by C. R. Jane
Apollo was suddenly next to me.
“You found me,” I said.
He nodded, his brow furrowed, shadows crowding under his eyes. “I can feel your pain a mile away.”
My power had its own signature and the gods often found me by following it. But my pain? I hadn’t realized it was so great.
Apollo wrapped his arms around me, and I let him pull me against him, sighing and melting into him. I took a deep breath and his fresh, crisp scent filled my nose. We had been together for the longest out of all my relationships with the gods. With him, everything had always been stable and solid. Apollo was always my rock. But now? He was a pillar of strength to me, even now. But I had no idea where we stood.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked, my voice muffled against his arm.
“To see you.”
I shook my head and pulled away a little so I could look up at his sky-blue eyes. His blond hair was getting longer, hanging well down his back by now. It by no means made him any less masculine. Apollo was about as manly as they got, and even with his long golden hair, he looked more like the lead singer in a heavy-metal rock band.
“No, I mean with this whole shitty business. About where I’ll live.”
Apollo held me at arm’s length, his hands huge on my shoulders. He was a giant against my small frame, but we were equal in power. I could feel it. If it hadn’t been like that before, it definitely was now.
“I want you to be happy,” he finally answered my earlier question, and he offered me that glorious smile that made me forget my worries. But his grin wasn’t working today.
But honestly, these were the words I’d yearned to hear. If he’d told me he wished for me to remain on Earth because it was where I belonged, or if it was because it was where he lived, I might have gotten pissed off with him. But Apollo knew me better than the others did sometimes. He understood me on a different level.
“I can’t live on Mount Olympus,” I admitted, telling him exactly what was on my mind. “They’re not my kind of people. And the humans are important to me. I need to be with them, even though sometimes they rub me the wrong way.”
“It’s always like that,” Apollo explained. “Sometimes I get so fucking pissed off at the humans, I wish Zeus would smite them and get it over with. But you’re happy here, from what I can see. You don’t have to listen to Hera. She’s full of shit on a good day. And it’s never a fucking good day with her.”
I sighed. “Everyone wants something else from me. I feel like whatever I choose, someone is going to be pissed at my decision. And I don’t want to lose any of you.” Saying those words out loud had me shivering, and my throat thickened. I hated this.
“You won’t.” Apollo’s voice softened, filled with tenderness.
I turned away from him to stare out over the city again from our vantage view on the building at the cars, skyscrapers, the park in the distance, people everywhere.
“Can you honestly say that, though? Poseidon prefers me to stay on Olympus. Hades asked me to move to the Underworld with him. And Ares? Fuck, if he would just make up his mind about at least one thing in his life, that would be great.”
It sounded harsher than I’d meant for it to and I opened my mouth to apologize, but Apollo started talking and I didn’t get around to it.
“Why do you want to stay?” he asked. “For me?”
I shook my head. “I mean, I love you. I love all of you. But I prefer to stay because it’s my home. It holds my memories of my parents, my upbringing, my friends. It’s the only home I’ve ever known.”
I wasn’t sure if he would be angry that I’d said I wouldn’t do it for him. But he nodded and he didn’t seem upset at all.
“You have the right to choose what you prefer. You’re not only your own person with the right to make choices for yourself, but you are also a goddess and no one can tell you what to do.”
“Not even Zeus?”
Apollo thought about it for a second, his gaze drifting upward. “Maybe Zeus. He’s almost like your father, after all. He can really tell any of us what to do. But that’s not the point. Zeus isn’t making it a law that gods can’t live on Earth. So you should do what you want to do.”
“That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” And I smiled for real that time, feeling assured of my decision.
“The shit part,” Apollo said, and I groaned inwardly, “is that you’re going to have to make sacrifices no matter what you decide. Your humans and your past, one of us, or the friendship of some of the gods. Nothing comes without sacrifice.”
I covered my face with my hands, and my stomach started to hurt, like it did each time stress consumed me. “That’s not fair. Why are you putting so much pressure on me?”
“I’m not doing anything.” He remained levelheaded, calm and logical, while I wanted to scream. It felt as if my chest were a tangled knot, growing tighter by the moment.
“It’s not just you—it’s all of you,” I said. “You’re all expecting me to make the world go around when I’m barely on top of what I’m doing as a goddess. This isn’t fair. I should be able to at least breathe for a moment before everything comes crashing down on me.”
I sounded accusatory, I was aware of that. And Apollo was getting angry with me, his lips thinning and he kept fidgeting, not standing still, but I didn’t care. I had a lot on my mind and damned if I was going to keep bottling everything up for the sake of sparing everyone else’s feelings.
“I was happy with how things were before, you know,” I added, being completely transparent.
“Were you really?” Apollo asked. “Because it looked to me like you were complaining more often than not about everything being the way it was. You wanted to be powerful and protect Earth, but you don’t.” He tilted his head, and damn him for judging me.
