Shift (Hearts and Arrows Book 2)

by Staci Hart

  Dita leaned back on her elbows and chuffed at Perry. “I don’t know how educational or realistic that is, but okay. I could use a breather anyway.”

  Perry snickered. “Yeah, I bet you can. Plus, I want to hear what’s going on with Ares.”

  “And Kat and Dillon too. Man, they’re a beautiful mess,” Dita added.

  With a satisfied smile, Daphne flexed her feet to display her toes. “Did I do well?”

  “Daphne, I’m quite impressed,” Dita said as she leaned over to inspect the nymph’s toes. When she checked her watch, she glanced at her toes again. “Oh, screw it. I don’t want to wait for these to dry.” She snapped her fingers, and their toes were dry. “That’s better.”

  Dita strolled into her massive closet and stopped in front of the shelves of shoes, choosing a pair of tan boots before turning to sit on her bench to pull them on.

  “I, uh … I don’t actually have any shoes of my own, besides sandals.”

  She looked up to find an uncertain Daphne, fingers threaded in front of her, and smiled as she pulled a boot on. “Pick out whatever you like.”

  Daphne glanced at the shoes. “I’m not exactly sure …”

  Dita pushed her heel into her other boot and stood, hooking an arm with Daphne. “I’ve got you. Let’s see …”

  She took a look at Daphne’s peach dress, the simple cut modern and Grecian with subtle ruffles down to mid thigh. She was stunning.

  “It’s cold, so you’ll want to wear these.” Dita handed her a pair of cream tights and scanned her shoes. “Ah, and these.” She picked up a pair of gray suede ankle boots and handed them to Daphne, who looked at the tights warily as she sat on the cushioned bench. “Just put them on like pants.”

  Daphne pouted. “I have to wear pants even when I’m in a dress?”

  “Only in the winter,” Dita said with a laugh. She moved to her coats, choosing a leather jacket for herself and a gray peacoat for Daphne. “Perry, you good?”

  “I’m good.” Perry flipped the tops of her combat boots and stood to pull on her military jacket. Her black tee screen printed with a Victorian etching of a skeleton bride and groom holding hands on the front.

  “I love that shirt,” Dita said.

  “Queen of the Underworld. Gotta represent.” She pounded her chest.

  “You haven’t been wearing your glasses lately. You over them?”

  “For now. Plus, it’s not like I actually need them. Although maybe today?” Perry winked, and her black Buddy Holly glasses appeared in her hand. She slid them onto her tiny nose.

  “Perfect.”

  Daphne met them in the bathroom, and Dita extended her hands, closing her eyes when Perry and Daphne clasped them. When she opened them, the three stood inside a copse of trees in Central Park with rose petals around their feet.

  Daphne’s mouth popped open in wonder. She closed her eyes, smiling and tilting her face to the sun. “Oh, how I have missed Earth,” she breathed.

  Dita chuckled, but as she began to walk away, Perry grabbed her arm.

  “Wait, we can’t go out there like this.”

  Daphne looked confused. “Like what?”

  “Like goddesses,” Dita answered. “We could burn out some human eyeballs with our hotness.”

  Perry laughed, and Dita passed her palm in front of Perry’s face, then Daphne’s, and then her own. Their features softened and morphed into something a little less perfect and a little more human.

  “That’s better.” Dita dusted her hands. “Now at least we won’t explode any brains.” She linked arms with her friends, and they walked down a small hill to the sidewalk that led to the Central Park Mall, following their noses.

  The first street vendor they came to was an older man with a newsboy cap on his head and a scarf around his neck, his vest and slacks and shirtsleeves comfortably worn and rumpled — a little old-fashioned, which added to his charm. Kind eyes sparkled under his overgrown gray eyebrows, and his crooked nose hung over a lively smile.

  “Ah, hello, beautiful ladies,” he said cheerfully. “You have come to Demitri’s for lunch, yes?”

  Dita beamed. “You’re Greek.”

  He lit up at her observation. “I am, yes. Have you been there?”

  They all laughed.

  “A time or two,” Perry answered.

  “Ah, wonderful. Have you been to Mykonos?” He thumped his puffed out chest and smiled with pride. “That is where I am from.”

