Hannah threw herself in front of him, making me abort. “Don’t you dare. I’ve never had a half-decent date and you’re not going to kill the one guy who could give it to me.”
Pierce gave her a fond smile and pulled her into the crook of his arm. “My champion.”
I took several deep and even breaths. The bodice of my dress felt like a torture chamber and I wanted to rip it off so I could get enough air into my lungs.
But that would have been crazy.
“Explain,” I said with a forced smile, to show how calm I was.
“Too many teeth, kitten,” Hannah murmured.
I stopped smiling.
Pierce gestured with his hands as he spoke, keeping Hannah close against him. “Your first kiss started the process.”
“How fairy tale,” Festos said.
“Yeah, I’m not digging being downgraded to Disney prince status,” Kai said.
“Your ego is astounding,” Hannah said.
“Like much of me,” Kai agreed, deliberately misunderstanding her.
“Really? Because it’s not really working for me,” I said.
“Like you’d prefer me modest,” he scoffed.
Fair enough.
Pierce sat forward, speaking insistently. “That kiss should have happened with the two of you in love. Proper liplock, proper awakening.”
“Except, we’re not in love.” My shoulders were bunched up around my ears with tension. “All this pressure is just making everything harder. I like Kai but I can’t rev my emotions up because we’re on a timeline.” Gawd this was so frustrating.
“Use the arrows on them and let’s get the location already,” said Theo.
Pierce shook his head. “First off, they are in love, so I’m not sure what the big deal is. And second of all, even if they weren’t, it doesn’t work that way. I can’t just magic them into being in love.”
“But that’s what you were going to do with Bethany,” I said.
Pierce tilted his head, not speaking.
He’s thinking, Hannah mouthed at me.
A few moments later, he looked at me. “It’s like this, yeah? Aphrodite gets her power from love. But she can’t force people to fall in love. All she can do is find two people with potential and then have me provide the spark that she hopes they turn into a flame. I have to provide a lot of sparks before we get a love that takes. Savvy?”
“How would that have been such a misery for Bethany?”
Pierce glared at me. Yikes. I reconsidered angering this god. “Did you or did you not experience an exceedingly intense attraction to Kyrillos?”
Kai turned to me with a blatantly curious look.
“Yes,” I muttered. “And you did too, so shut up.”
He grinned.
“And that was when you were on such high alert that my arrow couldn’t even spark you properly. Due to your goddess side, and Kyrillos being a god, you were both able to mitigate the effects somewhat.”
He crossed one foot onto the opposite knee. “Pure humans are helpless in my wake. Right, so now try to imagine the feeling if it had consumed you. Amp up what you’d felt by a factor of a billion. And make it one-sided.”
I winced. That would have been unbearable. Had I known, I’m not even sure I would have wished that on Bethany. Well, maybe.
Pierce smiled. “Now you get the picture.”
“What about ‘love at first sight?’” Hannah asked. She leaned in to Pierce, a rapt look on her face. For Hannah, having Pierce explain magic love “scientifically” was like foreplay.
He shrugged. “Brilliant PR. Aphrodite plants the idea enough, people believe it. For those susceptible? I spark them and whoosh. The more they think they’re in love, the more they work at it. The more they work at it, the more they’re in love.”
“Self-fulfilling,” Hannah said. “Clever.”
“She has to be,” Pierce replied. “Aphrodite isn’t powerful like Zeus. She comes across like a right ditz, yeah, but she’s managed to keep how her power really works a secret.” He looked at each of us sternly in turn. “I need to know I can trust you.”
We all nodded. Even I wasn’t going to out Aphrodite like that.
Pierce continued. “What you must realize, is that whether Aphrodite provides a spark or not, in the end, only the two lovers can fan the flame. Can make that leap from spark or crush or attraction—whatever you want to call it—to love.” He smiled. “That part is never magic. It’s all heart.”
“That’s so sweet,” Festos dabbed at his eyes.