I huffed loudly, hating that he was direct and saying something rude. Because he didn’t bother with my feelings and what this was doing to me. I didn’t once allow myself to consider that maybe, above all the other things I was upset about, it was because he might be right.
“I’m not going to wait around for all of you to judge me,” I said, my words short and clipped. “I’m so sick and tired of this shit, of being treated like a pawn. You’re all acting like I’m not one of you, even though you keep telling me I am.”
“It’s not like that,” Apollo insisted, reaching out for me.
But I retreated and marched away from him because I was done hearing the excuses. I couldn’t pull the vanishing act like they could yet. Maybe I’d never be able to. Because a part of me was still human, I was sure of it. I didn’t know if I could still die, and I didn’t know a lot of things the gods knew. But I did know that no matter what they said, no matter how they treated me, I wasn’t one of them.
If I left this place behind to go live with them on Mount Olympus, then the lie would be complete.
Chapter 8
I needed to train. The only way to get my mind off things when I didn’t know which way to turn was to punch and kick a bag until I was too tired to care about anything else.
It had been months since I’d gone to the training center. Actively jumping in and saving humans took time and energy. When I wasn’t being a hero, I jogged in the streets until I was tired.
The rest of the time, when I intended to spar, I practiced with the guys. Not only was it good for me to fight actual gods now, but it was great for the mood. There was nothing like getting physical with the guys before getting… physical.
But today, I didn’t want to spar with any of them. I craved training hard until I collapsed of exhaustion. I was hoping that answers about all of this would come while I was so busy not thinking at all.
When I arrived at the training center, a light was on inside. It was already after dark and the training center was supposed to be deserted. Classes were rarely held this late at night.
I’d always practiced when the humans weren’t using the place. It was better than having to e
xplain why a little human woman like me was so damn strong.
Maybe one of the staff was working late. Or perhaps the last couple of months had seen schedule changes I wasn’t aware of. I was in two minds. Or was it better if I left again and didn’t go in there? But my body ached for some exercise, my muscles screamed at me, and I felt like I had an itch in my chest I couldn’t scratch.
If I kept to myself and trained in one of the private rooms, maybe I could get away without being seen. I decided to go in after all.
When I pushed the door open, someone was working over the punching bag and by the quick succession of jabs, it was someone serious about what they were doing. The blows were hard, too. I could hear it in the way they connected with the bag.
It wasn’t one of the humans, that much I knew. Which meant it was one of the guys.
A small part of me wished it would be Heracles, back for some reason, here to give me advice and help me tire myself out to the point of collapse. But I knew I wasn’t going to see him when I turned the corner.
Ares’s back was turned to me. His short, cropped hair was dark in the dim light and he moved around the punching bag on the balls of his feet, lithe and dangerous like the warrior he was. I watched him for a while, seeing him as a stranger might. Everything about him was attractive but in an unreachable away.
How had it happened that we’d ended up together at all? It was a mystery. If there ever was a lone wolf, it was Ares.
“Are you just going to stand there watching me?” he asked without turning around.
“I was wondering if I should join you,” I admitted.
“Please do.” He looked over his shoulder and his green eyes were practically glowing the color of jade. He stopped the punching bag from swinging after his last hit and held on to it with two hands. I knew what those hands felt like, how he could hold me in the same way and I would tremble at his touch.
“Why are you so nonchalant about all of this?” I blurted out. I couldn’t help myself.
“About Mount Olympus?” He shrugged, his lips pinching when I nodded. “The gods are full of shit. But you’ve noticed that, I’m sure.”
He was right, they were.
“Don’t you care where I go?”
“Of course I do,” Ares said. “But I don’t own you. So it’s pointless enforcing what I want. You should do what’s right for you.”
It was very noble, but his nonchalance still bugged me. Was he not going to fight for me? I wanted a man who was independent and Ares was the epitome of independence. But he was also detached and I didn’t know if I wanted that. Then again, I couldn’t help but feel like a walking contradiction.
“Are we fighting or what?” he asked.
I nodded and walked toward him. We might as well.
We faced each other, sinking into battle stances. I was angry, frustrated, and I was the first to strike. I could see the way it affected Ares. He liked a good fight and when I started it, he reacted. It’d always been that way between us.
“What if I don’t want to leave?” I asked in between punches. Ares blocked a hit that would have landed on his throat and tried to jab me in the ribs, a move I sidestepped easily.
“Then don’t leave,” he said.
I shook my head and ducked to avoid a kick. I spun around and kicked Ares’s leg out from underneath him. He hit the mat hard.
“You’re more important than what we want,” he got up from the mat.
“But you’ve never told me what you want.”
“That’s because he doesn’t know what he wants,” Poseidon said, appearing in the training center from thin air.
Ares rolled his eyes. “Don’t start with me. I’m in the mood for a fight and you can’t face me.”
“Try me,” Poseidon snarled.
I didn’t like that they were all pitted against each other now. It was like this whole thing had caused a rift between us. Was that what Hera had wanted? Because she was a bitch and I wouldn’t put that beneath her. Maybe she was just fucking with me so that my life was hell and it didn’t matter to her either way where I ended up.
