I chuckled and shrugged. “Even gods are capable of learning, Thalassa.”
Scoffing, she slowly meandered back toward the trail we’d abandoned yesterday. “Pray tell, just what have you learned, Death?”
“That you’re still you.”
She stopped walking and looked back at me. “You’re wrong.”
Her eyes flashed and rolled with dark and deadly waves, and her hair whipped around her head.
I shook my head. “All show, goddess. But I appreciate the effort. Now, I believe we have a heart to reclaim.”
She looked at me like I was a snake about to strike, and I couldn’t help but chuckle from deep inside my chest.
She’d saved that cruel monster, saved the centaurs, and kissed me as if I was the center of her universe. Thalassa might be in control, but the parts of Calypso that I desperately wanted back still lived within her. And that, I could work with.
Thalassa
* * *
We walked slowly, neither of us speaking much, and I found that my mind was in more torment than it had been in months.
I was still driven toward finding my heart, and yet…
I gazed at him from the corner of my eye. Tall, dark, and handsome. I always had had excellent taste in men, that I remembered, and Hades was far handsomer than most. Actually, scratch that, than all. There wasn’t another in all the realms who could compare to him.
And now I was starting to recall the feel of him. Not just from this morning, either, but from the many times before.
I clenched my jaw, shutting the memories off like closing a valve. No more. No more indulging this nonsense. Yes, he’d surprised me with his kiss. And yes, I’d participated, and it had been… fine.
It was more than fine, you stupid porpoise, and you know it.
Ignoring the hag as best I could, I couldn’t help but frown, stomach diving to my knees. I was lying to myself, but I didn’t want to entertain the truth or make her believe she’d claimed victory over me somehow. Because the moment I did, I’d lose sight of my objective. My goal.
For too long, the worlds had forgotten who I really was and the power I truly wielded.
Hades began humming, his voice deep and lulling. Despite my resolve not to give in to any more indulgences where he was concerned, I found myself listening and smiling. He had a nice voice, barrel-chested and deep.
“Did you used to do that with me before?” I asked him after ten minutes more of it.
He glanced at me from the corner of his eye. “No, but you used to do it to with me.”
I scowled. “You lie. I have a horrid voice.”
“You do, actually. But that’s not the point.” He chuckled, and I found the man absolutely, maddeningly attractive when he did. “The point is that you did, and I always loved it. I figured that if I enjoyed the sound of your screeching, it might stand to reason that you’d enjoy the sound of someone who could actually sing.”
“You’re impossible, Death. I despise your nonsense.”
“No, you don’t.” He winked. “Though I’m sure you wish you did.”
Then he turned back to walking and humming, and he was bloody right. I so completely didn’t despise him anymore, even though I desperately wished I could. Liking him was not in the cards. It was not part of my plan. How was I to overtake the Olympians if I actually began caring for the smug bastards, especially the one walking beside me? With his arms crossed behind his back, he looked so damn relaxed and content. How was I supposed to kill him when I was starting to actually not hate him?
How?
He still had my soul blade, and he’d still stolen my heart, which made him my enemy, the enemy that I wanted to kiss again and again and again until I burned him out of my system completely.
I sighed and looked around. We were walking out of the flatlands and going into a forest full of towering trees that reached toward the heavens, with branches full of bright green leaves. I sniffed the air and smelled not a drop of water around.
I frowned. “I do not care for this place.”
He chuckled. “You didn’t before either.”
“Hmm.” I pursed my lips. “We aren’t friends, you and I, so stop pretending like we are.”
Snorting, he shook his head. “You’re prickly this afternoon. What’s gotten into you now?”
“As if you don’t know, hot head.”
His brows rose, and those sinfully gorgeous, dark eyes of his glittered with thousands of stars. “A pet name. My, you’ve progressed further than I’d imagined.”
“Oh, please,” I scoffed. “Do not make me laugh. That was not a pet name. It was an insult.”
“Well.” He shrugged. “Considering you used to call me Bubble Butt and Death Boy, I’d say we’re moving forward.”
I curled my nose. “I did what, now?”
“C’mon.” He grinned, revealing his bright white teeth, and my stomach fluttered with kamikaze butterflies. “Don't tell me you don’t remember. I’m sure that you do. I know you remember a lot more than you’ve let on, Thalassa. Don’t forget that I’ve been watching you.”
“Pfft.” I rolled my wrist.
“Evasive. Yes. You used to do that, too, when you didn’t want me to know the truth. Though, and here’s the secret, goddess.” He leaned in so close that I could smell the scent of him—brimstone and darkness—and I shivered. “I always knew.”
Deciding to ignore the sudden weakness of my knees, I scowled at our surroundings. “What is this hell you’ve dragged me to? And why do I feel as though you’re as lost as I am?”
He shrugged. “I’m not lost. But the path to finding your heart will take many days yet. I told you it would.”
“What? In the before?”
He raised his brows in affirmation.
I shook my head. “I have no knowledge of that. So you’re admitting that you actually stole my heart?”
I glowered at him, feeling that old burbling of anger stir within me. I’d been right, then, not that I’d expected him to own up to it so quickly. But I was learning to be constantly surprised by this male. He did not do as I expected him to, ever.
