continue. I turned my attention back to Gaia, who was studying me with ghostly eyes.
“No, I don’t,” she answered. “No more than you do. But I might have been slightly wrong about him. He hasn’t condemned me to the Underworld yet, at any rate.”
“Don’t turn your back on him,” I warned. She nodded.
“I won’t. For now, I’m just going to concentrate on you,” she said quietly. “You’ve been my friend when I had no one else. I can’t leave you here like this.”
“What message did Hades have for me?” I asked, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. I was strangely melancholy today for some reason. Perhaps because I was awake for the first time in two months. That might do it to a person.
“He wants you to know that the deck is stacked in your favor. That long sleep that you just had? That was your body’s natural reaction to being rendered mortal. Further, you may have been rendered mortal, but your curse has not been removed. You will soon begin to crave human blood and souls so badly that you won’t be able to control it. You will kill Brennan without meaning to. You won’t be able to help yourself.”
Horror slammed into me. I was trapped here like a rat in a cage with the person that I loved most in the world. And very soon, I would turn into a monster with no self-restraint. Brennan would stand no chance.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“My father might feel that it is good news,” I replied to Gaia icily. “But I do not. Return to him and find out how I might be able to avoid this fate. I don’t care what it takes. Since I am now mortal, bring me back poison. Give me a dagger. Hell, I’ll take a noose. Anything.”
“No,” Gaia said, shaking her luminescent head. “I can’t do that. I won’t help you kill yourself.”
“Do you love me?” I demanded harshly. “Do you?”
She hesitated, knowing where I was going with this. “Yes.”
“Then you will do it.”
“I’ll go speak with Hades,” she answered, without addressing my mandate. And before I could say another word, she was gone.
Brennan was staring at me. “Gaia?”
I nodded.
“How could you see her? I mean, now that Zeus has taken our abilities?”
That was a good question.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Maybe I’m still naturally inclined to see ghosts because of my connection to the Underworld? I truly don’t know. Gaia seemed very faded to me, almost transparent. I thought she did it on purpose but maybe it was simply because of my weakened vision.”
“What did she say?” Brennan asked, stroking my arm gently. I literally felt sick as I relayed Gaia’s message, every hateful part of it. Brennan’s touch on my arm never faltered.
“So it is done, then,” he said when I was finished explaining. “You won’t have a choice. You will have to kill me.” He sounded satisfied and relieved which promptly annoyed me.
“I don’t have to do anything,” I snapped. “Mortal or not, I have more self-restraint than anyone I know.”
“You used to,” Brennan agreed. “But you’ve never been mortal. You don’t know what toll it might take on you. Mortals are far weaker than you think.”
“In some ways,” I agreed. “And in some ways, they are not. Mortals have souls and spirit and a zest for life that some of us- those of us who have been alive for eons- lack. That counts for something.”
He looked at me. “It won’t count for you,” he observed. “You’ve been alive for eons.”
“True,” I acknowledged, looking around us.
I hadn’t really examined our surroundings since I had woken up. I found that winter had descended upon us. Frost had turned the grass into glass-like shards and the temperature had dropped substantially. And I was cold. Really, really cold.
I hadn’t realized that until just this second.
We had no provisions; no blankets, no heavy clothing. In fact, I was still barefoot. Brennan caught my gaze.
“Food and water appears on the altar once a day out of thin air,” he said grimly. “Other than that, they give us nothing.”
“How kind of them,” I muttered.
Now that I had realized how cold I was, it was all I could think of. My feet were so cold that they almost felt hot as I stood in the frost.
Brennan picked me up into his arms and held me against his chest. He sank onto the altar and rubbed my hands within his as he cradled me on his knees.
“This is a lot easier now that you’re awake,” he pointed out, moving to rub my feet. And even though I was freezing, warm flooded my heart at the thought of him rubbing my body to keep it warm while I slept. It was the sweetest thing anyone had done for me in a while.
“I love you,” I told him quietly, my cheek pressed against his heart. He stilled for a minute, then grasped me even tighter.
“I know,” he told me gruffly. “I love you, too.”
“I know,” I whispered.
Brennan’s heart beat reverberated in my ear and I imagined all of the blood flowing through his veins… his warm, sticky blood, flowing in and out of his heart like a delicious fountain. I gulped as hunger exploded within me.
Ba-bump.
Ba-bump.
Ba-bump.
The loud thud of his heart might as well have been an advertisement for a fast-food restaurant…because that was suddenly all I could think of.
Drinking.
Brennan’s.
Blood.
I shoved away from him hard and retreated as fast I could across the clearing.
“What the—“ Brennan started to follow me, but I cried out to stop him.
“No. Please don’t.”
He froze uncertainly, watching me.
“Are you in pain?” he asked in concern.
“Don’t be worried about me,” I said, turning away from him. “Worry about you. You stay on that side of the altar, I’ll stay on this side.”