The idea just pissed me off, and I chewed on the inside of my cheek until it hurt.
“Why do you insist on me going to Mount Olympus?” I asked Poseidon.
I’d come here to forget about all my woes, to get away from everything and just train as hard as I could, but two of the guys were here now and I wanted to know what they were thinking. Might as well have it out once and for all.
“Because you’re a goddess now. It’s not right that you live among the humans. You’re more than that.”
“The humans are not good enough?” I asked.
Poseidon sighed. “How can I explain it…? They’re just a blip on the radar, a hiccup in the sands of time. If you consider how long we live and what we deal with every day, they’re so inconsequential.”
“Elyse was a human,” Ares pointed out just as I thought the same thing.
“And you were perfectly happy staying here and being with me. Or what was that all about, if you think I was so inconsequential?”
“You misunderstand,” Poseidon said.
“Do I?” I asked, hating that we were having this argument when I just wanted to be in their arms and not worry about anything else. But that was me hiding from the problems, and if I learned one thing from Hades, it was that running from troubles only made them worse.
“I think you just want her all to yourself, bro,” Ares said.
Fuck, he was needling Poseidon. And it was working, too. It was unnecessary. The gods had always been fine sharing. Even Hades and Poseidon, the two brothers who’d fallen for the same woman, had managed to make their peace about this. Why was Ares making this a thing again?
“I just think it’s where you belong,” Poseidon finally said.
I shook my head. This was getting out of hand. Poseidon was showing a side of himself I didn’t like.
They all were, in fact. Except Apollo, who seemed to be on par with what I was thinking.
It was starting to feel like no matter what I chose, I was going to lose something. Or someone. Or all of them. How had this happened? Until now, no matter what had gone wrong, it had always been us against the world. X, the humans, Zeus and his shit with Apollo’s banishment, it had all been the kind of thing that the gods shared with me, that we did together.
For the first time, it seemed like a line had been drawn and three of them were on the other side of it.
“I can’t do this,” I said, flopping down on the mat onto my ass. “I’m not going to win, no matter what I decide.”
“Sometimes that’s the curse of being a god,” Poseidon said as if he were giving a speech.
“Yeah, thanks for that, Poseidon.” I sounded as snappy as I felt.
“Elyse,” Ares said softly, and it affected my mood in a good way. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
Even though Poseidon was pissed off, he nodded. He agreed on that, too. At least some of them were happy with me calling the shots, even though Hades still wasn’t on board.
He was the first one I was going to lose, I realized.
And the pain in my chest was ridiculous, my throat tightening. I just broke through to him and now he would be out of my life again. I could barely breathe. Fuck, tears were watering in my eyes.
“Thank you,” I said to Ares. And I really meant it, because he was trying.
It just really wasn’t that simple.
Chapter 9
I woke up the next morning to the feeling of something watching me. Not someone, something.
When I lifted my head, I jumped in my bed. A woman sat on the chair, long legs crossed over each other and golden hair braided over one shoulder. Her beady eyes were what really got me.
“Hera,” I said, sitting up in bed, trying not to let her realize how nervous she made me.
“I’ve never understood the concept of sleeping.” She looked amused, her perfectly shaped brow
s arching. “I would have thought that as a new goddess, you might have shaken the habit, but it looks like you really did need to recharge.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked.
She stood up from the chair and sauntered around the room, wearing her pearlescent Greek style dress wrapped around her perfect figure. She ran her finger over the windowsill and checked it as if to see if I had cleaned properly. I stiffened and didn’t want the bitch touching my stuff. I was very aware of her breasts in her dress as she moved around. She oozed sex appeal, but it was the kind that irritated me. It made me feel inadequate somehow.
And I hated to be made to feel inadequate. It wasn’t my game, I liked to be on top. Ha. Damn, she was getting to me.
“What’s time, really?” she asked, and I realized she was responding to my question. She wasn’t answering me, but I guessed it was better than nothing.
Yeah, that meant she’d been watching me for a long time.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Isn’t it your custom to offer me something to drink after I traveled to get here?”
She’d probably zapped into my room which didn’t count as traveling, but I sighed. She was supposed to be some kind of divine royalty.
“Would you like some coffee?” I asked dryly. “Or water?”
“No, thank you. I can’t stand the food on this planet.” She scrunched her nose as if she might be sick.
I fought the urge to roll my eyes and kept the sarcasm out of my voice when I spoke again. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” I didn’t even sound as irritated as I felt. Point for me.
“I was wondering when you were planning on joining us on Mount Olympus,” she said. “We’ve been awaiting you.”
“I haven’t decided if it’s what I want to do yet.”
“My darling.” Hera stopped and turned slightly toward me, looking at me with a shocked expression. “I didn’t realize you thought it was optional.”
“I am not going to be forced into something.” My voice rose. “And if I don’t want to live there, I’m not going to do it.”
