Heart (24 page)

Plus, Hades was out of our hair for the
foreseeable future.

He was out of everyone’s hair for the
foreseeable future. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of
consequences his death would cause.

I shuddered, remembering how brutally Hades
had met his demise. Was it truly the end for him? Was it possible
for him to survive something so gruesome?

As far as I knew, the only way a god could be
killed was by another god or the god-killer, a deadly, ancient
sword my mother once possessed.

Persephone had been the only one able to end
Crete’s life. Had she? Or had she damned him to suffer the same
eternal emptiness he had forced on her?

I looked over at Ryder and felt the pressure
release from my lungs. He was alive. He was still with me.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in a rush of
emotion.

His head cocked back in surprise. “For
what?”

Tears wet my lashes as they slipped down my
cheeks. “For leaving you. I’m sorry for… for… for leaving you in
the hospital after Nix nearly killed you and for never calling or
checking in. I’m s-sorry for not coming back sooner and for-” I
stopped apologizing because emotion clogged my throat and I
couldn’t speak beyond my racking sobs. I covered my face with my
hands and let the burn of regret and embarrassment sear through
me.

My emotions jumbled together in regret and
confusion. On one side of the argument I had to leave all those
months ago, I
had
to get away. On the other side, after
everything Ryder and I had been through tonight, I couldn’t believe
I’d left him and left our relationship up to chance.

Somehow, on the island, I had always known I
would see him again. I had always known we would be together
again.

But, last night had been final.

If Persephone hadn’t felt generous or had
been too consumed with her fury to notice Ryder, I would be sitting
here by myself.

I would have had to face the rest of my life
by myself.

Strong arms wrapped around my torso and
tugged me against a familiar chest. Ryder’s warmth enveloped me,
comforting and promising at the same time.

“Ivy,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re not
going to lose me again. It won’t happen again.”

I trembled in his arms, but let myself listen
to his words. I let his promises take root in my soul. I let them
build something inside of me that was permanent and lasting. I
would not lose him again.

I would not lose him again.

“I love you,” he told me, softly at first.
Then with more intent, more clarity, “
I love you
.”

I jerked in his arms, rocked completely by
the violent, life-altering weight of those words. They were so
simple. So short and sweet. And yet they had a power over me that
should have scared me.

I had never been loved before. Not in my
entire life.

I had never known love until Ryder, never
felt it or breathed it or bled it. And yet with him, it had become
this defining entity inside me. My love for Ryder consumed my
thoughts and dictated my actions. I would do anything for him. Go
anywhere. Sacrifice everything.

But none of that, nothing I could do, think,
or feel compared to the effect
being loved by Ryder
had on
me.

“Ivy,” he murmured, with his lips against my
temple and his arms bracing me to his body, “I love you.”

More tears clogged my throat and stole my
words. Emotion fought with the fierce desire to return his feelings
until I finally clawed through the weighty heart-bending joy and
whispered, “I love you, too.”

He pulled back so he could cradle my face
with his rough hands. He stared into my eyes as if they could tell
him everything I couldn’t say out loud.

“Say it again,” he demanded.

Regret kicked my chest as I took in his
desperation, his neediness. “I love you,” I swore to him.

“Again,” he rasped.

“I love you, Ryder.”

His lips crashed against mine with greed and
devotion. He took this kiss from me, demanded that I give him
everything with this connection. Our lips bruised and our teeth
scraped as we poured everything into this moment; every delayed
touch, every ounce of feeling that had built and built over our
months apart, every aching moment that we’d had to miss.

His hands moved over my body, memorizing the
feel of me and mine did the same to him. I felt his chiseled arms
and hard chest, his corded neck and muscled stomach. I dug my
fingernails into his cut shoulder blades and pressed my pounding
heart against his.

Then finally, finally when I could take it no
more, I sunk my hands into his tangled hair and came home.

Just like with love, this was a first for
me.

