It felt great, but also weird because Eryx had never acted like this before. Likeable, but unlike. I looked at him harder. His eyes were beautiful, but strange, too. I knew what it was then.
“Did you take something?” I asked.
With his free hand, Eryx pulled a tin container of breath mints out of his shorts pocket and flipped it open. A rainbow of tablets looked up at me. Each one had on it a smiley face with a pair of wings. I grimaced.
“Shit,” I said. “I thought you said that stuff gets you killed.”
“Dealing, yeah,” he said, moving his hand over my chest again. “But taking kills the edge some days. The world feels better. Everything feels better. Pain becomes pleasure and pleasure becomes … ecstasy.” He laughed a little at the joke and set the tin aside. The little winged smileys continued to look innocently up at me.
“Shit,” I said again. I should have been mad at him, but I didn’t have the energy, and I definitely didn’t want him to pull away. I wanted to put my own arms around him, feel more skin against mine. But something held me back. I thought of Irene, of all her colors and her shining face and bright laugh.
“Help me, Danny,” Eryx said into my ear, and I shivered. He put his other arm around me, clinging harder than a dying man. “I’m floating away from the ground, flying to the mountaintops on wings of wax and glass. All the sensations, all the emotions, are pulling me apart, and I’m losing myself in air and mist. Hold me down, Danny. Be strong for me. Keep me here.” Tears slid from his azure eyes and crept down his cheeks like thieves. “I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave you.”
Before I even knew what I was doing, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his body. His hot skin burned against me. Eryx buried his face in my neck and shook, every sob a broken lock. I felt his salt water run beneath my collar and held him tighter. I wanted to protect him, and I realized I’d been feeling like this ever since he’d sat next to me on the bus, when his head rested on my shoulder. He pressed his chest against me, ran his arms up and down my back, kissed me hard like he was devouring sensation. It felt exciting and scary and great—for a second.
The world clicks, snaps, pops into place.
I’m with him, beside him, part of him.
Flash
I’m with them, beside them, part of them.
The world falls apart into icy nothing.
The winged smiley looked up at me from Eryx’s fingertip. “Take it,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
“No.”
I was sitting with my back against the wall, my knees drawn up against my chest. My heart was pounding and I was sweating a little in clothes that had been salted by the sea.
“Seriously, it’s okay,” Eryx said. His eyes were still enormous. “It takes away the fear. For a while.”
“No.”
He reached out to touch my hair, and I flinched, remembering other fingers. He dropped his hand. “I’m not one of Them.”
“I know.”
His eyes grew pleading. “I need you, Danny. Don’t slide away from me now. I can’t survive alone anymore.”
The need to help him, to protect him, made my arm come up, but the Haidou Hotel pushed it back down. I shook my head, mute. Eryx was wrong—I wasn’t strong at all.
Eryx looked at me, then put the smiley into his own mouth and leaned toward me. “I’ve already had two of these,” he said. “If you don’t take this one away, I’ll be in trouble. My temperature will soar, and I’ll cook from the inside out.”
“Eryx!” I bolted forward and kissed him. His eyes went wide, a little startled at how fast I reacted, then closed. I felt the tablet go from his mouth to mine, and I swallowed. Then I grabbed my mug from the floor and drank.
It didn’t take long. I hadn’t eaten for hours. The fear I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying dropped away, and I felt good—hell, I felt fucking fantastic—for the first time in days. Every nerve ending fired off tiny points of pleasure. I hungered for touch, for closeness, and Eryx was there. I touched him, and it was like touching the skin of a god. He ran both hands through my hair, and I shuddered at the intensity. His whole body was touching mine through his fingers. The weird thing was that I wasn’t hard. I should have been, but I wasn’t. It didn’t bother me—sensation was more important than simple sex. I ran my hands over every inch of Eryx’s body. His skin was marble, velvet, air, and silk all at once. My own skin thirsted, tried to drink him down in frantic gulps. We kissed yet again, and again, and then again.
