What kind of weak, pathetic creature was I resorting to, crying in the darkness like a child? I was worthless. How in the hell had I been chosen to be King of the Gods?
"Zeus?" I called out for the God whose voice had been my constant companion for several years now but only silence answered me. I was a failure to him as well. How typical.
I slammed my hand into the rocks and before such an action would've done nothing but hurt me momentarily but this time I felt the jagged edge of rock slice through the side of my hand, cutting through sinew and muscle. Hissing in pain I withdrew it, feeling the drip of my life force leave the cut and splatter on the ground. The walls and floor around me seemed to come alive, hungry for the offering I was leaving in my wake.
"Damn it." I clutched the hand close to my chest and walked on, sensing the ominous presence behind me, chasing me for more. If I stopped these walls would eat me, hungry for real flesh and not the empty calories offered to them by the souls of the damned. My hand ached, continuing to bleed as I stumbled through the darkness trying to focus on where I wanted to go. Last thing I needed right now was to get lost in the abyss of the Underworld because of one damn distraction.
My hand burned, blood dripping as I wandered looking for the passage back into Griffin’s throne room. But that’s not how this place worked, and I knew better. Whispers followed me, the floor seemed to move and shudder with each received droplet. I walked until I reached a crossroads, voices coming from one hall and a deathly silence in the other.
“Shit,” I sighed the word, turning around to look back at where I had come from but it too bore no signs of giving way to where I wanted to be. My hand was stinging now, the blood clotted but still droplets leaked from my palm. Zeus remained silent and I worried perhaps Asher draining me had relieved me of the King of the God. Was I mortal and 100% Aidan again?
“I know what you desire.”
I turned, a woman stood behind me cloaked in a sheer gown that barely hid the curves of her body underneath. Despite myself, my eyes wandered to the sight of her erect nipples pressing against the material before I forced myself to look back.
“No thanks,” I said, turning away because if I didn’t my baser needs might overwhelm me.
“Is this shape not pleasing?” She appeared in front of me, different this time. Instead of long brown hair crested over her shoulders, it was blonde and cropped, sweeping against her chin. She grinned like she knew something and her shape shifted once more, Savannah stood in front of me making my heart pound heavily in my chest.
“Yes, this is better, isn’t it?” She stepped closer, tracing her finger down the curve of my face and scratching under my jaw. “I know what you desire,” she said again, smiling keenly.
“Who are you?”
“The wayward one,” she said, her hand dropping away as she circled around me, taking me in from all angles. “They call me Hecate in your language. Though I go by many names in many different cultures.”
“Hecate, the witch.”
“Enchantress, I prefer. Better yet, priestess of magic.” She stopped in front of me again and I found myself unnerved to stare at Savannah while talking to a voice that didn’t belong to her.
“Change back witch, you’re not worthy of that form.”
She grinned and shifted once more, the dark-haired beauty returning. “Shall I grant your wish?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t want anything from you.”
I started to walk away when she reached out, grabbing my arm fast and holding tight. Her touch burned through me, turning my veins red hot. My hand, the damaged one, seared and when I looked at it the cut was healed.
“I didn’t ask for that.”
“Just an example: of what I can do for you.” I looked her over coolly, trying to glean what exactly it was she expected from me.
“What do you think I want from you?”
“You want nothing from me,” she repeated back to me, giving me another one of those troublemaking grins. “But I can help you attain your desire for justice. I can right a wrong and fix everything.”
My eyes narrowed, suspicion taking hold. “You want to help me with the Asher? Why?”
“Because, that is my job. I provide answers to desires.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, surveying her before glancing at the two roads I had to choose from. A crossroads and the solution to all my problems. It seemed too simple.
“What will the answer cost me?”
“Simple, I only want one thing.”
“Which is?”
“The King of the Underworld.”
“Griffin?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t shake my disbelief, nor the confusion. When she said she wanted him, did she want him or was there something more nefarious to her request?
“He lacks a queen, I am a goddess of the underworld. We can rule together.” Well, that answered the question. Though, was it a power grab or was she truly interested in him? Did I care? Not really.
“Okay, I bring you Griffin and you what? What’s your solution?”
“There is only one answer to your problem.”
“Seems to have gone over my head.”
“I take you back in time, to when Asher was first conceived. You stop him from ever being born.”
“Will that work?”
“Yes, mostly. The Titans will still rise up, the destruction they wreck on Earth will still occur but…”
“But Valentina will be back?” I hated myself for the hopeful note in my tone but it didn’t last long as Hecate shook her head.
“No, Valentina was killed by a Titan, her fate is sealed.”
“What’s the point of going back in time to kill him there? I might as well do it here.”
“You cannot.” I huffed in annoyance, “He still possesses the powers he has taken – such as your own, and as such, you are powerless against him. To fight him in this world is to forfeit and die.”
“I have to go back in time and kill a baby?”
“Stop yourself from sleeping with his mother.”
“But how do I do that? I don’t know who the mother is!”
“There is one who can tell you.”
“He doesn’t work for us, he works for Asher. He won’t be of much help.”
“Perhaps.”
“And what about my powers?”