  Dita smiled. “I’ve been there a few times with a friend. He loves to party there.” She wondered if he would believe her if she told him her friend was Dionysus.

  “Tch.” He bashfully waved his hand. “To be young again. Well, my pretty girls, will you be having a hot dog?”

  Perry practically pushed Dita out of the way and said quite seriously, “Three dogs, please, with onions and mustard.”

  He nodded with esteem and shook a pair of tongs in her direction. “I love a woman who knows what she wants.” He winked and constructed three steaming hot dogs in paper trays, handing them over one at a time.

  Dita reached into her back pocket, and a hundred materialized between her fingers. But when she tried to hand it over, he raised his hands.

  “No, my beauty. This is my pleasure.”

  “Sweet Demitri, the pleasure is mine. Thank you.” She stuffed the Benjamin into his tip jar and walked behind the cart to press a kiss to his smiling cheek.

  He turned an amusing shade of red. “You will come see me again, yes?”

  “We will,” she answered.

  And they turned to walk away, waving over their shoulders.

  He stood a little taller, smoothing a hand over his paunch, watching the goddesses until he could see them no more.

  They walked until they found a bench and sat, silently digging into their hot dogs, interrupted occasionally with groans from Perry.

  “How come this is so much better than when I turn ambrosia into a hot dog?” she asked around a mouthful.

  Dita wiped mustard from the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. “It’s not. It’s just different eating on Earth. It’s the experience.”

  Perry reverently closed her eyes, her mouth still full. “I want to eat every meal here forever.”

  “It’s a shame we can’t live on human food.” Daphne took a very large bite of her hot dog.

  “Ugh, human food is so much work though,” Dita said. “You have to buy it, cook it, clean up after … it takes too much time. Ambrosia is easy. Plus it makes us live forever, so there’s that.”

  She pushed the last bite into her mouth and wiped her messy fingers with a napkin before sitting back, tipping her chin to follow the branches of the trees up to the sky. “I love Earth. We should move back.”

  Perry snorted and pushed her glasses up her nose. “Good luck convincing Zeus.”

  “What a wet blanket. He always makes everything harder than it has to be.” Dita crossed her legs and shifted in her seat.

  “Speaking of always hard, how’s Ares?” She took a bite of her hot dog, her eyes laughing at Dita even if her mouth was full.

  “Ha, ha. Harder than ever. Thanks for asking,” Dita answered cheerfully.

  “You guys are so weird,” she said before swallowing. “I’ll never understand it. How can you compete against him so seriously and still fuck his brains out?”

  Daphne choked on a bite of hot dog, and Perry patted her on the back.

  “Sorry, Daphne.”

  Dita shrugged and answered, “It’s what we do. The competition kind of fuels the fucking.”

  “How are you planning on winning? Dillon can be a real asshole.” Perry turned back to her hot dog.

  “He can be. I think he’s hit a turning point though. If he can keep his shit together and his mouth shut, this will be over sooner than later. I owe him a win in the love department anyway.”

  Perry gave her a stern look. “Dita, what did you do?”

  Daphne swallowed the dislodged hot dog an
d wiped a tear away, her voice husky. “What do you owe him?”

  “Happiness. I might have inadvertently screwed his life up.” Perry opened her mouth to speak, but Dita cut her off. “It wasn’t a curse, okay? Just hear me out.”

  Perry looked at her last bite sadly and wrapped it in the paper, seeming to have lost her appetite. “Go on.”

  Dita turned her gaze to a passerby. “Moira was so beautiful and alive when she met Jimmy and fell in love, but within a few years of them moving to America, his drinking spun out of control. That was when he started hitting her. She lost a baby before she had Dillon because he’d beaten her so badly.”

  “Oh gods,” Daphne breathed, her fingertips touching her lips.

  “It was … it was awful. No one should live like that, but she wouldn’t leave Dillon with Jimmy, and she couldn’t take him with her. There was no way she could support him on her salary. There was nothing I could do to make her leave.” She thought for a moment. “Actually, there were some things I could have done, but I didn’t want to leave Dillon with Jimmy either. I did grant her some happiness though. I matched her with a handsome dark-haired man with deep brown eyes who worked with her. She was so lonely that betraying her vows for human contact barely fazed her, even though it was never enough for her to leave Jimmy and Dillon.”