I merged with Eryx, with his very blood, and with the water in the world. I flowed, sloshed, made gentle droplets, but also felt capable of becoming an angry tidal wave. I filled the cracks and crevices, made puddles, pools, and lakes. I felt tiny drops falling down to merge with me and looked up to see my mother. She was sitting on the edge of the dock, the one behind Myron’s house, and she was crying. Her tears dripped onto me, into me. I wanted to call out to her, but I had no voice except the rush and lap of water against the pilings of the dock. I wanted to reach for her, but I had no hands except the ebb and flow of waves on the surface of the lake. She wiped at her face and whispered my name.
And then I was oozing through damp, chilly earth, part of the ground surrounding a plain coffin with Uncle Zack in it. He was still alive, big, bearded, and handsome in his funeral suit, just lying there with his arms at his side, staring at the coffin lid and blinking every few minutes. His body was turning transparent, fading over weeks and months, fading into nothing. I watched him go, feeling responsible.
And then I was back with Eryx on the mattress. Irene was there, too. She had slipped into the two of us, joining us so smoothly I barely noticed when she arrived. Colors leaped and jumped where she moved—pink and red and orange and yellow. Her fingers on my face left little rainbow trails. We smiled at her and she smiled at us.
I yearned for her touch, needed to feel her skin on mine. When she was near, I felt free, like I could vanish into the sky and land anywhere I wanted. I touched her lips with my fingertip and they felt pink, sounded soft, looked sweet. Eryx touched her hair and mine, letting our strands wander through his fingers. It was weird, wanting both Irene and Eryx at the same time. I felt like I should pick one and run. But I didn’t. It felt fine to have Irene there, to have her there with Eryx, and I let myself enjoy that.
Thunder boomed overhead. “Ganymede!”
Ganymede flinched and flung up an arm up. Prometheus still hung upside-down and unconscious from his rock, his wound gaping open but healing. Iris looked around nervously.
“Shit!” Ganymede whispered, his sympathy for Prometheus was driven away by fear. “Zeus found us.”
“He’s just calling you, dummy,” Iris said. “You need to go to him. Fast!”
Ganymede thought about how long it had taken him and Iris to get here. “Uh …”
“Just go! He won’t be looking for where you come from. Use the goblet.”
He pulled the goblet from his belt and thought about Zeus. In that instant he knew where to go and exactly how to travel there. He grabbed Iris’s hand, and the universe washed up and down around them until they were standing at the door to Zeus’s chambers.
“Ganymede!”
Iris kissed him quickly on the cheek and vanished. Ganymede hurried inside. Zeus was storming around the luxurious, roofless room, no doubt upset over Prometheus. His hair and beard bristled, and small lightning bolts arced from his body. Air rushed around him, making his purple tunic billow. The place crackled with power. It was an impressive sight, and Ganymede had to force himself to speak instead of stand and stare in awe. He also felt a twinge of fear. This was the guy—god—who moments ago had torn the freaking heart out of Prometheus because the titan had refused to tell him that he had installed his eventual killer in his bedroom. Zeus also had no idea that Ganymede knew why Zeus was in such a foul mood, and Ganymede needed to keep it that way.
“I’m sorry it took me so long, Lord Zeus,” Ganyme
de said. “I’m still learning my way around. Did you want something to drink?”
He held out the goblet. Zeus snatched it, drained the nectar in a single gulp, and threw it back at Ganymede, who caught it without trying. Zeus still hadn’t spoken. Ganymede was himself a prince and used to people doing stuff for him when he got pissed off, but he had also waited on his cranky old teacher back on Earth, and he knew how to be the proper servant. Besides that, Zeus was still impressive and powerful and charismatic. Even with his shoulders hunched, he thrummed with energy. Powerful, perfectly chiseled muscle bunched and moved beneath smooth skin, and it felt like the whole damn universe was waiting for his next move.
“Is something bothering you, my lord?” Ganymede asked.
Zeus flung himself down on a huge divan, scowling. “Nothing I need to talk about.”
