Forbidden To Love (The Erosians) (11 page)

              I look at either side of the board, checking for the eyes as I get ready to dive back in. Josh reaches forward and places his hands on the tops of my legs, no longer stopping short of touching me. Electricity shoots through every part of me from his touch. He looks down to where my eyes are still searching the water, trying to get me to look at him. I don’t want to meet his eyes. I'm too scared that simply looking at him will cause me to fall into his arms and do something he doesn’t want me to do.
              “Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy my work,” he whispers and leans further towards me.
              The flames in my stomach return but not in a painful way. I turn myself to him, desperately hoping he means that. He’s leaning in to kiss me. I await his lips eagerly. Only a few seconds and we’ll be together properly. What I’ve been dreaming about will finally be a reality.
              Instead of the sweet taste of Josh’s lips, I get a mouthful of salt. A stupid wave tipped the surf board, and now I'm back in the water. I panic; sure whatever knocked the board wasn’t actually a wave but the merman and his escorts. Josh grabs my arm and pulls me back onto the board. I lay still on my back as he leans over me. I can see my chest rising rapidly as I shiver from the thought they could have returned.
              Josh moves my hair again from where the strands are stuck to my cheek. “Everything’s ok, I'm here now, and you’ll always be safe with me”
 

He strokes my cheek and his gentle touch stills my body. He holds himself perfectly above me as drops of water from his stomach splash against
the ones pooled along mine.
              I daringly place my hand on his chest. My heart ignites from the warmth of his skin. His heart rate begins to speed as his body lowers further towards me.
              “I’m sorry.” He closes his eyes and sighs. My heart extinguishes.
              “We really need to get back to the beach. I'm still on duty” As he looks at me apologetically, I can see the frustration in his eyes. I almost laugh in relief from how innocent his words are, I was convinced he had something more sinister to say.
              Josh moves himself to the back of the board and pulls me up, placing one arm carefully around my waist, avoiding the welts as he does “Just lay down on your front and I’ll paddle us in,” he instructs me.
              I carefully turn myself onto my front, not wanting to fall back into the water. I lay my head against my arms and welcome the caress of his body pressed lightly against mine as he takes us back to shore.
              We glide back onto the beach on the back of a wave. Josh jumps off once we get into the shallows and holds the board steady while he reaches his hand out to help me off.
              “Thanks and thanks again for the rescue,” I say. His hand stays wrapped around mine as he looks over at the lifeguard hut. I pull my fingers free of his, knowing I should allow him to get back to work. My body starts an internal war to get me to touch him again the minute our contact breaks. My head wins as I quickly head back to where I’ve left my towel.
              As I head back to my stuff, I faintly hear him say “You’re welcome”. But his voice should be clear to me from any distance? I stand at my towel and watch as he jogs back to his base.
              I experience the full force of what his touch does to me now I’m no longer experiencing it. With his touch, my body felt full of warm lava; now he’s gone, the lava has solidified and I can no longer relax. I can’t keep away from him Allana is going to need to figure out another way to pacify Eros!

