Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  “You’re not a fan, I take it,” Demarco said.

  I shook my head. “No. As soon as I have Doreán back, I’d love to get as far away from all the gods as possible.”

  “We. As soon as we have Doreán back.”

  “Right, we.” As in, a family unit. I still had no idea what it would end up looking like, but Demarco’s insistence on being included did funny things to my stomach. Of course, none of that would matter unless we succeeded at getting the essences back.

  Demarco eyeballed me, but didn’t make any more comments on the original exclusion of him in the post-retrieval plan. “Where do you think Hera’s keeping the essences?”

  “She lives in Mount Olympus, and you can’t throw a rock in that city without hitting a Zeus zealot, including our friendly neighborhood child snatcher, Athena, so her city of residence is out. As are any of her temples. I have a hard time believing that Hera would keep the essence at all. She’d be more likely to give it to someone to keep for her. The question is…who? The matron goddess is all about family with limited friends—probably because her husband has slept with them all—so my guess is that she’s given the essence to one of her children.” I scanned the page until I found their names. “Our options are Ares, Enyo, Hebe, Eileithyia, Hephaestus, or Eris.”

  Demarco scooted closer until his chin was practically resting on my shoulder. “Hephaestus is one of Zeus’s children?” he asked.

  “Nope. Sorry to break your heart, but there are no womanizers in your lineage. At least not on your dad’s side.” Which made me more than a little happy, and was also the reason I knew we weren’t related. I turned the page to the story of his father. “Athena is Zeus’s daughter, but she has no mother. Zeus created her all by himself, royally pissing off his wife. To get back at him, Hera went solo and had Hephaestus.”

  “Wait, they were…uh…like test-tube babies?”

  “Wrong again,” I said. “They were the result of parthenogenesis, or asexual cell reproduction. On a side note, this has to be the weirdest conversation ever to be having with the father of my child.” Demarco seemed to still be trying to process it, so I flipped back to the section on Hera’s children and started going down the list.

  “We already know Ares has one of the essences, and Demeter said they’re all five in different locations, so Hera wouldn’t have given hers to him to protect. Enyo is a war goddess, and no doubt kickin’ it with her bloodthirsty brother. Hebe is married to her half-brother Hercules, which is disgusting, and also crosses her off the list since we already know how Hera feels about Zeus’s illegitimate hero-child. Eris is the goddess of strife and discord, and she’s batshit crazy. We’re talking psycho even by the gods’ standards. Seriously, I wouldn’t trust that chick with a letter opener, much less the essence of Zeus. Hephaestus is a known recluse, and Hera kinda turned her back on him after…uh…the incident.”

  “After what incident?”

  “You’ve seriously never looked into your sire?” I asked, turning so I could read Demarco’s face.

  “No. He didn’t want anything to do with me, so why should I care about him?”

  “Good point. Well, he’s crippled and severely disfigured, which is probably why your mom thought he was a monster. Zeus kinda shoved him from Mount Olympus and he got all banged up during the fall. The gods don’t really handle imperfection well, and they didn’t know what to do with Hephaestus after that. So now, they all ignore him, including his mother. Zeus must have felt bad for his role in Hephaestus’s injuries, because he forced Aphrodite to marry the guy. Punishment for her and her skanky ways, an apology for Hephaestus, a wretched unhappily ever after for all.”

  “You and I had access to entirely different fairy tales as children,” Demarco replied.

  I laughed, enjoying the banter. “I think we can be friends.” I meant it too. I loved Demarco’s sense of humor.

  His expression immediately sobered. Still staring at me he said, “I was hoping we could be a little bit more than that.”

  Desperate to break away from his intense gaze, I turned toward the nightstand and took another sip of my wine.

  When I set my glass down and returned to my previous position, he was reading the book I’d all but forgotten about. “Well that narrows it down to one, right? Eileithyia.” He tapped the page, apparently done talking about “us” and ready to get back on track.

