by Elena Monroe
Her kindness seeped into our hearts, and I knew I couldn’t leave without her.
I spoke to our gods, always listening and waiting to interrupt your freewill with their own agenda, begging them to give her to me.
Zeus came to me in a dream, explaining that being set free in the mortal world had nothing to do with influence or the people; it had to do with taking Rosalia home to Olympus. Rosalia was his lost daughter who fell out of Olympus and lost her way back home. She took a mortal form, and Zeus patiently waited until she was old enough to trick into coming back home. He sent creatures and signs all meant to enchant her lost memories. When none of that worked, he sent us as a last resort.
Before our gods died, Zeus confessed to being cursed by Hera, his beloved wife, who hated the children he had that she didn’t bare. She was always plotting to kill them off, and in her case, she got a mortal death.
I knew Henry Jon was onto us; his watchful eye didn't see much else. His daughter was beautiful and the ripe age to marry. I was sure the entire world was his enemy.
The ritual went off without a hitch when Rosalia laid down on the smooth rock. I didn't think I'd have the strength to make myself drive the knife into her chest, but I heard Zeus’s voice asking me to bring his daughter home.
That was all the strength I needed to kill her mortal body and go home.
Now the same thing was happening, except there was too much doubt. I doubted leaving. I doubted Ari’s abilities. I doubted the ritual. I doubted the rule now that our gods were dead. And, I doubted the circle.
Everyone was keeping secrets, and all I wanted was answers.
I looked around the room at the people I trusted: one bored, one trying to not be in love, one insecure, one confused, and one who loathed me still.
We weren't winning any awards.
The gods would smite us for even giving into the hormones and mortal emotions like this. This was the opposite of staying levelheaded. After fourteen years in this prison, we all had given in to whatever got us by.
“Kate, I need you to get information. You're close to Cheyanne.”
Her hands flew up in the air. “Ew. No one is close to her. Not it…”
Wide eyes I looked at her, wondering where she heard a question mark; there wasn't one. Luna volunteered without me having to scold anyone. The ritual was happening, and I needed a plan to keep Ari safe—not me or the circle, but her.
Without Zeus’s power living in her, bets were off; we might be stuck here forever, just as a punishment for the gods dying while we were here influencing the 20th century.
No one planned on being in prison for fourteen years.
I was well over it all—hormones, this body, the rules, the feelings…
“Ari, stay out of it and act clueless still.”
She nodded in response, and I was surprised she didn't fight me. She was still reeling from her sudden memories with Nyx that no one expected either.
Now that they knew what was happening in the shadows, we could better prepare for the dance in a few weeks.
Caellum’s whistle stopped me in my tracks and urged a grimace across my face that felt tight, strained.
“What Caellum? Don't make me regret bringing you in on this.”
“Coming to the dark side, huh? All for some girl who looks petrified to know the truth.”
I crossed my arms in front of me, standing tall, “She's adjusting. She’s getting better at control,”
Caellum walked by me, with his broad shoulder colliding with mine. “That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it.”
I wasn't the only one with memories; Caellum had his memories too—not the same ones. None of it mattered, since he was at another school entirely, after using some black magic to release the chains on himself, leaving the circle behind. He didn't stop to think of anyone else, but I didn't need his memories competing anyways.
Every time we had a meeting with the circle, his ego drove a wedge between us, creating sides and opposing ideas. With him gone, I became even more the king.
Caellum almost made his voice sing-songy when he shouted, as he walked away, “Tell her everything, Bolton, or I willlllll….”
I see he didn't let the threatening tone of his voice go, but I needed him for this to work. He was strong, and he was also the only person willing to go against me.
Nyx was her confidant back home. Their friendship was secret, because he was the son of Hades, her father’s enemy. She would meet him in the fields of truth and complain of her father’s rules, her lack of freedom, and probably about me. We weren't destiny or fate; I was the guy her dad chose for her.
Now Nyx was remembering more than I thought he'd ever care to.
Zeus had almost died more times than I could count. He had many enemies, but half of those times could have been pinned on Nyx. He would have done anything for Ari, even if she didn't ask. She complained, and Nyx snapped into some hero act, slaying all her monsters.
When Zeus died for the last time, we were stuck as mortals here. I couldn't blame Nyx for his final death. He was stuck here with me. Everyone felt a sharp pain at the same time, and we knew our home wasn't the same anymore.
Ari was not going to end up with Nyx—over my dead body.
As soon as I exited the hall to my secret room, I made sure everything was sealed, and I took Arianna’s hand in mine, reminding her that she was mine, despite her new memories leaking into her consciousness.
Her small voice asked me, “What now?”
I squeezed your hand so you know you're mine and I'm not letting you get away this time. That's what now, is what my mind thought, but the only words that came out of my mouth were: “Act normal.”
Really, I meant act an Ari type of normal: loud, obnoxious, impatient, not the Ari that was still silently digesting the news dropped on her.
After classes, we had been going to the abandoned building toward the back of the campus to control her power and give her a rundown of the gods we now shared.
She didn't know Apollo from Diameter. She was catching on quickly, but her memories were still out of my grasp. I couldn't ask Cheyanne to do the voodoo she does without putting Arianna at risk.
