by JJ King
“What happened?” Thea’s voice sounded disgusted. “What happened was that your goddess, our goddess,” she motioned to all three of them, “damned us for daring to love.” Thea shook her head, wiping at her face with her hand. “What happened, Mom, is that you abandoned us, left us to rot because we weren’t your ‘beautiful girls’ anymore!” Her voice ended on a shriek.
“No!” Ceto exclaimed, muffling the sound of her cries behind her hand, “Oh gods, is that what you think happened? That your father and I abandoned you? That we didn’t want you anymore? That we’re ashamed of you?”
Em lifted her head, although it felt like the weight of the world lay on it, “We haven’t seen you in more than two millennia!”
The door pushed open all the way and all three women looked up to see Phorcys standing there, his body shaking with something, rage or loss, Em couldn’t tell. He strode into the room and bent down to his wife, lifting her from the floor and into his arms where she clung. He pressed a kiss to her hair and held her while she sobbed into his chest, then lifted his face to his daughters and exhaled slowly. “That’s because we’ve been imprisoned for over two millennia.”
Em opened her mouth to fight back, to say all the things she’d thought about saying over the past two thousand years without them, and couldn’t. Her father’s words floated in the air like an inconceivable truth that she couldn’t quite grasp. Shaking her head, Em frowned at her parents. “What… what do you mean?”
Ceto peeked her face out from Phorcys chest and opened her mouth to respond, but no words would push past the hiccups and sobs that still wracked her body. The rage that Em had fought against for so long, the rage that had kept her alive and strong before that, sputtered in her soul. She lifted a hand to her chest and rubbed at the pain that centered there.
Phorcys shook his head and looked down at Em with a mixture of intense sadness and frustration. He rubbed a hand over his wife’s back, soothing her wracking sobs, and met Em’s gaze. “She came for us,” he grimaced and took a deep breath before continuing. “Athena, she came for us right after you and your sisters fled the house.” He blew out a deep breath and shifted to take Ceto’s hand.
There was still an edge of despair in Ceto’s voice when she spoke, but Em saw the strength flow from her father to her mother. “Medusa, baby, how could you have thought for an instant that we would just walk away from you, from all of you?” Another hiccup lifted her chest.
Em felt her heart break. It splintered like a glass ball, into a million shards as sharp as knives, each one slicing at the insides of her soul. As if through an endless murky sea, she lifted her eyes to Thea, whose face was devoid of color, and she swayed as it all became clear. Their parents hadn’t abandoned them, they’d abandoned their parents.
Em bolted, straight out the door and down the hallway with a hand pressed over her mouth, pushing open doors until she found the bathroom. She collapsed on the floor before the toilet, emptying her stomach over and over. With each heave, it felt as if her insides were being torn to shreds, but she didn’t flinch. She deserved it, all of it, the pain and suffering, the hollowness inside her and the darkness that threatened. All these years, she’d cried, and railed, and finally thought she’d accepted her lot in life. But it had been all a lie. Em urged again.
A gentle hand touched her shoulder and passed a towel into her peripheral vision. “Thank you,” Em mumbled, wiping her mouth as she flushed the toilet and climbed to her feet. She turned her head and looked straight into a wide chest. Em tilted her head back, up and up, until she was looking straight at Poseidon. I smell like vomit. The thought slipped through her despair, sending a fresh wave of guilt through her defenses.
“Are you alright?” He scratched at his face where a five o’clock shadow covered his darkly tanned skin, creating delicious shadows that she’d once explored with her tongue.
Em sucked in a breath, turning from him frantically. She moved to the sink, splashing cold refreshing water on her face and neck. A bottle of mouthwash sat beside the sink, thankfully, so she uncapped it and washed out her mouth, feeling less vulnerable once she had. She took her time, needing the few extra seconds to acclimatize to this new situation. She was home, with her parents, who had spent the last two thousand years in prison because she was a selfish little girl, and her ex-lover, the God of the ocean, had watched her vomit. She was not alright. She shook her head. “No.”
“Do you want me to leave?” he asked, his eyes searching her face. His body was stiff and still, completely unlike the man she used to know. But that had been a long time ago, of course he’d changed. She couldn’t assume to know him anymore. She’d been wrong about her parents, what if she’d been wrong about him too?
Did she want him to leave? To disappear from her life, again, so that she never got the closure she’d been waiting millennia to get? She steeled herself. “No. Stay.”
They stood awkwardly in the bathroom with the smell of fresh vomit still in the air, mixing with the mint of the mouthwash. The silence stretched uncomfortably until Em couldn’t take it anymore. She shifted to leave and stopped dead when Poseidon’s hand flashed out and touched her arm, as gentle as a butterfly’s touch.
The brief contact shook Em to the very core. She tried to stop herself, but it was too late, a gasp escaped, sounding so loud in the small room that it seemed to echo off the tile walls. She stared at his fingertips on her skin for a long moment, then reality dawned and she pulled her arm back, cradling it into her chest.
