The Death King

by Jovee Winters

  A part of me had hoped that recovering her would be easier, that being with her would spark the memories she needed to reclaim herself. But she’d been honest when she said she would be altered. I did not need to make her remember me. What I needed was to make Thalassa fall in love with me just as she had once before. Maybe I’d never fully regain my Calypso of old, but maybe, just maybe, if we were lucky, we’d gain even more.

  Clenching my jaw, I stared at her for several long moments. “I’ve gone about this all wrong,” I said.

  She didn’t turn toward me, but I could feel her straining to listen.

  “Look at me,” I said deeply.

  She stood where she was for several tense seconds longer, but finally, with a heave of breath, she did turn.

  Exhausted eyes stared back at me.

  “You are not the you of my yesterday.”

  She snarled, curling her hands into fists.

  “You are the you of today. I am sorry, Thalassa, for making you believe that wasn’t enough.”

  The tight lines around her eyes and mouth slackened just a little, and confusion dotted her brows. “What?”

  “You are dual-natured. I know this. I made both sides of you love me once, and…” I stood. “I can do it again.”

  She chuckled, but the sound wasn’t full of the malice of before. This one was a question and tension-filled anxiety. I nodded.

  “Who says I want you to love me, Death? I am a virgin goddess. I do not desire the touch of…”

  With a cocky curl of my lips, I walked toward her, entering waters that could drown me where I stood. I’d seen how she’d looked at me, felt the heat of her gaze. She wanted me. Even if she didn’t want to want me, I still called to her and she to me.

  I splashed through the coolness toward her, knowing that if she really wanted to escape me, she could sink beneath the waves just as she had last night. But she stood there, hands furling and unfurling as she forcibly swallowed, her blue eyes wide in her pale face.

  I reached for her jaw, brushing my thumb over her gently rounded chin, trembling the moment I touched the petal-softness of her flesh.

  Remembering all over again how we’d first fallen in love.

  She clutched at my wrist with a hand tipped with long claws, and our connection began to sizzle through me again, making me tremble not just from the sensation of touching her, but also from what I was making her feel as I did.

  She was hot, cold, angry, and mystified. She swayed in my hold, and I knew deep in my heart that she was a wild creature who’d stand still like this for no other.

  “I am still in you, Caly,” I whispered heatedly. “You may not want me to be, but I am.”

  Her lashes flickered. “I am not your Caly, and you… you are a fool.”

  “Mmm,” I nodded and leaned forward slowly, cautiously approaching her as the deadly beast she really was and honestly, always had been. I’d tamed fire before. Caly had been softer because she’d had lifetimes to be, but she’d always been fiercely independent and wild. “I always have been for you,” I murmured against her lips.

  A soft puff of breath pressed against the seam of my mouth. “Do not trust me, Death. Do yourself a favor and do not trust me,” she mumbled. “You will only get burned.”

  I chuckled, but the sound was full of heat and other things. “Too late. Too damn late.”

  Then I pressed my mouth to hers, hot, demanding, hard. I slid my tongue along the seam of her lips, and she opened on a deep moan. Our tongues joined, sliding slick and wet against each other.

  She tasted of madness and incredible power.

  Her hands were on my biceps, and her impossibly strong fingers dented the metal of my armor. I hissed, but not because it hurt, rather because of her touch, her smell, and the feel of her body.

  “I can never love,” she whispered drunkenly against my mouth.

  I shook my head. “Neither can I, waters of the deep. Now shut up and kiss me.”

  She moaned from deep inside her chest and pressed in as close as she physically could to my body. I wrapped my arms around her waist, hanging on to her tightly, so tight that no space existed between us.

  It’d been so long since I’d kissed her. So bloody long.

  But I remembered her sounds, her tiny mewls, and how she’d moved on top of me. Holding on to Calypso had been like holding fire—agonizing, painful, and thrilling.

  “You are gorgeous,” I mumbled.

