The Deep End of the Sea (17 page)

I go numb. His hands, on me.

He mouth, on mine.

His body, in mine.

Before I know it, I throw up all over Persephone in the limo.

Aphrodite comes over like clockwork in the late mornings during the next few days so we can have lunch together. Slowly but surely, I allow myself to open up to her. As one would expect from the Goddess of Love, she’s rather hard to resist. She’s also as tenacious as her brother; while she leaves me alone when she knows I need it, she also is gently there, pushing herself into my life with kindhearted words and what she calls
girl time
. We watch chick flicks together (she cries easily, but I suppose that is unsurprising for someone who always yearns for the happily ever after), go for walks in the groves, and meet with Persephone for tea. And I can see why Hermes has long loved her, because she
is
lovable. Hardly a negative word ever comes out of her mouth; she constantly searches for the best in everyone around her. I like this about her, like how she’s so sweet and yet devoted to those she adores best.

What I don’t appreciate is how no one will talk to me about what happened at the restaurant with Poseidon and Athena. And I figure it must have not been good, because the Automatons on staff nearly multiplied over night. Whereas I hardly ever saw them before as they lurked in the distance, now they are in full view for all to see. Anytime I ask about their presence, I’m informed that, “This is nothing out of the ordinary,” and “We always have this many on staff.” Persephone especially clams up, usually diverting the conversation to ferreting out new foods she thinks I’ll enjoy or surprising me with trinkets she’s had shipped in from around the globe. So, for as much as I’ve been letting Aphrodite in, I think I’ve been letting both Persephone and Hades in, too.

Although this fills my heart, my days are at their happiest when my hours are spent with Hermes. Usually at work during the daytime, he devotes his evenings and nights to me when he’s in Olympus. He takes me into town for gelato and cupcakes, to dinner at small cafés with precious few crowds, and plays board games with me. Nearly every night, he banishes Kore and we talk into the wee hours of darkness. If I’m lucky, when he falls asleep in my bed next to me, I will find myself in his arms.

Upon waking in the morning after such evenings, I devote long minutes to merely watching him sleep, allowing myself the luxury of embracing the butterflies chasing each other in my chest. My best friend is beautiful. I am so, so incredibly fortunate he never allowed me to push him away.

I do not know what I would do without him.

“Where are Hades and Persephone?” I ask, glancing around the empty living room. They are nowhere to be seen tonight; neither are any of the Automatons.

The corner of Hermes’ mouth quirks. “Out. Possibly in the Underworld. One never knows with those two.”

Relief unfurls in the muscles in my shoulders. Still, I can’t help but ask, “Without saying goodbye?”

He’s definitely amused. “Shall I fetch them for you?”

“No!” My answer is too quick, which I fear broadcasts just how ecstatic I am at the thought of being along with Hermes right now. And that realization causes me to blush for the millionth time around him in the last month, so I clarify, “Of course not. I was just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat, you know.” To my delight, his hand finds mine and our fingers intertwine. It is a delicious sensation: his hand, warm and worn in mine in just such a way that feels like it’s an extension of my body.

It must be criminal to adore touching someone so much.

“Did it, though?” I ask, and he laughs a burst of exasperated air.

“Possibly, but then again, who am I to judge, when I am often struck by curiosity that I cannot help but sate?” He gives me that dazzling grin of his and pulls me through the house. “Case in point: you.”

“Me?” I squeak unattractively. There are lights ahead through the French doors leading to the patio, and I am curious myself enough to wonder what they are, but not nearly as much as I am for what he might mean.

“Yes, you.” He glances back at me. “I’ve never told you that I was overcome with curiosity when I heard Athena cursed some girl from one of her temples. It wasn’t like it was the first time she’d gone vindictively bonkers, but she was really put out over you. I mean ... one of her
followers
? Even that was low for her.” His fingers squeeze mine gently and we stop about twenty feet from the doors. “When I first showed up on your island ...”

I am helpless at looking anywhere but in his eyes. Tonight, they’re green. Vivid, beautiful, clear green. “Yes?”

“I’d been warned that you were a monster and that I best keep my distance. That you would slay me at the slightest provocation, and naturally, I believed it, as I could not blame anyone’s hatred toward my family after what my sister and uncle had done to you. But once Death handed me that first soul and departed, I heard you crying. My curiosity inflamed tenfold. What kind of so-called monster weeps like her heart had shattered and never would form whole again?”

Like clockwork, my cheeks burn. His fingers brush my reddened skin ever so gently before I turn my face to rest in his hand. The butterflies in my chest swarm frantically. “My sister misjudged you. I knew that the very second I heard your anguish. I’m afraid I was lost to you from that moment on. I had to discover all that made you
you
, even if I would suffer the same fate as the proverbial cat. And I never cared about the risks, as long as my curiosity about you was sated first.”

“Truly?” The word barely escapes my lips.

His eyes are so intense. “Truly.”

Oh, it’s so hard to breathe right now. And although my legs are strong now, it’s hard to stand, too. “You could have died. I could have accidentally killed you at any point.”

“Another truth.”

I’m so warm. More than just my cheeks—parts of me that I didn’t think could turn warm are doing so at an alarming rate. “And yet you kept coming back. Even when there weren’t souls to collect.”

