She was a pillar of water and of flesh. In our early days together, she’d sometimes come to me thus, both water and woman. I’d always wondered why she chose this form when coming to me, but now I wondered if maybe it had been her way of showing me her duality.
I studied her, wishing very much that I could find the words to say that would convey all that I was feeling right now. But words had abandoned me.
She was still as potently beautiful as she’d ever been, with hair long and black and hanging silkily down her back. She wore a golden crown made up of creatures that glittered with diamonds and gems, crustaceans that were encrusted with turquoise and sapphire. Diamonds and blood-red rubies skittered across the crown of her hair. She wore a gown of sheer, translucent water. No fish swam within it this time. Her form was exposed to me, and my mouth watered. If I’d had a pulse, I was sure it would be pounding so hard that I might have actually suffered a stroke.
As it was, I felt light-headed and dizzy. I’d not been this close to her in what felt like an eternity, but had only been months.
Her scent of brine and salt and sweet-water flowers punched me in the nose, and I rocked back on my heels, knees temporarily threatening to give out from under me.
Her turquoise eyes were slitted and glaring at me. That rosebud mouth of hers that I’d had many a heated dream about—remembering how she’d sucked and fondled me with it, making me squirm and cry out until I felt I might actually die from the pleasure and pain of it—was now thinned into a straight line. Razor sharp cheekbones and a softly rounded jaw that made her look both powerful and delicate at the same time.
I felt weak all over. Seeing her here was almost unreal. For so long, all I’d had was my memories of her, but I was heartened to realize that I’d remembered every line, plane, and dip of her. I’d not even forgotten the tiny freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose and the tops of her porcelain-white cheekbones.
Aphrodite had always been the legendary beauty, but in me, she’d never inspired a tenth of these feelings of mania and need and desire so sharp it cut through me like the sharpest blade.
“Calypso,” I said. The word a reverent whisper that spilled off my tongue like a silky husky drawl, and I felt outside of myself as I saw my hand reaching out toward her.
She was as still as a statue, glaring hostilely at me, giving me time to study her body, her thick and curvaceous form I’d always been crazy for—full breast, trim waist, with a neatly shaved bush between her exquisite thighs, which she’d so often wrapped around my neck as I’d supped and feasted upon her.
Blood rushed south in me, making me feel heavy and heated. I’d been so long without her that I did not think I could feel this again. But I was being bombarded by memories of us. Not just sexual memories either.
Though sex was predominant in my memories, there were other moments, so many others. Us laughing. Teasing one another. Acting like adolescent teenagers in my Elysian Fields after one of our marathon coupling sessions.
Her running away from me, taunting and teasing me over her shoulder as she commanded that I catch her. Her long, lovely hair whipping in the breeze behind her like a banner, guiding me straight to her, always to her waiting and willing arms.
The love we’d shared had been so much more than just sex. It’d been all-consuming. It had been everything. And through that love, we’d built a life together. A bloody brilliant one. We’d raised children together. And both our kingdoms had thrived because of our union with one other.
“Who are you, that you should dare call me so?” Her voice rang with command, and I went suddenly cold all over.
“I am Hades, God of the—”
She slashed her hand through the air and grinned, but this smile was cruel, full of teeth and mocking.
“I know who you are, puny one. That is not what I asked. I asked who were you to think you could dare call upon me!”
The rocky chamber above my head quivered from the roll of thunder that’d clapped through her words, and I shivered.
“You spoke with my man just last week. You beckoned me, Calypso.”
She scoffed, glancing to her left and looking cold as ice. “I know what I did. And why I did it. But do you, Hades, god of the lesser beings, know why I called to you, or have you called me just to waste my time?”
My skin crawled with gooseflesh. This wasn’t the first time she and I had interacted. There’d been other moments, other times when she’d seemed distant, yes, but not cold. Not ice. She’d at least acknowledged me then. This might look like my Calypso. It even sounded like her. But the creature with me now wasn’t my Calypso at all.
