I stared down at the final result, grinning stupidly. “This is beautiful,” I said, awed. It felt like I was wearing air itself, but the fabric had a faint shine to it, and I could tell it really would hold up well against a bullet, and maybe even a blade. Ryuu rematch! “Why?” I asked, turning to the goddess.
“Because you are worth it,” she said compassionately, smiling at me. Was that a tear in her eye?
“We’ve never even met before,” I said, frowning.
She nodded. “Yet you trusted me rather than vilified me. You didn’t rely on the countless stories you’ve heard. You treated me like…a woman,” she whispered, obviously touched by my decision. “It has been some time since I’ve received such a warm welcome.”
Had Aala somehow foreseen this? Was that why she had told me her mother’s anecdote about trust? Another possibility was that Aphrodite had read my mind. Gods could do that, and I hadn’t been protecting myself. Rather than silently suspecting her, I brought it right out into the open. “Can you read my thoughts?”
She smiled. “So forward,” she said, relaxing her shoulders and exhaling a plume of smoke. “No, I cannot read your thoughts. You are too strong for me to mentally manipulate. Not since you became the new Dracula. Now that must be a fun story,” she said, flashing her teeth in a dazzling smile.
I grinned back. “Something like that.” I felt relieved that my thoughts were safe.
The Goddess studied me appraisingly. “You look positively lethal,” she said.
I sat down on the chair opposite her and gathered my resolve. “What is all this, really? I appreciate the gift, but I find it troublesome that you just happen to be here with a gift for me. I didn’t know I would come here until less than an hour ago. So, how did you?”
“Oh, I didn’t. I’ve been looking for you, but I only came here for a little R & R. I knew they might also have information on how I might find you when we were finished…catching up,” she said with a dark grin.
“R & R,” I asked, dubiously. “Rest and relaxation? Here?”
She cocked her head, looking puzzled. “Is that what humans think R & R means? How…innocent,” she mused. “Anyway, I had intended to leave your gift here for them to give to you. I was going to set up a separate time to meet you. Then I happened to hear you mention Nate’s name in the hallway, so I came to look who had stopped in. Imagine my surprise. Imagine your suspicion,” she added with a smile of understanding. “I get it. I assure you I have the best of intentions—for you—in mind. I don’t go around looking for trouble. I have enough on my plate as it stands. Nate Temple is at the center of that storm, although he is as much a victim as me.”
I had been watching her face for any signs of deceit, but I saw none.
She cleared her throat, staring off into the middle distance for a few moments, collecting her thoughts. “I fear Nate Temple is not doing very well right now,” she said warily. “I comforted him last night, but his morning will be the exact opposite of yours. Pleasure and friendship for you,” she said, pointing at me, “pain and enemies for him. Two sides of the same coin.”
25
I swallowed my instinctive anger and fear, forcing myself to take a calming breath. “Where is he?”
“He is in the process of escaping,” she assured me. “Nate Temple will survive the day—I am seeing to that, personally. Which brings me to the purpose of my visit. Matters of the heart.”
I pinched the fabric of the outfit she had given me, tugging at it so she could see. “This is the closest path to my heart right now.” She frowned, looking heartbroken at my claim. I sighed, feeling guilty. “Okay.”
A smile slipped back into place, as bright as the sun. She leaned forward. “Tell me about you and Nate Temple. And be honest with me. On matters of the heart, I can read your mind,” she warned with a reassuring smile.
I reached into my pocket instinctively, only to suddenly panic. My Horseman’s Mask! I didn’t remember grabbing it when I’d taken off my shredded ninja gear—
I let out a gasp of surprise as my fingers settled over a metal figurine in my new pants.
Aphrodite grinned. “With that outfit, anything bonded to you will always be at hand. You don’t seem like a purse kind of girl. Unlike Nate,” she added with an amused chuckle.
“Satchel,” I said on reflex, smiling at Nate’s never-ending argument about his man-purse. The one I had gotten him.
