I smiled. “I never wish to give you cause to hate me. I can deal with the hatred and contempt of all others, so long as you never cease to look at me as you do now.”
“Oh, my heart,” he whispered for my ears only. “I am your slave in every way.”
“And I am yours, my dark king.”
And to show him just how much I meant what I said, I snapped my fingers, releasing Poseidon from his prison.
He gasped, sinking into the waters and looking at me through different eyes.
I shook my head. “I spared your miserable life today because my lover wished me to. Though why he should care for a worthless bastard like you, I’ll never know. But hear me well, god of nothing. If I ever catch you skulking about in my domain again, I will end you. And I will smile as I do it. Now, be gone from my sight.”
And with a flick of my wrist, I sent him back to Olympus, making sure that the trip would be most unpleasant, filling any and all orifices with several gallons worth of sand.
Leaving Hades and I alone.
I felt almost shy when I looked back up at him. But I didn’t mind it anymore. There was strength in feeling, great strength. It would have been all too easy to kill Poseidon. The hard thing had been letting him live, and I’d only managed to do that because, for some unknown reason, Hades believed that I was a far better creature than I actually was.
A creature that I hoped someday would truly be worthy of him.
“Did you mean all of that?” he asked gruffly.
Biting the inside of my cheek because being open and honest with my feelings toward another was foreign territory for me, I nodded slowly.
“Yes, Hades. All of it.”
“Your heart?”
I shook my head. “I’ve learned to live without one already, and I’m not sure I relish any more of this long, arduous journey. I just wish to be with you alone, my king. I wish to know you again, know all of you. And learn about our family. Our life together. I do not need a heart to know that I do need you.”
He traced my cheek with his finger, and I leaned into his touch like a woman starved and desperate, practically purring at the callused feel of his strong touch.
Hades was a man. I was a woman. His woman.
My body warmed to think it. I belonged with him, and I was pretty sure that I always had. No matter how much I’d wanted to give into my darkness, I knew that with him by my side, I could overcome anything.
“I love you. But the journey ended here anyway.”
I frowned. “What?”
He laughed. “My beautiful, Thalassa. Your heart was never that far.”
I blinked, wondering what madness he was getting at. “Then what was this silly journey you took us on? And where is it? I do not sense it.”
“The journey was to force you to get to know me again. It was an excuse, my reason for being and staying with you. But your beautiful golden heart has always been just under your nose.” He pressed his palm to the flat of his stomach, and my brain seemed suddenly incapable of working.
I stared at his muscular abdominals and shook my head. “Are you saying that you—”
“I swallowed them,” he said.
I laughed, then wrinkled my nose, and then laughed some more. “Oh, that’s terrifyingly diabolical. What would induce you to do such a thing, and… why?”
He chuckled, twining a rope of my tentacle hair behind my ear. “Did you honestly think I could ever do without with any part of you? Put it out in the great wide world and hope and pray that some idiot didn’t cross paths with it? I would never endanger your life in that way.”
I pressed my hand to the flat of his stomach and realized that what I’d felt after our lovemaking had indeed been a beating heart. It was that same strange dual beating I’d felt when I’d laid my head on his stomach earlier, but I’d just attributed it to some quirk of the Olympians. A slow smile rolled over my lips.
“That is both disturbing and brilliant and a whole plethora of other adjectives,” I murmured. “Hades, is this why I like being near you? Is it my heart that makes me so soft toward you?”
The twinkle in his eyes dimmed, and the smile slowly slipped. “I suppose there is only one way to find out.”
His hand filled with a curl of that pearly black smoke that was his power, and he grunted only a little as he slid his hand inside of himself and tugged. In an instant, the glittering golden organs were freed—his much larger one and mine, completely fused together, and beating in tandem.
Heat gathered in my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat as I looked at the beauty that was us. My heart could never have twined so seamlessly, so perfectly, with his if we hadn’t been one whole to begin with.
With a deft flick of his wrists, he turned the one back into two and handed me my smaller heart.
I looked into his eyes as he looked into mine. In his, I read eternity and hope and fear. Fear that I would get my heart back and leave him forever.
I swallowed hard and took my heart from his hand. When it came to me, I felt flooded with warmth, but not just my own. It was his. His joy. His happiness. His love and tenderness.
Our hearts had been as one for so long that a part of himself had forever imprinted on mine. I turned my hand and shoved the organ deep into my chest and gasped as I felt the warmth of life, of verve, and true indescribable joy flood through me like a roaring wave. And it was a wave, the wave that had been gently pounding away at me all along. I let it flood through me, merging as one with it. Healing. Becoming whole again.
My lashes fluttered as I drowned in the sensation of memories that I’d always had in me but could find no enjoyment in, memories of home and hearth and love, indescribable, bountiful love that was overflowing and never-ending.
Through my tears, I looked at my beloved’s face, and realized that the other version of me hadn’t been weak at all. She’d known love. She’d changed completely because of it, and not because Hades had stripped her of autonomy, but because he’d given me the freedom to be wholly and fully myself, loving me exactly for who I was. When the wave was done with me, I felt like a different woman entirely. I was me. I was her. I was something else altogether.