  “Dita … ” Perry said softly.

  Dita fixed her gaze on a murder of crows perched in a massive oak tree, not wanting to meet her eyes. “Hera was pissed. She hates me — and with good reason since I’ve been making an ass out of her for eons — but she’s always looking for a way to return the favor. She took it as a personal affront on her marital turf that Moira had cheated. Her revenge was to make Moira get pregnant. With Owen.”

  “That bitch,” Perry whispered as she sat back against the bench.

  Dita nodded. “When Owen was born with dark hair and brown eyes from a family of fair blonds, Jimmy knew. When the beatings got worse, Moira convinced her lover to leave New York. Because, if Jimmy figured it out, if he went after the man … well, he would be killed. So he left.”

  “How could he leave her?” Perry’s mouth hung open.

  “He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t convince her to come with him. She believed Jimmy would never let her go, that he would find her, find all of them. Jimmy would have killed them all if he had figured it out. Hera had big plans; she wanted Moira’s lover dead and was furious when he got away. So she paid Ares in tokens to work up Jimmy’s anger, his jealousy, his suspicion. And then he pushed Jimmy over the edge. Jimmy waited for her to get off of work. He pulled her into an alley, and he beat her until her heart stopped, beat her long after she was dead.”

  The three all sat in silence, staring off.

  “Her lover came back for her when he could, but she was already gone.” Dita shook her head and continued. “Dillon always protected Owen from Jimmy. And that sacrifice made Dillon who he is. I owe him a real love.”

  “What about Kat?” Daphne picked up her hot dog, which had been momentarily abandoned in her lap.

  Dita smiled. “I love her mother and father. Their love story is a good one.” She settled back in the bench. “So, Katsu had an arranged marriage to another gang leader’s daughter, Yuki, who happens to be a psycho bitch. Katsu never loved her, though he’d tried, thought he could. But Hera is constantly whispering in her ear, always trying to push her, to guide her, to change her fate. No one takes Yuki seriously anymore — she’s too much of a shrew. She could have had a chance at happiness, but Hera ruined her.”

  Perry chuffed and folded her arms across her chest. “Sounds about right.”

  “Exactly. Katsu could never love her — he has too much self-respect — and Yuki’s pride has kept her a universe away from him. He was so unhappy, so I led him to Kim. They’re perfect for each other, but they can never really be together.”

  Daphne’s eyes were big. “That is so very sad. Poor Kim.”

  “They have each other, and they’re content with that. Kim accepted her situation long ago, and I think I might be able to get them in the same city — eventually at least. Katsu wants her near, and I have a feeling he’ll get his way.”

  “He doesn’t seem like a typical gangster,” Perry said.

  “He’s not. He’s got a … softness, a kindness about him that men in his position don’t usually possess — though mostly just with the girls and Kim — but that doesn’t make him less terrifying. The man knows when to flip the switch, and when he does, you should look out. He can be ruthless.”

  “Sounds like a badass.” Perry’s glasses slid down her nose, and she pushed them back up.

  “He is. That’s where Kat gets it. If she were a man, she would have a place in the yakuza. She would do it too, if Katsu were allowed to ask her.” Dita stuffed her hands in her coat pockets. “I wonder how things are going to end up with her and Dillon.”

  Daphne’s eyes were on her hot dog as she adjusted her grip on it. “He hasn’t been very kind to her, but at least he apologized.”

  “I think he’s coming around. Or at least, I hope he is. Ares picked a good one this time.”

  Perry chuckled. “Kat was swooning after the race. Holy cow.”

  Dita crossed her ankles in front of her. “She’s got it bad, but it’s going to take a lot to get her to commit to something deeper than the physical. Plus, when you add her fears about Eric … I don’t know. She’s just got baggage. Of course, so does he.”

  “You’ll work it out,” Perry said with confidence. “You always do.”

  “I have reason to hope.” Dita stood and turned to her friends. “Let’s go shopping after our walk. Fifth Avenue?”