His lips quirk once more. “More truth.”

Do not swoon, Medusa. It would be downright humiliating to pass out in front of him. “You’re still here.”

“And happier to be so than you probably ever will know.” His hand drops from my face. “Come. I have a surprise for you.”

Beyond the French doors there is a wonderland that leaves me in awe. Twinkle lights and lanterns hover in the trees and potted plants and rest in a nearby lagoon situated below my suite’s terrace, which glows aqua even here at night. There are flowers everywhere: elegant, fragrant blooms that remind me of the fields near my first home so very long ago. I don’t even know what to say, I’m so dazzled by just how stunning Hades and Persephone’s side patio has become.

My heart is in my throat. “The occasion?”

“Do we need an official occasion?” At the confused look on my face, he lets loose that exasperated chuckle once more. “All right. The occasion is you.”

Although an entire field of flowers blooms in my chest of this, giving the butterflies something to tangle in, I can’t help but tease, “I am not an occasion.”

“Ah, and there we disagree. You are always reason enough for me to want to celebrate.” He pulls out a chair for me at a small bistro table covered in a luxuriously embroidered white tablecloth. There are candles and beautiful yet simple crystal glasses laid out. “But, since you seek further clarification,”—he motions to the amused look on my face, no doubt—“I am celebrating the fact that Hades and Persephone finally left the bloody house, and that my sister chose for once to spend some time with her husband instead of you.”

I can’t help but giggle, and it feels so good to laugh and know that it’s okay to do so. That it’s not a temporary, fleeting moment of happiness stuck like a splinter in misery’s flesh. I can laugh now without guilt and fear that tomorrow it may all be taken away from me with yet another death.

“They adore you, you know.” He pulls a bottle of champagne out of a bucket of ice next to the table. “All of them. If I hadn’t made them swear to not take you away from me, I think my uncle and aunt would happily adopt you and cart you off to the Underworld to groom as their heir. Let’s not even go into how Dite keeps saying you ought to move in with her.”

The cork pops towards me, but Hermes catches it easily. I am stunned by his words—not so much about Hades and Persephone, or even those about Dite (since she tells me this on a regular basis anyway), but the admission that he fears losing me.

I think I like knowing this very much.

I lean forward, chin resting in my propped up hand, attempting to act nonchalant when I am all wild happiness and nervousness. “Surely there would have been conditions such as Persephone’s. Six months aboveground, six below.”

“Not good enough,” he murmurs, and my stomach does a somersault that would put any Olympian to shame.

“We’ve not seen each other for as many as three months at a time before,” I remind him. My voice is shaky, which leaves me feeling awkward. Because nowadays, even two days feel too long to go without seeing him.

He pours champagne in my glass and hands it to me. “Not by my choice, if you remember correctly.” And he’s right. Any time that we ever had months separating our visits was due to my request and my insecurity over whether or not I could keep him safe from a beast such as me.

“You could have overridden me, being a deity and all.” My voice is even shakier. So are my hands, which can barely hold my glass.

He finishes pouring his own glass and sets it down. “Had I, you would have lumped me in with my less savory relatives and refused to have anything further to do with me. Perhaps even try to add me to your group of explorers at the south end of the temple.”

Another somersault. “What if I’d thought you belonged with the poets?”

An easy grin slides towards me. It’s incredibly unfair how stunning he is when he smiles like that. “I would have been awful company for those fellows. My prose is appalling.”

I can’t help the laughter that bursts out of me. “You are a god.”

“Even gods can be terrible when it comes to the arts. I am no poet. I would be far better suited to spending my time regaling others like me with tales of adventure and daring.” Before I can counter this, he lifts his glass. “A toast, then. To the men and smattering of ladies whose inquisitive natures matched my own, yet are not fortunate to sit here with us tonight: we remember you and value your lives.”

I clink my glass against his, tears finding their way to the corners of my eyes. “To my friends,” I say softly. Which is a pitiful way to put it, but the hold in my soul they still claim is a powerful one.

I will never forget any of you
, I vow in my heart.

We both sip our drinks slowly, his eyes holding mine the whole time. All I can think is, stars above, I am so incredibly blessed to have this man in my life. When he sets his flute back down on the table, he says, “I have a gift of sorts for you. One I think you’ll approve of. And then, news you must hear.”

As there is no box on the table, I can’t help but look to him in question.

He reaches across the small table and takes my hand in his. “Your isle’s silent population is no longer there. I have transported them to a place where they will never be disturbed—an unobtrusive, peaceful locale in the Elysian Fields. You do not have to worry about them; I have found a guardian who will take the utmost care of your charges.”

My throat tightens, my eyes sting even more than they already were. Was it possible that Hermes could read my mind? Or had it been obvious how I’d fretted over those I left behind? “Niki, too?”

“Even him,” Hermes promises. “Every last person accounted for. They are all safe.” His thumb strokes my hand. Goose bumps break out across my skin in the sultry heat of the night. “And now, the news I must share, although it pains me to do so. I know we’d planned on heading to Athens to see Mikkos next week, but he has also passed on to the Elysian Fields.”

I knew this day would come, had expected it for years now, but it is still a dagger to my chest. The lump in my throat grows larger than a bolder and I no longer can see clearly. “When?”