“Bubble butt,” I whispered, and he gasped, almost dropping to his knees for a second.
I had to place my arms under his to keep him upright, And I wasn’t the only one crying. His tears were thick and silvery, and he was shaking his head.
“Who… who are you?” he whispered brokenly.
I smiled. “I don’t know. But I do remember. And I don’t know how. Only that I love you so much. You never gave up on me, Death Boy. You never gave up on us.” My words came out a reed-thin whisper. “But I’m not the same Calypso that I was. I am her, but I am Thalassa still too. I don’t know how you did it, made us both love you, but somehow, against the very will of nature, I am still dual.” I gasped, smiling through my tears, so confused and yet excited all at the same.
He trembled furiously as he hugged me tight. “And I never will give up on us. Not ever. You’re mine, Thalassa, Calypso, whoever. You’re all mine.”
“You may call me Thalassa,” I said softly, “for she is as much me as anything else, and though we have merged, in truth, both are still very much alive in me.” I placed my hands on his shoulders, drawing him closer. “And just so we’re clear, Hades, you are mine, my darkest love. My only love. Forever. For always.”
He nodded. “Kiss me, Thalassa. Forever. For always. For I know your soul, and that is the greatest treasure any man could ever ask for.”
So I did kiss him.
Passionately.
Ardently.
Those kisses lead to other, more glorious, more wondrous things. Things that healed me, that reminded me who I’d been, who I still was. It was a week before we finally came up for air again, but when we finally did, he turned to me on that lake bed of glittering waters and murmured, “It is time, my dark jewel.”
My memories were back, and I knew what he meant.
>
So I nodded. “Yes, lover. It is time.”
Epilogue
Hades
Thalassa had her hand on the pillar of water that encased a woman with skin dark as liquid ebony and a face more beautiful than legend. We stood amongst the ruins of a once spectacular castle. I felt another soul hidden in shadow, standing in darkness, watching us. I knew it was Oiwot, the frozen woman’s husband. I had no doubt that, should Thalassa do anything other than heal what she had destroyed in the curse, he would come for her. And if he came for her, it would mean war for us all.
Oiwot was a native god of his world, and his powers were no small thing. But we’d come in peace, and it was time to fix the mess that was this new world, starting with the woman in glass.
“Her name is Fable,” I said, my heart squeezing as I looked at her beautiful face. Large eyes so much like her mother’s, skin as dark as the deepest trenches of Thalassa’s waters, and a heart as pure and bright as Apollo’s sun. Seeing her frozen features, I was bombarded by memories of her. Of me. Of us. Remembering how many times I’d held her as a child and rocked her to sleep because she’d been so very precious to me. The millions of books we’d read together, some of them more than once because she’d loved them so much. And the times she’d looked me in the eye and had said, in her child-like drawl, “Love you, Papa.”
I swallowed hard, fingers clutching at my sides. Keeping her trapped as she was had been one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my life, but only the person who’d first cursed her could undo the curse. Thalassa hadn’t been in her right mind when she’d done as she’d done. She’d not known anything other than the agony and pain of an elemental’s chaotic memories. And I could see the regret of her actions written all over her.
Thalassa glanced at me over her shoulder, her dark blue eyes shining with tears. “I know who she is. Who she was. I remember.” She turned back around, tenderly running her fingers over the visage of the woman’s face, forever preserved in a scream. Her voice shivered as she said, “I remember our granddaughter.”
My heart trembled every time she did that, told me of her memories. All those nights without her now felt like a fading memory, A terrible dream of another time that was no longer ours.
Without speaking another word, Thalassa whispered one word beneath her breath.
Release.
And then she stepped back, clasped her fingers together, and bowed her head. Dressed in a gown of sheer blue, with wave-like curls running down her back, she looked small, fragile, and tortured. But she’d asked me to stand back, and I would honor her wishes.
My eyes were on Fable alone as the waters that’d perpetually drowned her began to recede, pulled away from her body. Behind us, the shadow stirred, and I heard the sharp inhalation of breath, saw Oiwot began to pull away from the darkness he’d hidden himself in.
He looked like hell. His eyes were rimmed in red, and his face was haggard and full of a beard that’d never been there before. His matted hair dragged well past his back, almost to his knees. His once-bronze skin was now a pale imitation of that color. I knew the pain of loss only too well and how it turned a man’s pride in on itself, like a cancer, eating away at any sense of shame or humiliation, completely lost to the demon of your mate’s loss.
Then the water was gone, and Fable blinked. Then she blinked again. She looked around in startled wonder before her eyes fell on her grandmother, who was now shaking with her silent sobs.
“Grandmother?” Fable spoke for the first time since she’d been trapped in that glassy water, and I trembled all over, knees going weak. Feeling as though I might drop.
My girl was safe now. She was safe.
Thalassa shook her head but didn’t move otherwise. Her throat worked hard, and I knew she was fighting to keep herself sane. I felt the crush of her disappointment in her own actions as though they were a hammer blow to my chest.
“I forgive you,” Fable said, voice husky and thick with her own unshed tears, as she wrapped her lovely arms around her far-too-quiet grandmother. “I forgive you. I know you didn’t mean it. I know you didn’t.”