Pierce stood and shook out his legs. “It is. And that’s how Aphrodite has survived in people’s minds and hearts where a lot of other gods faded away.”
I thought Pierce was being pretty profound. Given the adoring look on Hannah’s face, she did too.
“You might think you’re skeptical of love but you’re brimming with it. Look at how deep it runs for your friends,” Pierce said to Hannah, his gaze warm. He reached out a hand and pulled her up. “That’s why Aphrodite went crazy for you.”
“Just Aphrodite?” she asked with a coy look.
Pierce’s grin widened.
Hannah blushed.
It was hilarious to see her all rattled. But I was still screwed. “What are we going to do?”
“Kiss her,” Pierce ordered Kai.
“It won’t work,” I protested.
Pierce looked at me sharply then motioned at Kai. “Kiss. Her.”
“If you insist.” Kai kissed me.
It was a really fine kiss.
I mean, wow. Like a ten from the Russians and a lot of hooting from my friends. Except Theo, whose very audible “grrr” rated it minus a billion.
This kiss was the fairytale kiss of pure romance. Soft and sweet, with no doubt that it was cementing a happily-ever-after. The kiss of every girl’s dreams.
But it didn’t retrieve squat.
Kai pulled back. He looked into my eyes, searching.
I shook my head.
Disappointment flashed in his eyes.
“That should have worked,” Pierce said. He sounded stunned.
The ache in my chest was definitely only because the clock was ticking and the memory spell was still in place.
“Is there somewhere Sophie and I can talk? Privately?” Kai asked.
Festos pointed to one of the other doors. “Through there.”
Kai took my hand and led me into Festos’ bedroom. He shut the door.
The room was just as sleek and modern as the rest of the place. A large bed with bright, graphic bedding took up most of the space. A flat screen TV was mounted on the wall across from the bed, with a bamboo dresser below it. Bamboo side tables flanked the bed.
Kai sat me on the edge of the bed and leaned a hip against the dresser. “What did I tell you when you found me cuffed?”
Not what I expected him to say, but sure, I’d play along. “That Hades had poisoned himself as a test of your loyalty, and that you chose me.”
Kai gave a bitter smile. “Hades would halt the torture every once in a while to make me a proposition.” His hands were pressed together, white knuckled. His eyes had a far-away look. “All would be forgiven, he’d even bequeath me the Underworld, if I went back and killed you.”
“You said ‘no,’ right?” My stomach fluttered. I hoped I understood this correctly. “Turned him down. Chose me so I could help you defeat him. Team Sophie, yay?” My voice had gotten a smidge higher and more panicky.
I thought I understood the situation but there was always the chance the Kai was about to break out the evil laugh, tell me if he couldn’t have Persephone, he didn’t want me living and end me right then and there.
Kai shifted and brought his attention back to me with a fond smile. Like I was somewhat slow.
He sat down beside me and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Goddess, I didn’t choose you to help me defeat my father.”
He paused. I wanted to strangle him, I was so keyed up to hea
r what he was going to say next.
My smile might have trembled the tiniest bit.
Kai dropped his own smile and shoved his fingers through his hair, creating little spiky tufts. “Goddesses are easy. Sure, they’re vain and temperamental, but I know how to handle them. But you. You were this prickly, mouthy, human girl. And I couldn’t figure you out and I couldn’t get you to fall in line and you just kept getting under my skin.”
He gave me a look of anger mixed with yearning and despair. As if I was supposed to understand. But honestly? I was so lost.
“You don’t remember us. I do.” His brow furrowed. “At first, it was just confusing because I kept seeing glimpses of Persephone in this stranger. But then, it all started to get tangled up. I felt like I was betraying Persephone.”
My stomach clenched in anxiety. Yeah, Kai being honest was better than Kai playing head games, which is what I felt he’d done when we first met. But it wasn’t actually easier to hear.
