Medusa's Desire (The Fate of Eros #1) (The Fate of Eros Series) (7 page)

Medusa's lips tightened. "What's so damn funny?"

She didn't dare open her eyes. Her sisters were immortal and that's why they'd been able to regenerate, but she'd die forever if she were turned into stone.

"I was thirsty," Euryale said. "My muscles were so stiff that pain was shooting through my body as I came back to life."

"And why exactly was that funny?"

"Because, dear sister," Euryale said. "We have cheated death. Through suffering, I have been baptized and now I can feel power coursing through me! I can conquer any amount of pain. I wish to do it again."

Stheno clapped her hands. "Yes, let's compete and see who can turn the other one into stone the fastest!"

"We've already died that way, though." Euryale sighed. "I want to know what it's like to be stabbed and to bleed my life away." She shivered and threw her head back in delight. "I can almost feel it." She clutched her throat and let her hand slowly trail down her body like it was blood dripping from her.

Stheno licked her lips. "Do you think I could stay alive long enough to touch my heart as it spurts blood?"

Medusa shook her head, not knowing whether she should be relieved that her sisters were okay or disturbed by their behavior.

And so it began. Euryale and Stheno found various ways to kill each other. They even once played a game where they chopped off each other's body parts one at a time to see who would pass out first. New ones regenerated in their place before the game was over because they didn't do it fast enough, which frustrated them.

They made Medusa the referee to tell them who passed out first and who regenerated quickest. Regardless of what she said, they'd argue and claim that she was biased.

Medusa was afraid they would resent her because she was the reason that they'd been cursed, but instead Stheno claimed it was the best thing that had ever happened to her. She didn't worry about "little" things like Aischylos and whether or not he had feelings for her anymore. Those were human concerns. She was special now, no longer a wall-flower as she used to be.

They were soon nicknamed the "dreadful" or Gorgon Sisters because of their antics in the underworld. They tore apart Hades' castle once, in an attempt to get his attention, but regardless of what they did and how much they shrieked, none of the gods acknowledged them. The gods seemed to pretend that the two of them didn't exist. Eventually, they got bored with it.

"Why don't you ever play in our games?" Stheno pouted at Medusa one day as the broken bones of her shoulder regenerated from when she was crushed to death.

"You already know why," Medusa said. "I'm not immortal like you two."

Stheno crossed her arms. "Yeah, but you just sit around getting fat all day and I'm tired of seeing you look so pathetic. You're wasting your powers."

Medusa looked down at her belly. It was larger than it used to be, which didn't make any sense, considering her sisters had been getting skinnier for a while. They had turned most of the crows and tarantulas in the area into stone before they figured out how to sneak up on an animal without looking directly at them. They easily crunched through the bones, but the meat rested uneasily in their stomachs. They tried cooking it, but it remained unappetizing. They had gone months without realizing that Gorgons were vegetarians until the day Stheno tried to eat a cactus and her toes curled beneath her feet in ecstasy. Euryale and Medusa soon joined her, not even minding the prickles against their lips and tongue as they chewed it-enjoying the delicious flavor. Still, there weren't many cacti in the Kisthene Plains and soon they had chomped through the whole supply.

Medusa found a few flowers one day and picked one so that she could eat it, but Euryale, who had been complaining about feeling faint, grabbed her around the shoulders and launched her backwards. It wouldn't have hurt if a human had done it, but a Gorgon's strength made her spine crack on impact.

"That flower is mine," Euryale announced and then stomped towards it.

Stheno joined the battle because of the loud commotion. Her sisters shrieked as they used their claws to rip at each other's face. Medusa couldn't move to get up and talk some sense into them. The wind was knocked out of her. She wished she had the regenerative powers they did. Her body was tough, her scales too thick to pierce easily, but once she was damaged, she suffered badly for it.

Blood splattered over Medusa as Stheno screamed.

Medusa sat up and gasped as a miracle bloomed in front of her. From the ground beneath the spots where the blood landed, leaves sprouted. Soon the desert around them grew green and bugs of various kinds flew onto the foliage. Adrenaline coursed through her veins, enough to allow her to move. She ripped the plants from their roots and feasted.

