The Rose

by Tiffany Reisz

  The god who impaled her did not scream. But like the ocean he ruled, he roared as he emptied himself into her for a final time.

  She hung limp in his arms. He remained embedded in her, his nose to the back of her neck, breathing deep the scent of their coupling.

  It was over. She knew it was over. She knew he would release her and she would be forced to stumble in her torn gown from the temple back to the palace, and she would return to her marriage bed still wet with his seed.

  And for the rest of her life she would carry the memory of this insane encounter in the temple of Athena. Every time her husband touched her, she would remember that a god had once touched her there. When her husband gave her pleasure, it would pale in comparison to the pleasure given to her by this god. She would mourn the memory of this night until her death and, by this god, she would tell everyone who the true father of her son was—even if it brought shame upon her and made her own husband abandon her and their child.

  No.

  She would not allow it.

  “Take me with you,” she said to Poseidon.

  “Where I go you cannot come,” he said as he withdrew from her body. She was too empty without him inside her.

  “Take me with you,” she said again. She turned over and faced him. She spread her legs for him, let him see the seed he’d spilled inside her. “Take me with you, as a bride or concubine or even a slave. It is no matter to me. But I cannot go back. How can I live the rest of my life seeing the world by candlelight now that you have shown me the sun? How can I spend the rest of my life drinking from a thimble when you have shown me the ocean? How can you send me back to the bed of a mortal man when you have taken me in a temple? No god would be so cruel.”

  “It would be crueler to take you from all you’ve ever known.”

  “I would rather have a god’s cruelty than a mortal’s love.”

  Slowly the regal head nodded.

  Without a word, the god Poseidon lifted her from the floor and held her to his chest. He strode purposefully to the westernmost end of the temple. The tide had risen so high that water pooled at the feet of Athena and all the burnt offerings were extinguished. He stepped from the temple directly into the water. The sea surrounded her at once.

  Passion fled. Panic took its place, seizing her heart as Poseidon has seized her body.

  What had she done? The shore receded in the distance and the world was nothing but black water. She screamed in terror, but the water muffled the sound. Would she drown? Would she die? Was this the cruelty Poseidon had offered her? Would she close her eyes and wake again in the kingdom of Hades?

  She squirmed in Poseidon’s grasp, but he did not release her. She beat against his shoulders, pounded her fists into his hands. It was like trying to raze a forest using a feather.

  A heavy current surrounded them and lifted them to the surface. The white cap of a wave broke over Lia’s head and she tasted air. She was going to die if he took her down again. She had one chance to save herself. No one could best a god except, perhaps, another god. What god would she call upon? Athena, who had sent her to the temple? Zeus, who would take any chance to best one of his brothers? Aphrodite, who would take any chance to spite one of her sisters?

  Lia filled her lungs with air and cried out a name in prayer.

  “Eros!”

  She cried out to Eros, for Eros alone would understand the desire that had driven her mad. Had he heard her cry? Would he help her?

  Something flew past her head and into the water.

  Something long and sharp and vicious, tipped with sharp stone and poison.

  An arrow.

  She looked up and there on the rocky ledge of the cliff stood a man.

  No, not a man. A god. White wings sprang from his shoulders and spread twenty feet wide. He was all sinew and muscle and pure concentration. He held a mighty bow in his mighty hands. He notched an arrow and pulled back the string.

  He let it go and it struck home, right in Poseidon’s back. The god of the seas cried out and blood bubbled in the waves, turning them red. He would not die from the wound, but he did let her go so that he could tear the arrow from his shoulder.

  Lia swam away from him as fast as she could. Waves crashed over her again, but she fought them until her strength failed her. Her arms were leaden and her lungs burned. She was a mortal girl, not a goddess. Eros had saved her from Poseidon for nothing.

  She began to sink again, deep, deep into the cold black sea. As she faded, the last of the life leaving her body, she thought of her mother and she wished she had kissed her goodbye and told her how much she loved her.

  “Lia, Lia...”

  She knew she was dying or already dead, because an angel hovered over her. Had to be an angel. What other creature had white wings with a twenty-foot span that shimmered like silver in the dawn light?

  “Lia? Lia, it’s me. Speak, Lia. Breathe... You have to breathe. If you die in this world, you’ll die in the other.”

  Die? Wasn’t she already dead? Her eyes slowly focused.

  Olive skin, boyish smile, eyes the color of a storm-wild sky.

  “August...” she breathed. “I thought you were an angel. You had the most beautiful wings.”

  The world went black.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Lia wasn’t dead. She knew that for certain. After a few breaths, a few blinks, she saw she was back in August’s bedroom, on his bed, and August held her in his arms. He was rocking her slowly, speaking softly in Greek. He touched her chest, felt her heartbeat, kissed her face, her forehead, her hair, a thousand times.

  “August?”

  “Lia...” he breathed. “I thought I lost you. I couldn’t find you anywhere. I’ve never been that scared. I would rather lose me than you. I would rather lose the whole world.”