Uncertainly, Ganymede moved behind him and put both hands on Zeus’s hard shoulders, kneading and pushing at the tense muscles. It was something he’d done often enough for his teacher. Zeus closed his eyes and Ganymede felt him relax a little. Then Zeus’s hand came up and touched Ganymede’s briefly. A little spark leapt between them and Ganymede gasped.
“You’re fine and beautiful, Ganymede,” Zeus said. “It makes me feel better just feeling you in the room.”
Ganymede flushed with pleasure at the praise and his chest swelled with pride that he had pleased the great Zeus in even a small way. But it also felt strange. Only moments ago, the guy had been torturing Prometheus. The image of the eagle ripping out the titan’s golden heart flashed before him, and he had to force his hands not to clench as they continued working Zeus’s muscles. Yet this powerful, handsome man desired Ganymede, made him feel wanted and appreciated. Loved.
How could he be fated to kill Zeus? Every time Ganymede looked at the king, he felt the ache to please mingled with that wonderful, uplifting pride of being chosen, and whether the feelings were real or the result of some divine hold Zeus had on him, Ganymede didn’t know. Didn’t care. Right now, touching Zeus, being close to him, he felt at home, like he had finally found his place. How could he possibly kill Zeus? Ganymede worked his way down Zeus’s shoulders and across his back. Zeus made a rumbling sound of appreciation. Maybe Ganymede should just tell him what Prometheus had said. Zeus was the most powerful god in the freaking universe. He would know what to do to prevent it. Zeus loved Ganymede. He had said so. And while Ganymede didn’t really love Zeus, he did feel awe and admiration.
“My lord Zeus?” Ganymede began.
“Ye-e-s?” Zeus said, drawing out the word. He looked slightly irritated, as if an insect were buzzing around his head.
And then the image of Prometheus chained to the rock returned. Even the most powerful of gods couldn’t outwit or overwhelm fate. But they could delay it. Zeus might not be able to kill Ganymede to prevent the murder, but he could imprison Ganymede for ten thousand years, chop off his hands so he couldn’t hold a sword, rip off his feet so he couldn’t stand. And Ganymede had seen today first-hand how self-serving Zeus could be. He had set aside his own daughter for a mortal boy he had spied upon but never met. Every day he tortured another god who wouldn’t do what he ordered. And, maybe most telling, less than a day after declaring Ganymede his favorite, he had told a shepherdess he had just met the exact same thing.
“Would you like more nectar?” Ganymede said quickly. “Or some ambrosia?”
“I’ll tell you what I would like, boy.” And when Zeus turned with a sudden deep laugh and playfully hauled Ganymede over the back of the divan and into his arms, Ganymede felt a strange and simultaneous rush of desire and dread. The king of the universe, lover and torturer, still wanted him. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to what Zeus desired.
Afterward, Ganymede left Zeus dozing on the divan and slipped out into the hall, the goblet and knife at his belt. It occurred to him that he didn’t have a place of his own. The other gods did. Aphrodite had her pleasure garden, Hera had her chambers, Zeus had his bedroom. Even Eros had the orchard. So shouldn’t Ganymede have a place as well?
Even as the thought came to him, the answer popped into his head as well. Olympus was a fluid place, and the gods changed it as easily as the ocean shifted sand. Now that he was aware of this fact, he could also see how it worked. He reached out with his mind, pulled and prodded a bit of Olympus, and made a spot for himself. Then he willed himself to be there, and he was. No fanfare or fireworks—he was simply there, as if he had always been.
His place was a well-lighted cave with rough walls of white quartz streaked with pink and gold. The ceiling was so high, clouds gathered beneath it like low, heavy birds. A small river started somewhere high up and rushed down one wall of the cave. Several yards above the soft, sandy floor, it divided into two streams of water that leaped off a ledge in two waterfalls. The falls created a pair of pools, one calm as glass, one busy as a cauldron. Other pools hid among crevices and in little side grottos. Some steamed hot, others crackled with ice. The sighing sounds of moving water echoed gently off every wall. Ganymede stood between the two waterfalls and looked around in satisfaction. This was a fine place, and he wondered if Zeus would approve. Maybe he’d want to visit Ganymede here.