  I was more than happy to oblige. “Yep. Eileithyia is the goddess of childbirth and labor pains. I bet she’s a gas at parties.”

  He snickered, making me feel like he enjoyed my sense of humor too. “Where do we find her?”

  “That’s an excellent question. Do you have a computer with an Internet connection I can borrow?”

  He brought me a laptop and opened another beer. “Can I pour you another glass of wine?”

  “Please.” I popped open his laptop and begin browsing.

  “You think she’s on the Internet, huh?”

  “She’s probably not listed as herself, but the gods are notorious for being glory hogs. They want to be worshiped. Do you ever watch the news?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You’d be surprised at how often a glamoured god or goddess steals the media spotlight. They live for the attention. Eileithyia is probably some sort of baby-saving miracle doctor, heralded in all the newspapers.”

  He settled in next to me again. “Doctors require a lot of schooling. Would a goddess be willing to endure that?”

  “You make a good point, because they have to keep up on certifications and all that, and someone would notice when she never aged and worked her practice forever. Maybe something more natural and easier to hide. A midwife helped me deliver Doreán, and I have no idea what sort of medical certification she had. I wasn’t exactly in the mindset to ask. She was great, though. She just showed up on my doorstep with Tweety and…ohmigods.”

  “What?” Demarco asked.

  “She showed up on my doorstep. While I was in labor.”

  “And…?”

  “There are two major problems with that. I lived underground, in an undisclosed location and, up until that point, Aphrodite was the only visitor I’d had…the night you and I…” My gaze darted from my screen to Demarco.

  He arched an eyebrow, as if daring me to continue my sentence.

  I forced my attention back on the screen and started searching recent articles for news about midwives.

  “Anyway, I asked Tweety about her and he said she just appeared when he got there. I never saw her again, and I was a little busy to be thinking about it. According to the world wide web, Sweden is the place to be for midwives. And check out this neonatal mortality rate. One point five per thousand. That’s really good.” I grabbed my glass of wine and took a sip. “This vino is excellent, by the way. Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. The bottles were just getting dusty. Like everything else in that house.”

  I squeezed his hand in what I hoped was a comforting gesture before narrowing my search to Sweden and scanning medical headlines that had to do with childbirth. Healthy quintuplets delivered. A prenatal lifesaving surgery performed successfully. Genealogist research makes amazing neonatal find. I probably browsed a hundred articles before I started to lose hope and took another sip of wine.

  While I was returning my glass to the nightstand, Demarco leaned over my shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. “What about that?”

  “Midwife recognized for phenomenal success,” I read out loud before opening the article and scanning the highlights. “Elia Eriksson has been a practicing midwife for twenty-three years. During that time she’s averaged four births a day and an astoundingly low neonatal mortality rate of less than one in ten thousand.” I paused and re-read the last sentence, making sure I hadn’t misread it. “Holy crap. That’s impossible.”

  “Or…possible if you’re the goddess of childbirth.”

  “You’re right. Good find.” They had a photograph of Elia accepting the awar
d, so I enlarged it. Her originally dark hair was now more salt than pepper, and the lines of her face and bags under her eyes told a story of a long, full life with inadequate sleep. The midwife who’d delivered Doreán had looked more…well…perfect. She’d been in her prime and her eyes had been a vibrant blue, where this woman’s were more of a dull gray.

  “Is that her?” Demarco asked.

  “I don’t know. She looks similar, but there are a lot of differences. She could be wearing a glamour to fit whatever age the humans expect her to be. At least she works in Stockholm, so it’ll be easy enough for us to pop over there and check.”

  “You’ve been to Stockholm?”

  I nodded. “Had a job at the royal palace once. Thanks for your help with figuring this out. I can’t imagine a midwife will give us much trouble, so I’m really hoping she has one of the essences.”

  “If not, we’ll figure out who does,” he assured me.