Cheyanne was asking too many questions that didn't matter, and I noticed.
Alba was hiding her file from everyone.
People were picking sides without telling me, and that was just cause for the wrath I was about to bring down on everyone during the ritual.
The next morning, I woke up as usual, with a body full of aches and pains from football and a kind or tired that coffee couldn’t help. This morning was different; Arianna fell asleep in my bed last night. I looked down at her sleeping with a pillow between her arms and her head barely on it anymore.
My alarm went off, and she didn't budge. Leaning over her, I planted innocent kisses along her shoulder, hoping she'd wake up.
She moved her hand trying to slap me away from waking her up when I whispered into her hair, “We have a test. Get up.”
She groaned loudly, rolling over onto her back and looking particularly unmotivated.
“Let's skip. We'll get coffee and hide out,” her voice sounded hopeful, like I might agree. I was killing her hope by getting dressed and clapping my hands together just to annoy her this early in the morning.
“Come on, Ari. Don't tempt me with a good time…” I held up my hoodie that she had been wearing for the past week, overlooking the burn marks her lightning imprinted.
She popped up, sitting up, with her arms outstretched in her small black tank, creating a search party for her nipples. I found them. They perked up, getting hard, and I smirked in a satisfied sneer. I tossed the hoodie on the bed, wondering how I kept my hands off her last night.
It wasn't easy. It was hard, and so was I, all night. I remember pushing my hard on into her ass cheek, hoping she'd throw me some kind of bone, but my rejection was still living in her head.
She still didn’t remember who she was to me, but
the hormones inside me raged to be between her legs again.
The bed sunk down with a creek as I pushed my boots on, which seemed stupid with khaki pants. Ari, the shortened name I had gotten used to calling her the past few weeks, her name suddenly too laboring to scold her with, crawled up behind me, pushing her chest into my back and wrapping her arms around my neck from behind.
“Okay, so we can't skip, but can we be late at least?”
My rejection had dropped off her radar, and she was testing my ability to keep my hands off her. My hormones were raging and knocking around my organs trying to land at my dick, which was what I was trying to avoid.
If all the tension found my dick, I wasn't going to be responsible for the aftermath.
Barking out my next move, standing up, and feeling her warmth against me fade, I snapped my suspenders closed on my jeans, “I'll be outside.”
I left her in my room, alone, yet no alarms went off inside me.
I wanted the football season to be over so I could finally enjoy a clean scent coming from Nyx’s room at the end of the hallway as he poured out. His undone boots, his rings acting as built-in brass knuckles, and his long hair unbrushed were just a part of his “don't care” attitude, when he really did care under it all.
We cared, at least enough to keep us here, tied to those emotions.
He walked by me, pushing his hand into my chest and pinning me into the wall. “When were you going to tell me?” He dropped his arm and stood there, letting me have a fighting chance before he gave me another shiner.
I stayed silent. I was an idiot. I knew what he meant. He wanted to know why I didn't tell him how connected he was to Arianna.
Arianna had timing that left a lot to be desired, but when she yanked my creaking door open, Nyx’s anger only grew into his features, which were all made of stone and forged from fire. “What the fuck is she doing in your room?”
I laughed, only making Nyx more likely to punch me in the face... or worse, if he felt like it. He killed Zeus more than once. I would be a piece of cake, like butter against his hot knife.
Arianna touched his arm, trying to calm him, which fueled my anger. “Nothing happened…” Her voice was reassuring the guy who had no privilege to know that information.
I could have been fucking her all night, and it wasn't his business.
He shrugged off her hand, giving me a stare I wasn't about to combat into something worse, and growled, “Forget it.”
I heard his unlaced boots stomping down the old staircase, while I waited for him to be out of sight before I made any moves.
“He doesn’t need to know what does and doesn’t happen between us.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I let her. It was how she managed her emotions by acting out. It was keeping the lightning in her veins inside instead of branching off in every direction.
Class wasn’t particularly interesting, and Nyx was avoiding me at all costs, like I had killed his cat. He opted to sit on the windowsill instead of one the empty desks in the room, making it clear how much I shouldn’t even bother.
Luna leaned over her desk in History, Alba’s class, asking me what his problem was. I wanted to be the asshole that he was making me out to be by breaking her heart in the process. He moved swiftly, making sure to beat my words, before I even formed them in my head.
“Starting more drama, friend? Leave Luna out of it…” His voice didn’t sound familiar or loyal like I was used to.
I felt challenging enough to stand up and let this come to blows if it needed to. “She asked me what your problem was… You afraid I’ll tell her?”
He stood up taller, side stepping and cutting my vision off from Luna, with confliction strewn across his face.
He couldn’t understand how to classify his need to protect Arianna and being accustomed to loving Luna silently. “Don't fucking throw your power around, just because you're the only one with memories.”
I snickered, letting my body dip down to the desk without letting my weight sit on it fully. My fingers covered a smirk, and I looked up at him through my eyelashes. “You play the tough guy, Nyx, and I'll be the leader I always am. Let's stay in our own lanes.”