Licking my still-tingling lips as I thought of his heated caresses, I sighed.
“I did not steal it.”
Irritated, I spread my arms. “Please don’t tell me I gave it to you.”
“Of course you did. And deep down, you knew that already.”
Brushing past him, I walked ahead. I wasn't sure where we were headed, but I knew just enough about him that I knew he’d steer me right if I went the wrong way.
He’s right, you know.
“Shut up,” I hissed beneath my breath, hating that hag’s voice more than even the bloody Olympians. Unlike the golden ones, the voice actually made me think, made me remember things and emotions I didn’t want to know or remember.
I rubbed at my chest with my long fingernails, realizing I’d just lied to myself. I did want to remember him, at least, and our time together. I wished I could remember everything the way he seemed to. He’d been so brooding and dark the first day, but today, he was completely different, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. I couldn’t make heads or tails of this strange man who teased me as if he knew me well enough to do so.
If he were anyone else, I’d probably have slammed a spear of water down his throat for daring to believe he could be so intimate with me. But as much as I kept telling myself to hate him, to loathe him, to wish him harm as I had before we’d taken up on this obnoxious quest, something had happened to me last night, and I simply couldn’t muster up that kind of fury anymore. Not at him, anyway.
I was still annoyed, though.
“I did not hand you my heart, you liar,” I snapped over my shoulder. His answer was only a throaty chuckle.
And again, we walked and walked and walked. We didn’t have to stop and eat or drink. As gods, we didn’t suffer from such plebeian needs. After an hour of hearing his annoyingly wonderful humming voice, I twirled
on him, breathing heavily.
The lout had the nerve to look amused.
“I’m a goddess. The goddess. Water. Ancient. All-powerful.” I wagged my fingers in the air.
He chuckled. “Yes, indeed you are, Calypso.”
I clenched my jaw, and then in an act of supreme irritation, stomped my foot.
At first he did nothing, but slowly, so slowly, a smile curled his delectable lips upward.
“Gods, sometimes you remind so much of her that it makes me feel stupid and weak,” he whispered tenderly.
A storm swirled inside of me, whipping and raging. Hurt, pain, and more.
“I could kill you,” I murmured.
He nodded. “Mmm-hmm. You could. But you won’t.”
He neared me, his footsteps sure, not timid or scared, but measured and bold. I quaked, telling myself that I would snap his fingers right off his hand if he dared touch me again. But even as I thought it, I felt myself leaning in, felt my traitorous body vibrating with the memory of his hot, hard hands curving over me.
The old me had fallen under his spell from almost the first moment I’d spied him kneeling and trussed up in the god’s chains. The memories of that singular moment in her life had changed the course of everything I should have been. It had turned me soft and weak and stupid.
His touch was a delicate caress along the curve of my jaw, and I lit up like a firecracker, sparking and snapping as water rushed through my body like a tsunami of waves, one on top of the other.
I growled.
“You are bored.”
“Yes, I’m bloody bored!” I snapped, confused by all that I was feeling. Confused as to why, in such a short time, I was finding myself falling under the same damn spell the stupider me had.
Why was this male so bloody irresistible to me? What made him so damned special?
He chuckled darkly, and my skin prickled with goose pimples, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck.
“As tempestuous as ever,” he murmured tenderly before sighing and dropping his hand. “Perhaps we should stop for a bite?”
Stepping out of the range of his grabby hands, I glowered. “Bite of what? Tree bark? Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“Gods, female,” he groused, before giving his head a good shake. “Do you honestly think I didn’t come prepared?”
I curled my nose with disdain, but it was a bloody farce, and judging by the way his eyes continued to sparkle, he bloody well knew it. I was all bark and no bite.
Had I lost my edge already? Was this it, then? I met him, and suddenly I was simple and feeble and full of dreaded feelings? Ugh! I wanted to kill myself at the mere thought of it.
Plopping down right where we stood, I waited. But after a minute of him doing nothing, I looked up at him and snapped, "Well?”
He shrugged. “You tell me, goddess. This is your journey. I thought maybe you’d fallen or were throwing another one of your legendary temper tantrums. I was planning to wait you out.”
“I. Do not. Throw. Tantrums,” I insisted, and the ground began to burble and hiss from jet steams deep below its crust.
He grinned. “Oh, you do. You really do. But it’s all part of your charm. So are you ready to eat or not?”
My stomach was a little empty. I could stand to eat. But he’d said I threw tantrums, and at that moment, I was fighting the urge to rip open a dam deep in the earth and drown him in it.
Chuckling as if he knew, he tsked before snapping his fingers. Suddenly, I sat on the edge of a large indigo-colored blanket brimming over with delicacies of the sea—caviar, steamed lobster tails and claws, steamed crab, flaky and resting on its half shell. Shrimp, peeled and a brilliant pink, glistened on large silver trays. Oysters and clams wrapped in kelp were steeped in a pile, and there was a giant bowl of sea beans. My mouth watered, and my fingers twitched on my lap as I fought the urge to reach greedily for a lobster tail.