She laughed, and the sound was cruel and tittering. “Speak, fool. You called me here.”
“What’s happened to you?” I said bluntly, words shivering with shock and anger.
Tipping her head back, she planted her hands on her hips and chuckled. The sound was deep and menacing, chilling my blood and leaving me feeling empty all over.
“Oh yes, I know how this conversation will go, now. You think that because we’ve bumped into one another before that we are what… friends?” Her laughter was cruel. “I know who you are. And I also know,” she said as she walked closer to me, leaving wet footsteps in her wake, “that you’ve been watching me. I feel your eyes all over me. When I swim. When I bathe. Even… when I’ve killed.”
My brows dipped. What the bloody hell was going on here? This wasn’t Calypso. This wasn’t her. Surely, I’d not lost her like this. Surely, the curse hadn’t been so cruel to her. Surely, this wasn’t my female now.
“You called for me,” I snapped and pounded my gauntleted finger against my armored chest.
She tipped her hand over, the movement insolent and arrogant. “Indeed I did. And do you want to know why, Hades, lesser god?”
I winced, and that only seemed to delight her. Her smile grew even wider, but there was no warmth in it, no kindness, no love. Just disdain and contempt for me.
My nostrils flared as anger wormed hot and heavy through my heart. She and I had never fought in our past life. Not once. Not like this. We’d had disagreements. We’d even occasionally bickered. But we’d never been cruel to each other because she’d been the love of my life, and I’d been hers.
“Do not call me that,” I said low, deeply.
She tittered but shrugged. “If you wish, little one. But you are not my peer, and you never will be. I do not respect you. I do not like you. But I do need you.”
Grinding my molars together so hard that they groaned under the pressure, I glared at the person wearing the skin of my female. This wasn’t my woman. This wasn’t my lover. This was something else, someone else, entirely.
“You need me? For what?”
“Oh, you know,” she tipped her hand over and glanced down at her palm, “just a small, insignificant little thing. Where’s my heart?”
Her face contorted sharply, turning less delicate and sharper. Her cheeks hollowed out, and her bones became more prominent. She was a twisted, darker version of herself, but no less beautiful.
Feeling on the verge of fury, it was my turn to grin just so that I could cover the unimaginable pain of Calypso’s cruelty. “Ah, so you do remember me, Calypso.”
All humor vanished from her. “My name is Thalassa.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not, and hasn’t been for a long time.”
The waters of my rivers began to rise as her face twisted into a darker version of herself. Her gown, which had been clear, was now swirling with thick bands of ebony smoke. Her hair, which had hung long and loose down her back, was snapping and spitting like venomous vipers.
And damn my dark heart, but she was the most magnificent being in all of creation to me. This was not my Calypso, and yet my soul and my mind were at odds because I’d never wanted her more.
I clenched my fists.
“Your name is Calypso, and you are the most glorious creature in all the lands. You are fierce. Your depths are unfathoma
ble. Your heart is pure even though a part of you is dark.”
Her eyes, once light turquoise, now turned as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean, and the mocking laughter that’d so cruelly filled my hall instantly ceased upon her tongue. She blinked.
I dared to hope that somewhere inside of her there was a part of her that still remembered me, remembered us. Daring to be bold as Rayale had been, I took a step toward her and held out my hand in the universal gesture that I meant her no harm.
She trembled, but the waters beneath her continued to churn angrily. Was this confusion, anger, doubt? I did not know, but I pressed on.
“You are everything to me, Calypso. My lover. My friend. My world. And some part of you must know that. Some part of you must remember. Yes, I’ve been watching you, but you’ve been watching me too. You’re curious too. Even if you don’t remember why, you know you belong here. You belong here with me.”
