His words landed upon me like physical blows, making my throat squeeze tight and my soul tremble within me. But it wasn’t anger that made me shake so it was the ridiculous thought that he should hate me that caused me to snap.
“You already don’t think I’m better than her!” I screamed, trembling violently. “You’ve ignored me all day. You think I’m no better than a monster. You said so yourself!”
His eyes widened and his jaw went slack for only half a second, as though he hadn’t expected my words. If I was being honest, I had no idea why the very notion of him despising me should hurt this way, but dammit, it did.
His nostrils flared. “Then prove me wrong, female! Prove to me that there is something in you worth saving. Or do you only think of yourself, Thalassa? Is that who you are now? Is that really who you wish to be?”
I laughed, but was mortified to feel tears sliding down my cheeks. “You know nothing of me. Nothing! Do not preach to me of—”
“You were alone, always. Set apart and adrift. Lost. Scared. You hid your pain behind rage. Drowning hundreds, even thousands. But always inside of you, there was a sliver of soul that wanted more. Longed for more.”
I went cold all over, because if I hadn’t known better I’d have thought he was describing the me of today. But I knew he was actually describing the me of yesteryear. The one he desperately wanted back. His love for her beat as tangible as the silky caress of fingertips running upon my flesh.
He thought me a monster. No different than the one I held in my hands. It was not me he wanted, and it was ridiculous that I cared. I did not care. I did not. And yet for some unknown reason I found myself loosening my grip on Sithica’s neck, who’d now gone slack in my hold, her head lolling to the side. But she wasn’t dead, and I hadn’t lied. She was a terror in these parts. The centaur village wouldn’t miss her. Nothing would. She was as alone as I was.
With a disgusted snarl, I tossed the creature down, and the waters rolled back into place, cradling her unconscious form as she sank down to the deep bottom where I’d spelled the waters to forever become her prison. She would never again terrorize the children of the village. Not that I should care of such things. And yet…
He stared at me, his face implacable. Unreadable.
“I didn’t do that for you,” I whispered, voice cracking.
He shook his head, but he didn’t say anything. Just stared at me, looking at me like he knew me. Knew the very real absolute truth of me. I had to get away from that look, from that burning knowledge. I felt too naked and exposed, raw. Like an open nerve, all he would have to do now would be to breathe on me and I would shatter, I just knew it.
Closing my eyes, I became water. I became the breadth and movement of life. As I settled into the waves, I screamed. Screamed and screamed and screamed.
Hades
* * *
I heard her all through the night, the sound so full of pain, unbelievable and raw. It ripped me apart.
I stared at her depths, wishing I could reach her. Wishing I could hold her.
I’d thought she would kill the creature. She was right. The thing was cruel and demented. It did not belong in the waters that the centaurs were forced to fish. But killing it hadn’t been the way. Killing it would have pulled Thalassa further toward the darkness that craved her power.
I’d not thought my words would do anything to her, never expected her to do the unexpected and dump the soul siren back into the waters.
“Oh, Calypso,” I whispered, voice cracking with not only my pain but the sensation of hers too. Our hearts were bonded, joined, and her pain was mine. I felt myself drowning in it.
She’d released the monster.
She’d done it.
And not for herself. It had been for me. It had all been for me. She’d accused me of believing those terrible things about her, and she’d been absolutely right because just as I felt her, she surely felt me.
Rubbing at my stomach, I felt the steady beating of two powerful hearts that now beat as one. She was always in me. Dark or no, my female was always in me, and she needed me now more than ever, whether she knew it or not. And it was so bloody hard because I wasn’t the man she’d once known either. Seeing her this way was tearing me apart, but she was mine, and she always would be. So I reached with my other hand toward the water and just barely grazed my fingers over it.
I felt her quiver, felt her turmoil crawling through me, and her screams grew softer, quieter, until they ceased completely.
And then I felt her sobbing, felt her crying out in the stillness of her deep waters. She did not climb out of that pool for the rest of the night, but my touch seemed to ease her torment. So I remained that way for the rest of the evening.
Closing my eyes, I remembered the moments that had once been ours—the words of devotion and affection, the stolen, quiet moments of lovemaking where we’d bare our hearts, minds, and souls to one another. And as I remembered, I felt her prodding at those memories, sifting through them. I could have closed them off to her, could have cast her adrift and not shown her.
But I opened up even more, gave her all those memories and the emotions that went with them.
“I only ever loved you, Calypso. It was only ever you.”
The waters grew calm, and a gentle breeze fluttered over my face, feeling like a caress and a question.
A question I had no answer for.
Thalassa
* * *
How was he doing this?
How was he reaching me in my waters?
How did he feel me even here in the deep?
But it was him. I knew it with every fiber of my being. It was him. It was dark and mysterious, powerful, and it called to the beating epicenter of me.
Though I did not wish it to.
Though I fought it.
I felt him move all the way through me, and the pain began to recede bit by bit, little by little.
Then I heard his words.
I only ever loved you, Calypso. Only ever you.
