need to destroy blindly. I wanted to kill them and feel the weight of their deaths. Truthfully, I had no idea if they could be killed, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was how I had felt.
I stepped past a planter box, full of cacti. They burst into flame as I went by. Tears spilled down my cheeks. I was drowning in my anger, in my crazy emotions. The sense of not being able to reign myself in, get myself back under control, scared me. My heart sped up and I let out a small whimper, pressing my fists into my eyes.
Solid arms slid around my body.
“Shhh,” Kai whispered into my ear. “You’re safe.” He turned me in his arms, holding me tight.
I buried my head against his chest, and let his steady warmth slowly counteract my insane emotions. I inhaled his spicy scent like a lifeline. Finally, I relaxed and came back to the parking lot, and the night, and him.
But I hadn’t forgotten how things stood between us. Warily, I raised my head to look at him, unsure of how this surprise visit was going to play out.
He tilted my chin up to better study me. “Did they hurt you?”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak yet.
I felt his relieved sigh against my chest as I took the sight of him in.
Kai wore a fitted gray sweater that stretched tight across his chest. The denim of his jeans scratched against my bare legs. There was the faintest tinge of dark under his eyes, and his hair was mussed.
I wanted to smooth everything away and make him feel better, but I kept my hands to myself. Touching would not lead to talking. I waited.
Finally, he spoke the words I’d been hoping to hear. “We should talk.”
We didn’t have to have our loaded discussion in a strip mall parking lot. Kai took me back to his house. I’d been there before, but only outside, trying—and failing—to be let in. He hadn’t had this place when he’d been with Persephone. Even if I was imagining everything about her as an active presence in my brain, it was fun to think that my gloating was killing her right now.
I returned my attention to Kai’s home. When I’d first discovered where he lived, I’d been surprised, expecting a flashy hi-rise in some major metropolis. “Why a treehouse?”
We stood on a deck that circled his round wooden pod, built high around the thick, mossy trunk of a massive cypress tree on the bayou. It was designed so that, from a distance, it would be indistinguishable from the rest of the tree. Not that there was anyone around to fool. The area was remote. Uninhabitable without god abilities to blink in and out.
Kai shrugged. “It fits me.”
He spoke in such a low voice that I barely heard him. Morning had broken, and the sound of birdcalls was deafening. It wasn’t peaceful exactly, but it was calming.
Except for the oppressive humidity. Despite the gray overcast sky, my dress felt clammy against my skin. I grasped my hair and twisted it out of the way, using it as a fan on the base of my neck. Talk about pointless. I felt like I was breathing soup.
To distract myself, I eyed the brackish water far below, and a tricky gator doing its best log impersonation amidst tufts of wild grass. In the blink of an eye, the gator lunged forward and snagged a fish. Pure savagery.
And yet, in its wild way, there was no doubt it was beautiful here. Dangerous, lethal even, but with a surprising fragility. A brilliant orange butterfly landed on the rail beside my hand. Hmmm. Maybe this place was perfect for Kai after all. So seemingly fierce, and yes, actually fierce, but still beautiful and vulnerable.
I watched the butterfly flutter a moment, and then fly past Kai’s head, giving me a glimpse of the wistfulness on his face. He caught me looking and smoothed his expression into the poker face that drove me nuts.
Kai turned, opened the door, and stepped inside. Since he left the door open, I followed him.
His place was one big round room, with large, rectangular windows almost floor-to-ceiling all the way around. Underneath them were custom built cedar cabinets, which infused the whole place with a lovely sort of sauna smell.
The cypress’ trunk came up through the center of the room, disappearing again out the top of the sharply pitched ceiling, which was inlayed with slender cedar planks.
To one side of the trunk, Kai had strung a huge hamm
ock bed from an iron grid on the ceiling. The other half of the room was a lounge area, with comfortable seating grouped to take advantage of the view. There was only the most basic of kitchens beside it.
“No bathroom?” I asked as I glanced around.
Kai gave me the ghost of a smirk, making my insides clench in shivery delight. I knew he was remembering the last time we’d found ourselves in a high-end bathroom, and the flirtation that had ensued. He tilted his head. “Over there.”