“No Asher, no theft. Anything he affects or directly affects him will be reversed.”
It was an intriguing idea, in fact it seemed simple. Go back to the sixteen hundreds and stop myself from having sex with whoever. If the soul of Zeus is returned to sleep before he has a chance to impregnate some human, Asher is never born and all we had to deal with was the Titans. Or, all we dealt with was the Titans. We could go back to Olympus, start again. Make things right.
“I have to go and get Griffin.”
“You do.”
“But you’ll help?”
“I will.”
“How can I trust you?”
“The bond will be sealed.”
I looked at my hand, coated in dried blood but healed. Was that the bond? As if she could read my thoughts Hecate stepped forward, cupping my face in her hands and pressing on her toes. I barely had time to process what she was doing when her lips landed on mine. My stomach lurched, feeling like something was pulling through my navel and before I had the chance to blink, I found myself standing in the throne room amid my fellow Gods who looked alarmed to see me appear out of thin air.
“Aidan! What happened?” Royce shouldered his way through the crowd to reach me, looking more alarmed than curious. When he stopped in front of me he seemed to frown, staring at my face though for why was beyond me.
“Nothing, but I’ve got a plan. Where’s Savannah?” I looked over his head, scanning the faces in the crowd for my other half. Royce was still staring at me like he had never seen my face before. “What is it?”
“You don’t look good, man. Do you need to
sit?”
“No, I’m fine. I had a run in with Asher. I’ll be fine. Savannah?”
“Uh, right. Um…” Royce turned around and looked around the room with me before glancing back uncertainly. “In her room?”
“Okay. And Griffin?”
“No idea, last I saw him he was 11 inches into the bottle.”
“Okay.” I walked past him absently and headed for the hallway leading to the bedrooms. Royce didn’t follow but I could feel his eyes burning into my back as I walked away. The hallway was more eerie than usual, a thick silence hung in the air as I made my way to the suite shared between Savvy and myself.
When I opened the door, she was lying on the bed, hands folded over her belly and staring at the ceiling with red eyes. I swallowed hard, closing the door behind me alerting her to my presence. Her eyes shifted, landing on my face first before skipping over the rest of my appearance as if to confirm I was all in one piece.
“Aidan.” She breathed my name like a prayer, standing and crossing over to me. Her hands felt cold as they cupped my cheeks, pulling me closer to her level as she searched my face. “What happened to you, babe? You look…” She searched for the right word that wouldn’t hurt my ego and I found myself curious to see myself now in the reflection. Had Asher done something more than zap me of my powers?
I pulled away from her comforting arms to walk into the bathroom. Looking back at me in the mirror was a gaunt man, the shell of his former self. My eyes were sunken in, cheeks hollow and a sallow color seemed to have permeated my normally clear complexion. I touched my own face in disbelief, but it was real as I watched my fingers trace the dark bags hanging under my eyes.
Savannah appeared beside me in the reflection, worry evident on her face.
“Asher took my magic.” Her eyes softened with sympathy, one hand coming to clasp her chest. “I haven’t heard from Zeus since I got back… I don’t know if he’s still here.”
Savannah pulled her hand away from her chest, bringing the necklace I had given her away with it. She ducked her head, fiddling with the clasp for a moment before holding it out to me.
“Maybe this will help. Just enough magic to bring him back?”
“That was for you.” I covered her offered hand and tried to force it back to her side but she held fast, shaking her head.
“You need it more than me.”
“I have a plan to get it back. I have a plan to fix all this.” She didn’t put the necklace on, but intrigue washed over her face for a moment. “I met someone, a witch. A goddess witch. She says she can send us back in time, back to when Asher was conceived. If we can stop Zeus from impregnating his mother, he is never born.”
“And if he was never born, none of this ever happened. Valentina would come back.” Her face lit up, excitement painting her features. I wished I didn’t have to be the bearer of bad news and the one who would cause her features to fall when I told her. In fact, I didn’t have to say anything because my face seemed to say it all as Savannah’s smile slipped away. “I don’t understand, wouldn’t she come back?”
“Hecate said no. The Titans would have still rebelled, history repeating itself and all. And because it was a Titan who killed her, it became her fate. There’s no bringing her back, Savannah.” I reached out, cupping the back of her neck and tilting her face to mine. “I’m sorry.” My lips brushed against hers, hoping to kiss away the discomfort she was feeling. She pulled away afterwards, touching her lips and looking at me with a thoughtfulness that made me uncomfortable. She couldn’t tell from a kiss that to seal the deal with the witch she had kissed me, it was impossible.
“Hecate is the goddess of crossroads. That’s dangerous.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she’s in it for herself, what did she want?”
“Ah, well.” I rubbed the back of my neck after releasing hers, squeezing past her through the doorframe of the bathroom and walking back into the bedroom. “That’s the caveat.”
“What did she want, Aidan?” She followed me out, sitting beside me on the bed holding a hand out for me to take. I watched her delicate digits weave between my coarser ones and I looked back at her face.
“She wants Griffin. She wants to replace Valentina.”
“She what?” Savannah looked alarmed.
