by Staci Hart
Kim laughed. “More quiet than you’d think. How are you girls doing? Still liking New York?”
“It’s definitely different,” Kat answered, not wanting to admit just how much she loved the city. “We’re doing all right. Kiki met a guy.”
“Oh God. Kat—”
Kat cut her off at the fear in her voice, “It’s okay, Mom. Owen seems to be a really good guy. I’ve just given her my approval.”
“Wow. Well, that’s a relief, I suppose.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“We’ve set up some rules so I can keep track of her in case of Eric. She’s agreed; in fact, it was her idea. Hopefully that means she’ll take them seriously.”
“Honey, there’s only so much you can do. She loves you, and she’ll do what you ask. But trying to hold her back will probably only come around to bite you.”
“I’ve just realized that. She’s really into him. I think you’d like him.”
“Once all of this dies down, maybe you can come visit me.”
Kat didn’t miss the sadness in her voice. “Have you thought about coming out for a while?”
“Your father is coming in a few weeks, but maybe after that. I’ve been so busy at work. Hopefully things slow down soon. I’ve got some of my girls taking on more responsibility at the dance studio, and I’ll have a lot more free time once they’re trained. But enough about boring, old me. What’s new with you?”
“Besides Kiki’s love life, not much. I raced the other night, which was probably a mistake. But it felt so good.”
“Think anyone knew who you were?”
“Nope, I don’t. I have another race tomorrow night, but it’s just to shut someone up. Owen’s brother, in fact.”
“Owen, as in Kiki’s someone?”
“The very one.” Kat turned sideways in the chair and tucked her legs in. “It’s just for respect though, no money, no bookies. So it doesn’t really count as a race, right?”
“I don’t know, Kat. Does it?”
She sighed. “I guess so. It’ll feel good to drive and to put him in his place — he called me out. New city means a whole new class of pricks to school.”
“Baby, you know you’re good. Just have faith in yourself. When you believe in yourself, they can’t touch you. When you let them get to you, they win even if you win.”
“Have you met me? Backing down isn’t something that comes naturally.”
“I know, but you’ve learned so much patience. I’m proud of you, Kat. You’ve come so far. Just keep believing in yourself.”
“You sound like a motivational poster,” she teased, but she already felt lighter. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too. I miss you lots.”
“Miss you too.” Kat picked at her jeans.
Kim sighed. “Well, I’ve got to run. Tell Kiki to call me later. I want to hear about this new someone.”
“I will.”
They said their goodbyes and hung up, and Kat stared at the hedge against the fence, her gaze lost in the shadows between the leaves.
As a little girl, she’d thought she’d find someone to look at her the way her father looked at her mother. Instead, she’d been looked down on with hard eyes and lusted after like a toy, but never once had she felt the love, the undeniable, irrefutable love that she saw between her parents.
Maybe it didn’t exist. Maybe they were magic, an anomaly. Maybe it was the distance that made them love so deeply.
Or maybe it was just that Kat wasn’t made for love, not like her mom, not like Kiki. Maybe she was just too hard, too cold to let anyone in. And all she could ever do about it was dream.
The tile under Ares’s palm was cool despite the steam of the shower, never warming, even under his touch. Water streamed down his back, almost hot enough to burn.
He closed his eyes and found her face in the darkness.
Ares hadn’t seen Dita since he left the day before after hours wrapped up in her, reminded of all the reasons he wanted her, he needed her. And he hadn’t pressed her for more, hadn’t gone back, giving her a little space rather than taking what he wanted, which was more.
It was always more.
But waiting was not something he was accustomed to. A little restraint was a small price to pay — the more he stayed away, the more she would want him now that she’d had a taste. It was a dance they’d done so many times, he knew every step by heart and memory. He was even willing to lose, as much as he would hate it. But if he were going to lose, he’d lose with her naked and wrapped around him.
He found himself smiling as the water sluiced down the furrows and ridges of his back.
Dita giving Daphne to Apollo was the best thing that had happened to Ares in a thousand years. Adonis’s loss was Ares’s gain. She was his alone for the first time in too long.
The smile on his lips slipped away.
A caveat to Apollo’s reward was that he was indebted to Dita. And the closer the two grew, the more that relationship would put his secret in danger. His only comfort was in his oath with Apollo. Neither Apollo nor Ares could utter the truth about who had killed Adonis, and so Apollo would carry on taking the blame for Ares’s action. The bond was beyond their powers, and the truth had been hidden since Minotaurs guarded labyrinths and Olympus was atop a mountain of the same name.
Water pattered against his shoulders, and in his mind, he saw her — hair like spun gold, eyes blue and bright, her body and soul open and calling to him. She was all he’d ever wanted, and to love her set him free. But the power she had over him held him captive all the same. She belonged to him, but to take her, to keep her, she had to be claimed.
No god or man had ever claimed Aphrodite, though so many had tried. She took; she was never taken.
Not until Ares.