Yes, these were my children, and yes, I ate them. I wasn’t going to win any mother of the year awards, but they were delicious, so one could have hardly blamed me for it.
Kneeling in front of me, he said nothing, which finally forced me to look up at him. His face was impassive, but there was kindness in his eyes.
The god of death knelt before me. It was a study in contradictions to be sure. His mythos was legendary. Brooding. Dark. A hermit with a nasty temper.
I’d witnessed that temper the first day, but even then, it had been tempered, not wild or capricious like my own. It had been powerful and even a little intimidating, but I’d not feared that he’d try to harm me.
Not that he could. I could break him like a twig, even if it didn’t look like I could. But he knew that and didn’t approach me with fear. Rather, he approached me as an equal, which was utterly ridiculous.
We were not peers.
A tense silence, full of things, unspoken grew between us.
“Would you do me the great honor of sharing my meal with me?” he asked, and again I frowned.
“I am nothing but cruel to you, and yet you insist on treating me thus,” I whispered, so terribly confused. I didn’t know what to make of him.
He shrugged. “With you, I could never be anything but.”
I sighed. “That’s just the thing, Hades. I am not that woman anymore. That is not me. I… I enjoy killing. I laugh when I do it.” I blinked and decided that if I was going to be honest, I might as well be completely honest. “Sometimes I even crave more.”
He scoffed. “You say this as if I don’t understand. I am the god of death, Calypso.” He sat and dragged one knee up to rest his braced arm upon it. “You’ve forgotten so much about who I really am.”
I shook my head. “That is impossible. I know who you are.”
“Oh, really,” he said as he reached for two lobster tails. They looked so very small in his large hands. Without looking at me, he handed me one. I supposed it would be rude not to take it, so I did.
I nibbled on the whole thing, carapace and all. The shell was one of the best parts. He smirked as if he’d known that already. I glowered but continued to savor my delicacy.
“I sincerely doubt that,” he said as he broke off a chunk of the sweet meat and placed it upon his tongue.
The very tongue I’d sucked on this morning. My stomach clenched, and I thrust my jaw out. I did not want to think of sucking his tongue. I did not want to think of sucking any part of him.
I moaned.
“Delicious, isn’t it?” he said, mistaking my moan for something else entirely.
“Whatever. I’ve had better,” I said grumpily, cheeks burning with a sudden rush of blood as wanton images scrolled through my mind, memories of just what else I’d sucked on once upon a time.
“Fine. If you know me so well, what was the very worst thing I ever did?”
His question broke me from my carnal thoughts, and I glanced up at him. “What?”
He shrugged. “Come on then, woman. You say you know me. Only someone who knew me intimately would know of what I speak. I never shared that knowledge with another, save one.”
Curious, my head buzzed as I tried to imagine just what he was talking about. I had memories of my other life. But those memories felt foreign to me, like they belonged to another, which technically they did.
That didn’t mean I remembered everything.
Some things were blank for me. I’d never minded that. I hated having memories of that other me, hated hearing her laughter echo like a ghostly wail through the hallways of my eternal mind.
“You don’t know, then,” he said finally, and he didn’t sound quite so cheerful or confident. Tossing his emptied shell aside with an angry jerk, he sighed deeply before reaching for the bowl of sea beans.
I blinked, suddenly hating to see him this way. Just yesterday, I would have rejoiced at his misery, but last night, he’d held me as I’d screamed. No one had ever done that for me. No one had ever cared enough to.
I remembered that in the other world, t
he other life, I’d had a hippocampus as my companion, but I had no one here in this time. Nothing. I’d been all alone, and he’d been there. Even with me pushing him away, with me hating him to his very core, he’d been there for me.
I still wasn’t sure that meant that he and I were destined to be anything other than temporary companions, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to kill him anymore either. And that in itself was an astonishing thought. I remembered having more than just him as a friend. I’d had Aphrodite.
But even her, I’d rejected. She’d come to me soon after my reawakening, begging me to let her into my kingdom. But I’d not allowed her to enter my domain, not even to step foot upon my waters. Because if she had, if I’d had to see her perfect face and her perfect smile, I would have punched her in her perfect nose.
It wasn’t that I necessarily hated Aphrodite, but I did hate what she stood for. Love. Foolish, ridiculous, stupid love.
Hades popped several salty beans into his mouth and munched distractedly, looking lost to the thoughts swimming through his handsome head. And for some silly reason, it bothered me.
I sighed. “I swear, if you ignore me again, I’ll turn this place into a bloody swamp.”
He gazed at me side-eye, and then a small grin flitted at the corner of his mouth. “So you do like my company.”
“I never said that.”
Popping a bean into his mouth, he winked. “You didn’t have to.”
I watched him, fascinated by the work of his strong jaw muscles as his chewed and finally swallowed.
“Calypso,” he said after a moment, and I gave myself a tiny little shake, realizing I’d never stopped watching him.
I despised that he continued to call me by a name that was not my own, but I was compelled to respond.
“Yes?”
He turned to look at me head on, setting his bowl of beans aside. He looked so different out here, open and honest and freed of the burdensome mantel that’d rested upon him in the Underworld.
Being with him was like being with a completely different man.
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 30