  “I have to...” She took a ragged breath. Her entire body ached like she’d been slammed against a wall. “I have to sit up.”

  Carefully he held her into a seated position. She swung her legs off the bed and rubbed her forehead.

  “Are you all right?” August asked, and before she could answer he pressed a glass of water into her hands. It shook so hard she almost spilled it, but he steadied it and brought it to her lips. She drank deeply, and when she’d finished, she felt better. Not good. But better.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “You tell me,” he said. “I came up here and you were out cold, and I had no idea where you had gone. I told you never to drink from the kylix alone. You could have died, Lia.”

  “Died?”

  “When the mind dies, the body dies,” August said. “If you hadn’t shouted my name, I would never have found you in time.”

  He ran his hand through her hair, kissed her temple. She felt him shudder. Had he been more scared for her than she was for herself?

  “But I didn’t...”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She didn’t remember shouting August’s name, but apparently she had.

  “Where were you?” He took her face in his hands. “Why was Poseidon trying to drown you?”

  Lia couldn’t bear to be touched anymore. She pushed his hands aside and staggered to one of the club chairs.

  “Sit,” she said. “Please?”

  She pointed at the chair opposite her. He sat on the floor at her feet.

  Typical.

  “Lia, talk to me,” he said.

  “I had been talking to Mum this evening about the story of Aethra and Poseidon. It was on my mind, I suppose. I meant to go back to Pan’s Island. I ended up getting shagged in a temple by Poseidon. Oops.”

  “I warned you the cup was dangerous.”

  “Right,” she said. “Don’t play with a god’s toy without permission. Never again. Promise.”

  “How was the sex, though?”
/>   “Not half-bad.” Classic understatement.

  “Good girl,” he said. “If you’re going to get swept up in one of your own erotic fantasies and nearly die doing it, you might as well enjoy some top-notch cock first.” August laughed. He laughed until she thought he might cry.

  He picked up a book off the other chair and showed her a picture. “That’s what I had planned for us tonight.” He’d chosen the famous painting of Zeus visiting Danaë in the form of a shower of liquid gold.

  “Good choice,” Lia said. “I always wondered what it would be like to have sex with a precious mineral in liquid form.”

  “Liquid gold can hit all those hard to reach places.”

  “Sounds fun. Too bad we can’t...”

  Lia blinked, and a tear ran down her cheek. She hastily wiped it away.

  “I should go home. I shouldn’t be here with you anymore. It’s not right. You’re engaged.”

  “We’re allowed to talk,” he said.

  “Allowed. We’re allowed to talk. That’s nice of them to let you talk to me,” she said, meeting his eyes. “How could you? You didn’t even ask me what I wanted.”

  He looked sad but not guilty. “I didn’t think I could tell you no,” he said, hanging his head between his knees for a moment. “If you’d begged me not to do it, I would have given in just to please you. And your safety is more important than your happiness.”

  He looked back up at her.

  “Forget about me,” Lia begged. “You said you would rather die than bend your knee to your parents, than give up your freedom and your life here to marry a woman you don’t know, like or love. And now you’re doing it.”

  “I was being selfish and stupid when I said that,” he said. “I cared only about me and my feelings and my freedom. Then I took you to the island and the way you looked at Pan and the way you looked at me... I saw you there in that sacred grove in that white dress with tears running down your face, and I thought my heart would burst from love. I would have married you in that grove, built you a palace of gold or a cottage of river stone, and we would have lived there and loved there until the end of days.”

  “Marry me? Because I got weepy when you put me inside my favorite book?”

  “Because I love you, Lia,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “And I’m not afraid to tell you that here and now in the real world with you standing in front of me.”

  “You love me?”

  “Yes,” he said, then louder, “yes. I love you.”

  She laughed. “Why? I’m surly.”

  “Charmingly surly.”

  “I’m bitter.”

  “Tart.”

  “I’m a kitten with a switchblade,” she said, weeping openly now.

  “I like kittens. I’m not afraid of your switchblade.”

  Lia slowly stood up. She picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. She was still shaky but steady enough to walk and see and drive home.

  “I should go.”

  August came to his feet, and when it seemed inevitable that he’d try to hold her one last time, she held up her hand to warn him away.

  “You’re engaged,” she said. “For the sake of whoever she is, please don’t touch me. Enough girls have gotten their hearts broken this week. Let’s not throw another on the pile, all right?”

  “I don’t even know who she is. She might not even be a girl. Could be a nymph. A satyr. A fawn.”

  “A cloud?”

  “Could be a cloud,” he said.

  “Whoever it is, they’re still your fiancée. You should respect that.”

  “Prissiest madam ever,” he said. “I’m sure my cloud and I will be very happy together.”

  “You are?”

  “No,” he said. She appreciated his honesty.

  “I don’t think you’ll believe me but it’s true... I hope you’re very happy. You made me very happy, happier than I ever thought I could be again.”

  “You do love me, don’t you, Lia?” he asked, his voice almost breaking on her name. “Even a little?”