If he didn’t learn about the killing prophecy first.
“Hey, G.” It was Eros, his red hair standing out against the white stone like a splash of blood. “Nice digs.”
Ganymede sat on a divan of his own, one that appeared beneath him the moment he started to sit. He folded his arms, pissed. “What do you want?”
“I talked to Iris,” he said, not looking Ganymede in the face. “You got the hairs from Prometheus?”
“Yeah.” He took them out of his tunic. They seemed to twist in his fingers like tiny snakes, but Ganymede couldn’t see them move. “See? I did the damn forfeit. Happy?”
Eros stepped forward, hand outstretched. “Give them to me.”
“Fuck that.” Ganymede closed his fist around the hairs and stuffed them back into his tunic. “I said I’d get them. I didn’t say I’d hand them over.”
A small smile broke across Eros’s face. “You’re learning.”
“I guess I have you to thank for that.”
Eros just shrugged, making his wings gleam a little in the soft light, and perched on a large rock a few feet away from Ganymede. The uninvited move burst the dam of Ganymede’s anger.
“So did you have fun fucking with me?” he snarled. “Did it make you feel superior to trick me into a forfeit that nearly got me worse than killed? Hera and your mother must think it’s freaking hilarious.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Eros looked genuinely unhappy. “You don’t know my mother. What she wants, she gets. I can’t say no to her. And when she gets together with Hera … man, you don’t want to stand in their way.”
“Thanks for that, at least,” Ganymede said smugly.
Eros looked puzzled. “For what?”
“For confirming that Hera really did cook this whole thing up and Aphrodite helped her.” Ganymede made a grim smile. “I wasn’t sure before.”
“Aw, fuck.” Eros kicked at the rock he was sitting on. “You do learn fast.”
“Not only that,” Ganymede continued, “they can’t go to Zeus and tell him I broke his decree about Prometheus because I’ll be able to tell him they were involved. It’ll be our little secret.”
“Yeah, okay.” Eros sighed. “Look, G, I’m really sorry. I didn’t want to do any of that shit. Mom made me. I don’t want to lose you as a friend. Peace?”
It was great to hear an apology, but Ganymede wasn’t so easily won over. “How do I know this isn’t another trick?”
“Aw, come on! I already told you about Mom and Hera.”
“Because I tricked you.”
“So we’re even!”
“That doesn’t even come close, and you fucking know it.”
“Well maybe I don’t want to be your friend after all,” Eros said, starting to bristle. “Not if you’re go
ing to be fuckwad about this.”
“All right, all right.” Ganymede held up his hands. “You want peace, you have to swear something by Styx.”
Eros eyed him warily. “What? I’m not gonna swear to do anything against my mom or Zeus.”
“You have to swear to answer my next three questions, completely and truthfully, no matter what they are.”
A long pause followed. The only sound in the cavern came from the water that dripped and gushed and flowed. Eros looked stricken, then thoughtful, then resolved. He got up—the rock disappeared—and sat cross-legged on the divan next to Ganymede. His ocean-blue eyes stared straight into Ganymede’s, and Ganymede had to swallow.
“Okay,” Eros said. “I swear by Styx. Ask the first question.”
Ganymede took a deep breath. “Can I really trust you?”
“I don’t know,” Eros answered promptly. “I don’t want to hurt you and I wouldn’t do it on purpose, but I can’t refuse Mom.”
“Will you tell me if someone tries to trick me again?”
“I will if I hear about it.” Eros shifted on the divan, and his knee brushed Ganymede’s. His heart jerked and the memory of Eros’s touch lingered on his skin. Eros added, “Unless Mom or Zeus tell me not to.”
Ganymede was forming the third question, one about Iris, when an entirely different set of words jumped out of his mouth like unexpected grasshoppers. “Were you really coming on to me in the orchard or were you just faking it?”
Eros’s handsome face twisted. “Take that back,” he begged. “Don’t make me answer. Please.”
The fear in Eros’s voice almost made Ganymede give in. The question had come from impulse, and in any case, he wasn’t sure he truly wanted to know the answer.
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