Rifts (31 page)

"Drew, I would never fuck with you," I replied innocently.

His lip quirked up at the corner and my heart squeezed, which made me angry again. "Yeah, right."

"Whatever," I shrugged. "You've seen that I'm alive and upright. You can toddle off now. You probably have important things to attend to."

An exasperated sigh burst from his lips as he strode forward, threaded his fingers through my hair and pulled me into a kiss.

I forgot how to breathe. Electricity sizzled from the tips of my hair to the bottoms of my toes and I melted into him, my body a liquid pool of need. This was what I'd been waiting for – no, needing, and while my arms entwined around his neck, my tongue traced the outline of his lips. As we kissed, I breathed his breath in, every exhale fueling my intensity.

Finally, I broke away with a ragged gasp. What was I doing? "I-I c-can't think. You need to go. I can't leave, so you need to go."

He looked at me, eyes wide, and shook his head in confusion.

"Look," I began adamantly. "I can't deal with this right now. You and me, we're broken, Drew. We're not going to be okay after a kiss. You have shit to deal with and I have – well, I have a planet to save. God, I feel like fucking Superman right now."

"Does this mean I'm your Lois Lane?" He chuckled as he said it, but I could feel his discomfort. It's easy to pretend that everything is normal in the heat of a kiss. It's harder to deal with the realities of a fucked up relationship that seems impossible and irrational.

I couldn't help myself, I laughed. If I didn't laugh, I'd start crying. "Get kidnapped a few times and we'll talk about it."

"Grace, we should-"

"No," I interrupted. "No. I can't think right now. You turn me into an idiot, Drew. I can't think. I can't be rational. I certainly can't plan and plot. I can't…" My words trailed off and I turned my head so he wouldn't see the emotions on my face. "Please," I whispered. "Please, just go."

"Okay," He responded quietly. "I'll be here if you need me."

"I know you will." When I looked back up, he was gone. I collapsed into the pillows and let out a wordless scream of frustration, need and – well, things I had no words for.

Sometimes, it's really just good to have a full on hissy-fit. I had forgotten that people cry for a reason. It releases the pent up emotions that feel as though they could crush you at any moment.

I rolled over after soaking the cushions around me with tears. Zeus was standing in the corner watching me with concern. "Oh God," I muttered.

That made him smile. "Everyone cries, Grace."

"Yes. Yes. I know."

"Which one of them broke in?" There was a reason this man was in the seat of power. He had an uncanny knack of just knowing things.

"Drew," I muttered.

"Ahh, well that makes sense. Would you like to discuss it?"

My brow furrowed in disbelief. "Uh, no."

"I understand that I am known to be an excellent listener."

"People pander to your vanity so you won't blow their hands and feet off with a lightning bolt," I retorted.

"You might try that some time," he muttered under his breath. I tried not to smile at that. I really did, but I couldn't help myself.

"Blowing someone's hands and feet off with a lightning bolt?"

He scowled when he saw my partially hidden grin. "Grace Murphy, sometimes I think that you are sassy with me just to be difficult."

My eyes widened in feigned surprise and innocence. "Why, I'd never do that."

"Cheeky," he muttered.

"I'm grateful that you're in my life.
Thank you
for saving my ass again."

"Your mother would kill me if I didn't," he said nonchalantly.

"Well there's that." I gestured for him to sit down. "Let's talk about the meetings you had in here. Are you certain that nobody was aware they were being recorded?"

"Do you believe you'd have seen that fight if anyone had?"

"Mmm, good point." I nodded to myself and took a deep breath. My best guess at the mole’s identity wasn't going to make him happy. I didn't know how to soften the blow, but had only ever been one person who was consistently at the daily court sessions. Her face took on a rapt but vacant expression at the start of each meeting. If you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't have noticed. You'd have blamed her zoning out on her youth.

"Well," he asked impatiently.

"It's Alexandra, Georgia's sister. I've seen her at every meeting, but her face is wrong. When I first met her she was very animated. Her telepathic abilities help give her the ability to read what is going on in everyone's mind while you speak to them, and report back to Lyssa – or whoever. I was surprised that neither she nor Georgie had been taken yet. I think the reason is that they wanted someone here. Did you check on Drew?"

He was flabbergasted. "Grace, I find this very hard to believe. She's still considered a child!"

I raised my eyebrows at him. "So you should understand that she is much more susceptible to suggestion and coercion. I'm thirty-four years old and Lyssa almost made me kill myself, Z." My hand rose unconsciously to my throat.