Em’s mind buzzed at her reaction. There was too much happening, too quickly. She couldn’t process anymore. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and forced herself to concentrate, then opened them to see his worried expression. Swallowing hard against the urge to stay, she made herself respond in a normal tone, “Can we please do this later?” She pointed down the hallway. “My sister is…” she shook her head, “I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but she isn’t well, and I’m scared.” Em let her fear peek through for a second and then shut it down.
Poseidon looked like he wanted to argue, she supposed he wasn’t use to being denied much, but after a moment he nodded and shifted to let her walk by.
Em took a deep breath and walked back to her sister’s room. She needed to compartmentalize and deal with one shock at a time. Number one in the order of importance was Eury. She pushed open the bedroom door and paused, watching Thea and her parents talk quietly, their faces filled with the simple joy of family.
Phorcys noticed her first and motioned for her to come in. Em perched on the edge of the bed, next to her mother and reached for Ceto’s hands. Her mother’s hands were different than they had been when she was a girl, less youthful and she wondered just how severe their imprisonment had been. Ceto was immortal and a goddess, she didn’t age, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt. The thought of any harm coming to her parents because of her foolish decisions made Em want to shrivel up and die. But she wouldn’t die, she would live forever. That was her punishment.
The darkness that had so often threatened to swallow her, pushed closer to the surface. She had succumbed to that darkness, to the uncertainty and the fear, more than once, and each time others had suffered. In the dark places, she became the monster.
“What do you know about Eury?” she asked, looking between her parents. “How did this happen to her? And how did you get free?” Em leaned forward, needing the distraction of her questions to focus on not getting sick again.
“Euryale and Poseidon freed us,” Ceto’s soft voice commanded the room.
“What?” Em gaped at her mother. She knew she looked ridiculous with her mouth hanging open, but in the realm of words she’d never thought to hear, Eury and Poseidon working together was top of the list. She turned to Thea who looked just as shocked and torn up as she felt. Em reached for her sister’s hand and clasped it gently, whispering, “Eury knew Mom and Dad were in trouble and she didn’t come to us.” Her heart cinched. Em knew things hadn
’t been perfect between the three of them for a while, but to know something so important, so life changing, and not ask for help. To ask Poseidon for help instead.
Thea blanched. “Does she hate us so much?”
Ceto grasped Em’s and Thea’s hands, squeezing them tight, forcing Em to raise her eyes and listen. “Your sister does not hate you, either of you. She did this for you, to prove herself. Stubborn child.” Ceto murmured, brushing her palm over Eury’s cheek.
“Prove herself?” Thea looked as confused as Em felt.
Ceto looked so sad. “She told us about the rift between you three, about how you two have come to find your place in this world while she…” Ceto shrugged almost imperceptibly, “she felt lost in it.”
“She thought that if she could just find us, reunite the entire family and find a place of our own where we could be safe, she could fine peace,” Ceto explained.
Em’s heart stuttered as she thought about her sister. They’d been at odds so many times over the years that Em had come to expect a certain amount of instability. Was it possible that after a lifetime of being her sister, she really didn’t know Eury at all? “What else did she tell you?” Em needed to know. She just wished her sister were awake so she could ask her herself.
Ceto shook her head. “We don’t know much, just what Poseidon has told us, but according to what Euryale told him, she’s been searching for us for close to seven years. She came to him for help only a month ago, though.”
Em pictured her sister appealing to Poseidon for help. The image didn’t register. Euryale had been consumed with hatred for the gods from the moment they’d been reborn as mythical monsters. She’d had a special hatred for Athena, of course, since she was the vile bitch who’d cursed them, but Eury had always maintained that the real fault lie with Poseidon. After all, she’d argued more than once, he was Athena’s uncle. He should have known her pettiness ran deep enough to ruin lives.
Thinking about Eury’s actions now, how she’d set out on this quest without ever reaching out to her and Thea for help, how she’d turned to the one man she’d sworn to hate forever, she realized this was proof enough that even a sibling couldn’t possibly know the depths a brother or sister would be willing to stoop.
Em looked up at her parents, haggard but whole, and thanked the gods Eury had stooped. She just wished the three of them had been there together to be reunited. A thought niggled at Em’s mind, pushing its way stubbornly forward. Em frowned, what if…
“What if Athena had a curse guarding you?” she pondered aloud.
Phorcys cocked his head to the side and frowned back, his reaction so like her own it almost hurt. “A spell to affect the rescuer?”
Ceto made a sound of distress and placed her hand over Eury’s heart, “Why would she do that?”
“Because,” Poseidon’s voice boomed from the doorway, making them all whirl around in surprise, “she’s the goddess of war. That’s exactly the kind of shit she’d pull.” His eyes glinted with fury and his face, so handsome, turned darker by the moment, like an approaching storm. His biceps bulged as he balled his fists into terrible weapons.
