Blood of Zeus: (Blood of Zeus: Book One)

by Meredith Wild

  I lock my gaze to hers. “We’re discreet.”

  “Discreet isn’t enough. I mean it, Maximus. You need to be vigilant. Bloody hell. You need to be paranoid. At all times.”

  At first, all I do is glug my coffee. The bitter brew burns on its way down, but I welcome the sting. A brutal fusion to reality. Reg has said a whole lot without saying anything. It’s overwhelming.

  A mire for generations. Dirt and perfidy, stockpiled in a mansion. Vigilance and paranoia.

  How do I tell the woman the total truth now? That every moment with Kara means getting to lower my guard? That no person on this planet has ever made me this free?

  That answer is already clear. I won’t tell her.

  “At least you’ve been aware enough to be watchful,” she goes on. “There’ll be bloody hell to pay if your mother finds out about this.”

  I rear back. “My mother? Why would she care about—”

  “And then there’s Veronica,” she interrupts and facepalms herself. “Oh, heaven help us, Nancy’s fit will be dust in the wind if Veronica catches a sniff of this mess.”

  This mess.

  Reg’s assessment isn’t technically wrong—because there are a lot of messy parts about how hard, far, and fast I’ve tumbled for Kara—but the inference that we’re like a couple of kids who don’t realize it…is just wrong. Neither of us asked for this, but neither of us is ignoring its impact. On everything. Sometimes, accepting fate’s whiplash is the first step to recovering from it.

  That’s no help for my onslaught of feelings now.

  My perplexity spirals into protective rage. My hand crushes into a fist, demolishing the ceramic mug from which I just drank. Thank fuck I was done with the contents. I’m not as grateful for everything I’m still feeling.

  She steps over and reaches out—around the chunks of my shattered mug—for my hand. Her fingers are freezing talons. Her grip is shockingly brutal. “I assure you, if you take this any further with that woman’s daughter, there will be consequences.”

  The ice in her clench is now a chill through my blood and fissures through my mind. Through those cracks, there’s comprehension I don’t want to see. Unfeeling light. A dawn of dread.

  Still, I force myself to question her. “Consequences? Reg? What the fuck are you implying?”

  “Maybe you already know.” Her voice is suddenly soft and sad.

  But I’m not sad. I’m damn near redlined with anger now, pegged-out to the point of sarcasm. “Sure. Right. Because I’ve totally loved getting hit with nothing but half-truths and symbolism for the last two weeks.” I pull my hand free and drag it, nicked and bloody, through my hair. “Christ. Medieval poetry is clearer than you and Kara put together.”

  “No matter what this is between you two…no matter what you are both feeling… Maximus…you can never be with her.”

  I thought the conversation was excruciating before. This isn’t like the woman scolding me for unfinished homework or not eating all my vegetables. This isn’t an admonishment I can tune out. I have to hear it. I have to comprehend it. Yesterday, I promised Kara no less. My vow hasn’t changed since then.

  A high-pitched squeal pierces the tension between us.

  The next second, Sarah rushes out from her office doorway wearing a Coldplay T-shirt and the biggest grin. “Oh, now, this is brilliant,” she exclaims. “The king of the day, in the flesh. When were you planning on filling us in?”

  I glance backward, ascertaining she isn’t referring to someone other than me. “Okay. What did I miss?” I ask warily. There’s something about that mischief on her face, illuminated a little more by the glow from her phone, which she now swings over to show to Reg.

  In return, Reg is painfully quiet. She looks ready to vomit on everything she’s just cleaned. Instead, she wrests the phone from her wife, flips the screen toward me, and spits a single word.

  “Discreet?”

  Only then do I get my first horrified view of a photo at the top of Star Passion, a popular gossip blog.

  Well…shit.

  “Enlighten me, Professor. The definition of ‘discreet’ seems to have changed since the last time I checked.”

