I struggled to sit up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Kai asked.
“Mirror.” I needed all my energy to prop myself up.
Kai gently pushed me back down. “No,” he said.
I fought him as best I could. “Let me up.”
“As imperious as always,” he muttered, keeping me firmly in place.
That surprised me. “I would have thought I was a lovely goddess. Everyone likes Spring.”
“Yeah,” he said, in voice that sounded oddly sarcastic, “you were a real doll.”
I closed my eyes. “I’m going to make children cry now, aren’t I?”
He laughed. A rich belly laugh. I refused to think about what the sound did to me. I was hurt, not aroused. If I reminded myself of that about fifty thousand times, I might believe it.
My eyes snapped open. “Do I amuse you?”
“Annoy, actually, but I’m trying to focus on the positive.” He shot me an angelic smile.
“Are you going to help me up?”
“No. You have a broken rib, your hands are badly burned, and your head was singed.”
“Not my face?”
“Nope. You lost some hair. It’ll grow back, and the burns on your scalp will heal. Theo doctored you. Meantime, you stay put.”
“You like the fact that I’m stuck here at your mercy. You like the indignity of it.”
“It’s an added bonus. Yeah.”
I voiced the question that had been bothering me. “Why didn’t they kill me? They had the chance.”
“You’re wanted alive.”
I doubted it was so we could have tea. The big bosses probably wanted to kill me themselves. “But they attacked. If I was to be taken alive, why all of the pyrotechnics?”
“Alive doesn’t preclude having a little fun first.”
“Like how a lion toys with a gazelle before ripping its throat, fun?”
When Kai stared at me, incredulous, I shrugged. “I spend a lot of time with Hannah. She’s very vocal about her interests. Wait. Is the school wondering what happened to me? Or have I disappeared from memory, too?”
“Hannah put it out that you have food poisoning and need a couple days to recover.”
“It’s going to take more than that.”
He shook his head. “Doubtful. You get beat up easier than you did as Persephone but you heal faster than a normal human.”
Only because I wasn’t dead. “Thank you. For saving me from splattage.”
“You were pretty impressive,” he admitted. “Couldn’t let that go to waste.”
I allowed myself a small smirk. “Yeah. I kicked their asses.”
“You did. Looks like you’re up to speed on your power.”
I was. Faulty still on the memories, though, which made talking to Kai a constant battle between doubt and desire.
“Now you just need to master defying gravity and you’ll be good to go.” He grinned at me and I felt myself falling into that smile.
Cue cheesy music as our eyes locked.
This wasn’t “Sweet Valley High.” Some piece of Kai’s true form had emerged, because when I gazed into his eyes, I saw something not-quite-human staring back at me. It was ancient and feral.
Something inside me flickered in recognition. I tamped down hard on it. Evidently, I hadn’t really thought through all the consequences of embracing that Greek heritage of mine. When it came to love lives, those gods made cable seem tame.
I, Sophie Bloom, the girl who had barely been kissed, was so out of her league. I laughed. Hard. Possibly with a touch of hysteria.
Kai stared at me, puzzled. “I’ve never heard you really laugh.”
That seemed wrong. “Didn’t I have a sense of humor?”
He thought about it. “I guess so. But you would never have let yourself go like that. Too concerned about appearance.”
“I was vain?” Super weird idea.
“All goddesses are vain. Goes with their beauty.”
“Score points for that.”
“They’re not mouthy though. Not like you. You always say what you think. Gods and goddesses tend to be more crafty. They’ll strike out at you, but under the facade of seeming so pleasant. A smile to your face and a knife to your back.”
“Majorly sucky way to live.”
He shrugged. “It is what it is.”
He stretched out his arms, fingers intertwined, palms outward. A tiny scar in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger caught my attention. I took his hand and ran my finger over it. “I remember that. How did you transfer it to your human form?”
“I’m not human. What you see is what you get.” He tugged his hand away to frown at his scar.
I felt the loss. “No. You’re waaaay taller.”
“I’ve dialed my energy down to fit in. We never appear on earth in our true form.”
Maybe, but I sensed a caginess about him. “You’re holding out on me.” He remained silent. “Oh, come on. I’ll get better faster if you tell me.”
“That’s scientific.”
“Fine. I’ll nag you til you do.” I curled my fingers into my palms, resisting the urge to touch him again.
His lips compressed in a thin line, like he was suppressing a smile. “Guess it can’t do any harm for you to know. I couldn’t cross Theo’s wards in my true form. Even though I bore no active intention to harm, my life force was too strong. I had to dampen it.”
“That’s why Ms. Keeper couldn’t come through all dragony.”
“Yeah. She had to assume a less potent form.”
“So, if you unveiled yourself to me?”
“I’d blow your little mind. I’m still myself. Not human. Just reigned in.”
It made sense, especially given what I’d seen in his eyes. For the first time, I truly believed he was a god. Not just intellectually understood it, but knew it.
A question nagged at me. “How did Theo? Become human, I mean.”
