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When it’s over and we’re lying exhausted in a heap on the futon, I pull the blanket off the back and drape it over us. We lie there, lightly dozing in each other’s arms. I’m not sure how much time has passed but I have to get up. Never before have I turned my back on my job, and the guilt tugs me off the bed.
As I move to get up, Alex’s arm tightens around me. “Thank you,” he says simply.
“Don’t thank me. It makes it sound like I did something I didn’t want to do, which is completely not the case.”
“I’ve always wondered what it would be like, to make love. I was afraid I wouldn’t live long enough to find out. Now I know. It was awesome.”
I smile. “You think you’ve waited a long time? Try three thousand years. Give or take a few.”
He laughs. “You win.”
I lean over and kiss his collarbone, then his cheek, unwilling to break the intimacy between us. But I have to. I sit up, and a frown crosses Alex’s face.
“Do you have to?” he asks, reaching for my hand as I stand up and put on my jeans.
“Yes. I’ve left it too long as it is.”
“Will you get into trouble?”
I shrug. “Probably not. Zeus doesn’t know you’re down here, so he can’t really know what we’ve been doing.”
“You look worried.”
I sit back on the futon and button my shirt. “Not worry. Guilt,” I clarify. “It’s the same dilemma as always. Job versus love and life. Tonight, love won, but there’s a price and it’s guilt. I let some people down.”
“How so?”
“Most people can stand to live a little longer. Hell, most of them pray for it. But there are some who want to die. Some are suffering, and they count on me to end it. By making them wait, I disrespected them and made them suffer needlessly while I was having fun. It’s selfish and cruel.”
“You’re entitled to a life, too,” he says gently, stroking my arm.
“That’s just it,” I say as I pick up my shears and resume cutting, working extra fast to catch up. “I’m not entitled to a life. I’m a goddess, a servant of Zeus. I have a lot of blessings in my life, but everything I am exists for the sole purpose of making sure that the dying die on time and in accordance with Zeus’ plan. That’s all I am and all I’ll ever be.”
“You’re more than that to me. Much more.”
Tears are running down my face again. “But I’m not supposed to be.”
“Maybe you need to think bigger,” Alex says.
I let out a snort. “Why bother, when I can’t have any of it?”
“I think you just did,” he says.
We’re laughing and crying when the lifelines begin to flutter, then blow wildly around.
“What the—” he begins, but I’m already looking around the room as if there is some action I can take to stave off the coming disaster.
“Shit,” I say, because it’s all I can do. It’s too late to try to hide Alex or send him away.
Hermes appears in front of us.
“Whoa,” Alex says, beholding Hermes in all of his FTD gold glory.
“I thought as much,” Hermes says, looking at Alex as though he is something he found in a litter box, something that must be dealt with but which is unpleasant in the extreme.
“I bet Zeus that you were with the human, but Zeus assured me you wouldn’t neglect your job for him. He sent me to see what emergency kept you from your job. Looks like I win,” he says gleefully.
I sigh. I am so busted.
“Alex, this is Hermes, messenger of the gods,” I say in an effort to bring some civility to the discussion. “Hermes, this is Alex Morgan.”
Alex extends his hand to Hermes, but Hermes turns away with a sniff. “I don’t care who he is. Atropos, you are to come with me immediately.”
“What’s the message?” I ask. “Just tell me and go.”
“There is no message. I’m here to collect you. Zeus sent me to investigate when the sands stopped flowing through the hourglass. If the neglect of your work was due to silly reasons, like this,” he says, taking in Alex’s state of undress, “I was to bring you directly to him.”
So that’s how Zeus knew what I’d been doing and why he sent Hermes. In my haste to believe that Zeus wouldn’t know what Alex and I were doing in the basement, I forgot about the damn hourglass. And Chloe hadn’t known about it to warn me when she’d given me her course in rule-breaking. That was my responsibility, and I blew it. Zeus might not know what goes on down here, but when that hourglass went still, he knew I wasn’t working.
I turn to Alex, who is sitting, draped only in a blanket, on the futon. He’s just staring at Hermes. Other than my sisters and me, he’s never seen any other gods. My sisters and I take steps to tone down our appearances to better blend in with regular humans. Hermes doesn’t bother and he is inhumanly beautiful, almost painfully so, to mortals. He hovers just slightly above the floor, the gold wings on his feet fluttering rapidly.
I kneel in front of Alex, breaking his trance. His eyes drift to my face. “Alex, you have to go home. Get dressed and let yourself out the front door.”
He stands, still clutching the blanket around himself. When he sways a bit, I bite my lip to keep from expressing the concern I know he does not want.
“No way. I’m going with you. This is partly my fault.”
Hermes laughs. “As if any human boy would ever be allowed into Zeus’ chamber. Much less one who looks like that,” he adds, pointing at Alex’s state of undress.
“Shut it,” I say to Hermes. “Or I will take my shears and clip off those wings you’re so fond of.”
I turn to Alex again. “Please. I’ll be fine. I’ll call you when I get back.”
Alex hesitates. I don’t want him to go, but there is no other choice. I don’t know how severe Zeus will be, but whatever awaits me on Mount Olympus is my burden, not Alex’s. His presence would only infuriate Zeus more. I only hope I’m not lying to Alex when I tell him that I will be back.
“Now,” Hermes says impatiently, holding out his hand for mine. “I have things to do and a bet to collect.”
I look pleadingly at Alex and he gets the message, although I can see by the defensive set of his shoulders that he doesn’t like it. He dresses quickly, opening the door to my workroom. When he leaves, he mouths, I love you, over his shoulder at me as he goes.
I lock the door behind him and take Hermes’ hand. He dematerializes, and we fly through the fractal universe to Mount Olympus where my punishment awaits.
Broken Fate Page 22