I looked past him to see a walkway connecting this pod to a much smaller one in a nearby tree. “Ah.”
Awkward small talk out of the way, I sat down on one of the sofas, because no way was I going near the bed. Determined to keep this on a mature, adult level, I let him speak first. Also, he was the one with the explaining to do.
Kai took a seat on a chair beside me. He didn’t speak for a moment, rubbing his thumb over his index finger. “I still love you,” he said, finally.
“I know.”
He nodded as if that was all he needed to say.
My eyes narrowed.
His brows raised.
I shot him a scathing look and drew my legs up to my chest. “You talked to Zeus and Hades? You know what they’re going to do? What they have done with their ward?”
He nodded.
That was the sum total of his response. I snapped. “When we do this love ritual, is it going to work? Or is your Guinness World Record for pissed offness gonna sour the whole thing?”
Kai’s face flashed annoyance. Maybe maximum snark wasn’t the tone to lead with.
“I dunno,” he shot back, equally sarcastic. “How far did Persephone’s betrayal go? She must have known I’d come after her. So what was the plan? Kill me? Use one of Pierce’s arrows to magic herself into being in love with me?”
I flinched at that last bit. At one time, I’d wanted to do the same thing. In my defense, I hadn’t known Kai had loved me then, and it had been a major survival plan for keeping my heart in one still-beating piece.
Still, I didn’t want to answer him either. I knew what she had felt. It wasn’t pretty. “She loved you.” I left it at that.
Problem was, Kai was no idiot. He laughed mirthlessly. “And she was going to kill me anyway,” he said.
I flung up my hands in exasperation, and sat up, my feet slapping onto the floor. “What do you want me to say? Persephone was the universe’s biggest bitch. And I’ve got Bethany—who tormented me for my entire life, tried to steal my boyfriend, stabbed me, and left me for dead—as a contender for second place. I’m sorry about what Persephone was planning, but I can’t change it. So right now I’m telling you to put on your big boy pants because everything is falling apart and we can’t let Zeus and Hades win.”
Persephone and I had made entirely different choices. For better or for worse, I led with my heart. As opposed to letting my messed up goddess-essence-with-a-superiority-complex rule my life with knee jerk reactions. Could he say the same?
Kai didn’t actually say anything for a bit. I hoped laying it on the line had gotten through to him, and was making him rethink his attitude. Then again, gods were notoriously stubborn. And touchy.
I decided to employ the “catch more flies with honey” approach, so I softened my tone and said, “For what it’s worth, I doubt Persephone could have really done it in the end.”
He shot me a sideways glance. “Could you?”
“Screw you, Kai.” I pulled my pendent out from under my dress, bolted to my feet, and headed for the cypress’ trunk. I could be back in Festos’ apartment in a second.
Kai jumped up and grabbed my arm, knocking my pendent out of my fist. “Protest all you want, but you are her. And if she could do it, then the potential is in you.”
I broke his grip. “You’re as crazy as our fathers.” I shoved at his chest. “Your kid self is in you, if you weren’t hatched out of Hades’ ass fully grown, or however you were spawned. So the potential for every stupid thing you’ve ever done is still in you, too. Does that mean you’re going to go out and do endless stupid things? Because if you wanna start making lists, I’m betting I’m the one that needs to be worried here.”
Silence. My chest heaved and Kai would have to be blind to miss my furious glare.
His nostrils flared. His jaw was so tight I worried he might shatter it. His eyes narrowed slightly and then he disappeared.
Days away from the love ritual we had to perform and this was the state of our relationship.
Humanity was screwed.
Seven
“Great,” I said to the empty room. There was nothing to do except wait for him to come back because no way was I leaving without some kind of resolution.
I folded my hands in my lap and sat down on the sofa. My eyes snagged on Kai’s bed.
I looked away.
Looked back.
It was a really big bed. Extremely comfy looking. I eyed it, gauging precisely how comfy. Thought about testing it out, since I was stuck here anyway.
I headed over to the kitchen first, grabbed a paper towel and doused it in hot water. I’d been barefoot all this time and my feet were filthy. I cleaned them off and threw the wad of paper in the trash.
