by JJ King
Cate looked around and recognized the foliage on the edge of the forest. She turned to Artemis and offered her hand and a smile. “I can’t tell you how much this means to Selene and I.”
“Well, from what I can see, it’s relatively safe and it's about time someone stood up to Zeus. Mostly the second reason.” She gave them each a nod. “See you soon.” She disappeared back into the forest.
They waited for her to move out of earshot before speaking. Medusa was the first to break the silence. “So, that happened,” she said on a disbelieving chuckle.
“Yup.” Cate didn’t have much more than that to say. It had been a weird day. She turned to face Medusa with her hand outstretched. They needed to be touching to travel together with Cate’s magic.
Medusa clapped her hand into Cate’s securely and grimaced. She’d made it clear before they’d left that she didn’t like magical modes of transportation.
Cate summoned her magic, pulling some from the earth around them. She was strong now, stronger than usual from her sexy interlude with Morpheus. Something about the two of them together had made her magic jump.
Magic seeped from her bones, from her blood and muscles. It was in her, around her, it was her. Quickly, it enveloped her body and spread out to cover Medusa’s, and then they were flying.
Her magic wasn’t like the blink travel Medusa hated so much. She wasn’t teleported, for lack of a better term, from one place to another. She could just fly really fast, protected by her magic and invisible to the mortal eye.
They were in the air only a few minutes, flying over the Aegean towards Athens where Medusa was meeting Poseidon, when a loud rumble filled the sky around them. It was so loud, so forceful, that it vibrated through Cate’s magic and shook them both.
“Thunder?” Cate looked up at the sky and frowned.
Dark clouds were moving in faster than she’d ever seen them move before, covering the blue sky with ominous gray. Cate shivered against the sudden chill and adjusted her grip on Medusa. She opened her mouth to warn Medusa to stay close but never had the chance to speak.
A frigid wind hit them like a truck, slamming against them so hard Cate’s magic faltered for a split second as she gasped for breath. Medusa wrapped her arms around Cate’s body and yelled in her ear, “We need to find land!”
Cate barely heard her through the screams of the storm but she understood the fear in Medusa’s eyes. They’d been confronted with death too many times today to be taken out by a storm. She turned back and poured her power into retreat.
The wind buffeted them, tossing them through the air like a leaf in a tornado and Cate’s grip on Medusa faltered. She summoned her magic, casting a secondary protective spell to envelop them, to protect them both against the storm.
The tangy scent of ozone filled her nostrils, burning her lungs. Her magic crackled over her skin then spread out slowly, slowed by the elemental forces around them. A bolt of bright blue lightning speared across the sky, arcing toward them with deadly precision. Cate cried out and threw up an arm, shielding them from the attack with a bolt of her own, understanding at last that this was no ordinary storm.
This was Zeus.
“He knows!” she screamed, hoping Medusa could hear her but knowing it was probably futile. Cate pushed harder with her magic, pulling Medusa closer to protect her against the preternatural fury of Zeus’ attack. Her stomach churned with terror, even more intense than what she’d felt in Arachne’s web. If Zeus knew what they were planning…
She pulled back enough to look into Medusa’s eyes and knew the gorgon understood what was happening. This would be their end if she were right and Zeus knew. Tears filled Medusa’s eyes as the preternatural storm tossed them about the sky. She closed her eyes and Cate saw her lips begin to move.
She was praying. Cate’s lip curled at the mere thought of prayer to the Olympians who had put them in this position in the first place. Fuck the gods, she thought. She threw her head back and screamed, “Fuck the gods!”
It made her feel better for a split second, then every hair on her body lifted and she realized the mistake she’d made in losing focus for an instant.
The lightning bolt struck them like death from above, blasting them apart despite the magic that protected them. Cate’s clothes burst into flames that moved like wildfire to her skin and hair. She screamed in agony and called to her magic for help. Then she was falling, plummeting from the sky as her mind exploded with pain and terror. She seized, muscles tightening unbearably, then her enter body went limp and with her last breath she whispered a spell to cushion their fall.
And everything went dark.
CHAPTER TEN
Cate’s body felt as though it were imploding. Something pressed around her, surrounding her, making it impossible to move. She struggled against the intense pressure and gasped for oxygen, certain she was drowning or being tortured by an evil god.
“She’s awake.” A familiar voice filtered through her prison, sounding as though it were miles away. Cate struggled to recognize it, to put a name to the speaker, but her mind was spinning, her blood racing through her veins too quick to let her think.
“Hecate,” the voice said, sounding closer this time. “Open your eyes.” The order was barked out so forcefully, Cate obeyed instinctively. She lifted her eyelids and blinked, trying to dispel the thick fog blocking her sight. Finally, she could see and with sight came utter relief.
“Medusa,” her voice came out cracked and hoarse. Cate cleared her throat and tried to move, to sit up and shake off the pressure still pressing in around her, but she couldn’t move. Panic swept through her again and she cried out, reaching for her power.