  Inwardly I echo my profanity, but the word never makes it to my lips. I take the device from Reg and scroll down the page. Nothing gets any easier to take in, including the salacious “breaking news” beneath the dim but clear photo of Kara and me, hands clasped and stares locked, from the tech booth at the back of the lecture hall. Farther down, there’s another shot. Her hand is on my shoulder. I’m leaning down as if getting ready to kiss her.

  Though I used Herculean effort and held back, not a soul who sees that picture will think that. The visits counter at the bottom of the page tallies the views at six digits—and climbing fast.

  “Shit.” I slide the phone back across the counter toward Sarah.

  The woman barely notices. She’s still ping-ponging a dumbfounded look between Reg and me.

  “Anyone care to enlighten the girl who just dropped a clanger here?” she finally demands. “Reg? Aren’t we happy for our boy? Maximus? This is a good thing, right? This girl… I mean, look at how she looks at you. Oh yes, let’s look…”

  “No,” Reg snaps. “Let’s not.”

  “I don’t understand. Maximus? You and this young woman…are not together?”

  I release a pent-up breath through my nose. “I wouldn’t call it ‘together.’” I’d call it connected and captivated and riveted, but probably not together. We were meeting today to try to change that. Now, will Kara even show? If she does, will she even think about opening up to me anymore?

  “Well then, let’s not quibble semantics,” Sarah says, brightening again. “Whatever you’re calling it, you’ll invite her over and we’ll chill the bubbly to celebrate!”

  “No.” Reg practically barks the repeat. “No celebration. No bubbly either.” After stabbing me with a fast glance, she mumbles, “I think I need something stronger.”

  Before Sarah can argue, the bell over the door jingles behind me. The vibrations from the clangs are barely finished on the air when my senses sizzle with even better tremors.

  Better. And worse.

  “Kara.”

  No crisis can ever steal the power of her name on my lips. I treasure its potency for another couple of seconds as she walks over in a long-skirted dress and matching fedora. Her dark hair tumbles loose and free over her shoulders, just like a bigger wave of adoration spills across every inch of my chest.

  “Hi,” she greets Reg and Sarah with a sweet smile before turning her gaze, wide and bright, up to me. “Good morning, Mr. Kane.” She makes it a point to enunciate every syllable of her greeting, emphasizing her readiness to see me as more than just her teacher or even her friend.

  She scoots up beside me and stands on her tiptoes to press a soft kiss to my jaw. I’m unable to hold back from clenching it beneath her caress. As much as I relish the intimate brush, it means she hasn’t heard the news. The storm hasn’t slammed her yet.

  But it’s about to.

  I know it as soon as I clutch her hand, like I’m in quicksand and she’s my salvation of a tree limb. I see it in the new tension bracketing her mouth and the deepened shadows in her eyes. I feel it in the restless shift of her body. She already senses it, like an oncoming storm rushing a defenseless shore.

  “Maximus.” There it is, in the unsteady rasp of her voice as well. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I battle for a reassuring smile. It’s gone in less than a second. “Some photos have hit the media,” I state slowly. At first, she’s eerily still. Her clasp on my fingers turns into a vise-grip.

  “Photos,” she finally says. “Of us?”

  I pull in a long breath, buying myself some seconds to navigate the chaos of my mind, searching for the best words to start with. But fate’s got the last laugh on this one, because seconds are all that remain of our peaceful bubble—popped wide open by a blinding flash from the front door.
Then another from the direction of the shop’s service entrance. And a third from a window Reg must have rolled open earlier.

  “Sixes and bloody sevens!” Sarah exclaims. “What on—”

  “Out!” Reg cuts in with a virulent shout. She marches to the front door, throws it wide, and stabs her arm toward the sidewalk beyond. “This is private property, you leeches. I’m already calling LAPD. You’d better be good and gone before they show up.”

  As soon as the photographers are done clamoring over each other to leave, she slams the door with a biting curse.

  Her wife looks on with a flushed face and wide stare. “Well, hasn’t this turned into an interesting party.”

