by Elena Monroe
Arianna
His phone went off more than once while we chased the high of our two bodies rubbing together. It was so faint against his desk I barely heard it. His grunting fell against my lips, and my moans were anything but quiet.
Pushing back onto his knees, he looked down at me as his hands held my hips against his. We were both too close for games.
He brought me over the edge when his fingers dipped down between our bodies pushing the sensitive bundle of nerves around until I felt like I was flying. My back arched, while his fingers kept rubbing me, even though I was already high off his touch.
Bolton didn’t care. He wanted to break me—to break everything I knew and put it back together carefully, exactly how he wanted to.
My eyes fluttered open, widening as much as they would after coming that hard to watch him suffer the same fate. He pulled away, leaving me feeling so empty without him inside, as his fist worked his length.
I was going to break him too.
Maybe not now, today, or even tomorrow, but I was going to break him for thinking he could underestimate me and who I am.
Hate fucking.
“Someone’s popular. Want to get that?”
“It can wait.” He fell down onto his hard bed next to me with a thump. The beds at Arcadia weren’t meant for two people, let alone the furious movements Bolton just pulled off.
I turned into his side, and his arm folded under his head. I wanted to prod him in his weakened state. “Will I ever remember again?”
“The longer you’re gone, the harder it is to remember.”
He seemed so sure, so why wasn’t I when it came to believing him?
“Was I really promised to Caellum?”
His gaze shifted from the ceiling to me in a snap. “He said that?”
“That wasn’t a denial…”
I propped myself up on my elbow and yanked one of the blankets up to shield me from the cold of his room. Messy, dark, cold… it was a warning sign.
“Caellum hates me; he’ll say anything he can to get inside your head.”
It made me wonder why he didn’t think Caellum was untrustworthy then. It made no sense. I needed to remember, not go off everyone else’s word. “But you trust him…”
“I trust that he wouldn’t ever want you hurt. That’s the only trust I need to have.”
I sat up, hearing his phone buzzing again, and a painful hunger pinched my stomach, and I realized I had put my body through hell. Between watching Bolton and Nyx fight in class, being taken hostage by Caellum, all the secrets coming out of the dark, and Bolton breaking my body while handing me a crown… I was surprised I was still operating. “Tell me what happened between you two.”
He groaned, thinking a sound effect would be all it took to throw me off from getting an answer. Crossing my arms, I waited, minutes passed by in silence when I poked his exposed side. The blanket was barely covering him and that vein and his muscles trailing down his body were still on display.
Focus.
Answers.
“Fuck, Ari. It’s not like one thing happened, okay? It’s more like what didn’t happen.” He turned to face me, leaning on his elbow and looking at me so sternly I almost gave up knowing.
“You want me to remember, but you aren’t telling me anything. Maybe I should go ask Caellum.”
I was letting myself get emotional, desperate even, when I threw my legs off his bed and snagged my shirt up from the floor, along with my bra.
“I want you to remember for yourself, not how I remember shit. You’re remembering things without knowing. It’s slowly being triggered. Calling me powerless and running away from marrying me? That’s all happened before.”
I felt overwhelmed again. My head was feeling fuzzy, and now that pinch in my stomach was feeling like the least of my problems. I did my best to force my eyes open, just before my body started to sway and everything went dark.
Running on no sleep and ugly truths eventually always catches up.
When I came to, my eyes barely wanted to open, and through the slits of my lashes, I saw a familiar ceiling—undeniably Bolton’s, the dark poster of some British band was taped to the ceiling, making me feel sure.
There was lost time; this position wasn’t the last one I remembered at all. I was getting dressed and about to leave when the world got fuzzy enough to give me an instant headache.
The same headache pounded in the space between my skull and brain, pulsing. I sat up slowly with my fingertips digging into my temples, hoping that would provide some relief.
“You passed out. You’ve been sleeping a few hours.”
Bolton was wearing nothing but a towel hanging low on hips, showing off every single muscle glued to every movement. His fingers pushed through his wet hair, making sure it didn’t stick to his forehead.
He might be a demigod, but he looked nothing but godly to me.
I sat up, even more trying to muster up any kind of words I could. Nothing was coming to mind that was worth saying out loud. I was distracted by how familiar he looked, not from seeing him in class every day, but my post headache was dragging memories out of the dark.
A deep, almost scary, baritone rumbled through my mind, causing the now to fade into the background.
“You can’t ignore tradition. You can’t out run tradition. You will marry him.”
I couldn’t see anything; it was still covered in a thick layer of fog still. I just heard the voices of my past, and if I clamped my eyes shut, I could hear them ever louder.
“I won’t marry him, and you can’t force me, Daddy. I don’t love him.”
“And who do you love, my little tyrant? The dark prince, son of Hades? The boy who brings nothing but destruction and death wherever he goes?”
“Destruction and death, or your everlasting control…?At least I can choose for myself.”
“You will never be with him, my princess. You will marry him or sit on this throne alone. Do you understand me?”
