She turns away from me, back to the balcony doors. The sun fringes her in a hazy golden light.
I think that she won’t answer me, just as she’s denied me my entire life.
But then Hestia reaches over, grabs my hand in hers and squeezes. Her touch is warm like the sun. It should be calming too. As the Virgin Goddess of Hearth and Home, she’s the embodiment of comfort and serenity.
Except there’s a deep frown on her face and regret in her eyes.
“I don’t know, Ana,” she says. “I don’t know who you are.”
A breath stutters out of me. “What?”
She stands up and coaxes me to do the same. “Let me show you something.”
She pulls me from the library, down the hallway and then down into the garden. A high stone wall surrounds it and over the years, vines have grown over the top and hooked themselves into any crack or crevice they could find.
Along the wall, roses bloom all year round in various shades of red and pink. There are great bushes of lavender and plumes of foxglove and fragrant sprigs of thyme. Beneath the watchful eye of the kitchen window, the vegetable garden flourishes. Fringed tops of carrots and creeping stalks of beans and leafy lettuce.
Hestia takes me to her prized cabbage that has a garden plot all its own.
We stop in front of it.
The cabbage is twice as wide as I am and nearly half as tall. In all my years at Hestia’s House, the cabbage has never been harvested or trimmed. It’s been left on its own, but yet it thrives and continues to grow.
“What’re we doing here?” I ask.
Hestia glows in the sunlight. She nods at the cabbage. “This is where I found you.”
“Like...in a basket or something?”
“In the cabbage.”
I snort. Seriously snort in front of the Virgin Goddess.
Am I still dreaming? Is this a joke?
“In the cabbage?”
Hestia nods. “Twenty-two years ago, on a night of a full moon, Sura heard crying in the garden and summoned me. I came out here and followed the sound back and forth over the garden, searching for this baby and then I realized, the sound was coming from the cabbage.”
She goes to her knees to the dirt and starts peeling back the waxy leaves one by one.
“And there, in the center of the cabbage, was you.”
I feel faint.
I backpedal and slam into the house.
The world spins.
“You found me in a cabbage?”
It doesn’t make any sense.
I mean…
There are more ridiculous stories to be heard of the births of other gods and goddesses. Athena was birthed from Zeus’s skull. And Aphrodite was born of the foam that rose from her father’s castrated genitals.
But there’s a huge difference between being born of a god’s skull and being abandoned in a garden vegetable.
Like, I didn’t even get a fucking basket? Marigold at least got a basket and a sheepskin. I got a fucking gods damned cabbage?
“Who put me there? Was it my mother?”
“I don’t know, Ana. I truly don’t.”
Tears spring to my eyes, but I quickly grit my teeth against them.
If anything, this only solidifies what I’ve been subconsciously wondering all along—I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere. I was thrown out like day-old trash.
I straighten and smooth back my hair.
Tears still tremble in my eyes, but I look right at Hestia and say, “Thank you for telling me. I should be going now.” I turn for the kitchen door.
“Wait, Ana.” Hestia takes a step toward me. “Your destiny hasn’t yet revealed itself, but it will. I have faith it will very soon.”
“Thank you,” I say because it’s the only thing to say.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that my destiny is already sealed—I’ll likely lose the trial. I think we all knew it from the very beginning.
After all, there can’t be anything remarkable about a girl who was found in a cabbage.
Chapter 29
It’s dusk by the time I get back to Hades’s House which means most everyone will just be waking for the day. Our second trial is to start sometime tonight, I think, or maybe the following night? I’ve lost track of time, what with being unconscious and then slipping into the mortal realm. It feels like it’s been days since I was last here, not merely hours.
Before I have a chance to doubt myself, I go straight to Haven’s room and knock on the door.
He calls out, “It’s open,” without even bothering to check who it is.
Will he toss me out?
I decide I don’t care. It’s worth the risk.
The drapes have been tugged open on both of his floor-to-ceiling windows and the panes are unlatched and flung open to the growing darkness. Crickets chirp in the bushes around the house. Somewhere in the Dark Wood, an owl hoots.
I find Haven on his balcony. There’s a standing candelabra on each side of the doorway, candles flickering in the breeze. He’s shirtless, barefoot, in nothing but loose black pants.
I swallow hard against the rising tide of regret.
I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t have come.
But as I get closer, and he turns to me, and the candlelight dances across his chest, I’m shocked into staring.
There’s a criss-crossing of scars on his chest, the skin ragged and puckered white. It’s as if he wrestled a griffin and nearly lost his heart for it.
Embarrassment paints my cheeks and I’m suddenly grateful for the semi-permanent darkness of Hades’s House.
“I’m...sorry...I...I’m...I didn’t....” I stutter when he cuts me off.
“Where have you been?”
“What?”
“I went to the infirmary but you weren’t there.”
I frown at him. “You came back to check on me?”
He scowls and looks away. “Only to see if you were dead, which would make things easier for me.”