  She growled and flexed, and suddenly, we were on the ground, out of the waters completely, and she was bearing her tiny weight down on me, holding me prisoner as she kissed me with her deadly venom, ensorcelling me just as surely as she had once before.

  By the time she broke away, we were both panting heavily. Her lips looked bee-stung, and I felt dazed, seeing stars and maybe even seeing her for the first time.

  The rage was still in her eyes, but it wasn’t alone anymore, and it wasn’t just the pain shining there either, but something that’d haunted my days and nights since Dite had given me the key to unlocking my memories.

  “What do you want to do, Calypso,” I asked her softly, staring at her large doe-eyes, sure that if she asked anything of me in this moment, I’d very likely give it. I was done fighting her. She was different. But so what? So was I. I could take her darkness too. I wasn’t running away.

  Her hot eyes roved over my face before landing on my mouth, which felt swollen to twice its size. My tongue tasted of the mint of hers, and it was delicious.

  She swallowed before saying, “I… I want my heart, Death.”

  My chest ached. “Is that all you want?”

  Slapping her hands down on my chest to push herself off me, she dusted off her skirt. “You remember what you want to remember of me, Hades. But I am not who she was, and I can’t be again. You’ll want to change me, and that won’t work, not even for you. Still you call me, Calypso. You say you see me, but you don’t. Not really. You only see her, and that is all you’ll ever see.”

  She was right. I had called her Caly because I knew my Caly hadn’t died. She’d simply been buried. But I’d felt Calypso in her touch and in her kiss. She was still in there, and I would bring her back, come hell or high water.

  “And yet you did not kill the creature,” I said with a twitch of my brow.

  She scoffed. “At the end of the day, I am still that demented creature’s mother. How could a mother kill her child? Even I am not that warped. Take me to my heart.”

  I smirked but got up from the ground and I dusted myself off. “As you wish.”

  She looked at me as if I’d gone mad, and maybe I had. But what had just happened between us gave me hope, and so long as that hope remained, I could endure almost anything. Anything but losing her again.

  “You’re a strange god. Anyone ever tell you that?” she asked. “I tell you I want nothing more, and you smirk. In fact, you look almost giddy about it.”

  I chuckled and shrugged. “Even gods are capable of learning, Thalassa.”

  Scoffing, she slowly meandered back toward the trail we’d abandoned yesterday. “Pray tell, just what have you learned, Death?”

  “That you’re still you.”

  She stopped walking and looked back at me. “You’re wrong.”

  Her eyes flashed and rolled with dark and deadly waves, and her hair whipped around her head.

  I shook my head. “All show, goddess. But I appreciate the effort. Now, I believe we have a heart to reclaim.”

  She looked at me like I was a snake about to strike, and I couldn’t help but chuckle from deep inside my chest.

  She’d saved that cruel monster, saved the centaurs, and kissed me as if I was the center of her universe. Thalassa might be in control, but the parts of Calypso that I desperately wanted back still lived within her. And that, I could work with.

  Thalassa

  * * *

  We walked slowly, neither of us speaking much, and I found that my mind was in more torment than it had been in
months.

  I was still driven toward finding my heart, and yet…

  I gazed at him from the corner of my eye. Tall, dark, and handsome. I always had had excellent taste in men, that I remembered, and Hades was far handsomer than most. Actually, scratch that, than all. There wasn’t another in all the realms who could compare to him.

  And now I was starting to recall the feel of him. Not just from this morning, either, but from the many times before.

  I clenched my jaw, shutting the memories off like closing a valve. No more. No more indulging this nonsense. Yes, he’d surprised me with his kiss. And yes, I’d participated, and it had been… fine.

  It was more than fine, you stupid porpoise, and you know it.

  Ignoring the hag as best I could, I couldn’t help but frown, stomach diving to my knees. I was lying to myself, but I didn’t want to entertain the truth or make her believe she’d claimed victory over me somehow. Because the moment I did, I’d lose sight of my objective. My goal.