  I closed down the laptop and handed it back to Demarco. Then I drained my wine glass and collapsed on the bed. It was really comfortable, and although the room wasn’t exactly spinning, there was definitely some movement happening. And no wonder, my bottle was almost empty. Demarco opened himself another beer, and I wasn’t sure if it was his fourth or fifth, but it suddenly occurred to me we were sitting on his bed with nothing to do, hours to kill before we headed to Sweden, and I wasn’t the least bit sleepy.

  “You want to take a walk on the beach?” I asked, pushing myself up on an elbow to look at him.

  He stared at me, his silvery-blues blazing. “Honestly? I’m a bit tipsy and I’m comfortable right here.” Without breaking eye contact, he set his laptop on the floor and leaned closer to me. His fingertips brushed my knee, creating little tingles beneath the denim of my jeans.

  “You are, huh?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Being here with you…this is nice.”

  The tips of his fingers traveled up my thigh.

  I studied Demarco’s profile, admiring his strong chin and the ghost of a dimple in his cheek. There was a certain measure of loneliness in him that made me want to wrap him in a hug and reassure him he wasn’t alone anymore. But that would be corny and definitely jumping the gun, since we’d only been reunited for three days. Three days. Demarco was right, it did seem like a lot longer.

  His fingers traced up my hips and my side before sliding over my shoulder and brushing against my neck. “I’ll never forget the sight of you dancing on the beach. I thought for sure you were a trick of the gods or maybe just my imagination, but then you touched me and we…” He cracked a smile. “That was a great night.”

  His fingers moved to brush against my jaw, leaving behind a trail of fire. My heart thundered in my chest, but I sat perfectly still, breathing in his scent and waiting for him to continue.

  “When I woke up the next morning and you were gone…” Pain darkened his eyes. His thumb caressed my lower lip. “Every day I hoped you’d come back. That’s what kept me going.”

  His eyes dilated as they traveled down my body and then back up to my lips. “I just…I…”

  Demarco gave up on words and closed the remaining distance between us, pressing his lips to mine. His kiss was soft and gentle, but I wanted more. I leaned against him, slipping my hand beneath his shirt to touch his skin. He let my hands roam up his bare chest, but when I started tugging on his shirt, he grabbed my wrists and broke off the kiss.

  Pressing his forehead against mine, he took several deep breaths before saying, “Romi, we need to stop. We can’t do this.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I FROZE, CERTAIN I’d misheard Demarco. He pulled away from me, his face apologetic.

  After all the flirting and touching, he was rejecting me? Ouch. And why? I couldn’t have misread his feelings for me. He’d called me alluring, for crying out loud. He’d kissed me. He’d said he wanted more than friendship. I’d seen desire in his eyes. Back in the hotel room we were practically ripping each other’s clothes off when Tweety walked in on us, but now that we had some privacy he was going all chaste on me? What the hell?

  Was it all some sort of test to see how far I’d go? Was he judging me now because we’d only really known each other for a few days? Did he think I was some sort of tramp like my grandmother? Or like Zeus? I hadn’t even told him Zeus was my great-grandsire, but maybe he’d pieced that together and decided I wasn’t good enough for him now. Anger and indignation poured through my veins, burning away the effects of the wine. Questions and self-doubt continued to flood my mind as I leaped from the bed and grabbed my boots, tugging them on. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, and I needed to get out of there before they collapsed and trapped me.

  “Romi—”

  “I’m fine. It’s all good. I get it.” I really didn’t get anything, but he’d rejected me and whatever he said from there would only make the situation more awkward and painful. Why had he been leading me on and saying all that sweet bullshit? What if he didn’t think I was a tramp. What if there was more to it…some sort of game he was playing? One minute he was telling me I needed to trust him and let him get close to me, and the next he was pushing me away.

  “It’s not because I don’t want to,” he hurried to say, joining me on the floor.

  “Great, it’s not me, it’s you. Cool. Can we stop talking about it now?” I stomped my feet into my boots and then headed for the stairs. My face was on fire and I needed to put distance between us. Lots of distance. Light-years worth of distance.

  “Where are you going?” he asked, tugging his own boots on.