I latch on to that. “Well that’s good, because I came here to ask for your help, which in the long run will make things easier.”
Haven furrows his brow. “What’re you trying to say, Hearthtender?”
I start to explain when he comes closer and the candlelight only strengthens the deep lines between his ab muscles and the raised skin of his scars. I can’t stop staring at his chest.
“I didn’t mean to barge into your room.”
“And yet here you are.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I should go.” I start to turn.
So fast the air barely parts, he’s crossed the distance between us and wraps his hand around my wrist. “Tell me what you came here for.”
My heart leaps into my throat. There are just inches between us. I can feel the heat from his skin.
The scars are worse up close.
What happened to him?
I think back to the story he told me of his eye, how Nereus forced him to look into the Underworld.
What other horrors is Haven Knightfall hiding?
“I came to ask for your help,” I admit. Except now that I’ve said it aloud, it sounds ridiculous. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to play this game. I don’t want to be an unwanted orphan. I don’t want to try to fit into a mold I know I don’t fit.
And I don’t want to compete in a trial I know I will lose.
Haven’s grip is gentle on my wrist, but possessive too. He’s not here to hurt me, but he’s in no rush to let me go. “My help,” he says. “In what way?”
“I went to see Theo.”
His frown deepens. “Who?”
“Another descendant. You helped him lose the first trial. He’s in the mortal realm.”
“Is that what this Theo told you?”
“It’s what you told me.”
Without my realizing it, he’s walked me back to the balcony wall and presse
d me into it. “How is it you remember this boy and I don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re so full of secrets, Hearthtender,” he says, a sharp edge to his voice.
This isn’t going how I wanted it to go.
Haven’s bad eye seems to glow in the dim light when his gaze drops to my mouth. His other hand comes up to my jawline, his fingers threading back through my hair.
I swear every hair on my skull lifts.
His touch is electric.
I definitely shouldn’t have come here, but now I can’t catch my breath and my feet are rooted to the stone floor.
I don’t want to leave.
“If we’re playing this game together,” he says, “is this you setting the board?”
“No. I’m not playing a game. I came here to ask you to help me lose.”
He pulls back like I slapped him. “You what?”
“I’ll forfeit my place and you’ll help me do it.”
His expression hardens. “No, I won’t.”
“Haven—”
He presses his mouth to mine and all of the words, all of the thoughts leave my head as if they were winged creatures never meant for cages.
My stomach rolls. I feel like I’m on a boat, like the waves are rising and I’m weightless and small and caught in a storm.
Haven’s hand lets go of my wrist and slides to my hip. His fingers steal beneath the hem of my shirt and find my skin. Up, up, he goes. His touch ignites the sensitive flesh at my ribs.
The hollow between my legs clenches.
“Haven,” I say, his name nearly a pant. “Please—”
“Keep begging,” he growls.
“Haven.”
His mouth drops to my throat. Can he feel the thumping at my pulse point? The rising hunger of my heart?
“Go on.” He nips at my ear.
“Haven, please.”
He grabs hold of the hem of my shirt and yanks it up and over my head. For a blinding second, I think I should yell at him for it, but then his mouth is on mine again, proving to me that I’m powerless beneath him.
His hands are at my back, pressing beneath my shoulder blades, running beneath the band of my bra. I can feel his arousal through the thin material of his pants.
I’m dizzy with wanting.
And Haven is ravenous with something that feels like it too.
His hands slide down to my ass and in an instant, and with very little effort, he hoists me up. I wrap my legs around his waist, my arms around his neck. My hair spills forward putting a curtain between us and the world.
“Ana,” he says as he pushes me back against the wall and presses himself between my legs.
“Yeah?”
“You will not forfeit. Do you hear me?” He slips off one of my bra straps, then the other. My breasts heave at the cups as the bra loses its battle with gravity.
Haven grows harder and jabs into me.
“But…” I say when he puts his mouth to my throat and nips at the beating of my heart. “I don’t think I belong here. You’ve belonged here your whole life. I’ve belonged nowhere and to no one.”
His breath on my neck sends a shiver down my spine. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
His hand snakes to my back and undoes a bra clip.
“I don’t want you to lose,” I say.
The second clip pops open.
“Why?” he asks.
I can’t breathe as the answer comes to me suddenly. A realization that empties my lungs and churns my gut. “Because I don’t want to forget you.”
Because what if the magic holds this time? What if he’s wiped from my mind and I never see him again?
He stops and pulls away long enough to look me in the eyes. “Better you than me,” he says and then he pulls my bra away, exposing me to the heat of his gaze and the chill of the night.
He takes my nipple in his mouth and teases me with his tongue.
And.
I.
Am.
Undone.
I’ve never belonged anywhere, but in this moment there’s nowhere else I’d rather be other than in my own skin with Haven’s mouth on me, his desire obvious.
Could it be true that he feels the same sort of unbelonging that I do? In this, we’re the same?
Haven teases at my flesh again with his sharp teeth. I let out a low moan just as someone makes an annoyed growl from the doorway.