I was going to have to reconcile myself to the magnificence that was Persephone or drive myself mad with insecurity and feelings of inadequacy.
“I get it.” I force myself to meet his gaze and not stare at the floor. “You loved her so much. Her loss devastated you.”
“Sophie,” Kai began.
I cut him off. “You’re not betraying her, you know,” I said insistently.
Kai looked at me, confused.
“Having to fall in love with me. It’s just battle strategy. It doesn’t lessen what you felt for her.”
Did it hurt to reassure him like this? Sure. I wasn’t a saint. My feelings for him, whatever they were, hadn’t disappeared.
Every word I spoke to Kai reassuring him about his love for Persephone cut my soul like a knife.
Maybe one day Kai and I could have a chance at something real, maybe we couldn’t. It didn’t change the fact that right now, he needed to hear this and know I believed it. That he should too.
Damn. Personal growth was hard.
Kai gave me a measured look. “You’re not listening, stubborn girl. Everything got tangled up because I started to have feelings for you.”
My brain locked onto the word “feelings” like a heat-seeking missile. I mustered up all my courage and asked, “Feelings?”
I felt the weight of his gaze for a long moment before he blinked and looked away. “You scared me. Because what I felt for Persephone was nothing compared to what I thought I might feel for you.”
Kai glanced down before hitting me with a look of such intensity it stole my breath away. “I didn’t want to be at someone’s mercy again,” he said. “Couldn’t deal with the idea of loving someone and losing them again. So I used the ritual as a convenient excuse.”
A faint blush tinged his cheeks and he watched me … nervously?
Ack! I think, in his roundabout way, he was telling me that he loved me.
But did I love him back?
If I defined love as heady, at first sight, unicorns, rainbows, and floating hearts, then no. I didn’t.
But as something deeper? Scarier? Flawed? Wanting Kai to be the one by my side as we fought, as we laughed, that I kissed? Who infuriated me and who, past the posturing and the defenses, made my blood turn to slow molasses? Whose entire maddening, caring, wonderful self made my heart beat faster?
I did.
I loved Kai.
My breath had seized, my palms were clammy, and my heart was racing. I wanted this, despite how scary it was. Didn’t mean I didn’t want to hear him spell out his feelings in his own words.
Preferably three of them.
“Go on,” I squeaked.
Kai brushed his knuckles along my cheek. “Goddesses aren’t half as challenging as humans. You drive me nuts and I still can’t stay away from you.”
He shifted to face me full-on, took my face in his hands, and gazed into my eyes, utterly serious. Utterly focused. “Saya-ga-po, Sophie. I love you.”
Kai loved me.
Me!
Amazing how three very short words could make me plummet. Hard. Lose all sense of the ground under my feet and which way was up.
Kai tapped me on the shoulder. “Anything you care to say to me?”
I grinned. “Nope. I’m good.”
Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say it. I just wanted a moment of pure smugness to have it be all about me.
It mattered that Kai had said it first, but not in the way I’d expected it to. Not because this was a competition, or I was being petty and wanted to win.
It was just that other than Hannah, no one had ever told me they loved me.
Hearing Kai say the words freely, not because he had to or in response to me—meant everything.
I couldn’t stop my massive grin. My heart did a joyous samba and my usually evil voice of insecurity was singing “He loves me!”
Squee infinity and yay me!
Reality intruded on my happy place. I still needed the memories back. Because amazing as it was that Kai loved me, losing Hannah when Hades and Zeus destroyed the ritual location and turned the world to crap would utterly destroy me.
Which meant I needed access to everything in Persephone’s brain.
Maybe I had to declare my love aloud for the kiss to work. But first I wanted to come clean about my insecurities regarding Persephone and my own past behavior towards Kai. A declaration of this importance needed some build up.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding worried.
I twisted my fingers nervously, trying to sort through how to begin. “I feel really disgusted by my behavior. Never once considering what this must have been like for you.” I risked a glance at Kai.