Em inhaled sharply. She’d never seen him like this before. It was frightening, terrifying… and it set her blood on fire.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I want to kill her!” Ceto slammed her fists down on the kitchen island, sending cutlery skittering.
Phorcys crossed the room and pulled his wife into his arms, embracing her shaking form. Em watched them with interest, wondering why she’d never noticed before what an amazing team they made. Her father, so strong and immovable, until he was with his family, and her mother, so soft and beautiful, until you messed with the ones she loved. They complimented each other, balancing the soft and hard sides that others only rarely witnessed.
Em tried not to let her gaze wander across the room, to where Poseidon stood at a window, peering out at the Aegean. She knew being inland wasn’t comfortable for him, that if he wasn’t in his sea, he preferred to be within a moment of reaching it. It was why they’d met at his temple, where Athena’s eyes were shadowed.
But they’d been everywhere anyway. They’d seen, they’d disapproved, and they’d punished.
It was hard, seeing him here. Em imagined it would be hard seeing him anywhere, but here, with her family, helping them, it confused her mind and heart. Why had he agreed to help Eury? She who despised him.
Their life together had happened so long ago that it seemed like a scene from a movie she’d once watched and then half-forgot. Sometimes, despite the overwhelming evidence atop her head, Em could even forget that she’d loved so furiously and lost so completely.
Em closed her eyes now, unable to fend off the memories that battered against her mind. It hurt more to deny them than to let them in, she hoped. She let them come, like incessant waves against the shore; walking along the shoreline with her small hand buried in his, slipping beneath the waves of the sea as his body moved against hers, inside hers. A shiver raced the length of her body at the memory of his hands on her fevered skin.
She opened her eyes and caught him watching her intently, the stormy gray of his eyes darkening as he caught a hint of her memories. For a second, she wanted to run, to look away and focus on her parents, but she didn’t. Pride and pure, unadulterated spite over took her and she acted on instinct, tilting her head slightly and cocking an eyebrow at him, mimicking the saucy look she’d given him the very first time they’d met.
He’d been visiting his niece, one of the rare times the gods deigned to walk among the humans in their temples, and Athena had called for her favorite priestesses. Daughters of the sea gods Phorcys and Ceto, she’d boasted to Poseidon, who looked utterly bored and contemptuous, until his gaze met hers. Then his eyes had sparked to life and he’d offered her a cocky grin. She’d been rocked to her core but had played it completely cool, knowing her goddess wouldn’t appreciate flirtation.
Poseidon had confessed later, while they laid naked together under the moon and stars, that he’d been rocked by her in that moment, too. He’d felt the world shift, is what he’d said.
And now here he was, shifting her world once again. Only, this time, she wasn’t a naive little girl. She was a big, bad, monster.
Poseidon pushed away from the window and strode across the room, his eyes locked on hers. Without pausing, he grabbed her hand and kept walking, pulling her with him to the stairs and down to the foyer below. Em allowed it to happen, because try as she might, there was some part of her that was screaming to be alone with him, to ask him the questions that burned to be answered.
The second they were away from prying eyes and ears, Poseidon spun her around and scooped her into his iron hard arms, lowering his mouth to hers.
Em felt the air whoosh out of her lungs and into his mouth. Her hands swept up and dove into his thick dark hair, anchoring her as he devoured her. The taste of him, salty and sweet, was so familiar that it took her under instantly and she responded to him, molding her lips against his, tugging him closer to her. He was hers and she was his and…
Em wrenched away, gasping for air as her snakes hissed wildly about her face. She stared at Poseidon, whose chest heaved, and saw the man she’d loved so completely all those years ago. Confusion bubbled to the surface, fighting the other memories she had of him, the ones she’d had in nightmares for years after being forced from her home and her family. But those memories were strong and so much a part of her now that she couldn’t dismiss them after one kiss, however magnificent that kiss had been.
“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” She fell back on that anger and let it be her defense. He couldn’t hurt her again if she didn’t allow it.
Poseidon frowned down at her and fisted his hands by his side. He opened his mouth to respond, but the thought of him explaining himself, confusing her even more, made Em’s stomach clench, so she rushed on.
“No, don’t answer that. We don’t have time to walk down m
emory lane, Poseidon.” Em heard the venom in her voice and hoped it stung him as much as she intended it to. “My sister is dying and I need to find a way to save her. Stay if you’re going to help, but don’t pull me away from my family ever again.” She swiveled on her heel and marched up the stairs without a single look back.
She felt back in control by the time she rejoined her parents. Em sank into a chair at the kitchen table next to Thea and lowered her head into her hands. Time was running out for Eury and she felt so lost. This wasn’t her world anymore.
After a moment of self-pity, Em lifted her head to look at Thea. Her sister’s eyes were rimmed with red, Em noticed, instantly feeling guilty for being so self-centered. This wasn’t her problem to fix, it was all of theirs.
“This isn’t our world anymore,” she said aloud, knowing from the looks they all gave her that they were all in agreement. “So, we need to work together and be careful if we’re going to save Eury.”