by VS Winters
She took a step toward me and I looked back at her in warning. "Everyone except for Crius."
My hands balled into fists in my pockets and I narrowed my eyes. "What do you know about Crius? He was taken, and I have no idea how to get him back."
"What if I could help you?" I kept my eyes away from her though my interest was piqued. "What if I could help you get Crius back, and maybe even some of the memories you're struggling to put together in your head?"
I turned back toward her, looking to my left to make sure nobody had come out of the bar. "Go on."
Eris smiled, twisting a piece of her long hair between her fingers. "I have a way, but you have to do something for me in return."
I pulled my hands out and laid them palm up. "I can cleanse you, get rid of the corruption. Knock that voice right out of your head. I've gotten pretty quick at it."
Eris shook her head, moving even closer to me. "I don't want to be cleansed. I'm quite happy just the way I am. The corruption has freed me, and the war has released me."
I closed my palms. "Then what do you want?"
She leaned forward and whispered to me. "I want you to kill a Titan for me."
My eyes opened wide and I chuckled shaking my head. "If you haven't noticed, and since you seem to know about my memories, I'm not exactly equipped to kill a Titan. You have to be immortal to strike a deadly blow to a Titan."
She didn't even flinch, not even a moment of recognition. Instead, she stood back up straight and waved her hand from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. "But didn't you know? You are mortal now. You may not have figured it out in this form, but Persephone knew when she took the hope from Pandora's chest and placed it in yours…or hers. Between using your light to cure the corruption, and letting the hope live inside of you, you have drained all of your divinity. With it went your memories, but you gained one special skill…"
I put my hand to my chest, unsure if I felt saddened by the loss of my immortality or relieved by it. Staring off into the darkness, I whispered the words. "I can kill a Titan."
Chapter Twenty-Three
Three days later
One of my favorite parts of a movie is that very end scene where the main character becomes who she truly is supposed to be. She begins the story weak and confused, but by the end of it she is strapping guns to her leather-clad hips and walking away from the camera down a lone road with a badass guitar solo playing in the background. She has kills under her belt, saves under her belt, and one very important thing that they all have in common: not a single thing to lose.
Now, I definitely wasn't leather clad, and unfortunately, I lacked the badass guitar solo playing in the background, but I definitely wasn't the woman I started out as when I opened my landscaping van to find Mr. Strange and Sexy injured in the back. I had saved some, I had lost some, and most importantly, besides hope, I didn't have a damn thing left to lose. Truth be told, if I couldn't find Crius, I really didn't care much about hope at that point either.
As I stood in Crius's room, which I had taken over as my own, pulling my hair back in a ponytail, I finally understood what badasses actually felt like. They didn't feel like hardcore bitches, they felt careless, like they would do anything for the cause. I still cared—I hadn't fallen that far off the deep end—but I knew I would never be able to help others again if I didn't get Crius back.
Since my return from hell, my life had been full of congratulations and thanks. I had helped to recover important people, important beings, and creatures from the Olympian community. I had pulled back the Furies and brought the sisters back together and for that, they had pledged their lives to protecting mine. The one thing that had kept me strong since I returned was the fact that I knew I could banish the corruption at any point. I could put my hands on any creature and send the darkness running into the shadows. That made me strong, and after speaking to Eris I felt even stronger. It was that silly thing again, that glimmer of hope that kept us all moving forward.
So maybe I did have something to lose, and maybe I wasn't feeling so self-deprecating, but that didn't change the course of what I needed to do. I needed Crius, but so did the rest of the world. I wouldn't be able to save humanity or the Olympian community without him. I had a feeling that whoever took him already knew that. Whether it was from a past life or the one I was living, Crius and I were connected, and a lot more than I thought hinged on that connection.
I could hear the girls out in the living room laughing with each other, relaxing after a long day of guarding the apartment and catching a couple of stray creatures who had attempted to break in. I did my duty and sent the corruption away, and then retired to the room where I had been since I returned. The Furies would do anything I asked of them at any time, but that night, I was leaving them behind. Crius had disappeared into the darkness of hell. He was gone, slipping from my fingers, a nightmare I had every time I closed my eyes. There was an enormous part of me that yearned for him so deeply, so intensely that I was more than ready to throw myself into the next fight.
Beyond the want to find him was the want to get rid of the anger that was built up inside of me. Some part of me felt like if I could just rip into something, destroy something with my own hands, punch a bad guy or something, maybe it would clear my head. Or maybe it wouldn't. I had a feeling I was about to find out.
I stared at myself in the mirror for several moments, rubbing a bit of the smeared eyeliner from beneath my eye. I looked different, tougher. Worldly, even. Maybe I was, or maybe it was the light inside of me that made me that way. Whatever the reason, I needed to be that girl. I needed to stay that way in order to get through what I was about to do. I felt it was the only way, and anything that would lead me back to Crius on top of some answers to those fractured memories in my head was worth it to me.
I walked over to the door and quietly clicked the lock, as I did every night before I went to bed. I knew that the Fury wouldn't think anything of it. I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder, picking up Crius's dagger that he had left behind at the apartment, and slipped it into the sheath strapped around my waist. Very carefully, I opened the window to the apartment and ducked out onto the emergency landing. I closed it as far as I could and then, as carefully and quietly as possible, I moved down the metal stairwell.
When I reached the bottom, Eris stood in front of me, a black cloak draped over her shoulders and the hood over her head. She slowly reached up and lowered the hood so I could see her face. Her red eyes beamed at me. Killing a Titan was no laughing matter, and I knew it had the possibility of turning all the creatures of Olympus away from me, but it was a road to Crius.
"Are you ready?" she asked in that same calm tone. "I will be fighting alongside you."
I zipped my black hooded sweatshirt over my tank top and situated my pack across my chest. Flipping up my hood up, I gave her a nod. As I followed her down the alley and into the darkness, I thought about what I was walking into. I didn't know who would be on the other side of the fight or what they were capable of. But I did know Eris was known for her tricks.
The only thing I feared most was that I would come face-to-face with Crius, fully corrupted.
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Thank you for reading Heir of Light. It’s book one in my new series, A Curse of Gods.
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About the Author
VS Winters writes your favorite kind of heart-wrenching romance.
All her books are filled with mystery, intrigue, passion, and of course, magic! She spends most of her free time attached to her kindle or playing elder scrolls. Her books include fae, vampires
, shifters, and so much more!
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