Her magic brought up solid against something and ricocheted back into her. The blast knocked some sense into her head and gave her the moment of clarity she desperately needed to assess her surroundings.
The wall pressing down on her was made of water. She frowned and stared through it at Medusa who was watching her with concern and pleading for her to listen and calm down. Cate heard her words now and understood them.
“You’re safe. Don’t struggle. You were badly hurt and he’s helping you heal.”
He. Cate shifted her gaze past Medusa and felt her stomach turn over in disgust. Poseidon. He was watching her intently, frowning at her struggles. Cate stared at him, looking for the glint of superiority all gods had when they were in control…
… and didn’t see it.
Surprise pushed back the fear just enough for her to consider that. What was it Medusa had said? She’d been hurt in the fall. He was helping.
Slowly, she gathered her awareness and sent it out into her body, searching for damage. Cate gasped when she found most of her bones shattered and her internal organs on the mend thanks to a familiar kind of magic. The kind Olympian gods possessed.
Cate swallowed, barely able to swallow her throat was so dry, and looked past her preconceptions. She grudgingly respected Medusa, after all, and Medusa did love the big bastard.
“You saved us?” she asked quietly, unable to put much force behind her words.
Poseidon moved up to stand beside Medusa and smiled quietly down at her. “You hit the ocean hard and would have died of internal bleeding if I didn’t do something right away.” He reached for Medusa’s hand and interlaced their fingers. “Medusa has amazing healing abilities but you were unconscious and wouldn’t wake up. If we didn’t stabilize you…” he let the sentence trail off.
“I would be dead,” Cate finished for him, knowing it was the truth. She took that in for a moment before allowing herself to ask questions. Now that she knew what the pressure was for, she’d be able to handle it better, but she’d never been a fan of tight spaces and being in this full-body water cast wasn’t exactly soothing. She breathed deep, in through her noes, out through her mouth as she’d been taught by more than one yogi over the years, until her heart rate calmed and she could think straight.
“Zeus knows.” The simp
le statement made her stomach churn. She dug her nails into her palms in frustration.
“He knows something,” Poseidon agreed, scratching his five o’clock shadow, “but we can’t be sure he knows the details. Not yet anyway.”
“He blew us out of the sky,” Cate ground out through a clenched jaw taking out all her anxious frustration on the Olympian. “What more do you need?”
Poseidon leaned forward and glared down at her with furrowed eyebrows so black that they made his blue eyes look like twin lasers. “Believe me, little witch. If Zeus wanted you dead, you would be dead.” He sighed heavily.
The sliver of gratitude she’d been feeling for Poseidon slipped away. She glared up at him because it was the only thing she could do. “Call me little witch again and you’ll see just how wicked I can actually be.” When he grunted and moved away, leaving her line of sight, she forced herself to breathe slowly again and regain control.
Fatigue pressed in on her as much as the water holding her bones in place. Cate struggled against it for a while, asking Medusa questions about how she’d survived and smiling dreamily when Medusa credited her murmured spell for keeping them safe long enough for Poseidon to find them and offer help.
Cate moved in and out of sleep, sometimes waking as Selene, sometimes as herself. Each time she sent out her awareness to check her progress. With each passing hour her magic or Selene’s, combined with Poseidon’s, knit her body back together, far faster than any mortal could. It galled that Medusa had the ability to heal faster, though.
During her waking moments, Cate retraced every step of the plan so far, looking for pitfalls and holes that could have alerted Zeus to what they were doing. Almost everything they’d planned had been accomplished in Morpheus’ dreamscape, a place Zeus couldn’t enter unless invited. But not everything had been done under that secret umbrella. Selene had gone to Nyx in the night sky, Morpheus had visited her on Mount Latmus, and she and Medusa had gone to see Artemis. At some point, he’d noticed and gotten suspicious.
She didn’t know how much time passed as she healed, it was hard to keep track of time under the ocean. Medusa had mentioned it one of the times she’d gained consciousness, that they were safe in Atlantis so she could rest easy. Zeus didn’t visit his brother’s realm very often and he couldn’t without permission. Since Poseidon wasn’t in a particularly permissive mood, they were as safe here as they could possibly be.
Cate sent her awareness out again, feeling foolish for having hope that this time would be different and jolted completely awake when she found solid bone and completely healed organs. She made a squeal of pure joy and began yelling for Poseidon. “Let me out! I’m done cooking!”
Medusa came running down the hallway, the sound of her footsteps echoing in the underwater castle, which Cate assumed they were in. What else would the king of the sea live in? An underwater bungalow?
“Are you sure?” Medusa leaned over and asked, moving her gaze over Cate’s body as if she could see the damage inside.
Cate nodded, “I’m sure. I’ve been checking my progress every time I woke up. This cookie is fully baked.”
Medusa cracked a smile at the Buffy reference. “I miss Buffy,” she said wistfully. They shared a silent moment in memory then looked over to see Poseidon stride into the room.