I shuddered. That small part of me that fought me constantly was growing bigger, wider, and stretched through me. That part of me longed for what he had to give, longed for what he spoke of.
He was our only and truest love. You must remember.
I shuddered to hear her words pound through my head like a gavel, so strong were they. I wanted to fight her as I’d always done, but I was so bloody tired. I was too weak.
Everything he’d said to me tonight had been true. I was alone, but I’d wanted it that way.
Hadn’t I?
Didn’t I?
Did I?
I closed off my consciousness to him and pulled away, no longer feeling his thoughts or emotions as I sunk deep into the pit of the pool and my own yawning loneliness.
I did not want this.
I did not want it.
Not again.
Never again.
I cried.
Chapter 27
Hades
At some point, she separated from me, drifting off, and I no longer felt her. I didn’t know what that meant, but I still sensed the fierce and aching loneliness that had plagued Calypso before she’d met me.
She’d told me all her stories, told me of her early days back when the world had been nothing but her and her sisters—Air, Earth, Fire, and her.
Apollo and his chariot with flaming horses streaked across the sky, casting Nyx back into the darkness of her home. I sat exactly where I’d been, watching the world breathe to life with color all around me. I frowned, noting that the pool was no longer black, but gleamed as deep waters should. As I watched, the waters began to roll, receding back and then she finally stepped forward.
Her eyes were shaded with purple, and her hair lay limp on her shoulder. She was flesh and blood today and wore a dress of white that slit up both her legs. On her feet, she wore Roman-style sandals that wrapped up to her knees, and on both her biceps, she wore twin bands of hammered-gold sea snakes.
<
br /> She looked human, but undeniably beautiful.
“Thalassa?” I gritted out, feeling worn out and bone-deep exhausted, but more concerned about her well-being.
She would not meet my eyes.
Last night had been hell on me, and it looked as if she’d fared no better. Different as she was now, and as little as I actually knew her, she and I were not meant to be enemies. Neither one of us could survive the loss of the other. It was a truth I knew with absolute certainty and one I suspected she was beginning to understand.
“I imprisoned the siren,” she said slowly and so very softly, looking so small and fragile from the way she stared down at her feet.
I frowned.
But then she snapped her head up and glowered at me, bristling. “I did not kill her as you must no doubt imagine.”
Our connection was still strained. Whatever she’d done last night, she’d pulled away almost completely. So I shook my head.
“I did not think that, goddess.”
She snorted and glanced to the side, but again she shook. I saw the pain. It was still there, still beating inside of her. I felt it like a hot blade through my soul and rubbed at my empty chest.
Turning toward me, she shook her head. “I am not lonely. Just so you know, I do not need friends.”
“Nor do I, elemental.” I only need you.
She blinked, and I wasn’t sure if she’d heard me or if somehow, our bond was still strong enough that she’d felt me.
She was still looking at me, shaking hard as she rubbed at her arms with her hands. It was true. As much as I liked Aphrodite, the truth was that I did not need friends. But once upon a time, I had needed her. And she’d needed me, too, because I hadn’t just been her friend. I’d been her everything, and she’d been mine.
“I was wrong to judge you as I have. I know that now.” I said it softly but with a hint of gruffness behind it. I’d been a perfect ass with her, and I was ashamed.
She shook her head, and though her back was partially toward me, I saw her rub at her eyes with her knuckles. My soul squeezed because, though she’d tried to sever our connection, she hadn't been successful at it. She might have quieted the noise, but only for so long.
Our hearts were bound, but more than that, so were our souls, a fact I’d finally understood last night. Thalassa was darkness, but somewhere inside of that shell, Calypso still lived and still fought. For just a split second, I’d seen her last night. In fact, I’d seen her many times before.
When she’d revived her siren on the cliffs of Never after killing it in front of Rumple. The way she’d cared for the child as she had. Though her harmful actions had been wrong, she’d remedied them.
How, at times, I felt the presence of my beloved burn within her, felt her conflict and her torment. All of that spoke of a woman fighting to hang on and remember. Calypso had warned me that her mind would not be reset, that she’d not remember or feel as she once had, but that wasn’t entirely true. She did feel. She felt so much that it was literally destroying her sanity.
A part of me had hoped that recovering her would be easier, that being with her would spark the memories she needed to reclaim herself. But she’d been honest when she said she would be altered. I did not need to make her remember me. What I needed was to make Thalassa fall in love with me just as she had once before. Maybe I’d never fully regain my Calypso of old, but maybe, just maybe, if we were lucky, we’d gain even more.
Clenching my jaw, I stared at her for several long moments. “I’ve gone about this all wrong,” I said.
She didn’t turn toward me, but I could feel her straining to listen.
“Look at me,” I said deeply.
She stood where she was for several tense seconds longer, but finally, with a heave of breath, she did turn.
Exhausted eyes stared back at me.
“You are not the you of my yesterday.”
She snarled, curling her hands into fists.
“You are the you of today. I am sorry, Thalassa, for making you believe that wasn’t enough.”
The tight lines around her eyes and mouth slackened just a little, and confusion dotted her brows. “What?”