The memory faded out. I didn’t need to see the rest to know what happened next. I ran away, probably one of the first times, certainly not the last. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here, stuck between what I know and don’t.
I snapped back to the present, hearing the sound of his voice: “I have to go to the meeting. Can’t start skipping now. You okay to be alone? Am I gonna have to hunt you down again?”
I shook my head side to side, without speaking still. I could tell by the look on his face that my silence was only making him worried.
“What is it?” He came closer, handing me Advil and a water bottle from his polluted desk.
Taking it out of his hand and swallowing three pills with a big gulp of water, I debated telling him. I wanted to tell him, but I thought I should keep it to myself until I had more to go on.
If I remembered our past, would we have a future? Would I stop hating him as little as I did now? Would I hate him enough to remember loving Nyx, like my own voice just said?
“Nothing. Headache.” I hated lying to him. Something in the pit of my stomach created an ocean of nausea at the thought of lying to Bolton.
I was betraying my past self, and it had a vile kind of aftermath.
He kept staring at me while he got dressed, dissecting me and expecting me to speak. He zipped his pants, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him when the present faded into the background once more.
“What if I never stop hating you?”
“Then hate me. Hate me until it blurs into something else.”
His warm hands were comfortably on my hips, holding me against him, and I could almost smell the forest mixing with his musk. His scent alone was enough to get me drunk.
“What if the line between love and hate never blurs?”
His lips swept against my exposed neck, dragging against my skin with every word. “That line will always be blurred with us, because you already love to hate me.”
The small piece of a much larger memory faded as quickly as it came. Bolton was
pulling on his shirt, with the arms cut off and the word “THRILLS” in capital letters across his chest, when he came back into focus.
“You look like you saw a ghost.”
I felt like I did. It was the first time I was looking at Bolton and truly seeing him.
Swallowing back the turbulence of these memories coming back, I swung my legs off the edge of the bed and sat up. “I’m part of the circle. I’m coming with you.”
He stood in front of me with his hands lazily on his hips. “You aren’t going anywhere. You passed out, and the memories are all over your face. You’re fucking four shades paler than normal.”
Standing up on my shaking legs, I grabbed the hoodie hanging off the bed post and wrapped it around me. That same forest and musk scent mixed together, making me want to drool.
“I’m going, Bolton. I’m the one this has to happen to.” I was holding myself up as best as I could, while I tried to look more like myself. Crossing my arms and throwing him an eye roll helped.
“The element of surprise was kind of my plan here.”
“Well, tough shit. I’ve had enough secrets.”
I pushed my bare feet into my Doc Martens, still wearing my uniform, just even more disheveled. I wasn’t letting anyone tell me I wasn’t going to this meeting for the circle I was queen of. I pushed past Bolton and stood in the hallway, waiting for him to catch up.
“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?”
He draped his arm around my shoulders, and he whistled with his gaze down the hallway. I didn’t know who’s attention he wanted or who would even think a whistle was meant for them.
“Learn to love to hate me…” I soaked in being pushed up against him.
Walking further down the hallway with no real light, I tensed up, unsure what to expect. He kicked the door with his boot, and all you could hear was rustling behind the door. The inaudible music muffled by the door left a silence in the air when it was turned off abruptly. The door flung open and illuminated Luna, fixing her clothes and hair to be perfect again, while Nyx was pulling his shirt back on.
Bolton was laughing next to me in an unfamiliar way. He was actually amused by corruption.
Nyx was defiling Luna, and he actually thought it was comical.
“What do you want?”
Bolton leaned into the door frame, “Meeting? You kids wanna stay off each other long enough to come to that?”
Luna’s cheeks were sunburnt red and matched her red locks. She was embarrassed, and I couldn’t figure out why. They liked each other, and when there’s enough like in one room, the tension is only bearable with your clothes off.
I knew from personal experience.
Nyx barreled through Bolton and I in the doorway, like a bowling ball, making a complete strike. I followed Luna’s gaze to the guy walking away from her, after God, or apparently gods, knew what happened. Linking my arms into hers, I forced her close to me, letting Bolton lead.
“I can’t believe he’s letting you go,” I whispered in a pointlessly hushed tone. Bolton probably had some form of his ears ringing, except more dramatically, like his soul lights on fire when someone talks about him.
“What are these meetings about anyways?”
“The same thing every week. Who’s the one, planning the ritual, all the prep that goes into it… Normally it’s Bolton against the majority vote on everything.”
I knew I was the one; otherwise, my hands wouldn’t reenact Harry Potter scenes without a wand. None of that interested me.
I was going, so the secrets could cease and desist once and for all.
Changing the topic as we walked across the grass to the off limits building that gave me the creeps, I asked Luna what upstairs with Nyx was all about. Her cheeks went up in flames again. “Nothing… we just got caught up. Thank god you interrupted.”
Nyx stopped walking ahead of us and charged nearly into us, “This isn’t Olympus. You aren’t my queen or best friend anymore, so what I do with Luna isn’t your business.”
He made it clear that he was putting whatever we had in the past and changing his future.