I had lived in a prison my entire life, where
love was replaced with sinister expectation and home was
substituted for fear. I had slept in a place I dreaded and grown up
in a house I hated.

I hadn’t known anything different. I couldn’t
imagine anything different.

Until Ryder.

Until this.

Now I knew what it was like to be loved and
cherished. I knew what it was like to have my heart settle and
finally relax. I knew what it was like to release the debilitating
terror that had clutched my chest and lungs for the entirety of my
life and finally…
finally
breathe deeply.

I had been alone all of my life.

But now I had Ryder.

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes
and slipped down my dirty cheeks. My heart raced in my chest with
new feelings and restored emotions. My chest swelled and expanded
freeing up space for my shriveled lungs, coaxing them back to life
once more.

When Ryder pulled back my lips were swollen
and my breathing was ragged with passion. He pressed his forehead
to mine, with eyes still closed, and smiled.

He smiled and I had never seen anything more
beautiful.

“I love you,” he whispered again, his voice
grating against the depth of his feelings and heat of our shared
moment.

“I love you, too.” There had never been
sweeter words spoken.

“And God, have I missed you, Ivy.”

I couldn’t speak again. Tears started falling
and I nodded frantically so he knew I felt the same way. I had
missed him. I had missed him more than I knew it was possible to
miss someone.

He wrapped me in a hug again, this time to
comfort my inconsolable tears. And finally… finally it worked.

I felt better.

I felt healed.

I felt restored.

After a little more time, I finally pulled
myself together. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to sit with Ryder for the
next five years and sort through all of the things I had to cry
about. It wouldn’t always have been about him or what we went
through, but I had plenty of trauma rattling around in my head,
desperate to come out in some form of wet sorrow.

“Ready to find your mom now?” he asked in a
gentle voice.

His eyes moved over my face, carefully
calculating if I could do this. I was a hot mess in so many ways.
But in this way, on
this
crusade, I was surprisingly pulled
together.

I was ready to get my mom. I was ready to
face the Fates.

If for no other reason than I needed some
goddamn control in my life. I needed to take these evil witches out
and assume the reins of my life for the first time.

I was sick and tired of running… of being
afraid… of letting other people tell me how I should live my
life.

Ryder and I had a future to live out that was
as far from this freaking mountain as humanly possible. And these
crazy hags were standing in my way.

I also felt the stirring need to rescue my
mother.

Ava didn’t deserve my help. I knew that. I
felt it in my bones. But I couldn’t leave her here either.

She claimed to have saved me through her
godawful treatment of me. She claimed to have neglected me on
purpose. That every time she handed me over to Nix, every moment I
had endured abuse and mistreatment, that every time my innocence
was ripped away and replaced with something vile, she had wanted to
motivate me to leave.

I couldn’t help but feel skepticism. I mean,
how easy would it be for someone to come up with those excuses
after everything that had happened?
Pretty damn easily
.

But whether she was lying or not, the outcome
was the same. I
was
motivated to leave. I was more than
motivated, I was obsessed. And I had not stopped trying until I
left Nix and everything else in this insidious world behind.

“I’m ready,” I told Ryder. “Let’s get her and
get the hell out.”

“Have you thought any more on how we’re going
to do that? I really would like to avoid going back the way we
came.”

I slipped my hands into his and let him pull
me to my feet. His skin had gone icy with the mention of the
Underworld. “I’ll call Hermes,” I said quickly, hoping to dispel
the worst of his fears. “He’ll come get us.”

Ryder pulled me along with him, down the path
that would hopefully lead us to the Fates. “Will he be pissed that
we took off without telling him?”

I laughed, but it sounded bitter and empty
even to my own ears. “He’ll be furious.”

“And you’re not afraid?” Ryder asked with
just the smallest hint of amusement coloring his tone.

“Not even a little bit.”

He shot me a wide grin. “Atta-girl.”