I open my eyes to see Nereus there looking annoyed and impatient.
With a yelp, I move to cover myself and Haven lets me go.
But I’m not so overcome with embarrassment that I don’t notice Haven using his body to shield me from his brother’s prying eyes.
“I need to speak with you,” Nereus says to Haven and then storms away.
I find my bra and shirt on the floor and quickly slip back into both. When I’m done, I turn around and find Haven staring at me, but his expression is unreadable.
Ten seconds ago, I’d have let him do whatever he wanted to me.
Ten seconds ago I was no better than any of the other descendants who practically worship at his feet.
And, I realize, I’d do it again.
“Why won’t you help me lose?” I ask.
Haven disappears into his attached dressing room. He comes back out a few minutes later dressed in the usual black gear.
He goes to the door and pulls it open, then waits for me to exit.
In the hallway, he has to go left and I right.
There are so many things I want to say to him. So many things that I know I shouldn’t say.
Why does he do this to me? Why does he drive me crazy?
I want to smack him and kiss him all at the same time.
I hate him and...no.
“I’ll not help you lose,” he says, “because when I win, Hearthtender, it will be because I was better.”
And then he turns and walks away.
Chapter 30
I receive notice of the second trial just hours after Haven and I parted.
I’m not ready for it, but at the same time, I want it to be over. Despite Haven’s urging, I might just purposefully lose. It’s not like he can stop me. And anyway…I am probably no match for him in the trial. I still haven’t figured out how to break out of his illusions and I’m no closer to controlling my magic than I was a week ago.
After a shower, I dress in a fresh set of black gear and plait my hair in what mortals call a fishtail braid. Here we call it a mermaid tail. And because I must really be going crazy, I take an extra half hour to do my makeup even though I’m about to fight for my life in a trial I know nothing about.
You’re dressing up for Haven, that voice in the back of my mind says.
Shut up, I tell the voice.
I’m dressing up for me.
Though I’m not very hungry, I still make the effort to get something in my stomach. Max told me that the second trial is usually much longer than the first and I don’t want to fail because I was too exhausted from a lack of carbs.
In the dining hall, our stark numbers are really starting to show.
I’m the last one to arrive. Haven’s at a banquet table with Pearce, Gregor, Hollom, and the last twin, Kal.
They look up when I enter and I see there’s a tray already waiting for me across from Haven.
I’d thought to grab some food on my own and sit by myself.
I go to the table, pull out the chair and sit.
Haven is slouched in his chair, one arm draped over the back. He’s not eating. It doesn’t look like he’s touched his food at all, which is in stark contrast to Pearce whose tray is nearly empty and whose eyes are already wandering to the others’ food like he might start foraging.
With concentrated effort, I break the bread on my tray into little pieces and drop them one by one into the bowl of stew. It’s venison by the smell of it and tomato based. Steam rises up to kiss my face.
I take a spoonful and feel Haven watch
ing me.
“Hey, orphan,” Pearce says. “You packed your bags yet?”
The others snicker.
“You mean to prepare to move into Hades’s palace? No, not yet, but thank you for asking.”
Pearce pours the rest of his stew down his throat and then belches. “The only way you’re getting into Hades’s palace is in a body bag.”
“Ha!” Kal shouts.
The rest of them slap Pearce high-fives.
Haven stands up and grabs his tray. “You’re wasting your time, Pearce. Ana already told me her plan. She means to lose. After all, we already know who the winner will be.”
Tray in hand, he disappears through the kitchen’s side door and doesn’t return.
The others go silent.
I continue to pick at my stew.
Just a few hours ago, I’d asked Haven to help me lose and he denied me. So why is he telling the others that it’s what I want?
Nothing Haven Knightfall does ever makes sense to me.
Not now.
And not hours ago when he had me in his arms, his mouth on my body.
Max finds me in my room just a while before I’m to report to Hades’s Hall.
“How are you feeling?” he asks.
“I’m feeling better.”
He nods. “Good. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to do the second trial and I’m really looking forward to you kicking Haven’s ass.”
I laugh. “You and me both.”
But I don’t feel so confident in my abilities or my resolve to win.
In fact, as the hour creeps closer and closer, I’m more determined than ever to lose.
I’m just an orphan who was found in a cabbage. What good could I ever do a god?
“Now that that’s out of the way... I heard something,” Max says.
“Oh yeah?”
“But telling you might distract you so I’m not sure if—”
I level my gaze at him. “Spit it out, Max.”
“I heard Hades say the titan that escaped the underworld is Cronus and that he’s been spotted nearby.”
“What?!” I shout.
“See, I shouldn’t have told you!”
I go to my bedroom window and peek out through the curtains. “By nearby did they mean like in the garden? In the Dark Wood? Or just nearby like somewhere in Olympus? I mean the city square would be nearby in relation to the proximity of the Underworld so—”
Hades Descendants (The Games of the Gods Book 1) Page 14