“Dark magic. I don’t know why he’d …” He trailed off.
I poked him as a prompt.
“Dark magic demands a price. A high one.”
“So?”
“Well, two of you were made human, weren’t you?”
“You mean the price of turning me human was Theo becoming human, too? Why would anyone demand that of him?”
Kai looked at me fondly. Like I was an idiot child to be tolerated. “Beings that practice that type of sorcery aren’t nice. Could be spite. Because they could. Or because they wanted his god essence—his powers—and gave him a human shell to house what was left. You’d have to ask him.”
No wonder Theo had been so dodgy to Hannah and me about taking on his true form. This was awful. He’d paid too high a price.
“You won’t fail him,” Kai said.
I hated that he could so easily read me. “How can you know that?”
“Don’t really have a choice, do you? If you want to make it right for him, you have to save humanity. To do that, you have to stop the war on earth.”
“And to do that, I have to help you take over.”
He smoothed away a strand of hair that had fallen in my face. “Would it be so bad?”
I tried not to shiver under his gentle touch. “Don’t know. No idea what it entails. Don’t even know how we do it.” Nervously, I smoothed my comforter.
He tucked the strand behind my ear and leaned in close. “Two become one.”
It took a minute for the penny to drop. “Sex?!”
Disappointment flickered in Kai’s eyes. I guess my incredulous tone of voice hurt his poor ego.
“Yeah, sex,” he said flatly, moving back. “Big bang, honey.”
�
��Ahhh!” I covered my ears, embarrassed. Yes, and fascinated. “I thought we touched foreheads.”
Kai shrugged. “If that’s some kind of euphemism for orgasm, then sure. We touched foreheads.”
I swatted him away. “You know, maybe goddesses don’t care, but a girl likes a gesture or two before she hops into bed with someone.”
“No bed,” he pointed out. “It was always outdoors for you.”
I steeled myself against the deliciously naughty images running through my head and tried to stay on point. “Gestures like flowers. Or chocolates. Maybe even a date to actually get to know the guy, before she just gives it up.”
Kai swore. “Give it up? Are you a virgin?” Said like it was leprosy.
“Yes.” I jutted my chin out. “Got a problem with it?”
“In general, yes.” He sighed heavily. “Guess I’ll have to take one for the team.”
“Presuming it’s you, smart guy.”
He didn’t look pleased at that. “It will be.”
“That a threat?”
“Just a fact, Sophie Bloom. Don’t play jealousy games with a god.”
He got up and stalked off.
Well, at least he’d be jealous.
I dished to Hannah later that evening. She supported me in feeling this was one giant heap of messed up as she led me through some kind of “follow the light” test with a flashlight to assure herself I didn’t have a concussion.
I humored her and tried not to stare too hard at the vertigo-inducing fractal pattern on her T-shirt.
“There’s enough pressure around your first time without having the fate of the universe depending on it.” She swung the flashlight. “Look up.”
A wise woman. “I know, right? And what if it’s bad? Does that mean I only save half the population? This would be a lot easier if I’d already had sex. It wouldn’t seem so huge.”
“Think of it as simple biological urges. Although, you could totally cat around in the meantime.” She clicked off the flashlight, apparently satisfied with her findings.
“Kai wasn’t too on board with that idea.”
“You’re gonna let him dictate what you can do with your body?”
I cut her off before I bore the brunt of her feminist outrage. “Down girl. I agree with you. Thing is, it’s not like there’s any other guy I want to have sex with.”
Hannah narrowed her eyes at me. “Any other? Meaning you want to have sex with him?”
“I have. As Persephone.”
“Past tense, pussycat. Would you sleep with him now?”
I fluffed up my pillows. Avoidance tactic. Would I? The thought was exciting and scary and overwhelming to me in my weakened state.
Hannah cleared her throat. “I’m waiting.”
“I’m not ready to sleep with anyone. But what if I don’t? And I miss my chance to do whatever it is I’m supposed to?”
“As a representative of the human race, that would suck for us.”
“I’m human, too.”
“Only marginally. I don’t senior citizen things to death when I get mad,” she pointed out.
“Don’t forget my glowing eyes of fury.”
“Making your freakiness complete.”
I bowed best I could being propped up against pillows. “I pride myself on being well-rounded.”
Hannah crossed the room to put the flashlight away in her desk drawer. “Seems to me that you’re going to need more information. How is this whole power dealie supposed to go down? When? Where? And what does it mean for us mere mortals?”
“Agreed. But Kai isn’t the greatest with the sharing of info.”
“Talk to Theo,” Hannah replied.
“Are you crazy? He already hates Kai. Plus, he’s like my brother and I so am not having a detailed sex chat with him. Also, he might not know. I doubt Kai and I were going around sharing these details. And if other gods knew we could do this, they would have tried to …” Oh.
Hannah completed my thought. “Kill you. Makes you wonder who else knew what was going on when you were god-slaughtered.”