She laughed, batting at my words. “Oh, you say that to me as if you think me a fool that I should believe such nonsense. I am empty inside. There is nothing good in me. Just darkness. And it grows and spreads because you took my heart! I want it back!” Her voice vibrated, rolling with a thousand others, and the bodies of my dead spirits began to wail and moan.
Calypso had always had an uncanny ability to attune herself to them. Ghostly hands reached out of the waters as the moans grew louder and sharper.
“Give. Me. My. Heart!”
And then she pounced me, but I wasn't prepared for her attack. I was shoved down to the floor, with her kneeling over me. Her face contorted into one of fury and rage.
“You did this to me! You did! And I couldn’t come back on these lands until you invited me. But you did, you fool. You finally did!”
Then she slashed at me with her nails that’d curved into wicked claws. I grappled with her wrists, not wanting to hurt her, even though in the back of my mind I knew that for the utter lie that it was. If Calypso really wanted to, she could kill me, obliterate me with a mere thought.
I grunted as she jerked swiftly out of my hands and then rammed her claws through my armor like it was nothing, straight into the soft meat of my belly. I jerked, sat up, and clutched her hands to me. The attack wasn’t deadly, but it hurt. Dammit, did it hurt.
Pain blossomed through me like an arc of sweeping electricity that grew in speed and strength from one wave to the next.
Her face was pressed so tight to mine that I had to cross my arms to see her properly. There was nothing kind on her face, nothing of the old Calypso, not even a spark of it.
I knew what I had to do, and I did not want to.
“Don’t make me do this, Caly.”
“It’s Thalassa!” She screamed, and as if the world had slowed around me, I saw her yank her hands out of my belly and then lift them over her head for another swift and brutal attack.
I squeezed my eyes shut, and with tears rolling down my cheeks, I called her blade to me. It came without question, listening to me only because I was the master of it. Calypso herself had gifted it to me willingly. The only way to end a primordial was to have that very primordial give you the only means with which to do it.
Then time sped forward suddenly, and I was the one in the dominant position. I was on top of her, somehow, though I didn’t remember moving. Her very own soul blade was in my hand and pressing dangerously against her throat.
She gasped, eyes going wide, all color draining from the fleshy side of her face.
“Hades?” she trembled, and for just a second, just one second, she sounded so much like my female, my dark heartbeat, that I lost focus on what I’d been about to do.
I quivered to hear her say my name in that way, just as she used to, all soft and breathy and lovely. It was my Caly again.
“Hades, please. Please.” Her eyes were shining, their color still dark and stormy, but she sounded so bloody real. But she was a master manipulator, or had been in another life. Always for the good, then. But what if she’d retained those skills and was just waiting for me to lower the blade so that she could end me permanently?
My brain and my soul fought a vicious battle for dominance. My brain told me this was nothing more than a lie. But my soul said this was really her, that she was still in there, maybe buried so far down that not even she was aware of it. But I had heard it. I heard her. It had to be real.
Right?
I blinked, staring at her, brows furrowed. I’d heard something in her tone that I’d lamented of ever hearing again.
When I looked into her eyes again, it was not the monster I saw—her irises were clear blue and the anger had vanished. There was another emotion there, though, and I recognized it instantly—a bottomless pool of endless and unimaginable pain.
“Please,” she whispered and then leaned forward, causing her impossibly sharp blade to sink through even the glass of her like a knife through hot butter and I finally understood.
She was not begging me for her life. She was begging me to end it.
Horror stole the breath from my body.
“No!” I cried and tossed the blade away. It clattered on the rocky soil beneath us. Then I crawled off her and moved away, lost, scared, and alone. She’d wanted me to do it. She’d actually wanted me to kill her.
“Damn you!” I snapped in my fury and pain, she’d come to me not for her bloody heart but to force my hand. I saw that now. How dare she?
“Hades,” she cried, looking stunned and shocked as she slowly sat up.
Wrapping my arms around my knees, I pulled into myself. I had thought I could do it. I had thought I could do the impossible, the miraculous, just as Rayale had. But I couldn’t.
