Dropping my hand with a snarl, I snapped, “Think whatever the hells you want to think, Themis. I don’t give a damn. But you cut it off before the full scope of that truth is revealed, and you pass judgment. That is all you have to do.”
“Everyone will know I’ve failed in my duties. I will be branded for it, just as she was.”
Shoving my face into hers, I felt the slide of my canines as that hot, terrible temper coursed through me like a slithering snake. “What she did, she did for honor. You know fucking well that she’s not the same woman. We all do now. So you fucking end it, or I swear to fuck, I’ll end you. You want to wear the scarlet letter, Themis? Because, I have zero problem accommodating you.”
She gasped, but her face was pinched tight with anger. “Go to hell,” she snapped.
I laughed. The sound was terrible to hear, but I wasn’t playing. I never played games.
“Already there, Justice. Already there. And you do as I say, or I’ll make your life most unpleasant.” Then I pulled back, straightened, and dusted off my immaculate black armored suit. “Nice catching up. We should do it again.”
She stood there, shivering. But she had a core of steel in her. I’d give her that. “I hate you.”
“Good thing I don’t give a damn.”
Then I turned and walked off. She wouldn’t reveal the worst of Aphrodite’s sins, and that was the best I could do. Themis wouldn’t be happy. In fact, I was sure I’d set wheels into motion by my actions today. But too long had Hephaestus been forced to endure the worst of us, and just for once, he wouldn’t have to. It was my final gift to him for all that I’d done to my brother.
I tore open a travel tunnel and gave Themis the two-fingered salute, and then I was gone. I would not return tomorrow. My need for vengeance was done. I only wished my brother well.
Aphrodite
* * *
I looked up at Hades. He had his hands on my shoulders, staring intently down at me.
“Last day. You ready?”
I nodded.
“You’ve been very brave, little one.” He chucked me beneath the chin. “They don’t deserve you. You know that, right?”
I sniffed, shaking my head and looking aside. But he turned my face back to his.
“I mean it, Dite. You’re far too good for this world. But what you did the other day, I have to say, that was badass.”
I chuckled, but my hand shook just a little as I traced my fingers over the raised ridge of the dove. Eventually, the brand would fade, but I’d be marked for a time. The wound no longer wept, but it was painful to the touch. Meant as a reminder to never step out of line again.
But I didn’t regret it. Even if it had destroyed the smooth perfection of my body for a while. My children were quiet within me, but I hugged them tight. I was nearly done, and then I would never again have to see any of them.
Even my Hephy. All his gifts. The kindness in his eyes. I knew he was seeing me, finally seeing me again. But so much had changed. I was a soon-to-be mother to his brother’s children. My body had changed, transformed. I was heavy with pregnancy. That had to be painful for him. There was only so much a man could be forced to endure. And I would never ask him for any more. He’d put with more than his fair share in this world. Hephy and Dite were finally at an end.
Hades pulled me in tight and hugged me close before dropping a gentle kiss to my temple.
“Caly has a gift for you. She asked me to tell you to meet her in our private chamber.”
Rubbing the tears off on his chest, I sniffed loudly once, then I blew out a deep breath and nodded. Whatever would come today would be the worst, but it would also be the end.
He patted me on the head and then gently turned me around. I walked back to their room, and Caly was there. Holding onto Hephy’s eternal blue flame. I hadn’t meant for them to keep it. I hadn’t wanted it. Because the truth was, taking it would have hurt me too much.
That flame meant everything to me, and though I understood why he’d hated me so much now, I couldn’t help that it still hurt. I didn’t want Hephaestus to suddenly want me back now just because he finally had proof and it was okay to love me again. Which made me angry at myself because if the roles were reversed, damn it, I wouldn’t have acted any differently. I was sure of it. And yet my pride had been pricked. Possibly even my vanity. I’d given so much of myself to Hephaestus throughout the ages, always chasing after him, always being the one to try to prove to him that I was worthy. And I was tired of doing that. It wasn’t just about me anymore.
Not anymore. I hugged my stomach.
Caly shrugged and held up a finger. “I’m sure you’re thinking, ‘Bitch, please,’ but hear me out, Dites, okay?”
I snorted, trying to hide my smirk.
She laughed back; Calyssa always had a way of getting me out of my head.
“In his own particular way, Hugo was trying to honor you.”
I rolled my eyes. Caly was impossible.
“And…” She inhaled. “Whether you want to believe it or not, you still love Hippopotamus.”
I growled, tapping my naked foot on the gold-veined black marble floor. That was very debatable at the moment.
She shrugged. “Well, you do. So own it, woman. I mean, I don’t get the appeal of sleeping with a silverback gorilla, but ya know,” she wiggled her fingers, “maybe I need to explore my sexuality more. After all, I was a virgin before Hades. I mean, how good is he really, right?”
I snorted with laughter, because I didn’t have to sleep with the god of death to know that he was probably a fabulous lay. Oddly enough, I was content to never find out with him.
“No, you’re right.” She smacked her forehead. “Hades would kill the ape if I tried. Jealous bastard. Anyway, back to my point, Hector wanted you to have this, and I think you should knock his hairy socks off. You should wear it, Dites.”