Her sisters noticed shortly and dropped the limp flowers they had been arguing over. They shoved the plants into their mouths, not caring that their wounds flavored it. They cut their wrists when they finished, so they could continue eating. More plants grew.

Medusa's favorite food was spider milkweed and it had grown in abundance. It stung her tongue as she gulped it down and made her throat swell. To her, it was the same as when she was human and would drink a nice cup of hot tea on a winter's day. It spread warmth through her chest, but if she had been human, she would have been poisoned.

"Stop eating so much," Euryale complained, once the two had lain blissfully on their backs, tired from all the food. Medusa was still munching. "You're fat enough as it is."

Medusa's stomach had grown even larger along with her appetite. What she didn't tell her sisters was that she had also been vomiting a lot of the food she ate. She had been afraid they wouldn't share the supply if they found out she couldn't even keep most of it down.

She rubbed her belly, wondering why she felt self-conscious about her weight. Even if she had been slender, she was too ugly for anyone to look at.

She gasped as a ping of pain radiated from her belly button-a movement inside her! It couldn't be!

The next day, when her sisters decided to reminisce about their six-month anniversary of waking up as Gorgons by turning each other into stone, she lay crying next to them. She had felt movements inside her all night. It had prevented her from sleeping.

She couldn't talk to them when they were awake. They hadn't been close when they were humans and were even less so now, so she chose to speak to them when they were stone. She could actually look into their eyes this way and they wouldn't judge her.

"You know how Poseidon raped me?" Medusa didn't know whether they believed her story or the gods' version. "I think I'm pregnant. I don't know what to do. This place is horrible for raising a child and I'm scared Athena will kill me and take the baby. After all, he or she is part deity."

She rambled awhile about her concerns, repeating herself and not caring. Letting out all her worries was like writing in a journal.

As her sister's bodies twitched more and gained color, Medusa retreated into her cave. Her favorite place to be was in the dark. No one could see her there.

Caves were not native to the Kisthene Plains. These caves had been built by the three sisters to live in. They used their hands as construction tools to crumble statues. They arranged the heavy chunks that had broken off into a structure. Then, they sealed the holes with a paste they made using what they crushed by hand and water mixed in from the underworld rivers. The effect was random gray ears, toes, fingers, and eyes, strewn about in a huge mass. It looked like the walls had been compiled of the dead thrown into a stew pot with their panicked body parts fighting to reach out from inside the crowded dinner to safety.

Luckily, Medusa could see nothing unless her eyes were adjusted fully to the dark. She hated the fear in their eyes and knowing that she was the cause of a lot of it.

Her sisters liked ripping body parts off statues. They'd make bowls out of heads and fashioned a naked man's penis into a spoon once. They thought it was funny to eat out of them, but Medusa was disgusted. That life she had once hated so much, she longed to go back to every day. She envied humans and her heart hadn't grown cold enough to hurt any of them purposefully.

That's why she enjoyed dwelling in the dark so much. She couldn't hurt anyone in the dark because no one could see her. If she remained invisible, maybe she could even be normal again. The idea was foolish, but she needed that hope to keep her going.

She had sharpened a rock and taken the point to her wrist. She watched the blood bloom from the wound and drip to the ground. Petals burst from the sand and scarabs skittered across leaves, giving the desert life and color it didn't normally possess. She didn't worry about manners as she shoved the food into her mouth and pieces fell while she chewed.

She heard a strange noise and in a panic retreated into her cave. The sound was soft and sweet like a dove cooing. Although it was the least intimidating noise she had ever heard, it left Medusa terrified. The more innocent a creature sounded, the more potential she had to accidentally harm them, but in the shadows of the cave, they were safe from her eyes.

She saw a human girl struggling to crawl forward on her hands and knees. She looked exhausted and her ankle was swollen. Her foot was twisted in an odd direction and she dragged it behind her. She must have traveled far to visit someone she lost in the underworld. Even though she was seriously injured, she hadn't given up. Medusa felt sorry for her.