  For too long, the worlds had forgotten who I really was and the power I truly wielded.

  Hades began humming, his voice deep and lulling. Despite my resolve not to give in to any more indulgences where he was concerned, I found myself listening and smiling. He had a nice voice, barrel-chested and deep.

  “Did you used to do that with me before?” I asked him after ten minutes more of it.

  He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “No, but you used to do it to with me.”

  I scowled. “You lie. I have a horrid voice.”

  “You do, actually. But that’s not the point.” He chuckled, and I found the man absolutely, maddeningly attractive when he did. “The point is that you did, and I always loved it. I figured that if I enjoyed the sound of your screeching, it might stand to reason that you’d enjoy the sound of someone who could actually sing.”

  “You’re impossible, Death. I despise your nonsense.”

  “No, you don’t.” He winked. “Though I’m sure you wish you did.”

  Then he turned back to walking and humming, and he was bloody right. I so completely didn’t despise him anymore, even though I desperately wished I could. Liking him was not in the cards. It was not part of my plan. How was I to overtake the Olympians if I actually began caring for the smug bastards, especially the one walking beside me? With his arms crossed behind his back, he looked so damn relaxed and content. How was I supposed to kill him when I was starting to actually not hate him?

  How?

  He still had my soul blade, and he’d still stolen my heart, which made him my enemy, the enemy that I wanted to kiss again and again and again until I burned him out of my system completely.

  I sighed and looked around. We were walking out of the flatlands and going into a forest full of towering trees that reached toward the heavens, with branches full of bright green leaves. I sniffed the air and smelled not a drop of water around.

  I frowned. “I do not care for this place.”

  He chuckled. “You didn’t before either.”

  “Hmm.” I pursed my lips. “We aren’t friends, you and I, so stop pretending like we are.”

  Snorting, he shook his head. “You’re prickly this afternoon. What’s gotten into you now?”

  “As if you don’t know, hot head.”

  His brows rose, and those sinfully gorgeous, dark eyes of his glittered with thousands of stars. “A pet name. My, you’ve progressed further than I’d imagined.”

  “Oh, please,” I scoffed. “Do not make me laugh. That was not a pet name. It was an insult.”

  “Well.” He shrugged. “Considering you used to call me Bubble Butt and Death Boy, I’d say we’re moving forward.”

  I curled my nose. “I did what, now?”

  “C’mon.” He grinned, revealing his bright white teeth, and my stomach fluttered with kamikaze butterflies. “Don't tell me you don’t remember. I’m sure that you do. I know you remember a lot more than you’ve let on, Thalassa. Don’t forget that I’ve been watching you.”

  “Pfft.” I rolled my wrist.

  “Evasive. Yes. You used to do that, too, when you didn’t want me to know the truth. Though, and here’s the secret, goddess.” He leaned in so close that I could smell the scent of him—brimstone and darkness—and I shivered. “I always knew.”

  Deciding to ignore the sudden weakness of my knees, I scowled at our surroundings. “What is this hell you’ve dragged me to? And why do I feel as though you’re as lost as I am?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not lost. But the path to finding your heart will take many days yet. I told you it would.”

  “What? In the before?”

  He raised his brows in affirmation.

  I shook my head. “I have no knowledge of that. So you’re admitting that you actually stole my heart?”

  I glowered at him, feeling that old burbling of anger stir within me. I’d been right, then, not that I’d expected him to own up to it so quickly. But I was learning to be constantly surprised by this male. He did not do as I expected him to, ever.

  Licking my still-tingling lips as I thought of his heated caresses, I sighed.

  “I did not steal it.”

  Irritated, I spread my arms. “Please don’t tell me I gave it to you.”

  “Of course you did. And deep down, you knew that already.”

  Brushing past him, I walked ahead. I wasn't sure where we were headed, but I knew just enough about him that I knew he’d steer me right if I went the wrong way.

  He’s right, you know.