“You are dual-natured. I know this. I made both sides of you love me once, and…” I stood. “I can do it again.”
She chuckled, but the sound wasn’t full of the malice of before. This one was a question and tension-filled anxiety. I nodded.
“Who says I want you to love me, Death? I am a virgin goddess. I do not desire the touch of…”
With a cocky curl of my lips, I walked toward her, entering waters that could drown me where I stood. I’d seen how she’d looked at me, felt the heat of her gaze. She wanted me. Even if she didn’t want to want me, I still called to her and she to me.
I splashed through the coolness toward her, knowing that if she really wanted to escape me, she could sink beneath the waves just as she had last night. But she stood there, hands furling and unfurling as she forcibly swallowed, her blue eyes wide in her pale face.
I reached for her jaw, brushing my thumb over her gently rounded chin, trembling the moment I touched the petal-softness of her flesh.
Remembering all over again how we’d first fallen in love.
She clutched at my wrist with a hand tipped with long claws, and our connection began to sizzle through me again, making me tremble not just from the sensation of touching her, but also from what I was making her feel as I did.
She was hot, cold, angry, and mystified. She swayed in my hold, and I knew deep in my heart that she was a wild creature who’d stand still like this for no other.
“I am still in you, Caly,” I whispered heatedly. “You may not want me to be, but I am.”
Her lashes flickered. “I am not your Caly, and you… you are a fool.”
“Mmm,” I nodded and leaned forward slowly, cautiously approaching her as the deadly beast she really was and honestly, always had been. I’d tamed fire before. Caly had been softer because she’d had lifetimes to be, but she’d always been fiercely independent and wild. “I always have been for you,” I murmured against her lips.
A soft puff of breath pressed against the seam of my mouth. “Do not trust me, Death. Do yourself a favor and do not trust me,” she mumbled. “You will only get burned.”
I chuckled, but the sound was full of heat and other things. “Too late. Too damn late.”
Then I pressed my mouth to hers, hot, demanding, hard. I slid my tongue along the seam of her lips, and she opened on a deep moan. Our tongues joined, sliding slick and wet against each other.
She tasted of madness and incredible power.
Her hands were on my biceps, and her impossibly strong fingers dented the metal of my armor. I hissed, but not because it hurt, rather because of her touch, her smell, and the feel of her body.
“I can never love,” she whispered drunkenly against my mouth.
I shook my head. “Neither can I, waters of the deep. Now shut up and kiss me.”
She moaned from deep inside her chest and pressed in as close as she physically could to my body. I wrapped my arms around her waist, hanging on to her tightly, so tight that no space existed between us.
It’d been so long since I’d kissed her. So bloody long.
But I remembered her sounds, her tiny mewls, and how she’d moved on top of me. Holding on to Calypso had been like holding fire—agonizing, painful, and thrilling.
“You are gorgeous,” I mumbled.
She growled and flexed, and suddenly, we were on the ground, out of the waters completely, and she was bearing her tiny weight down on me, holding me prisoner as she kissed me with her deadly venom, ensorcelling me just as surely as she had once before.
By the time she broke away, we were both panting heavily. Her lips looked bee-stung, and I felt dazed, seeing stars and maybe even seeing her for the first time.
The rage was still in her eyes, but it wasn’t alone anymore, and it wasn’t just the pain shining
there either, but something that’d haunted my days and nights since Dite had given me the key to unlocking my memories.
“What do you want to do, Calypso,” I asked her softly, staring at her large doe-eyes, sure that if she asked anything of me in this moment, I’d very likely give it. I was done fighting her. She was different. But so what? So was I. I could take her darkness too. I wasn’t running away.
Her hot eyes roved over my face before landing on my mouth, which felt swollen to twice its size. My tongue tasted of the mint of hers, and it was delicious.
She swallowed before saying, “I… I want my heart, Death.”
My chest ached. “Is that all you want?”
Slapping her hands down on my chest to push herself off me, she dusted off her skirt. “You remember what you want to remember of me, Hades. But I am not who she was, and I can’t be again. You’ll want to change me, and that won’t work, not even for you. Still you call me, Calypso. You say you see me, but you don’t. Not really. You only see her, and that is all you’ll ever see.”
She was right. I had called her Caly because I knew my Caly hadn’t died. She’d simply been buried. But I’d felt Calypso in her touch and in her kiss. She was still in there, and I would bring her back, come hell or high water.
“And yet you did not kill the creature,” I said with a twitch of my brow.
She scoffed. “At the end of the day, I am still that demented creature’s mother. How could a mother kill her child? Even I am not that warped. Take me to my heart.”
I smirked but got up from the ground and I dusted myself off. “As you wish.”
She looked at me as if I’d gone mad, and maybe I had. But what had just happened between us gave me hope, and so long as that hope remained, I could endure almost anything. Anything but losing her again.
“You’re a strange god. Anyone ever tell you that?” she asked. “I tell you I want nothing more, and you smirk. In fact, you look almost giddy about it.”
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 29