I went still. Looking at the impossibly beautiful blue flame. I would know, and so would he, what I meant if I put that on my body. I would be publically proclaiming him as mine again.
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head slowly, groaning loudly, words I could not speak right now echoing from the depths of my wounded soul.
“Dites, Themy is gonna grant him the annulment. We both know it. You were just too much of a heinous bitch.”
I still had my eyes closed, feeling the wetness behind them. But I smiled crookedly, because she was right. There could be no other outcome for us. I doubted I’d be convicted of anything because it was also clear I was not her. But in the end, we both had lost everything, and now everyone knew our deepest secrets too.
Her arms slid around me, and she held me as I quietly shuddered. It seemed all I could do anymore was cry, and I hated it. I blamed the pregnancy, but I knew the truth. My heart had broken, but I was healing. I could feel my strength returning, and soon I would be okay again. I knew that too.
“But”—she tipped my chin up, forcing me to open my eyes—“if you wear this gown today, then this will not be the end for you two. This I also know.”
I frowned.
She rubbed it away. “I am not claiming that you will find love again. Maybe that is no longer your destiny. Your Hephaestus is gone to the winds, forever.”
I jerked, realizing she’d actually said his name correctly for once. She snorted.
“I’ve always known the bastard’s name, Dites. The truth is, watching his memories, I can’t really hate him anymore, either.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, because I felt the exact same way.
“He is a good man, Aphrodite, and I think you and he could be friends again. Or more. But that’s entirely up to you now. So do, or don’t do.” She shrugged. “But you should know Hades and I were up all night to solve the riddle of the flame, and what we discovered, well… it’s mind boggling what a big ape can create when he so clearly loves a woman.”
I gave a wimpy smile.
She stepped away, laid the flame upon the bed, an
d walked out the room.
I stared at the fire for what felt like an eternity. We could end things amicably, here and now. His memories, while terrible to behold, did not belong to me, and he was wise enough to know that. I could be friendly with him. An acquaintance. We could smile and be genuinely joyous for one another.
My heart squeezed. I wasn’t sure I could ever see him with another and truly wish them well, but I didn’t have to show him that. At least, I could pretend for his sake.
Backing up on my heel, I started to turn for the door. A chapter closed. A beautiful one but over now, as all good chapters eventually were.
Halfway to the door, I paused and glanced back at that pretty flame, and I remembered us in the beginning. In my beginning. Helping him with that cake. Talking his ear off day and night, telling him absolutely nothing of importance but knowing he’d heard it all just the same. Committed all of it to memory. He’d always been my champion, even if he hadn’t been perfect. But who among us was?
He’d been perfect for me, and that was all that had mattered.
We’d become best friends before we’d become lovers. I’d known him as surely as my own soul, and he’d known me just as well.
But he’d set me aside in this world. The memories of me that he had, they were foul, noxious things that infected his soul even still. Was it even possible that he could see beyond my skin to the real me? Was it really possible that he could be with me and not dwell on the memories of a time that was not ours? That someday we would be lying in bed and I would say something with no nefarious thought behind it, but because of the woman he’d once known, he’d feel the ghost of her rise up, and he would hate me for it, all over again? Could I trust that he was actually capable of letting go of a past so dark, so awful?
I knew the heart. It was an organ well known to me. And I understood how it worked. The pain that could taint it and linger on like a cancer, even when the person did not think they dwelled upon it—all it would take was a spark, a misspoken word, and it would all return in a blaze. The pettiness of jealousy that could poison a good man’s soul and slowly turn love to hate. But the heart was also capable of so much more. Of forgiveness. Of mercy. Of kindness with no thought to reward in turn.
What was this now that I dealt with? I didn’t know. I simply didn’t know.
My fingers flexed. I took another step toward the door.
I couldn’t risk this.
Not with the children to consider now.
But every step felt as if I had a cord wrapped around my body that was slowly squeezing the air right out of me, making me shake and feel dizzy. I gripped the doorframe and spread my legs wide.
If I walked out of this room, the book was closed forever.
I lifted my foot.
And nearly smacked on my face. Vertigo slammed into me. And it wasn’t Caly or Hades doing it. It was me. Only me. My own powers were working against me. I was covered in a net of glittering pink, breath scissoring in and out of my body, my cheek pressed against the cold marble floor. Pulse fluttering like drunken hummingbirds’ wings. My heart, the heart of love itself, was pulling me back.
I groaned.
A memory came to me. One Themis hadn’t shared, probably because she’d thought it insignificant to the trial. Long before Hephy and I had declared our true hearts to each other, back when I’d thought he and I could only ever be friends.
Hephaestus and I had been sitting side by side as we’d gazed into his eternal flame. The colors all so different, rolling and mixing all up into one before separating into a multitude of shades once again, like waves rolling upon waves, so beautiful and enchanting. He had his arm around me as I’d rested my head on his shoulder, crying softly. Heart feeling as though it’d been shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.
“He’s dead, Hephy,” I whispered. “My Adonis is dead.”
He kissed my temple. “Artemis should not have done as she did. I am sorry, little one.”