He watched me warily. Guess he’d been expecting me to lead with something else. “You were always willing to think the worst of me.”
I nodded. “I know. But it’s not like you bothered to clarify.”
Kai reached over and placed his hand on mine, stilling my nervous twisting. “It’s not like you asked.”
I exhaled heavily. “Right. I’m not very good at considering other people.”
Kai looked surprised. “What are you talking about? You do it with Hannah and Theo all the time. And your classmates.”
I gave a shaky laugh. “Yeah, well, they don’t scare me like you do. And with them, there’s no one to measure up against.”
Kai squeezed my hands. “You don’t need to measure yourself against her.”
“I do though. No,” I held up a hand to cut off his protests. “Hear me out. I’ve never been anyone extraordinary. Just hanging around waiting for the day my life would start. Then I discovered that I was actually a goddess with powers and a destiny. As much as being awoken helped me realize how great Sophie was, because I’ve been the one actively dealing with all this, and doing a pretty good job, I think …”
Kai nodded.
“Well, on a capability level, my confidence zoomed off the charts. But on an emotional level? Demeter arranged for stars to shine in the sky when she lost Persephone. You defied Hades for her when she was held captive. I didn’t really inspire anything.”
“I’m sorry I was a douche,” he said, nudging my leg with his knee. It was the first time I’d seen Kai look truly remorseful.
I patted his leg. “It’s okay. You had your reasons.” I shook my head sharply to clear it. “I’m not saying all this to fish for compliments or even whine. I just want to be honest. I felt so inadequate next to her in a lot of ways. And I’m working on it. Because I think I’m great.”
“I do, too,” he said quietly.
“But I’m laying myself bare here. From now on? No more games. From either of us. I’ll be honest with you and you be honest with me. No matter how hard it is, or what we’re feeling. Because this thing between us? It’s not just between us, no matter how much we wish it was. It’s Romeo and Juliet squared by infinity with the specter of the ex thrown in for good measure. And we can’t let all that bring us down.”
I laced my fingers into his, p
artially because I wanted to touch him and partially to give myself something to hold onto so my own hands wouldn’t shake. Snarkiness was easy. Vulnerability was terrifying.
But necessary.
I took a deep breath and just spilled it in a rush. “All this to say, I think I’m worth it and you’re worth it. And most of all, we’re worth it.”
Kai leaned forward, insistently. “Then say it. Don’t be scared. I love you.”
I opened my mouth, feeling more emotionally laid out than ever before.
But before I could utter a single word, my head exploded.
I shrieked at what felt like the world’s stickiest bandage ripping painfully off of my brain.
Billions of images cascaded through my mind. I followed a pair of legs down a white and gold corridor, looking way up to see my father’s head …
The fragments tumbled so fast, so furious. I cried out, doubling over from the pain.
I was surrounded by green light. Drowning in it. I reached a hand up to try and bat it away. Make the pain of my brain rupturing stop.
My mother with a picnic basket beckoning me forward …
The memories flew faster and faster, too many to process and sort through, changing, getting darker …
Giant black spots swam in and out of my vision. My head throbbed and pulsed.
In Hades, opening a secret passageway into Tartarus, the cries of the damned chilling my soul …
My breath turned shallow, too much, overloading …
I was clawing, at the air, at my head … jumbled images swirling around me in fragments …
Heavy, gelatinous darkness sucked me down. So easy to just sink.
Hands grasping at me. A familiar touch.
I had to get back to that person. Fighting and struggling through the darkness toward a brilliant point of light.
A chandelier, my final moment in the Underworld …
Then back into light, again green, now soothing, and the sensation of floating to the surface.
I blinked back to awareness in Festos’ room, my hands clasping Kai’s in a death grip.
He pulled me toward him, practically crushing me in his hug as his body sagged in relief.
“The memories,” I said, my chest hollow with utter despondency from the magnitude of the experience.
My Date From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy Book Two) Page 27