  Under normal circumstances, I’d be giving Sarah’s droll line at least an appreciative chuckle. But laughter isn’t a blip on my radar right now. The only obsession on my mind is the woman I’ve locked against my chest with a steeled armhold around her waist.

  Fortunately, her hat’s brim helps to hide her face, still twisting hard and desperately into the front of my T-shirt. I can feel wetness too. Not a lot of it. Her shoulders are collections of coiled muscles, giving away her effort to hold herself together. So much for the lame assumption that a girl like her would be seasoned at handling an onslaught like this. War zones shouldn’t be a norm for anyone. The mob outside must be two dozen thick by now.

  I dip my head in, pressing my mouth against her ear. “I’ve got you,” I soothe with every inch of my spirit, every corner of my heart.

  But she’s far from all right. She’s a ball of tension in my arms, which activates every protective bone in my body. I default to action. With a trio of forceful steps, I back her into a notch of space in the wall behind the bar. While my shoulders protrude from the crevice, it’s deep enough to accommodate all of her and most of me.

  I finally relent my hold, moving my hands to rub gently up and down her arms. “Once the cops get here, they’ll get things under control. I can sneak you out the back and through the alley. Better yet, you can just stay here the whole day.”

  The new warmth of my voice gives away how I’d love nothing better, but Kara’s still hunched in and shivering like she’s caught on a washed-out bridge. Still, when she lifts her stare up at me, there’s new hope in her eyes.

  “You’d let me do that?” she whispers.

  I lift a hand to her face. Press my forehead to hers. “That’s like asking if I’d let myself glimpse heaven.”

  In a rush of sweet, sighing energy, she finally slackens a little. But not so much that she relents her hold on me. My senses heighten as she slides her arms around my neck, even shifting one hand into my hair. Her tentative smile ignites me…pulls at me. Despite the din that continues outside, I’m going to kiss her. And she’s going to let me. Nothing can break our bond. Nothing can hold back our heat.

  Except the second my mouth brushes hers, a ruthless sound blares from her dress’s pocket. And in the space of that heartless hail, everything about Kara’s composure is back to washed-out bridge mode.

  No. Worse.

  She pulls out her phone, which is still screaming like a tornado warning and buzzing like ten beehives, from her pocket. “It’s my mother.”

  “I’m sure she’s familiar with how voicemail works.”

  “You don’t understand. Honestly, it’s probably best that you don’t.”

  She flattens a hand against my chest like the mere sound of her mother’s ringtone is a call to flee. In that moment, recognition hits without mercy. If I don’t block her from leaving, I’ll lose her.

  “Kara, don’t leave. Neither of us expected this, but—”

  “This is more important.” Her voice wavers. “I’m sorry.”

  “So you’re saying that those idiots with their cameras and whatever conclusions anyone wants to draw about the photos they snap is more important than everything I’m feeling for you…every goddamned way I’m drawn to you?”

  “No. But this is my life. I didn’t choose it. It’s just the way it is.” Her breath leaves her in harsh husks. “I’m sorry, Maximus. I’m so, so sorry—but I have to go.”

  “I’m not letting you leave this way.” It’s irrational and probably unfair, but the advantage of my strength is something I’m willing to use to keep her here a little longer.

  “Please. If I don’t go, she’ll come here, and—”

  “Then let her come.”

  “Maximus.”

  Nothing about her shaky plea or the quivers in her fingertips prepares me for how she punctuates that. By shoving me with all the force in her arms. A force equal to that of a dozen full-grown men.

  A force strong enough to set me back a few steps.

  It’s a new experience. No one’s ever been able to budge me by an inch, let alone full steps, without me consciously allowing it. I’m not sure I like it. At all.

  While my brain struggles to catch up with my shock, Kara deals an even harder blow. Her gaze, so full of torment and conflict, is worse than any physical blast she could ever unleash on me.

  “I’m sorry,” she says once more.

  This time when she turns to leave, rushing out the back entrance, I’m struck with more than the ache of missing her. More than the torture of being left with her cinnamon spice in my senses and her pretty fedora at my feet.