  “Shut up,” I hissed beneath my breath, hating that hag’s voice more than even the bloody Olympians. Unlike the golden ones, the voice actually made me think, made me remember things and emotions I didn’t want to know or remember.

  I rubbed at my chest with my long fingernails, realizing I’d just lied to myself. I did want to remember him, at least, and our time together. I wished I could remember everything the way he seemed to. He’d been so brooding and dark the first day, but today, he was completely different, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I couldn’t make heads or tails of this strange man who teased me as if he knew me well enough to do so.

  If he were anyone else, I’d probably have slammed a spear of water down his throat for daring to believe he could be so intimate with me. But as much as I kept telling myself to hate him, to loathe him, to wish him harm as I had before we’d taken up on this obnoxious quest, something had happened to me last night, and I simply couldn’t muster up that kind of fury anymore. Not at him, anyway.

  I was still annoyed, though.

  “I did not hand you my heart, you liar,” I snapped over my shoulder. His answer was only a throaty chuckle.

  And again, we walked and walked and walked. We didn’t have to stop and eat or drink. As gods, we didn’t suffer from such plebeian needs. After an hour of hearing his annoyingly wonderful humming voice, I twirled on him, breathing heavily.

  The lout had the nerve to look amused.

  “I’m a goddess. The goddess. Water. Ancient. All-powerful.” I wagged my fingers in the air.

  He chuckled. “Yes, indeed you are, Calypso.”

  I clenched my jaw, and then in an act of supreme irritation, stomped my foot.

  At first he did nothing, but slowly, so slowly, a smile curled his delectable lips upward.

  “Gods, sometimes you remind so much of her that it makes me feel stupid and weak,” he whispered tenderly.

  A storm swirled inside of me, whipping and raging. Hurt, pain, and more.

  “I could kill you,” I murmured.

  He nodded. “Mmm-hmm. You could. But you won’t.”

  He neared me, his footsteps sure, not timid or scared, but measured and bold. I quaked, telling myself that I would snap his fingers right off his hand if he dared touch me again. But even as I thought it, I felt myself leaning in, felt my traitorous body vibrating with the memory of his hot, hard hands curving over me.

  The old me had fallen un
der his spell from almost the first moment I’d spied him kneeling and trussed up in the god’s chains. The memories of that singular moment in her life had changed the course of everything I should have been. It had turned me soft and weak and stupid.

  His touch was a delicate caress along the curve of my jaw, and I lit up like a firecracker, sparking and snapping as water rushed through my body like a tsunami of waves, one on top of the other.

  I growled.

  “You are bored.”

  “Yes, I’m bloody bored!” I snapped, confused by all that I was feeling. Confused as to why, in such a short time, I was finding myself falling under the same damn spell the stupider me had.

  Why was this male so bloody irresistible to me? What made him so damned special?

  He chuckled darkly, and my skin prickled with goose pimples, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck.

  “As tempestuous as ever,” he murmured tenderly before sighing and dropping his hand. “Perhaps we should stop for a bite?”

  Stepping out of the range of his grabby hands, I glowered. “Bite of what? Tree bark? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

  “Gods, female,” he groused, before giving his head a good shake. “Do you honestly think I didn’t come prepared?”

  I curled my nose with disdain, but it was a bloody farce, and judging by the way his eyes continued to sparkle, he bloody well knew it. I was all bark and no bite.

  Had I lost my edge already? Was this it, then? I met him, and suddenly I was simple and feeble and full of dreaded feelings? Ugh! I wanted to kill myself at the mere thought of it.

  Plopping down right where we stood, I waited. But after a minute of him doing nothing, I looked up at him and snapped, "Well?”

  He shrugged. “You tell me, goddess. This is your journey. I thought maybe you’d fallen or were throwing another one of your legendary temper tantrums. I was planning to wait you out.”

  “I. Do not. Throw. Tantrums,” I insisted, and the ground began to burble and hiss from jet steams deep below its crust.