I sniffed, rubbing my nose as I contemplated a world without one of my favorite lovers in it. Adonis had been beautiful, a great hunter, and he’d held me as though I’d mattered to him. I curled into Hephy’s large frame, basking in the warmth of his flame as I rubbed my toes over each other.
I’d felt such emptiness when I saw Adonis’s gored body. I’d buried him inside the woods he’d loved so much, and when it’d been done, there’d been only one place I knew I could go to. One person with whom I could share my heart with.
“If you loved him so much, maybe you should honor him,” he said gently.
I looked up at him as he looked down at me with lightning sparking in his dark eyes. Such open and raw pain glittered in their depths. Sometimes Hephaestus would look at me as if I’d broken his heart, but his touch was always so gentle. So welcoming and warm.
“How?”
He shrugged, strong mouth pulling down into a small frown. “You love your flowers.”
I sniffed. “I do.” I was surprised he knew that. I didn’t recall ever having told him that, but I did like to make wreaths with them when he worked at his forge.
“Then create a special one. Use your blood and his. Make something as beautiful as you are, so that whenever you gaze upon it, you can smile.”
I smiled then, and I felt the joy of his words move all the way through me. My mouth tingled, and his black pupils had flared bright with quicksilver.
“Hephy?” I whispered into the deep quiet.
“Hm?” he’d rolled the sound as he softly circled his fingers upon my bare shoulder.
“If I were to die, would it hurt you?”
It was as though the breath had been knocked out of him. He’d closed his eyes and, in that hoarse, rough whisper of his, said, “Don’t you ever die on me, Aphrodite. I could never bear it.”
He hadn’t told me he loved me, but that had been the first time I’d begun to believe that maybe he did. He’d let me go back to grieve Adonis, and I had created a beautiful flower just for him, a bloodred anemone, and I did smile now whenever I saw it. But not just because the flower reminded me of a past lover—even more so because that flower made me think of a man so self-sacrificing that he could talk to the woman he loved so very desperately about another she’d loved before him.
How had he borne it for so long?
Because I couldn’t.
If anyone else ever saw the beautiful man that I did and took him away from me, I would shatter. Completely. For a goddess of love, I was very good at trying to pretend away the obvious.
And then I stood up, and I turned around, and I walked to the flame.
It was time to end this.
Hephaestus
* * *
I’d become violently ill this morning. Twice. And I felt my stomach roiling even now.
I scanned the audience for Ares’s face, hoping against impossible hope that he’d found a way out of this.
But he was not here. And a part of me thought he had no plans to show today.
I wiped my mouth with my palm. The tension in the air was so tangible that my skin felt as if it would light on fire if anyone even dared blow on me.
I paced the length of my holding cell, back and forth. Waiting on her.
She was late today.
Not that I blamed her.
Who wanted to see this? Any of this? Everyone knew that Themis saved the best—or worst, depending on one’s point of view—for last.
Themis stood in the center, as rigid as a statue, holding her scales of justice. She was acting strangely today. Normally, she’d take a chance to speak with Hera and Zeus, but today she’d not bothered to talk with anyone.
Though no one noticed except me, because all they wanted to know was why I’d finally, after everything she’d put me through, handed her the notice of divorcement. What could have possibly been worse than everything that’d come before this?
I growled, feeling moody and edgy. Like a lion trapped in a cage and two seconds away from springing at it.
/> I twirled, hands lifted, body sparking. Feeling the lightning in my eyes rage out of control.
And then the air shifted, and the scent of roses was overwhelming.
I looked up, and if my jaw could have literally hit the floor, it would have. I went still all over. My skin crawled with electricity.
She stood there, wearing my god flame. A gown of blue fire so hot that it would kill a mortal to even stand within a hundred feet of it. That heat emanated in waves off of her, stretching out toward me. Reaching for its master.
The corset was heart-shaped and snug, highlighting her tapered waist, but the skirt flared out in a masterful sweeping curl that hid her expanding stomach, so that it looked as though she moved inside of dancing fire that shifted from exquisite blue to perfect silver.
I covered my heart with my hand, mouth agape and eyes wide open. Her blond hair also blazed, brighter than Apollo’s sun.
Her skin was the color of a golden pearl, so beautifully did she shine.
“She wears his brand,” someone said.
“Is she mad? Does she not realize he cast her aside?” another asked.
But I didn’t care what any of them said, and I knew she didn’t either. Because she looked at me now in such a way that it was only her and I.
I am here, she said. And I always have been.
Dite. I moved my mouth, but no sound escaped me.
Even so, when I said it, her eyes blazed like glowing jewels. Regal, beautiful, she sat upon her throne.
Themis stepped forward. The scales tipped. “And so we begin anew,” she intoned, and instantly, the colors swirled, and that hated, vile memory came into being.
An image of me, walking down her long, elegantly appointed hallway toward her room. Looking for her. Wishing to speak with her. Heart heavy, because I knew that one way or another our issues had come to a head and it was time to either confront them or walk away completely.
Dressed in my very best. Shaved. Washed. Clipped. All of it. Feeling like the very monkey she’d always called me to my face.