“Oh, don’t get me started on Temple’s satchel,” Aphrodite chuckled. “Talk about a man in denial! My brother, Hermes, is exactly the same about his ridiculous purse.”
I grinned, nodding my agreement. But my smile slipped to see Aphrodite’s rapidly fading radiance upon mention of her brother. I held out the figurine, still excited about my magical outfit. “Nate gave me one like this a long time ago. A symbol of our feelings for each other,” I admitted. “It is very special to me.”
Aphrodite arched an eyebrow. “Special is so overused that it has become increasingly banal. I am speaking of the heart, girl. Do not hide behind seemingly pretty but hollow words like special.”
I sighed uncertainly. I wasn’t sure what to say, or what she was digging for. She had asked for the truth. After her incredible gift, didn’t I owe her that much? She claimed to be helping Nate, but I wasn’t sure how me airing my dirty laundry was going to help. It would probably only make things worse, wouldn’t it?
“How is this going to help Nate?” I asked. “I need to know.”
She smiled empathetically. “Oh, child. I misspoke. I’ve already been helping Nate. Right now, I am here to help you,” she said, meaningfully. “By doing so, I can help you both. I am the goddess of love, after all.”
I stared at her, feeling suddenly anxious. Her words rang true. I did need to talk about this, and with someone who wouldn’t be put in an awkward position as a result. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, gathering my courage. If I couldn’t talk about my love life with the goddess of love, who the hell could I talk to about it? I opened my eyes and let out a breath.
“Neither of us has made a move,” I finally said. “At first, I waited for him to do so. Then I wondered why I hadn’t done so. We are both always busy with our…work,” I said, lamely, trying to come up with a term for our ongoing wars against monsters. “We always choose work over each other.”
Aphrodite nodded. “Has another man taken up space in your heart?” she asked. “Evicting Nate?”
“No!” I growled, dismissing thoughts of Ryuu—because the two men weren’t mutually exclusive.
I’d come to a conclusion about Nate well before Ryuu started occupying my thoughts. This wasn’t me trading in Nate for a newer model car. With or without Ryuu in the picture, my Nate relationship remained static. And that was the problem.
“It’s not another man. It’s just…the more time we spend apart, the more I find myself rationalizing and making excuses to justify our decisions. I haven’t lost my feelings for Nate, but they have changed.” I frowned at her suspiciously because she had been nodding subconsciously. “You already know this.”
Aphrodite crossed her legs, inhaling her cigarette thoughtfully. “Matters of your own heart are not something someone else can tell you. They must be discovered, not heard.”
I folded my arms stubbornly. “I know! But it sounds so childish and petty. Woe is me; I’m not getting paid enough attention. I’ve fallen out of love! Boo-fucking-hoo.”
My words echoed in the room like a guillotine blade slamming home and my eyes widened in surprise.
“That’s not—”
“It is precisely what you meant, child,” Aphrodite said in a calm, but significant tone. “You cannot deny your own feelings. You have simply never said it out loud. You have fallen out of love.” She studied me, letting her words hang in the air like a thick fog. “But accepting that fact is not enough for inner peace,” she said softly. “You must also discover why you fell out of love—why you didn’t make each other a priority.”
“Oh?” she asked.
I nodded, speaking on autopilot. “I’m speaking for myself, but I think my feelings are reciprocated, whether Nate knows it or not.” Aphrodite nodded, expelling another stream of aromatic smoke. “I want someone here, by my side, in Kansas City,” I whispered. “And Nate can never be that man because he is already that man for St. Louis. I admire and adore how much he cares for his city, and I want a man who feels that way about me and my city.”
She nodded. “That is a fair desire.”
I nodded woodenly. “To get what I want, I would have to take him away from what he loves—his city, his family history, and the hundreds of people who love and depend on him. Over time, he would grow to resent me for it. My love would destroy him,” I whispered. “Which would destroy me.”
“You love Nate Temple too much to break him,” Aphrodite said, softly. “You know that what you require of him would break the very qualities you respect and value.”