  “I need some air. Alone.” Why had I been such an idiot? Was anything he’d told me true? Aphrodite had set us up originally, and maybe this all went back to that night. Maybe Demarco was an excellent actor who’d been lying to me the whole time. Aphrodite was no doubt on the side of the rebels, and she wasn’t above orchestrating some complicated love story to keep me busy and distracted. But if that was the case, why had Demarco stopped? Attack of the conscience?

  The questions kept coming, and I only knew one way to put an end to them. I needed to find out whether or not Demarco was telling me the truth, and there was one way I could do that for sure.

  Demarco was saying something, but I could only hear the blood pounding in my ears. I stormed up the stairs and threw open the door. His feet pounded against the stairs behind me, but I didn’t wait for him to catch up. Maybe he was Aphrodite’s son after all. That would definitely explain his sexual lure and the way I wanted to jump him every time he brushed up against me or looked at me with those incredible silvery-blues.

  Stop thinking about him!

  Resolved, I shoved open the door. It was already getting dark out, which meant we’d been in his shop much longer than I’d thought. Maybe his sexual magic had been holding me captive? I took a deep breath of Demarco-free air and tried to clear my mind.

  Tweety raised his head and looked down at me. I gave him a super fake smile and a thumbs-up. He shook his head and ducked it back under his wing. No doubt the griffin had heard Demarco and me arguing and was annoyed with our drama. I resisted the urge to flip him off and jogged in the direction of the town. If I made it there, I’d know for sure that Demarco had lied to me, and I’d…I’d have to kill him. Only I couldn’t kill him now that Doreán had gotten a glimpse of his father. How could I explain that to my kid?

  “Romi, wait up!” Demarco shouted.

  No. I needed to do this without him talking in my ear, messing with my emotions, filling my air with his mind-fogging scent. Maybe he released pheromones like the Empusa had? I lengthened my strides. Now I was straight-up sprinting.

  “Stop! You’re gonna—”

  That’s when I ran into the invisible wall.

  * * *

  I woke up in Demarco’s bed with a killer migraine and an ice pack on my forehead. But to be fair, the back of my head also hurt. Exploring the painful areas with my fingertips, I found two giant goose eggs, one in the front,
and one in the back.

  Awesome.

  “Hey, good morning,” Tweety said, sitting beside me on the giant bed. Demarco’s bed. Details about last night came flooding back: food, wine, discussion about the gods, heated kissing, rejection, then I was running toward the town until...

  Crap.

  The invisible wall. That meant Demarco had been telling the truth, and I’d just made a huge fool of myself. But at least the bump on my forehead made sense.

  “Demarco really did grow up in a bubble,” I said aloud, tugging the ice pack off my head so I could sit up. Big mistake. The small change in altitude felt like an intense brain freeze.

  Tweety chuckled. “You don’t say?”

  Grimacing through the pain, I shot him a dirty look and gestured at the lump on my forehead. “I understand how I got this one, but where did this one come from?” I asked, pointing at the one in back.

  “You hit the wall pretty hard. It knocked you unconscious and you fell backwards, bashing the back of your head against the ground too. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

  He had no idea how accurate that observation probably was. “Epic.”

  “Yeah, your lack of grace continues to impress me. There’s some aspirin and water on the nightstand.”

  Popping the lid off the aspirin, I shook a few into my hand and swallowed them back, looking up. Everything seemed so much brighter than I remembered. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “About eight o’clock. Why?”

  “Crap!” I threw back the covers. “We have got to get out of here. It’ll be after work hours in Sweden, and without knowing where Eileithyia lives, we’ll have to wait another day to find her.”

  Tweety intercepted me, pushing me back down on the bed. “No help for that now. Give the pain reliever time to kick in. A few minutes isn’t going to make a difference, and Demarco’s making breakfast, so we’ll go after we eat.”

  Since when was Tweety making the plan? “We should have gone hours ago,” I objected.

  “Yep, and we could have, had you only believed D.”