From the moment Ares had stirred with desire, Aphrodite was the only one he wanted. Of course, she’d seen him as nothing but an insolent child, even as he had grown into a man, and with every day, with every meeting, his determination would dig deeper with roots, searching for acknowledgement.
Until one day, he had seen the shift.
He stood in his chambers, admiring his new armor in his looking glass. The golden chest plate had been forged by Hephaestus, who had instilled it with magic and polished it until it shone — the sunlight beamed in from the windows, illuminating the surface.
Ares smiled at his reflection, squaring his shoulders before turning to leave, pausing at the table next to his door for his medallion. The familiar weight comforted him as he turned it over in his hand — two snakes knotted together, one white and one black, completing the circle with their tails in each other’s mouths. Ares considered it a token for good fortune, though Tyche, goddess of such matters, mocked him for it.
There was little in the world Ares hated more than being mocked.
He ran his thumb along the black snake’s body before tucking the medallion away in the pouch on his belt, striding through the halls of Olympus and into the dining hall. When he entered the wide room, his eyes found her, and hers found him. Neither looked away.
Her robes were the color of blood, her skin the color of milk, with eyes that burned behind long lashes, telling him without a word what she wanted. She could deny her feeling all she wished. The truth was written across her face, carried on her shallow breath across the room and into his heart.
Persephone, who sat at Aphrodite’s side, elbowed her as he approached.
Ares ignored them, sliding onto the bench across from them. He picked an apple out of the bowl of fruit on the table.
The goddesses’ eyes were amused as Aphrodite spoke. “May I help you, boy?”
Ares bristled. “I am no longer a boy and have not been for some time, a fact I would quite enjoy acquainting you with.”
Her voice was heavy with disdain. “Oh, I am quite sure you would.”
Persephone snickered, and Ares narrowed his eyes at her. Her brow rose in challenge, but he was undeterred. Persephone didn’t concern him, and neither
did Hades. Not that Ares wished for a fight, but he wouldn’t think twice about ending the God of the Underworld’s reign, nor would he walk away from the opportunity.
He’d always wanted his own dominion.
Ares turned his gaze to Aphrodite, smoothing his face. “Walk with me. My temple in Athens is complete, its glory known throughout Greece. You should know its glory.”
She sighed, looking incredibly bored. “Ares, I do not wish to walk anywhere with you, least of all to an entire temple devoted to you. Have you anything else to bother me with? Because we were in the middle of a very important conversation before you interrupted.”
Ares stood, his eyes intent on her as he walked around the table, stopping at her side with power and boldness rising in his chest. Curiosity colored her face, and when he lowered his lips to her ear, she leaned away. But his hand wound around her slender arm, pulling her closer.
“You will be mine and of your own volition, Aphrodite. You will want me, and you will sigh my name to the stars when I take you. Trust in this.”
When he stood and their eyes met, she wore a new expression. The goddess was caught in a mixture of desire and annoyance, appalled at his audacity and at herself for wanting him. He could read her like a book, no matter how she fought to hide from him.
There was nowhere for her to hide.
Ares tossed the apple in the air and caught it, his eyes holding her still as he took a bite. And, with a tip of his head, he turned to stroll from the room, red cloak whipping behind him.
Steam curled up around Ares, and he smiled at the memory. She had always been his siren, the one he couldn’t resist. He would fight through Tartarus for her, turn his back on any god or man for her favor, cross any distance to reach her. They were destined, fated, and she knew it just as well as he.
No longer would she deny him.
Ares turned off the water and dried himself, pausing with his towel in hand, standing naked before his mirror. What he saw was a wall of bone and muscle, sinew and will, built for war, built to win. And he would. He would win all that he wished, starting with her, starting right now.
Dita’s thumbnail had been chewed down to the quick as she paced the clearing in Elysium, white robes billowing behind her like the tail of a comet.
Adonis hadn’t come. Again.
She turned to walk back in the direction she’d come. She shouldn’t have been surprised; it had been well over a week since they fought over her freeing Daphne. And it wasn’t that she couldn’t see his side; she could and understood. She just saw the side he didn’t — the side that knew Apollo’s suffering.
No, Adonis wouldn’t speak to her, but he would speak to Perry, the only mother he’d ever known. It had taken her days, but she’d finally convinced him to agree to meet with Dita. So here she was, trying again, seemingly to no avail, with her stomach twisted in knots.
The brush rustled, and Adonis stepped through, his face shadowed and sharp, his back straight and stiff. He stopped just inside the clearing and crossed his arms.
Days of thinking and wishing and waiting for him ended with a shock that zipped up her back at actually seeing him in the flesh. She stepped in his direction, reaching for him without thinking. But his scowl deepened, the muscles of his arms and shoulders tensing, and she withdrew her hand, twining her fingers behind her back, tripping over her thoughts.
She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again before finally settling on the one thought that was always present.
“I have missed you,” she said softly to the grass and the trees and his heart.
Softness touched his eyes, nowhere else. “I have missed you as well.”
“Every time I close my eyes, I am here.”
He hesitated. “I know.”
“Yet you will not come to me.”
“What is left to be said? What could you say that would change what you have done?”