“No,” he answered, as he began to walk toward me.
“You’re making it worse for me,” I snapped as I caught a whiff of his scent in the breeze. He instantly froze.
“I’m sorry,” he answered quietly. “I certainly don’t want to do that.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. I curled up on the ground and hugged my knees, trying to shield myself against the cold and protect what little warmth I had. I averted my gaze from Brennan’s. I didn’t want to see the pain that I knew I would find within his.
“It’s not going to end like this,” he said softly, staring at me from across our prison. “I’m not going to stand here and watch you shiver to death in a ball. If you’re going to kill me anyway, just do it now. Do it now before you can suffer any longer, Empusa. I know you don’t want to. But I’ll go to the Isles of the Blessed, Em. Perhaps, if you win, Zeus will allow you to accompany me there.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I hissed. It was growing more and more difficult for me to withstand the temptation to sink my teeth into Brennan’s fragrant flesh and drain every drop of blood from his body. I gulped from the sheer idea, the saliva pooling in my mouth. “Don’t be ridiculous. They are punishing us both for crimes that we didn’t commit. You for crimes of the mortal world as a whole and me for my mother’s transgressions. They will never let us have a happy ending. They simply won’t allow it.”
I could see his shoulders slump slightly as the weight of my words bore down upon him and I felt guilty that I had done that to him. But it was best if he just accepted it now. There was nothing I could do to get us out of this- it simply wasn’t going to end well. I closed my eyes to the black ugliness, reveling instead in the darkness behind my own eyelids. I took a ragged breath, then another.
I suddenly felt almost as though I could feel my mother’s presence. I felt the same sense of calm as I always did when she was near. I felt certain that if I opened my eyes, she would be gone, so I kept them closed and focused on her presence. She was somehow projecting herself to me. I knew that if I opened my eyes, I wou
ld see her sitting next to Zeus. But it didn’t make her presence in my mind any less real.
She was here. I knew it beyond any doubt. By the second, her presence got stronger and stronger, like an approaching light, until I finally heard her voice.
“I love you, Empusa,” she murmured.
The first thing my mother did was to profess her love. An errant tear slipped from the corner of my eye. It didn’t matter that I was here because of her- she had only done what she had to try and save me. I knew she was in agony over my situation right now. I could hear it in the tenor of her voice.
“I’m so proud of you,” she said. “You’re so strong and brave. I only have a moment, Empusa. You need to know something. It’s your bracelet that can save you… your bracelet. Your soul is tied to the moonstone. As long as the moonstone survives, I can save you. Your father, Hades, can save you. And I’m sorry for that too. I’m so sorry for so many things.”
I squeezed my eyes tightly closed as hot tears filled them up.
“Don’t cry, my sweet,” she whispered. “They will see. Zeus will see. Do with this information as you will… but just know that no matter what happens to you on that altar, I can save you if your moonstone survives. I love you, Empusa.”
And she was gone. I felt her absence immediately It was as though a breeze had blown through and then stilled. I felt a vast emptiness, but even still, my heart was buoyed. She had just given me a kernel of hope. I touched my bracelet, but then dropped my hand. I didn’t want Zeus to notice it.
It was astounding to me that he didn’t realize the importance of my bracelet. He himself had been saved from the clutches of Hades because he had embedded his blood within Harmonia’s bloodstone…a simple jewel. It had saved him from imprisonment in the Underworld. And now mine, a pretty trinket, might save my life.
I opened my eyes.
Because I had been granted a bit of hope, everything looked brighter now. The snow blanketing the ground looked beautiful, even though it was frigid. The sun shining down through the clouds and tree branches reflected off the ice crystals and send glittering prisms of light everywhere. And Brennan.
Brennan was as beautiful as ever, proud and strong. I ached to touch him, to run my fingers over the smooth expanse of his muscled arms, to feel the stubble on his face. I squared my shoulders and marched over to him. I could do this.
As his scent filled my nose, unquenchable thirst filled my consciousness. I had never wanted anything so badly in my life than I wanted to drink Brennan’s blood right now. It was warm, it was wet, it would be delicious. But even more than that, I wanted to protect him, to save him. Because of that, I knew that I could do this. At least long enough to save him.
Stretching up on tiptoe, I brushed my lips against his. At the mere contact, his aura appeared to me and I found that with each breath that I took, his soul threatened to suck away from him and into me. With regret, I stepped away from his slightly, just enough to keep him safe, but still enough to whisper. If I kept my hands running along Brennan’s arm and chest lovingly, Zeus would just think we were whispering as lovers.
Brennan’s amber eyes were trained upon mine. He knew something had changed. He knew me well enough to sense it. But he stayed calm and quiet, trusting me enough to wait until I shared it with him.
“My moonstone,” I whispered to him, as quietly as I could while I ran my fingers along his shoulders. “It is tied to my soul. As long as it is intact, my mother can save my life.”