  For once, I wonder if the river between us has changed directions. Because the devastating force of the feelings she fled with is a cinder block in my chest now. The heartbreak in her eyes. The defeat in her withering energy, like she used the last of it to push me away.

  And for the first time since she walked into my world, a new agony rips ruthlessly through me. The possibility that I might never get her back.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kara

  “Tell me there’s a good explanation for this, Kara.”

  My mother’s displeasure fills the room like her too-strong perfume, pressing against the silk-covered walls of her office. I feel like I can’t breathe in here, but I can’t leave. She’s been scrolling over the Star Passion article repeatedly for the past five minutes, as if the images or their impact on our family might change if she looks just a little longer.

  When she finally turns back to me, it’s almost a relief. Except her eyes are black with disappointment—like lava gone cold.

  “Tell me this is part of a bigger plan to generate publicity for the family,” she says, her voice too quiet. “Tell me you wouldn’t intentionally jeopardize our position here over a childish romance. With your professor!”

  Her voice climbs on the last word as she slaps her hand onto the desk, like that one particular detail is the last straw on the pile of my offenses that she just can’t handle. I know she’s past pissed off. But for the first time in my life, I’m less worried about her wrath than I am about everything I’m about to lose because of it. Not the clothes on my back, the roof over my head, or even the car I drove here. My heart is lodged in my throat because of the things that have no dollar signs attached or status to validate. The fallout of my carelessness will reach further than that. Because of me, Gramps is going to suffer. Probably Kell and Jaden too.

  And Maximus.

  Oh, God.

  How deep into the fire will she throw Maximus for this?

  It’s impossible for me to even contemplate that answer. We haven’t gotten to the specifics of those consequences yet, but I know they’re coming. Veronica Valari might be a vicious bitch, but she’s a woman with a plan first.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  “If you want me to lie to you, I will.” I lift my chin by a determined notch. “I’m guessing that’s not what you really want, though.”

  She huffs a breath out through her nose. “So how long has this been going on?”

  “Not long.”

  “Please…” She closes her eyes with a pained grimace. “Please tell me you haven’t done anything foolish.”

  I glance out past the heavy curtains that frame her picture window. I
wish I could jump through it and visit Gramps. Pretend like today never happened.

  “I haven’t slept with him, if that’s what you mean.”

  She releases an audible sigh. “That may be the best news I’ve heard all day.”

  I look back to her, unable to share in any of her relief. Unable to do anything, really, except spear her with my quiet but fulminating fury.

  Finally, I murmur, “It’s a little ironic, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t see anything ironic about this, Kara. This was a near disaster. Now that I know you haven’t crossed any lines, I’ll see if I can work it to our advantage with the media, but—”

  “No.” I’m not any louder about it, though I push out more anger from between my locked teeth. “The irony is that we’re descendants of the fallen.”

  Her eyes seem frozen wide. “Yes, and…?”

  “And they fell by choice. Don’t you think it’s awfully ironic now that I’m robbed of all my choices? When did the doctrine change, Mother? And why is my virginity so damn important? This is archaic—”

  She slams her hand onto the table again. “Does a soldier have a choice when faced with duty?”

  “I’m not a soldier, and neither are you.”

  “For being such a dedicated student, you can be extremely stupid, Kara. Can’t you see this isn’t about you?”

  The insult stings—until I recognize it for what it really is. A sad attempt at manipulation. I refuse to let her succeed at it. I won’t be stopped from at least saying my piece. I’m not going that quietly into this wrenching fate.

  “I’m caught between two worlds. We both are. I’m just trying to figure out who the hell I am. Don’t you get that?”

  My voice wavers at the end, and I hate myself for even that small weakness, but something softens in her at the same time. Under all her hyperfocus and manipulation, she’s still my mother. Maybe she still cares, at least a little. Maybe because once upon a time she was robbed of her choice and wasn’t entirely thrilled about it either.