He grunted in response.

"Grunting at me doesn't make it untrue." I was standing firm on this. "You never would have suspected her. She's the perfect choice. The important thing is to de-program her." I stopped and looked at him. "You
can
de-program her right?"

Zeus doesn't lose his aura of composure often, but I was seeing him agitated. "What am I going to tell her father?"

"Do you have to tell him anything?"

"If it were Dylan, wouldn't you want to know?" Hmm, he had a fair point there.

"Yes," I sighed and crossed my arms. "So, who are her parents?"

He threw a grim look at me. "Ares is her father."

"Oh, for fuck’s sake!" I yelled and threw up my hands. "Could this situation get more impossible?" I was frustrated and off-kilter. Nothing seemed to be going my way right now. I briefly wished that Lyssa had finished the job. Then I wouldn't have to deal with an angry God of War, a nightmare Goddess and all of her batshit crazy kids.

"Grace, I think that you're taking this too personally."

I turned on him with a look of incredulity. "Do you think?"

He sighed at me. God, I hated when he sighed at me. "Grace, I understand that I ask much of you. I know that you feel unprepared and that you've walked through Hell during the last few months. If it weren't so important, I wouldn't ask."

That deflated my anger. "I know. I used to wish for excitement. The lesson here is to be careful what you wish for."

He nodded. "Indeed."

"Well, you need to tell him and I want to be nowhere in the vicinity when you do."

"Fair enough," he replied. "I don't think that it will be that difficult to get him to cooperate. He should be grateful that she wasn't taken and let me do what I need to do to wipe Lyssa from her mind."

I nodded. "You didn't answer my question about Drew. Was he affected?"

"I was going to check on him but when I went looking, he wasn't anywhere to be found. That's what brought me back here." He smiled ruefully at me.

"Yep, your kid's a rebel."

"An idiot rebel," he groused. That made me smile. Yeah he was an idiot. The gods only knew what was going on with my head.

"Go, check him out. I'm exhausted and yes, I know I've had weeks of sleep but I just feel like I'm dead on my feet right now."

"All right. Get some rest and I'll check back in on you in a few hours."

"Wait!" He stopped mid-stride and waited for me to continue. "Can you de-program Hope too?"

"No, I don't think that I can. I'm sorry, Grace." He looked sad but I wanted him to know that it was okay.

"I know." I nodded sleepily and sprawled out against the cushion. I was asleep as soon as my eyes closed.

I awoke to someone brushing the hair from my forehead. My eyes blinked open sleepily and Heph's hazy form came into view.

"Well, hello Walking Disaster," he said with a smile.

"Hello back," I mumbled. "Aren't you supposed to be on the other side of the quarantine door?"

"Aren't you supposed to be mostly dead?"

"Yeah, I guess I am." I stretched out and adjusted my body so I could look at him while we talked. It should have occurred to me that I had bed head, bad morning breath and eye boogers, but when I was with Hephaestus none of the surface issues seemed to matter. Did it mean that I didn't care enough to worry or that with us it simply didn't matter?

"It simply doesn't matter," he answered for me.

"Oh." I blushed. I guess putting up the mental shields should be the first thing I do when I wake up. "You mind readers have got to stop probing me."

"From what I hear, probing is fun."

"You're so funny. Who knew?" I replied with snark. I rolled onto my side and propped my head in my hand. "So, what's up?"

"Just checking to see if your status had changed to mostly alive instead of mostly dead."

"…and probing my mind."

"And probing your mind," he laughed.

"So what are you really doing?" I asked with a smile.

His eyes narrowed before he gave me a smile that I couldn't interpret. "Staying in the race."

"There is no race," I replied.

"Isn't there?"

"No. I'm not sure what kind of competition you two have going on but I'm not a prize. Honestly, I'm not a prize that either of you actually want. Find something else to have your testosterone wars over." It was stated calmly, but I could feel my blood pressure start to rise as I said the words.

"So you don't think that Captain Awesome truly loves you?"

"I know that he doesn't. I just can't tell if this is some kind of ploy to make me spare Hope's life, an attempt to beat you in a competition or if Lyssa is controlling him."

"You think so little of yourself, Grace."

"I'm being realistic. Look at what has happened over the last few months? Wouldn't you have doubts?" I raised an eyebrow and waited for a response.

He moved toward me and I shot my hand up in panic. "Jesus! Stop! I can't take another one." Then I started to hiccup uncontrollably.