“You know this for certain?” he asked, as he grasped one of my hands and casually drew it to his lips to kiss it. We were making quite the effort to appear relaxed and I was certain it was paying off. We looked every inch like a pair of imprisoned lovers who were was just trying to steal a moment alone while being watched by a group of people.
I nodded. “Yes.”
Brennan sighed a heavy sigh. He knew what that meant. In order for us both to survive, I would have to die here and now. He would have to kill me.
However, before we could say anything else, Zeus’ loud voice boomed throughout the clearing.
“I grow weary of this monotony. The game will change.”
My eyes met Brennan’s as I sucked in my breath.
It was hard to say what Zeus would throw at us next.
“I am tired of watching this stalemate. You think that you have outsmarted me? You will soon learn otherwise. Your opposing abilities have always fascinated me, the idea that your very existence could snuff out that of the other. I will play on that today. Know this, the longer you delay action, the more mortals will die. This is true now more than ever. One of you will die today and justice will be served.”
Zeus sat back down, my mother at his side. Her face was calm, but I could see her hands twisting in her lap. Her fingers were turning white. Whatever Zeus had in mind, it wasn’t going to bode well for Brennan and me.
I noticed that Harmonia and Cadmus had slipped into the stands. They sat behind Harmonia’s parents, Aphrodite and Ares. Harmonia’s face was pale and distressed and Cadmus had his arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders. Whatever Zeus was planning, it certainly wasn’t good. Harmonia leaned over and murmured something to Zeus, but it didn’t faze him. He shook his head almost imperceptibly and Harmonia slumped back in her seat. Clearly she had tried to intervene on our behalf and it hadn’t been successful. There was nothing to do now but to wait for whatever came.
And we didn’t have to wait long.
The sky suddenly darkened, causing Brennan and I to look up. The moon was moving in front of the sun, darkening the sky. The sun turned gold then orange then fiery red before its light was finally snuffed out and all went dark.
An eclipse.
Chapter Twenty Three
“What does this mean?” Brennan asked uncertainly as we both craned our necks to peer into the sky. The only light now was a blood red rim of the sun peeking from behind the darkened moon and the flickering light of the stars scattered overhead.
“It’s an eclipse,” I said woodenly. “Think about it, Bren. You’re from the sun and I’m from the moon. Our spirits are tied to those energies. If the sun and the moon block each other, they cancel each other out. Our energy is going to fade soon. Zeus is trying to force our hand.”
I couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but I could feel that he was shocked. His silence attested to that.
“What do we do?” he asked quietly.
“You know what we have to do,” I answered. “You know what you have to do.”
Silence.
I strained to see him, but could barely see my hand in front of my face. I looked to my right. The vision of Olympus was gone. Apparently Zeus had wanted to extinguish all forms of light around us. We were left with nothing but the eerie red ring of the sun.
Without the energy from the moon, I instantly felt weaker, although I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination at this point. Surely my strength wouldn’t drain so quickly. But I was still hungry. I knew that for sure. My throat was as dry as a bone, so dry that I constantly felt like I needed to cough. I was at a distinct disadvantage. Not only was my energy draining at an exponential rate, I had to deal with my curse as well. I could only pray that Brennan would kill me before I killed him.
And then I had to laugh at myself. I had to pray? Pray to whom? The gods? No one there would help me. None of them could. The only one who could wanted my head on a spike for the world to see. I laughed a humorless laugh and then fell as silent as Brennan.
“Brennan?” I said quietly.
No answer.
“Brennan?” I asked, this time in concern. Why wasn’t he answering?
Finally, his low voice came from the shadows. “I’m here,” he replied.
“Why weren’t you answering?” I asked. My heart had started a slow slam against my ribcage. Was this it? Was he finally coming to his senses and he was going to kill me? Was I going to die soon?
“It’s hard to speak,” he said, his voice heav
y. “There’s a weight on me. I can’t move very well.”
“A weight?” I asked quickly, rushing through the darkness to find him. I tripped on the altar and went sprawling across the stone. I lay still for a moment, rubbing my throbbing shin before I climbed to my feet again. Feeling my way carefully around the altar, it didn’t take long for my fingers to brush against Brennan’s warm body. My first thought was that his normally very hot body wasn’t nearly as hot as usual. It was back down to a normal body temperature. Secondly, his skin was clammy. I fumbled for his face and pushed his damp hair away from his forehead.
“Come sit down,” I instructed him, pulling him toward the altar.
“I don’t feel right,” he mumbled. I gently pushed him onto the altar and curled up with him on the stone, stroking his arm. I gritted my teeth at the frustration of being so close to his tantalizing smell, but I had to stay with him. He needed me.
“I think the absence of light is harder on you than the absence of moonlight is hard on me,” I observed. “It’s affecting you more quickly. It probably has something to do with the fact that moonlight is only a reflection of the sun or something. God knows we’ve been warned about that enough.”
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