Biting my lip, I snuck toward the bed. I paused a moment at its foot, then launched myself onto it, arms outstretched. Yowza, was it relaxing. Not too hot, not too cold. Not too hard, not too soft. It was baby bear’s ultimate bed. I rolled over onto my back, enjoying the way I sank into it the perfect amount. It must have been one of those memory foam mattresses because it molded itself around me, swaying gently thanks to the massive hammock.
My, a girl could get used to this.
Shaking dangerous thoughts from my head, I sat up reluctantly and immediately felt a familiar weight knocking me back down against the mattress’ fluffy perfection.
Kai lay over me, propped up on one elbow. “I love you.” His voice was hard, his eyes burning with intensity. He pressed me into the bed.
I blinked. Stupidly. “I know.”
“The ritual is going to work.” I heard the absolute conviction in his voice and understood that his anger didn’t overpower his love. That we were going to be fine.
Dumb boys and their inability to articulate actual emotions. As much as I would have liked to hear him say that, I could tell from the look on his face that those three words were as much as I was getting out of him. “Are you still mad?”
Kai hesitated. “Yes.” He rolled onto his back.
I took it as my cue to leave.
His arms wrapped around me and nestled me into his side. “Stay.” It wasn’t a question. I would have bristled but he looped his finger into one of my ringlets and tugged gently. “Please.”
It was so killing him to say that word. Which didn’t endear him to me. But the accompanying tender look dissolved my brain into swoony mush.
Mostly mush. I still felt a core of deep resentment at how he’d treated me the last couple of months. How I’d allowed myself to be treated. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to open my mouth and tell him everything that had been wrong with his behavior. Our behavior.
I tried. I thought them silently. If you’d been mad, you should have respected me enough to talk to me. Not just use me as a hook up. Not make me feel like crap. I even progressed to mouthing the words. Until I finally got the courage to turn my head, look at Kai—and feel my resolve crumble. What if I broke what little connection we’d re-established? What gave me the right to be that selfish when, now more than ever, we needed to be in sync?
Persephone had been selfish and look where it had gotten her.
I was better than that. It could wait.
We lay there, not speaking, not even kissing. Just Kai playing with my hair and keeping me cuddled against him. Which was not great, but at least felt like we’d achieved a tentative level of all right. Maybe not the giddiness of the day we’d declared our love for each other, because there was still too much hurt on both our p
arts, but hopefully enough new closeness to get us through the battle with the rest of our lives to achieve Hannah-and-Pierce glowiness.
I lay my hand over his heart, feeling its steady beat, and the soft rise and fall of his chest.
“Happy belated birthday, Goddess.” Kai kissed the top of my head and my chest tightened. He hadn’t called me by my pet name since we’d learned of Persephone’s betrayal. “I got you a present, you know.”
I rolled over, hoping the delighted grin on my face would extend to real joy in my heart. “Really? Well, hand it over. Don’t waste more time.”
He laughed and the sound shot straight to my toes. God, had I missed knowing how much I amused him.
“I already did. I let Festos and Theo live even though I wanted to fling them off you while you were dancing.”
“That’s not a present, you caveman.” I smacked him. “I knew you were at the club. Big coward, not facing me.”
“I expected you to find me.”
I gagged at the stupendous arrogance. That’s what I got for dating a god. “I tried.” There was a lot Kai didn’t know. And I realized that I’d better catch him up.
To say that Kai was displeased—about my visions, me constantly hearing “All You Need Is Love”, Festos coming with us to do a cleansing ritual while we held off all the minions in existence—would not accurately describe the glowery scowl of doom that seemed permanently etched on his face.
I decided not to mention my belief that I was no longer the Goddess of Spring and more the Goddess of Bah, Who Needs That Silly Season Anyhow?
We needed to get back to Festos’ and speak with him and Theo. But I wasn’t leaving without my present. I poked Kai. “If I am psychically intuiting my imminent death, then this would be a great time to give me my gift.”
Kai looked at me with both fondness and frustration. I could live with that. He leaned over to reach under the bed. I enjoyed the view of his back muscles rippling in the process. When he rolled back up, he held a poorly gift-wrapped box out to me.
My Life From Hell Page 8