“I mean, she wants to be Queen of the Underworld, she wants to be Griffin’s partner…”
“He will never go for that.”
“Yeah, I know, but if we can convince him to go along with it when we’re done we can-”
“We can what? Double cross an all-powerful witch? There’s a reason she’s in the Underworld Aidan, her magic is dark.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“It’s too dangerous, she’s unreliable. And if she doesn’t get what she wants, what happens? That’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”
She was resolute in her opinion, firm and demanding I take her side. Too bad for Savannah this was a patriarchy, my decision was final.
“Well, I already made the deal.”
“You what?”
“I agreed and made the deal, we can talk to Griffin and get him on board. Once we’re back from getting rid of our Asher problem we’ll deal with the Hecate problem, which I think – in the grand scheme of things – is a much smaller issue. She’ll be mad at me, not at the world or our pantheon.”
“And what were her conditions for breaking the deal?” Savannah arched her well-sculpted eyebrow.
“We, uh, didn't talk about the conditions of breaking the deal.”
Savannah groaned and rolled her eyes, standing as she paced out her frustration. I watched her for a little bit before getting bored and flopped back on the bed, tucking my hands under my head. As far as I was concerned right now, without magic, I needed to find another way to take down Asher. No one might believe in me, hell, I didn’t believe in me, but I was going to fix this.
After all, it was Zeus’ mess.
“Savannah, there’s something else.”
“I want you to take the necklace. I know you gave it to me, but I would feel better doing this if you have magic in you. If you had Zeus in you, I would feel better. Plus, if what you said is right, you’ll get your magic back afterwards and you can re-imbue the necklace and give it back.”
I sat up and let my eyes drag over her body, stopping for a moment on her stomach before flicking to her face.
“Yeah, okay, whatever. Wasn’t what I was going to talk about.”
“Yeah, I know, but I wanted to make sure you knew my stipulations before you went ahead with this.”
“Right, okay. Can you sit? We need to talk.” She flexed her eyebrow one more time but did as I asked, coming back to my side. She held out the necklace, making me take it before she set her hand on my thigh, drawing my attention to a different matter altogether. Clearing my throat, I shifted away if only to focus myself on the matter at hand before I got caught up.
“Asher said something to me yesterday I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. And I also kept getting these flashbacks, but they weren’t flashbacks and…” I took a deep breath. Uncertainty didn’t suit me, neither did nervousness. Also, talking about my feelings. Okay, there was a grocery list of things I wasn’t all too excited about right now but the annoying, and non-Zeus, voice in the back of my head told me to man up.
“Right. Well,” I took a deep breath, “I kept having these flashbacks of you in the bathroom. Which, of course, couldn’t be flashbacks because I was never there. But I seemed to remember it… Sorry.” When did I become a rambler? For Gods sakes, get to the point, Aidan. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Vague, but almost to the point.
“Tell you what, Aidan?” She said the words but her eyes told me she knew what I was asking her.
“Queenie.” She rose again, resuming her pacing but this time with an added lip between her teeth and her fingers tugging on her shirt obsessively. “Savvy.” I rose, reaching for her, “Savannah.”
She stopped pacing, if only because the grip I held her in wouldn’t allow her to move if she wanted to.
“I know it’s not what you want Aidan, it would only scare you away.”
“Scare me away?” I laughed, turning her so she could see my face. “Savannah, you don’t know me if you think family scares me away.” She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head to the side slightly.
“Really, Aidan? Having a baby around calling you daddy wouldn’t freak you out and have you running for the first pair of warm thighs that weren’t mine?”
Well, when she put it like that…
“You realize Asher is my son, right? Valentina was my daughter?”
“Godly… Yes. But not biologically. That’s different.”
“Didn’t change how Zeus felt about Val.”
“And Asher?”
I sighed, running a hand through my hair as I looked at the ceiling. Maybe she was right, the idea of having a baby might’ve sent me running for the hills but now… I looked back at her.
“Savannah, I love you. I don’t know how many ways I must say it to convince you but I love you. And if you were pregnant with my son or daughter, that would make me the happiest man on the planet because I would be starting a family with the woman I love.”
“Aidan, I didn’t-”
“You assumed. You guessed wrong and didn’t bother to talk to me or ask, Savannah. Those weren’t just your babies, they were mine too and I deserved a say.” She managed to look sheepish and hurt, even feigned a couple of tears to rim her eyes. “How many were there? I saw two, but you looked like you knew what you were doing.”
“Aidan…”
“That’s the funny thing, you know. You looked like you knew what you were doing, the magic you used, it came to you easily and I know you didn’t have to use the necklace for it. Is Hera back? Is your magic back?”
“I don’t think it ever went anywhere, Aidan.”
“You faked losing your magic?”
“No, I did lose it… But it was asleep, maybe, and it finally woke up, the first time I found out I was pregnant.”
“How many?”
“A few.”
“What’s a few?” My fist tightened around the necklace in my hand, the only thing I had to focus my frustration. I knew I was being mean, and I knew it was unfair to take it out on her but the more I thought about it and the idea sunk in the more I realized how hurt I was she never considered telling me.
Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series Page 79