“You’re so smug,” I scolded. “You probably
take credit for all of this, don’t you? You think you had something
to do with my transformation.”

When he gave me another smile it was sweeter
than the last, sweeter, kinder and infinitely full of love. “I
know
I had something to do with this transformation,” he
teased. “Which makes me love it all the more.”

I smiled back this time and let the
butterflies that had been caged and dehydrated for far too long
free. They erupted through my blood like a frenzied swarm of
happiness. Their big wings flapped ecstatically and created a
tingling sensation that made me want to stretch and fidget.

We hiked the rest of the way with purpose.
The road became steadily more treacherous. It narrowed until we
could barely walk side by side without brushing against the ragged
cliffs on either side. In some places, the path had been completely
blocked off by rock slides and debris. We had to pick our way over
the rubble and hope there was clearer road on the other side.

I was out of breath and cursing our
difficulty when the road suddenly ended. The gravelly,
debris-polluted path ran straight into the jagged side of a large
cliff.

I pressed my hands against the cool rock
face, shadowed from the sun. My frustration simmered until it
became a raging boil. I beat my fist against the rock, wishing I
was as strong as a Titan. I would rip this mountain to pieces with
my bare hands.

Ryder’s hand landed on my shoulder and pulled
me back against his chest. “Hey,” he soothed. “We’ll find another
way.”

I stared at the cold granite. There wasn’t
another way. This was the only one.

I couldn’t say how I knew that, but I did. I
knew it with conviction.

We’d taken the only path out of the main city
and followed it here. I felt like a mouse trapped in a maze. We’d
made it this far. Where was my cheese?

My senses prickled with unease and I squared
my shoulders, bracing for the attack. I could feel them watching us
as we stood here helplessly.

If they were here, then there had to be a way
to get to them.

If they could see me, then somehow I could
see them.

I tipped my head back and craned my neck
toward the sky. The rock wall in front of me went straight up for a
long time, before jutting out with a long, narrow cliff. The
mountaintop came to a sharp point above that, cresting with snow
and ice.

How far up were we?

As if in answers to my thoughts, an ice cold
gust of wind rushed down from on high and skittered over me. I
shivered violently from the frigid air.

“What’s up there?” Ryder asked
cautiously.

I followed his gaze and stared at that thin
piece of mountain. It almost looked like a runway, it was so long
and narrow. Towards the back side of the cliff, near the body of
the mountain a large black smudge opened up like a mouth.

A cave, I realized.

A tuft of black hair flapped in the
aggressive wind. A small face peered down at me.

“There,” I pointed up for Ryder to see. The
child-Fate hurried out of our sightline, but I saw her first.

They were up there.

Waiting for us.

“Then let’s go,” Ryder suggested. His hand
found my lower back and nudged me toward the wall.

“You want me to…”

“Climb,” he finished.

I blinked up at the impossible distance. “I
think I quit instead.”

His low chuckle vibrated through me as he put
my hands into small crevices in the rock I hadn’t noticed until
now. “Unfortunately, that’s not an option, Red. So let’s get up
there before they decide to come down for us.”

I thought about my options. I thought about
my mother who had made difficult decisions for me since the moment
I was born. I thought about what could be happening to her up
there, things I couldn’t imagine.

I had lots of choices, but I only had one
worthy choice.

I dug my sandaled foot into a small space and
grabbed hold of the rock with the tips of my fingers. I had just
watched Ryder finish the god of the Underworld; why not take on the
Fates?

Chapter Twenty

The wind pummeled my body, pushing and
pulling me in every direction. I had never felt it so strong
before, so vicious.

It felt like the hand of a god playing with
my frail body as it tried to knock me from the cliffs. And maybe it
was.

Ryder hung on just a few feet below me. He
let me take the lead and I had the suspicious feeling it was
because he thought, at some point, I would fall and he would have
to catch me. I appreciated his care, but I didn’t know how much
good it would do if I really slipped.