  “Sounds good to me. We can continue Daphne’s first-class education in modern Earth and get her a modern wardrobe while we’re at it. I’m pretty sure wearing a strophion around Midtown would get some weird looks.”

  Daphne crumpled up her wrapper and swallowed her last bite. “Couldn’t we just create our own clothes?”

  Dita smirked and hooked arms with Daphne when she stood. “We could, but where’s the fun in that?”

  Ares needed a plan.

  He paced the length of his apartment, the state of the competition sizzling in his mind like a live wire. The race the night before had not gone as he’d planned, and he wasn’t sure what his next move would be.

  What he’d planned was for Dillon to have his ego bruised badly enough to trigger a fight. What had happened was a weak showing of skill and a weaker display of self-respect. He’d tucked tail when he shouldn’t have. And now, Ares could feel the competition slipping away from him, leaving him with no options to turn it around.

  What he did know was that he’d exhausted the paths he could see, and he needed help to uncover the paths he couldn’t. Hera was the obvious option, but he hated asking her for favors. She made him feel like a child, helpless and incapable. He didn’t have many other allies, none who were astute or cunning enough to help him with this.

  Except Eris.

  He stopped halfway across the room and smiled. His sister Eris was the Goddess of Discord. She would know how to drive a wedge between Kat and Dillon better than anyone.

  Ares headed to his elevator, taking it down to the fourth floor, one of the common apartment floors for the lesser gods, relieved to have someone else on his side, someone who could actually help. When he stepped off the elevator, he made his way down to her apartment.

  All the doors on that floor were red, but she’d painted hers black.

  With his big fist, he rapped on the door, and when it opened to Eris, looking bored, he shook his head, amused. Her hair was long and black, her skin creamy and white. Two gold rings pierced her lip on one side, and a bull ring hung from her septum — appropriate because she was one of the most stubborn gods he’d ever known. Her black hoodie was up, and her deep brown eyes, lined with kohl, assessed him.

  “What’s up?” She leaned on the doorframe and shoved her hands into her hoodie pocke
t.

  “Hey, Eris. Got a minute?”

  She rolled her eyes and said flatly, “My name is Strife. How many times do I have to say it?”

  Ares brushed past her. “Probably a million, Strife, because that name is fucking stupid.”

  Eris huffed and closed the door behind him. “That’s what Eris means in English, so I don’t see how it’s different.”

  “Because Strife sounds like some lame emo-goth … oh, wait. It all makes perfect sense.”

  Her face was unamused and as flat as a pancake, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  The living room was all damask and velvet in reds and blacks.

  “It looks like a fucking vampire lives here,” he said as he flopped onto her couch, which had bronze claw feet, and propped his boots on her coffee table, an elaborate French monstrosity.

  “Well, your apartment looks like a frat house, so to each their own.” She dropped into a blood-red velvet wingback armchair and crossed her legs in black-and-cream-striped leggings. They looked like an Escher painting. “So what’s going on? Besides you losing. Again.”

  He ignored the jab, folding his arms across his chest. “I could use some advice.”

  “Yeah, you could. Your player’s in a bad way over Kat. Way to go, champ.”

  “He was supposed to lose his shit when he lost that race.” Ares caught himself pouting and straightened his face back out.

  “So much for that. I have a bad feeling once she sees him fight, you’ll be in seriously deep shit.”

  “I’ve got to do something to stir the pot, and you’re the best pot-stirrer I know.”

  She smiled, if one could call the slight change in the shape of her lips a smile. “I mean, I did start the Trojan War, so …”

  “Pure genius. You created a war from nothing, plucked it from the air and made it be.”

  Eris folded her arms and scowled, any hint of a smile gone, just like that. “I have never been so pissed in my life. If Zeus hadn’t stopped my entry into Peleus and Thetis’s wedding, everything would have been fine. But nooooo.” Her scowl deepened.

  “To be fair, you’re kind of a downer.”

  “Fuck that. Did he really think I would walk away from that insult?” She shrugged. “It was so easy to wreck that whole party. The vainest bitches ever were in attendance. Throw a golden apple in the mix labeled To the Fairest and voilà. Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena go apeshit.”