Her heart ached, and with a breath, she stepped toward him, encouraged when he didn’t step back. “Nothing. Everything. Will you give me the chance?”
With cold eyes, he scanned her face for a moment before nodding.
The tightness in her shoulders unwound just enough for her to realize they had been tense in the first place. “Come. Sit with me.”
He followed her, taking a seat by her side under the shade of the tree, watching as she smoothed out her robes. She fought the urge to touch him, choosing instead to run a finger over the gold trim of the fabric to keep her hand occupied. His body was tight and the silence uncomfortable as she sorted through all she wanted to say. A list had existed in her mind, a list that had disappeared the moment she saw his face. And with nowhere to start, she decided to begin with the simplest statement, the heart of the truth.
“I am sorry.” The words were solemn, earnest, honest.
“That is not enough to right the wrong,” he clipped.
Heat rose in her cheeks. “I know. I understand—”
“You do not understand, Aphrodite. If you did, you would never have betrayed me.”
She hardened at his words, carefully choosing her own. “No, I suppose I do not,” she said evenly. “But I have hurt you, and I am sorry for that.”
“But you are not sorry for what you did. You wish for my forgiveness, but I cannot grant it.”
The argument was the same as it ever had been, the same as always. “Thousands of years have passed, though I know you can’t understand — time here passes so differently. She was trapped, helpless all that time, and he suffered so—”
The tendons in his neck tightened. “What care have I for his suffering? You betrayed me, betrayed us, for the one who stole my life, stole you from me—”
“No, he did not! You live on in Elysium. You have me still, though now you ignore me. And had you drunk the nectar as I’d asked—”
Adonis stood, his forearms and biceps rippling with his clenching fists, but his voice was as calm as the center of a storm. “We will never agree, and you should not have come.”
“How can we come to an agreement if you refuse to speak to me?”
He turned to leave, and her words caught in her throat.
He can’t leave, not like this.
“Please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to live without you.”
His feet paused in their track, and when he turned it was with eyes sharp as blades and words hard as stone. “You should have considered that before you turned your back on me. And so, my goddess, this fate is your doing; your choice was made the moment you set her free.”
Her hands were numb as she stood, matching his anger with her hurt, with her rage at his presumption sparking her. “Do not lay blame on me when it is you who will not see reason.” She stepped toward him, fists at her sides. “No one tells me what I can and cannot do, not even you.”
Adonis squared his shoulders. “I never told you what to do, Aphrodite. I only hoped you would hold your love for me above all else.”
When he turned away once more, he never looked back.
Dita opened her eyes, back in her room as a frustrated tear slid down her cheek and onto her pillow.
Futility nestled into the hollow in her chest. He had thrown her love back at her as if it were a trifle, manipulating her by questioning her feelings, feelings he knew to be true. He had accused her of not seeing reason when he refused to even consider a side other than his own.
He wasn’t going to get over this, and neither was she. There was no argument to be made that hadn’t been made a hundred times. There was nothing she could offer and nothing he could say.
The impasse was a chasm too wide for their voices to carry across.
She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to cross it anymore.
The realization crept over her like a storm, blocking out the sun, crackling with lightning. Her life without him flashed through her mind, racking her with a shock of loneliness and fear. Life without her most familiar, her beloved. Her constant.
But what she feared m
ost of all was the whisper of relief she felt.
Tears spilled from her eyes, and she pulled a pillow into her chest, pressing it against her heart.
The elevator dinged, and when Dita turned, she found Ares walking into her room, arrogant and smug until he scanned her face. And then his eyes were only full of concern, his brows heavy with questions, his body tight with desire to protect her.
She opened her arms, and he slipped into her bed, wrapping his arms around her as she buried her face in his neck, breathing in the crisp scent of his soap.
“What’s wrong?” he asked against her hair so gently.
Her breath hitched, and she shook her head.
Ares leaned back, searching her face, capturing her chin. And then he looked into her eyes with determination she knew he could deliver and made her a promise she hoped he could keep.
“I will make you forget him.”
And he sealed the vow with a kiss.
Day 4
Dillon sipped stale coffee from a Styrofoam cup, the metal folding chair he sat in hard and uncomfortable, listening to Melanie, a waitress in his anger management group.
Her arms were folded across her chest, her face drawn. “Then, that fucker had the nerve to tell me he didn’t want onions after I specifically asked him if he’d wanted them and he’d said yes. I almost lost it.”
Dr. Lovell adjusted his reading glasses where they sat low on his nose, peering over the top of them at Melanie. “You said almost. What happened?”
“I almost bit my tongue off to stop myself from cussing him out and found my manager so she could deal with the asshole.”
He nodded, his smile small but present all the same. “You took time to think things through and rerouted your trigger to someone better equipped to handle the situation. You removed yourself. That’s progress.”
She sighed with a weary smile of her own. “This is the first job I’ve held for more than two weeks in the last five years.”
Congratulations rolled through the group, and Dr. Lovell turned his attention to Dillon, arms crossed over the legal pad in his lap.