“Are you sure?” he asked, echoing Medusa.
“I’m sure,” Cate repeated, getting antsy to be released. She’d talked herself down from a panic attack several times after waking up confused and unsure of where she was and why she couldn’t move. It would be sweet relief to finally get out.
The pressure around her instantly disappeared as the water holding her in let loose and splashed to the floor. Cate lay still for a moment longer then began flexing her fingers, toes, feet, legs, and arms one at a time, just in case. When she sat up, there was no discomfort, let alone the pain she must have felt after hitting the water. She stood up and stretched, arching her back so her vertebrae realigned with a satisfying pop.
“So,” she cracked her neck, “what now? How long have I been down?”
“Almost a week,” Medusa said, glancing over at Poseidon whose eyebrows shot up as if they were having a private conversation.
“What?” Cate locked eyes with Poseidon and glared, daring him to look away. “What aren’t you telling me? Is it Selene?” Her body tensed at the thought there could be something wrong with her other half.
Medusa shook her head immediately, “No, Selene’s fine. She woke a few times while you were recuperating and we filled her in on what happened. She wasn’t as…” she looked as though she was searching for the right word, “agitated as you were.”
Cate cocked an eyebrow at Medusa’s choice of words. Medusa rarely held back in her opinions. Something was wrong. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she growled, letting her power spark to the surface and crackle along her skin.
Medusa’s eyes brimmed with sadness, but she remained silent. It was Poseidon who answered her question, even though she knew what he was going to say. “It’s Morpheus,” he said in a grim tone.
Cate’s heart squeezed painfully in her chest. She inhaled sharply and gritted her teeth against the fear that turned her blood to ice. Her mind flashed to the last time she’d spoken with him, the last time she’d touched him and tasted his lips. She’d balked at his sweet murmurs of astonishment that they’d found one another, scared by the enormity of that thought. She’d spent her life either alone or with Selene. She loved only one person and even that love would be changed once they freed Endymion. The thought of loving Morpheus had terrified her because loving means the possibility of losing. Which was exactly what was happening right now.
Only it didn’t matter that she hadn’t whispered sweet words back to him. Her heart felt as if it were being torn apart now and she hadn’t even had the time to analyze her feelings. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t made the decision to love him because she was already in love with him.
“What happened to him?” she managed to ask through a suddenly painfully dry throat.
Medusa and Poseidon exchanged glances again, making Cate’s nerves almost explode. Sparks of electricity shot from her fingers filling the room with the scent of ozone.
Medusa took a deep breath and met her gaze, finally womaning up. “He’s missing, Cate. We think Zeus has him.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Cate’s heart seized.
She stood frozen as her stomach filled with lead and her skin turned clammy. It didn’t make sense, they’d been careful, they’d taken precautions. How had Zeus found out about Morpheus’ involvement? She opened and closed her mouth several times before she could find the words to respond.
“Are you sure?” The question sounded incredibly stupid the moment it left her lips but for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with anything better. Her brain buzzed, leaving her confused and queasy. She looked back and forth between Medusa and Poseidon with wide eyes.
Apollo stepped into the room with Artemis by his side, catching Cate’s wavering attention. It struck Cate in an oddly blurry thought that they were the most beautiful siblings she’d ever seen, all golden perfection. Even the sad frowns on their faces weren’t enough to mar their beauty. The fact that Artemis was in Atlantis when she’d been adamant about remaining in her forest occurred to Cate but didn’t seem to matter.
“After you two left to find Artemis,” Apollo spoke softly like one does to a frightened child, “Morpheus said something about making sure Zeus didn’t come out of his dream until you came back safe.” He scrubbed a hand over his clean-shaven chin and extended his hand palm up. In it was the vial of amber liquid Morpheus had given each of them. Poseidon held his out with a sad shake of his head. Both vials were almost empty.
Medusa held hers up as well. “We’ve visited the dreamscape ten times while you were unconscious and there’s no sign of him.”
Cate choked on a laugh that felt half manic. “That doesn’t mean Zeus has him. He cou
ld be busy or…” she searched for a valid reason Morpheus wouldn’t be answering the call and came up with nothing. She shook her head. “I’m sure he’s fine. He’s a god, right.” Cate began to furiously tap her fingers against her thigh. “I mean, even if,” a soft moan escaped her lips, “even if Zeus has him, he can’t kill him. Right?” She pleaded with Poseidon through wide eyes. “Right?” Her eyes darted to the other Olympian gods in the room.
Cate turned on her heel and began pacing the room, needing to move. She wished furiously that she could be anywhere but at the bottom of the ocean. Claustrophobia threatened to undo all her control, making the air feel suddenly stale. Cate blinked away dark spots in her vision and tried to fight back against the overwhelming urge to scream and fight her way out of here. It pressed in on her, leaching her logic until it was all she could do to keep herself even somewhat together. Even as it dragged her under, she fought back.