Euryale and Stheno stood at a distance, arguing with each other, while their backs were turned to the two of them. She couldn't hear what they were shouting, but could see that they were angry from their animated expressions. The girl froze as she spotted them and then hopped on one foot in the direction of the cave where Medusa dwelled. Medusa slunk farther into the shadows as the girl entered. She was probably hoping they'd pass by and not notice her. The two of them waited anxiously, the girl resting against the wall and Medusa silently hiding from her.

Medusa hardly breathed. She had wished for so long to be close to another creature without turning them into stone. The thought of having a human she could socialize with teased her, but she was afraid to open her mouth. The girl thought she was alone in this cave. If Medusa alerted her to her presence, she'd probably scream and bolt.

Medusa contented herself with just being near, but the snakes were agitated. They wiggled because of her nervousness. They snapped at the air, making the girl leap in surprise. One sunk its fangs into her skin repeatedly. The girl screamed as poison entered her blood stream and Medusa's world spun. Even hidden, she had killed someone.

She remembered the stone she still held in her hand that she used to cut herself with. Yes, her hair was deadly, but her blood gave life. She could feed it to this human girl and rescue her, couldn't she?

The girl had collapsed to the ground, gripping the parts of her body that had been punctured. Medusa knew she didn't have long to live. She had to act fast.

She cut deep into her wrist without a second thought and wrapped the girl in a gentle embrace. She was soft and her meaty fists beat against her, but each blow felt like a tickle.

"Great! Now I'm going to die at the hands of a monster!" she yelled.

Medusa kept her voice quiet to seem less threatening, but the words still hissed. "You have to stop fighting me or my sisters will hear and come to get you. I won't hurt you; I just need you to be still so I can save your life."

"Why should I trust you?" The girl spat as she spoke.

"Because you'll die without my help."

"And I'll die with it!"

"If that was my goal, then I'd leave you lying here with your snake bites. It's a lot more trouble to assist you."

The girl calmed down and laid still as Medusa stroked her hair. It warmed her heart to know that the girl was no longer shuddering from her callused caresses. But maybe she was just exhausted from the effort. Already, as it was, her puncture wounds were beginning to swell and she shivered.

Medusa pressed her bleeding wrist against the girl's mouth. "Drink."

The girl swallowed and Medusa smiled. Once she had seen a coyote limp in the desert, so starved that its ribs stuck out. It collapsed to the ground and Medusa knew that it was about to die. She fed it a bit of her blood, stood a small distance away as its body recovered, and it got up a short while later, prancing off like it had been fattened for months. This would be the same. The girl's ankle would probably be healed and she'd be better than new.

Only, the girl in her arms didn't recover. She spit out the blood and her breathing shallowed. Her body was thrown into convulsions.

Medusa was confused. Her blood gave life, but until that moment she hadn't realized that this was the case only some of the time with humans and animals. Certain creatures had an adverse reaction and it would expedite their deaths. People would later spread the myth that half of a Gorgon's blood gave life and the other half, death, but the truth was that the whole thing was random. The girl screamed as her muscles seized and then gasped for air. Medusa carried her out into the sun.

She was only able to get a glimpse of the girl's pretty blonde hair and wide blue eyes before they grayed. At least her pain was over. Medusa dropped the remains on the ground, unable to watch the girl's tormented expression immortalized into rock.

She waited for the girl's ghost to appear from her body and travel down to the underworld, where she'd rest in peace forever. Maybe she could get an apology in before the girl was gone. All humans eventually went down that path and she had seen many of them leave the earth that way, but nothing changed. In fact, the spirits of the dead never appeared from inside the statues she and her sisters created. She hadn't thought about it until now. Medusa paled. Not only was she killing them by turning them into stone, but she was zapping their souls into non-existence.

Medusa's world grew dark. She was supposed to remain positive and strong so that when her child was born, she could raise it properly, but she couldn't do it any longer.