“And why Hades and Zeus came to finish the job. It might not be because they think I tricked them and have gone human. Maybe they don’t want me to carry out my plans.”
“Theo says that Hades is still incapacitated from the poison. You know, the event you failed to mention that you’d been framed for?”
I scowled. “I didn’t want you to know. You’d worry.”
“No kidding,” she said, gently swatting the top of my head. “But you still suck for not telling me. Anyhow, apparently the odd couple, Death and Sleep, seem to be running the show. Since they don’t love you, either, absolutely do not leave the grounds. Even if it seems like the right thing to do. At least not without Theo’s say-so. Promise?”
“Promise. Do you remember anything about Cassie?”
Hannah looked at me, with no trace of understanding.
“Never mind,” I said. I had my answer. “We’ll get her back from Ms. Keeper.”
“Who?”
Beyond a vague curiosity, Hannah didn’t even seem to care that much that we were discussing people she no longer remembered. Memory loss side effect, perhaps? “No way. Now you don’t remember her, either?” Keeper was a master of memory loss. “She’s a dragon? You found her scale.”
Her eyes glinted in interest. “Where is it?”
“Theo has it. Needed for magic, not dissection. Okay. Here’s the deal. Ms. Keeper, our phony guidance counselor, is probably a dragon. We think she’s made everyone forget about two students she’s abducted and has now probably made you all forget her existence so that she can go carry out her evil plans.”
“Impressive.”
“No. Dangerous. You need to stay far away from her.” I snapped my fingers. “Pen.”
“Yes, master,” Hannah grumbled, handing me a felt.
I grabbed her palm and wrote the word “Keeper” on it. Then I circled it and put a slash through it. “Keeper bad. Don’t let this fade. It’s your reminder. Like ‘keep out.’”
“Got it. I don’t like Ms. Keeper. But can I have her scale when we’re done?”
“No.”
She pouted.
“Fine.”
She clapped her hands in delight.
I didn’t want to kill her happy buzz, but if I didn’t figure out how to stop the dragon from taking down our entire student body, Hannah could end up close and personal with a lot more than the scale.
10
You can lead a nymph to water but you cannot make her think
ι’
I had pretty much slept for three days straight and to my surprise, Kai was right. I was healed. This was good news for me but bad for Cassie and Bethany. It meant I’d lost precious time in the quest to save them and had to step things up.
Much as I chafed at any delay, I had my own immediate problem to deal with. My little heal-a-thon meant that I was now way behind on my schoolwork, with exams and essay deadlines looming. To blow them off would be at my peril, a decree handed down to me by Principal Doucette my first morning up and around.
“Given your probationary status,” he began in a low rumbling drone, “it is imperative that you honor your commitments if you wish to remain a student here at Hope Park.”
I won’t bore you with the rest of that speech, which invoked school pride, calling Felicia, and a glimpse of a life that involved me waiting tables. Poor guy was trying to scare me into pulling up those university-bound bootstraps, and all he succeeded in doing was painting a rosy picture of a future where my biggest concern was that no one stiffed me on the bill.
If only it was as simple as popping a wad of gum in my mouth, teasing my hair, and hitting the near
est truck stop café. That combustible experience back at the ravine had cemented the fact that I was not yet ready to take on all the forces of Zeus and Hades singlehandedly. I was definitely stronger and more capable, but for now, staying in the Hope Park bubble was a no-brainer.
The one-on-one time between me and the principal did enable me to discover that he had no memory of Ms. Keeper, either. I pressed him on it, even going so far as to take him to her office, but he couldn’t even acknowledge its existence. His eyes just slid off it and he went blank.
“She’s our guidance counselor. Took over from Mrs. Rivers?”
“Mrs. who?”
He didn’t remember Mrs. Rivers. That was a blow.
I knew that the family emergency that she’d been called away on was a sham, but the fact that Keeper had bothered to make people forget her very existence did not bode well. Just one more person to add to my guilty conscience.
However, since I couldn’t save anyone if I got myself expelled and killed without my safe zone, honor my commitments I did. As fast as possible. However, I had not forgotten my responsibilities.
As with any good leader, I delegated. In part, to Mr. Smarty Pants “never study, get all A’s” Theo Rockman. His secret, I now knew, was longevity. Stick around for millennia and high school curricula became blindingly easy.
I demanded continual updates on how his ward-cracking attempts were going.
I had Hannah confirm that neither the Rivers nor Jones family had any idea they were missing loved ones, or even that they had loved ones to miss. Yeah, shoot me. I didn’t bother checking in with Bethany’s family. I may have felt it my duty to get Bethany back, but that didn’t mean I missed her.
Bad as it was that Hannah didn’t remember Bethany or Cassie, it was heartbreaking that she’d forgotten the existence of one of her favorite staff.
Meantime, I also had to keep the remaining students safe from Ms. Keeper, in case she decided to take anyone else out.
Since I couldn’t patrol the grounds 24/7, I came up with a plan to let my schoolmates do it for me.
My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy) Page 15