I nodded. “And I think he wants the same thing from me—something I cannot give him.”
“Neither of you are wrong in this desire. And neither of you should feel guilty. Love is a choice.”
“Maybe I just need an Alfred,” I grumbled. “He’s a Kansas City man, through and through.”
She grinned, nodding—only making me more curious about the rubber duckie. “I will have one delivered to you.” My eyes widened and I opened my mouth to object, but Aphrodite cleared her throat. “It is done. You will thank me later. Now, I am a goddess, first. I, too, have duties that interfere with the dictates of my heart. Perhaps you have heard of my husband, Hephaestus,” she said, softly. I looked over at her, thoughtfully, her comment dashing thoughts of Alfred from my mind. I had heard of the two—and how Aphrodite spent more nights sleeping around with practically everyone else but her husband. Top of her list was Ares, the god of war. But I didn’t understand how it related to our conversation—and I had specifically chosen not to rely on old stories to judge her.
I nodded. “I have heard of Hephaestus,” I said, carefully. “You are unable to be with him?”
She nodded ever so slightly. “That is exactly what I am saying, although I was not expressly forbidden from doing so. I voluntarily chose my actions in order to attain a greater good.”
I frowned, confused. The only beings who could make Aphrodite do anything were probably her parents, Zeus and Hera. But Zeus was the one who had arranged her marriage to Hephaestus in the first place. “Why would the goddess of love deny her only true heart’s desire—if that’s what Hephaestus is to you?”
A single tear rolled down her cheek. “He is,” she whispered. “But there is something he loves more than me, and the only way I can help him get that is by hiding my true emotions from public view.”
I stared at her, horrified. “Another woman?” I asked.
She laughed, shaking her head. “Yes, but not in the way you are thinking.”
I pondered her words. A woman, but not in the romantic sense? Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. “Pandora. You’re talking about his daughter, Pandora.”
Aphrodite hung her head and took a deep breath. “Yes. Her safety is directly correlated to my distance from Hephaestus. The farther away I am from my soulmate, the safer she is.”
“That’s…terrible,” I whispered.
She grunted. “They don’t call it Greek Tragedy for nothing.”
Pandora was a target, and the closer Aphrodite got to her husband, the more danger Pandora would be in. Her love for Hephaestus would get his daughter killed. “How do you two stand it?” I whispered.
Aphrodite slowly lifted her chin to look at me, and she stared directly into my eyes with such an intense gaze that I felt like curling up into the fetal position. “You misunderstand, Callie Penrose. Hephaestus does not know.”
26
Her words were resolved and committed and full of pain. “Men are not as strong with certain things. They wear their emotions on their sleeves or act out with direct violence at the institution. Women are wiser and can often find indirect ways to achieve a better solution—at the price of personal pain. Hephaestus would lash out publicly, getting himself, Pandora, and me, all killed or tortured. But I can work behind the scenes with none the wiser, allowing myself to be painted in an undignified light by my fellow Olympians as a wonton harlot. In fact, it is better to proudly embrace my disguise for all to see, throwing my cloak of shame to the wind, and wildly fucking my way through every barrier between me and my ultimate goal.” Her eyes were feverish, and her skin was flushed. “The goal is to reunite my husband with his daughter—over my own dead body if needs be. The harlot is the hero in my story—in his story. If that makes me a monster, then rawr,” she said, curling her hand into a claw.
I stared at her, stunned. Aphrodite was…a boss!
“I…had no idea.”
She was silent for a time. “Neither does my husband. But the thought that strengthens me is the gift I will ultimately give him—the look on his face when I manage to reunite him with his daughter. The men and women complicit in her abduction and extortion will become the wrapping paper for my ultimate gift.”
Well. That was better than a Hallmark card.
“Our situation seems even more childish now,” I said with a faint smile.
She shrugged. “All love seems childish from the outside. It should. Children are carefree and light-hearted,” she said with a smile.