“I didn’t, Fable. I didn’t my beloved. I didn’t.” Thalassa’s words came out rushed and full of anguish as she collapsed into her granddaughter’s arms, and together, they cried as they both began to heal.
Oiwot stepped forward, looking as though he meant to interrupt them, grab up Fable and steal her away. There was shock and pain and sorrow written all over him. He was a broken man coming slowly back to life.
Stepping over to him, I clamped my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He glanced at me, his expression dazed.
I shook my head. “Give them their moment.”
His jaw clamped shut, and I understood. If someone had told me to hang back after Thalassa’s awakening, I’d have probably killed them myself. But this was private and just for them.
They’d both suffered so much. Far more than most.
Turning him by his shoulders, I pointed him in the direction of the wash room. “Clean up. When you are through, say my name, and I will send her to you.”
His nostrils flared, and though I knew that Fable had forgiven us, I did not believe for a second that we’d so easily won over her husband.
But trust was not a thing easily built. In a second, we had dashed his faith in us, and it could take centuries to earn it back. We would earn it back though. I clipped a hard nod at him. “Have faith and believe that the end has finally come. We will do right by her.”
His lip curled. “You’d better.”
And though I’d expected more opposition, he turned on his heel and did as I’d asked. He was angry, and he had every right to be, but I’d meant what I’d said too.
I walked out of the castle, waiting for Thalassa beneath the noonday sun, giving her and Fable the time they needed.
She came to me almost an hour later, still trembling, but smiling softly.
I took her hand the instant she sat beside me, curling her tightly into my body, not wishing to be apart from her even another minute.
“Do you honestly believe we can fix this?” she asked softly, several minutes later.
I stared at the beauty of the setting sun over the grass-green hills and nodded. “I do, Thalassa. It will take time, and we will have to work diligently to repair all that’s been wrought, but I know deep in my soul that the curse is fixed because you are here.”
She frowned, pushing slightly against my chest as she stared deeply into my eyes. “Me?”
Brushing my thumb over her softly rounded jaw, I nodded. “You. You have a tenacity of spirit that leaves me breathless. Whatever you set your mind to, you will accomplish. You always have.”
She snorted, looking shy but flattered. “You would say that, knowing I failed to keep my intentions to drown all the lesser gods in their beds. I failed at that.”
I shook my head, kissing her forehead hard before saying, “You did not fail, my Queen. If you’d really wanted to, you could have usurped supreme authority over all. But you didn’t really want to.”
It wasn’t a question, and she didn’t treat it as one. Instead, she curled her fingers tight into my shirt and shook her head. “No, my Death. I didn’t. I only wanted you. I was simply too blinded by fury to realize it at first.”
Grinning, I grunted softly beneath my breath. There were so many things we should be doing now—fixing the rest of the happily ever afters, making amends for all that had been done, righting all the wrongs.
But for just a moment, I was going to enjoy having my female back. I was going to be selfish and hold her because I’d gone too long without.
She turned her face toward Apollo’s sinking sun. “Just until it sets,” she said softly, as though reading my mind, and I nodded my assent.
“Until it sets,” I said softly.
With a soft sigh, she rested her cheek against my chest and wrapped her arms tightly around me.
This was heaven.
Whereve
r she was, it was heaven. It was perfect, and never again would I fail to appreciate every hour, minute, and second I had with her.
“I love you, Thalassa,” I murmured tenderly as the sky turned a dark shade of navy along the horizon.
“And I you,” she said just as tenderly, “always.”
Together we smiled, and we enjoyed the rest of that sunset. When it was done, we stood and looked outward, hearing all the cries of those still desperate, still lost.
“Who next?” she asked. “There’s a pirate without his mate. A restless and aching gorgon. A sister who cannot truly feel. A piper with a stone enchanted beau—”
I chuckled softly. “Let’s not get too overwhelmed. There are far too many to list. But we’ll get to them all. I promise.”
“When?” she asked, sounding almost impatient.
I dropped a kiss onto her forehead before saying, “We’ll make a list and work our way down. How about that?”
“Hmm.” She nodded, as though in assent before tapping my chest with a long nail. “I wonder what Dite’s doing?”
Wrapping my arm around her waist even tighter, I opened a portal between the here and there and murmured tenderly, "Why don’t we go see.”
“Yes, Death, lets.”
And that was just what we did.
(TURN THE PAGE FOR THE NEXT BOOK)
The Forge King
You know the tales of the Greek Gods. Mighty and ancient gods of old. Ares, the foreboding and handsome god of War. Aphrodite, the embodiment of sensuality and sexuality, the goddess of Love and consort of War. Hephaestus, the lame and twisted god of the Forge. He is nothing really, only the lightning maker. He is nothing at all.
* * *
But the stories you know aren’t always the full truth. Sometimes they have been distorted. Turning villains into heroes and heroes into villains. But, what if the truth actually lies somewhere closer to the middle? What if Aphrodite is so much more than just a pretty face and Hephaestus is not forgettable at all but something else entirely?
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 36