Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
“I know. Now, breathe for me. Slowly in and out through your nose.” He mirrors my breathing, guiding me through it until my thoughts start to settle. “That’s it, Hera.”
My hard-won calm slips through my fingers. I jerk my elbows out of his grasp. “My name is Callisto.”
Instead of snarling at me, Zeus’s expression goes contemplative. He searches my expression. “Callisto,” he says slowly, as if savoring it on his tongue. The same way he savored me just a short time ago.
It roots me in place. I can’t tell if I’m breathing. I can’t do anything but stare at Zeus…at… “Perseus.”
He closes his eyes and shivers—actually shivers. I don’t know if I take a step forward or if he does. All I know is that the new distance between us disappears as if it’d never been there to begin with. My husband reaches up slowly as if to cup my cheek.
His phone rings before he can make contact.
Something like regret blooms in his pale eyes. “I have to take that.”
“Okay.” I don’t move, though. I just whisper, “I have to go. I have things to do.”
“I know.” He takes one slow step back, and then another, and digs his phone out of his pocket.
The moment is over. Maybe it was never there to begin with. Psyche and Eurydice were always so careful about who they slept with, claiming that sex made them fall for someone so much faster. It’s never been a problem I’ve had, but I’ve also never slept with the same person for more than a couple months—and I’ve never lived with a partner.
People view us as stepping stones to power. We are Demeter’s daughters, after all. Even our mother looks at us that way, though I suppose she’s also concerned with our having power, not just consolidating it for her. As my mother has gotten fond of saying in the last month or so, she’s not going to be around forever; at least she can die knowing her girls are taken care of. As if she’s not in her midfifties and thriving, war or no.
I watch my husband walk out the door, his phone to his ear, and call myself seven different kinds of fool for the small sliver of loss that cuts through me when he disappears from view.
He is not my ally. He can never be my ally.
I smooth my shirt with shaking hands. My body aches from what we just did, but there’s no time to think too hard about how much better the sex was today. How he wasn’t cold and removed, how he was right there with me, our fury spiking desire higher. How good it felt for him to hold me, just for a moment, after. I shiver a little at the thought of next time.
No, damn it. That’s not the correct priority to be focusing on right now. I scrub my hands over my face. I have to get out of here. I push forward to shove out the doors…and almost trample Ixion in the process.
He catches my shoulders, his expression murderous. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I don’t bother to smile. That won’t reassure him at all. “Let’s go. We have a long drive and I have to be back by dinnertime.”
To his credit, he takes me at my word, even though he doesn’t look happy about it. Ixion and the others are incredibly protective of me. They also hate my husband, and why not? Historically, the number one threat to Hera is Zeus.
It will take several hours to drive into the country to where my mother and Psyche are currently overseeing Olympian civilians, but I can’t trust this conversation to a phone call. It’s going to be a hard enough sell as it is. Step down and abandon the city… As if that’s not the opposite of what my mother has spent her life doing. Circe set me an impossible task, but the consequences of failing are too damned high. I have to make them see reason.
If I can get Psyche on my side, that will help immensely. She always knows the right thing to say, the right approach to take.
Ixion and Nephele wait with me while Imbros pulls the car around. The displeasure of all three is apparent, but none of them challenge me about being fine. They’re right to worry, but it’s not my husband who’s to blame.
It’s Circe.
Nephele climbs into the back seat with me. “It’s okay if you’re not fine, you know.” She waits for me to fasten my seat belt before doing the same. “He’s a monster.”
No, he’s not.
I bite down the words, not sure where they even came from. Of course my husband is a monster: he’s Zeus. Except he’s not entirely Zeus, is he? He’s also Perseus. That’s one thing I’ve never bothered to consider, that the man I married wasn’t always the cold and fearsome leader of the Thirteen and Olympus. At some point in the past, he was a baby, a kid, a teenager, growing up in the household of the last Zeus. He was a true monster, and if Persephone had married him the way she was supposed to, not even our mother’s machinations would have saved her from harm—or possibly even death.