I nodded, unable to make myself smile. “I fear that telling him this will push him over the edge. That he might think I’m rejecting him when he’s been waiting to start our relationship. We can’t afford for a man like Nate to feel heartbreak. He might even see it as betrayal. The Horseman of Hope would lose hope because the Horseman of Despair took it from him. We would destroy more than just each other.”
Aphrodite nodded. “To be fair, he would do the same to you if you were to abandon Kansas City for St. Louis. You would be equally murdered. Whoever moves will slowly wither away and die.”
I nodded shakily. “How do I tell him without hurting him?”
Aphrodite smiled. “Can you handle a harsh truth, and promise not to tell anyone—especially Nate?”
I nodded curiously. “Yes. Of course.”
She hesitated, considering her words carefully. “Nate Temple is in love with another over you.”
I frowned at her, confused. “What?”
She nodded soberly. “He does not even know it. That is the cruel irony. He does not even realize that his heart yearns for another. Your analysis was more than just an awareness of your own feelings, Callie. You were reading his. I ask you to be patient and gentle with him until he accepts the truth.”
I stared at her, struck silent. Nate had the same reservations as me? “I don’t understand.”
Aphrodite pursed her lips. “Nate Temple is in pain. Has been in pain. Enough for two lifetimes. He has very few happy moments, and that is what has made him the Catalyst. He will pay almost any price to feel happiness—often by making sure his friends find happiness in his stead.”
I nodded knowingly. My lip trembled and my eyes misted slightly at Nate’s surprisingly vast self-sacrificing moral fiber. “I love that about him,” I whispered, not caring that my voice cracked slightly. I was still struggling to process the fact that he might not be in love with me as much as I’d thought. It hurt, in a way. Yet…it was liberating. I would not have to hurt him—like so many of his loved ones often had.
Her words, although they cut deep, rang of truth. But to hear that he loved another? “How can he love someone and not know it?” I asked, doubtfully. The only reason I hadn’t laughed in her face was because of her heartfelt story about her husband. That the goddess of love had sacrificed her own love in order to get him what he desired above all—his daughter.
I frowned. “Wait. Didn’t you say you comforted Nate last night? What
the hell did that mean?” I demanded, suddenly feeling protective of my friend. Had she used Nate as a notch on her bedpost—a chess piece on the board for her to get Pandora for her husband?
Because Pandora belonged to Nate. She was the librarian for his Armory, and she referred to him as her host and master. Was Aphrodite angling to use Nate in order to acquire Pandora? Was I sitting with my enemy? “Are you using Nate for your own ends?”
Aphrodite stiffened, as if my words had cut her to the bone. “Never,” she whispered. “I cannot destroy love, even if I wanted to. If Nate were single and happy and I wanted to get in bed with him, I could do so with the crook of a finger,” she said without hesitation. “Betraying or being complicit in the betrayal of a man’s love—helping him commit romantic suicide—is quite literally not possible for me. And utterly contemptible, morally speaking. I would lose my powers in an instant, and everyone—including Hephaestus—would know what I had done. Even if I were willing to sacrifice my own powers to get Hephaestus his daughter, I would forever poison their reunion, defeating the whole purpose. So, no. I did not fuck Nate Temple. You idiot.”
I felt very, very small under her glare. “Sorry. I’m just—”
“Protective of your friend. I get it,” Aphrodite said, letting out a calming breath. “Now, regarding your first question about Nate not knowing his own heart’s desire,” she continued. “What he truly seeks is a lover he lost long ago. He does not know he lost her, and he does not know she is still within his grasp, but I am determined to help him realize it. Because the poor bastard was deceived. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that it is an insidious attack. That the Carnage hunts his very soul.”
I cringed instinctively at the word, even though I had never heard it in such context. “The Carnage?” I whispered.
She nodded. “You do not need to fear the Carnage. You already defeated it in the Doors. You were never even aware of it, but your godfather helped you defeat it. Nate Temple faces a similar crucible now, and I will save him from it.”
Anghellic: Feathers and Fire Book 8 Page 15