I could not do it.
I lowered my head and sobbed silently into my armor.
“I’ve been so lost, Calypso. So lost without you,” I mumbled, the words so low that I doubted she could even hear them. But I thought I would shatter if I didn’t say them. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore,” I shuddered.
A soft hand fell onto my shoulder, and I jumped, startled and sure that she’d picked up that blade and would sink it deep into my breast.
And I was partly right. She was holding the stiletto in her hand, but her eyes were fixed on my face, and the agony that’d stolen my will from me was still glittering in her eyes.
“Why do you have my soul blade?” she asked almost gently, so different from the cold and calculating sea hag she’d been just a minute ago.
I scrubbed at my cheeks, staring miserably at the object of my heart and affections. “Because you gave it to me, Ca… Thalassa,” I said and shuddered, hating the sound of that name in a way I never had before.
But she was right. This wasn’t my Calypso. My Calypso had never before felt deader to me than she did in that moment. My Calypso would have never tried to trick me into doing the one thing that wouldn’t end just her, but would have killed me too. It would have shattered me so completely that Olympus would have lost two great gods.
She nodded. “And why would I do that?”
Her look was earnest—broken, but earnest. Did she not remember giving me the blade? Did she remember me? I wet my lips and stared at the object of ultimate destruction in her hands.
“I sense that this blade wishes to return to you, but if it feels this way, then it’s only because I…” She swallowed hard. “I gave it to you in truth. Tell me, lesser god, why I would do such a thing?”
I cringed. “Because you loved me.” I spat the words out like a poison, angry at the curse. Angry at her. But mostly angry at myself for dropping my guard as I had. “Do what you want with me, then, primordial goddess of old. I am far too weary for these games.”
And I stared down at my feet, scowling because I truly was a lesser god if I could just roll over in this way. With anyone else, I’d have struck true. But I couldn’t do it with her. I would never be able to kill her. She was my priestess. My one true love.
The blade clattered by my feet. I looked at
it, then up at her, shocked.
She had her arms wrapped around herself and was not looking at me, but over toward her waters, vulnerability tight on her face. I knew enough of Caly to know she’d never shown her vulnerable side with anyone else but me.
After what had just happened between us, I was loathe to hope that maybe she really was still in there. I clenched my back teeth, too conflicted and torn up to speak with her right now.
“The blade is no longer mine,” she said softly. “It is yours now. I only wish to be reunited with my heart. Give it to me, and I will leave you in peace.”
I blinked, having a hard time believing that she’d so willingly hand back to me the only key to her destruction. Why would she do that? And why was she really here?
For her heart?
Because just a second ago, she’d been pleading with me to kill her, to take her precious life and snuff it out forever, which made me believe that somewhere inside of her, she must have known that I’d had that blade. And if she’d known that, then was she really here for her heart or because I was the only means to ending whatever agonies she suffered?
My empty chest ached at the idea that she could actually be in such torment. I had a minute to decide what to do.
Instinct had always been my guide in the past, and my instinct had never led me wrong. It was why I kept my distance from most of the Olympians. They were backstabbers and traitors, nearly all of them, and I was too bloody old to deal with such nonsense. All I wanted in life was peace and some sliver of happiness. For a time, I’d found so much damned happiness that I wondered if I’d used it all up and now I was destined to become that bitter, angry old man I’d once been, like the Fates had finally realized that the god of death could never truly know such joy.
I studied her face, noting the fine worry lines around her eyes and the way her pretty pink lips were tight and tense, neither of which looked fake. For months, I’d watched her, seeing this conflict in her eyes and an endless pool of sadness that would quickly turn into a wave of rage at the mere drop of a hat.
Again, I found myself asking the one question I had no actual answer for—why had she really come to me in the first place? If she’d wanted to kill me for daring to “steal” her heart, she could have done so. But she hadn’t.
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 26