I couldn’t remember what we had in Olympus to motivate a fight, so I let him yell he wasn’t my business anymore. He was right after all.
Without realizing it, my hand reached out and touched his folded arms lightly. At first, he let me, before yanking out of my reach. A memory was already unlodging itself from deep in my subconscious and coming to the surface.
“Run away with me. You don’t have to marry him. He’ll love you because Zeus told him it’s so. I’d love you for all my days, because I can’t help it.”
“He always finds me. There’s nowhere safe from him.”
“Then I’ll kill the king and set you free.”
The words echoed in my head: free, kill, runaway. All things I wanted to do—anything to get out of this paper bag sealed at the end, trapped with secrets and lies inside.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” his voice was completely filled with malice and callous.
I couldn’t keep my eyes from rolling back over his dramatics. He was the son of Hades, all destruction and death, but his weakness? Apparently being touched was triggering.
I pushed past him towards the door, waiting on Bolton to force the lock undone. This was the one building I didn’t even walk by on purpose. The gargoyles perched up top and the dark stone made it feel evil. The nagging feeling I always got right before an adventure crept into my stomach, fluttering up to my chest in a storm of butterflies.
That feeling normally went away once the high of breaking whatever rules took its place.
That kind of high was unmatched; it took over every aspect of me and blurred out the annoyances.
Not this time.
I walked inside, and the mounting storm in my chest only got stronger. It was trying to tell me to turn back, fuck the secrecy, let them have it.
Bolton handed me a ringing phone, and it didn’t even register that it was my iPhone wrapped in a purple case. Across the screen it said “DAD” in capital letters, and I hung a left into a spacious room, not bothering to ask how he got my phone back or when.
Putting the phone to my ear, I didn’t realize how much I missed him when I had to bite down my trembling lip, summoning tears. “Hey, honey! Sorry it’s so late; it’s only 3 here. I got your message. Is everything okay?”
“Daddy…” It was all that surfaced to say. I hadn’t called him “Daddy” since I was little.
I felt the same kind of innocence wash over me. All the bullshit toughness I played up on the outside shattered, because he knew deep down I was as scared as everyone else, as alone as everyone else, and had lost things no one should.
“What happened?” His rough around the edges voice always screamed he had seen things that change you.
“It’s just hard being here,” I lied through my teeth. It was too much to explain with continents between us.
“Making any new friends at least?” Smoothing out his voice for my benefit.
“Yeah, some. When will you be home?” I hadn’t even realized the holidays were right around the corner when a hot tear ran down my cheek without permission.
I was all alone, and it didn’t hurt being without him, real dad or not. All I wanted was someone forced to love me in this moment, and he was too far away for me to feel that. Every mile between us tested my fragile heart, turning it to stone, watching it curse love in all its forms.
“After Christmas, honey. Aunt D said she can have you for the break on some conditions, like no more trouble.”
I couldn’t produce any words. He wasn’t coming home for the holidays.
“I promise I’m trying to work as fast as I can. You’ll have fun with your cousins in Texas until I’m back. Chin up.”
Even through the phone, he could hear my overpowering disappointment.
“I love you, my Little Archer.”
Normally I complained, stomped my foot, and told him I was too old f
or such silly nicknames. Not this time. Nothing felt more comforting than being his Little Archer—not the daughter of Zeus, not Bolton’s promised wife, or not whatever key I was to this circle.
Bolton’s arms wrapped around when the line clicked, and the other line went dead before I could tell him I loved him just as much. I buried my face into Bolton’s chest and let the tears I was holding free up. His arms felt strong enough to keep me safe, and that was the only comfort I had right now.
His palm swept down my hair and held my face against him, as he said to Nyx, “Tell Alba shit came up. Text me after.”
Bolton
Arianna had finally broken—the past and present sandwiched her against her unshed tears, forcing them to fall.
I didn’t think seeing her broken would affect me so much. My shirt was stained with her tears, and her fists were balling up my shirt to the point my nipple was exposed to the cold. An innate need buried in my chest came alive after fourteen years of not protecting her.
One single trail of tears, and it all came flooding back—just like the memories I knew she was deciphering. Her concentration would drop to the floor, and I could see the confusion stirring up her eyebrows and slack jaw.
Right now, all she could focus on was burying her face into my chest and hiding the vulnerable parts she wasn’t comfortable with.
Arianna had always been strong, outspoken, rebellious. Fights with her dad in Olympus ended in thunder and lightning that cracked the sky open.
Picking up her legs, I carried her back to my room, hoping she’d sleep this off, just like her headache from earlier. We were already on the side of the clock where trouble lived: past midnight. Balancing her weight, all stuck in her heavy boots, to one side of me to get my door open was still easier than becoming, any sense of the word, comforting.
I was made of stone, even letting her hold onto me. I wasn’t the guy who knew what to say or do; I made sure that I always got out before this part came. I was more comfortable killing for her, chasing her, being the guy she hated enough to never let me seep into her soul too deeply.
I fell down to my bed, taking her into my lap, and that feeling came alive in my chest and felt like certain death.