  She looked at him and shook her head, not to say no, but so he’d know what an idiot he was being asking her that.

  “Of course,” she said. “Of course I love you, August. Of course I do.”

  Lia started to leave again. She made it as far as the door where she turned around and looked back at him. One last look. One last smile.

  “I’ll never see you again, will I?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. “When I go back, it’ll be for good.”

  She nodded. “You can have the Rose Kylix,” she said. “You can keep it, I mean. I’m giving it to you, no million pounds necessary. You should have it. It belongs to your people.”

  “Too nice for your own good.” He tried to laugh but it didn’t come out quite right. “Lia,” he said. Just Lia, her name.

  “I’ll, um...” she began, but stopped when her words caught in her throat. She took a deep breath. She would not fall apart. She would not. What she had to say was too important.

  “I will remember our trip to Pan’s Island as long as I live,” she said. “I’ll remember that beautiful thing you did for me. When I’m so old I don’t even remember my own name, I’ll remember...” She heaved a sob.

  “What, Lia?” August asked. Tears streamed down his face, his lovely beloved face.

  “You,” she said. “I’ll remember you, August Bowman. If that is your real name.”

  “It’s not,” he said.

  “Too bad,” she said. “It’s a very nice name.”

  She smiled one more time.

  Then she left.

  PART SEVEN

  Danaë & Zeus

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Lia didn’t cry all the way home. A small miracle, but she was grateful for it. If she came home crying, her mother might see, and if her mother saw, she’d want to know why. As fragile as Lia was feeling, she knew she’d tell Mum everything. No, she would go home and take a long hot bath and go to bed and sleep for a couple days. And when she woke up, she’d get on with her life, because what else was there to do?

  By the time Lia made it home, it was nearly ten. She must have lost a very long time in the fantasy world of Aethra and Poseidon. Usually after her jaunts with August, she’d felt high as a kite—happy and carefree, fearless and free. Not tonight. How unfair... August had to go and get engaged to some random girl. What a buzzkill.

  See? She was making jokes about this awful situation already. Such a good English girl. Stiff upper lip. Never surrender. Keep calm and carry on. Churchill would be so proud of her.

  Lia parked in front of the house and went in the front entrance, too tired and dejected and cold to bother hiding the fact she’d gone out. As she walked past the music room on her left, she heard laughter.

  Her mother’s laugh, like she’d just been pinched in a tender spot.

  Her father’s laugh, like he’d won a hand of poker and was raking in the chips.

  And another laugh, like a man who’d just gotten away with murder.

  David.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  That bastard was here.

  Too furious to be afraid, Lia walked into the music room and found her mother standing by the sofa, pouring David a glass of red wine while her father sat back in an armchair, nursing a Scotch on the rocks.

  Her mother looked up when Lia came in, and her father grinned.

  “There’s our girl now,” her father said. “Come in, love. Say hello to David. We were just telling him about how good you’d gotten at your weaving.”

  “Lia,” David said. He wore dark jeans, a black jacket and a T-shirt splattered with paint. “Great to see you, kid.”

  “Two for eight.”

  “What?” David’s brow furrowed.

 
“Two T-shirts for eight pounds at Tesco,” Lia said. “You have paint on yours.”

  He chuckled a mad king’s chuckle. “Right. I should get some new shirts. I’m always so busy, I forget to do it.” He grinned up at her mother. “Mona, sit. I can pour my own wine.”

  He patted the seat on the sofa next to him, and Mum sat there.

  David put his arm on the back of the sofa, just behind her mother. Lia mentally murdered him with a railway spike through the head.

  “Where’s Gogo?” she asked. He usually curled up with her mother when Lia wasn’t home.

  “Had to put him outside,” her father said. “Wouldn’t stop barking at David. You know how strangers make him nervous.”

  “August didn’t make him nervous,” Lia said. “He loved August from first sniff.”

  “Who’s August?” David asked, grinning behind his wineglass.

  “Lia’s boyfriend,” Mum said in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “August and I broke up tonight.” David’s fault. She looked at him so he’d know that. So he’d know and be afraid of her. And if he wasn’t afraid yet, he would be soon.

  “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry,” her mother said.

  “It’s fine.” It was not fine.

  “Sorry, darling,” Daddy said. She appreciated that he’d managed to say that without smiling.

  “Tough break, kid,” David said. “I’ve been there myself. Why don’t you have a drink with us? You’ll feel better.”

  Then he dropped his arm around her mother’s shoulders.

  Had it been any other man—any of her father’s friends or mother’s friends or even the bloody plumber—Lia would have let it go. But it was David.

  Lia wasn’t about to let that go.

  “Get your fucking hands off my mother.”

  “Lia!” Mum said. David raised his hands in mock surrender. Only August was allowed to mock her.

  And August was gone.

  “Rough night,” David said to her mother. “She’s allowed to be in a bad mood.”

  “I don’t think so.” Her mother glared at her. “Lia, let’s give the bad attitude a second thought, shall we?”