Nyx had a short fuse—one I just used a match to set off. He yanked me up, fisting the material of the button down uniform shirt we were all forced to wear—forced to resemble each other even though we were all so different.
I felt my shoulder blades slam into the wall, regardless of how toned I kept my body. None of it made up for the powers I didn't have.
Nyx’s fist wrinkling my button up resembled Arianna’s—gold running through his veins. The blood of the gods coursed through him, and I was at the other end powerless.
I didn't bother flinching; there was no point. His fist was going to collide with my face whether I liked it or not, full force, no holding back… Luckily, he couldn't leave any real damage; we couldn't hurt each other.
I tried to absorb his fist colliding with my cheekbone as best I could, while Alba tried (and failed) to get Nyx off me. The rest of our class was stunned and watching without any real participation to stop it.
Nyx leaned into me so only I could hear, his lips brushing my cheek and my gaze to one side as I twisted my jaw around trying to break up the pressure: “Heavy is the mother fucking crown who wears it, huh, brother?”
He let go of his grip on me, and I had to bite back retaliation as I got my bearings back. If I was the King of Arcadia Prep, then the knight just embarrassed me enough to dethrone me.
I was still trying to stand up tall and swallow the pain reverberating on my cheek, “Did you tell Luna you've been dreaming of Ari?”
Nyx took me down without any real effort, and I felt my skull hit the hardwood floor with a kind of force that left me dizzy. The sound was muted and muffled; the room seemed to blur; and his hands around my neck made me contemplate if he had the balls to kill the one person with all the answers—well, ones he wanted at least.
My voice was choked up: “Do it if you're going to do it, brother…”
His hands didn't loosen, and I felt his fists around my neck tighten, keeping me quiet by putting pressure on my vocal chords.
It took Leo, Austin, and Alba to get Nyx to let up with the gold shining through his veins like a warning sign—one I didn't take.
Now I had to bear through the sting of my lip being split too. I could taste the tartness that made it seem like I was sucking on pennies. I wiped it away with my knuckles before anyone would notice the color wasn’t red like theirs but gold.
Nyx fell down next to me on his ass, elbows slung on his bent knees. “You're a real asshole, you know.”
I let my arm fall beside me, outstretched, as I heaved in all the air my best friend just stole from my lungs. Luna didn't dare move until she knew Nyx was okay, but when honey and lavender wafted by me, I knew she had taken off in a hurry.
Ari stood above me, offering me a hand, looking just as conflicted with dueling emotions as Nyx did earlier. I took her hand only sitting up and taking my deserved punishment, at least the last hit I earned.
Still catching my breath Ari filled the silence: “What kind of dreams?”
“Not here,” I snapped in her direction.
Caellum wasn't even here, and he was forcing my hand in ways I didn't want to. I knew I had to tell her, but that left room for her to choose differently and I wasn't giving my crown to anyone.
Heavy is the crown that I wear.
Arianna
Nyx was on the floor next to a beaten Bolton, and I didn’t know who I was more worried for.
Nothing was getting any clearer now that I had the ability to have lightning spring from my hands.
Nyx couldn’t have cared any less about me until he tugged down his shirt and showed me a scar I clearly created with no memory of doing so.
Now to hear he was dreaming of me made me question my connection to him. The closest thing I had to memories was the dreams I was having—my subcons
cious coming alive, trying to make sense of my new truths.
Luna, the only true friend I had here, ran out of the room, just at the thought of Nyx’s attention straying from her.
Kate popped her bubble gum and assessed the mess of us three. “Well… way to go, New Girl. Way to respect boundaries.”
She wasn’t lying. Luna was my friend; nothing but sweetness and innocence emanated from her. I was the one inflicting new sensations by encouraging whatever magnetism I felt for Nyx that was pulling me to him.
Alba’s deep voice was full of authority and annoyance when it sounded: “Detention. Starting now. In the library. I want 2,000 words on the history of the Harvest Dance. Move!”
His hand raised and pointed for the door with a sharp gaze that kind of scared me. He had to be well over six feet tall, and his skin was so dark that the sheen on top almost resembled glitter. His piercing blue eyes weren’t anything but serious.
It was hard to imagine someone actually liking teenagers, not to mention wanting to become a teacher at Arcadia.
I grabbed my backpack, waiting for Bolton to get up. Nyx’s hand grabbed onto Bolton’s, helping him up. Boys get over things more quickly than girls.
If this was Kate and Luna fighting in class, it’d be easy to assume Kate would be holding that grudge for centuries.
I guess literally now.
I waited until we were on the second level of the library to repeat myself. “What kind of dreams? I’m having weird dreams too.” I dropped my stuff on the table, standing there uncomfortably talking about this in front of the guy whose bed I woke up in.
Nyx sat on top of the table, fiddling with the heavy rings on his fingers. “Just of memories. You’re in most of them. Ask your boyfriend; he has all our memories tucked under his crown, which is not very gracious of a king.”
Bolton was leaning against the wood bookcase, trying to pretend he didn’t hear him, until our focus bore into him. “What are memories going to do for you? They aren’t going to suddenly stick and become yours.”