Revelations

~7~

“Allana!” I slam the front door shut failing to control my strength as I do which causes the frame to splinter. Sorting that will need to go to the bottom of my to-do list.
              “Allana!” I tear through the house, throwing every door open downstairs. “Allana!” Still no answer. “Allana!” I throw my bag and keys down on the couch in the lounge and walk through to the kitchen, straight to the cupboard, and grab a glass and start to fill it with water. My heart is pounding, and I need to do something mundane to try and calm myself.                                                                                                   If I am in love with Josh then why; that’s not what I'm here for! Why did these freaky flames choose to find me? Maybe falling in love is my reward for dedicated service. I’ve helped find so many couples happiness, now Zeus, or maybe Eros, is rewarding me. That might be my dumbest, most optimistic, explanation so far but maybe that is the answer.
              “It’s not”
              The glass falls from my fingers as I spin round startled to find Amora leaning against the door frame to the kitchen. The glass smashes into a thousand pieces. The glass, like the door, looks like waiting, I need to deal with Amora first.
              “It’s not what?” I question her. I’d always suspected some Gods can read each other’s thoughts, but I’d never asked to make sure. Now I don’t need to. She can hear me and that means Allana can too. Oh god depending on what Josh is he probably can. I don’t contain the room in my body for the embarrassment of Josh listening in on some of the thoughts I’ve had about the two of us. I’m using all of my strength to wait patiently for an answer from Amora. Really I want to get away from her as I know whatever comes out of her mouth is only going to be more lies.
              Amora’s in no rush to answer me. She’s too busy admiring her nails. Her skin-tight dark jeans look practically sprayed on and the cream sheer top she’s wearing shows off her tanned stomach; she looks innocent as she stepped out of a country love song video. But looks can be deceiving.
              When she’s done inspecting, she looks up at me with a calculating glint to her eyes. Nothing she could wear would mask the poison that lives in her heart and emanates so strongly through her eyes. Something’s different, though. She’s always irritated me, but in a sisterly kind of annoyance way; but now something about the way she’s staring at me sets me on edge as if she’s done being a constant irritation and she’s ready to go for total destruction.
              I reach my hands behind me until they meet the cool granite of the work top. I grip onto the cool stone for support and feel it crumble beneath my fingers. Amora starts towards me. Her every movement is terrifyingly fluid as she slides towards the breakfast bar opposite me. As she rests her hands on the counter top, she looks at me and smirks.
              “Josh isn’t some big reward for all your hard work, he’s, and I'm not playing some stupid trick on you. I haven’t manipulated your mind and made you love him. Didn’t you pay attention to anything when you were made? Manipulating the mind of a God of love isn’t possible. If the possibility existed, you wouldn’t be here. Zeus would have ordered Aphrodite to make Eros fall in love with Allana and then neither of us would be alive”
              I forgot all about that, but I knew deep down these feelings I hold for Josh are real.
              “Yes, they’re real the flames don’t go around marking people for fun! I’d get them out of your head though because Allana’s right if Eros finds out you’ll be slaving in the Underworld! Eros owns you, every part of you. You can’t go throwing yourself at him whether nature intends you to or not!”
              She folds her arms, satisfied that she’s ruined my life enough for tonight.
              “If natures wish for me is to be with him how am I meant to fight it!”
              “How in Hades should I know, I'm not an oracle you know I can’t tell you anything apart from what I know”
              “Why are you telling me anything at all, why not just let me mess my life up with Josh so you can run to Eros and get rid of me”
              “Who would I torture then?”
              I'm about to scream some colourful words at her when the front door opens and in walks Allana. Her cheerful smile disappears when she sees the scene before her, me looking infuriated, Amora looking smug and a smashed glass carpeting the floor. Allana races into the kitchen dropping her shopping bags onto the kitchen table between us.
              “What’s going on?” She looks at Amora and then to me. I open my mouth to spill to her, but Amora beats me.
              “I was only having a chat with our youngest Goddess here all about her infatuation with Joshua, and of course how their little bubble of love will lead to her most untimely demise. Wouldn’t you agree?” She laughs and turns to leave the kitchen while I sink to the floor, her words weighing so heavy on my shoulders I can no longer stand.
              I can’t console myself as I usually would by telling myself anything she said is a lie. Everything she said is what I’ve been trying to stop myself from thinking ever since I met Josh. My heart slows to a dull thud as my stomach fills with a sickly cold dread that it genuinely is all over.
              Allana rushes to my side and cradles me in her arms. “This can’t be true” I cry at her hoping she will tell me there is some sort of hope.
              Allana is unusually silent, which tells me more than all of her words ever could. She takes a second to compose herself and sits back next to me. After a deep breath, she begins. “I’m sorry” Allana looks down into my eyes and sees I'm as confused as ever. She brings her knees up to her chest and hugs them. Suddenly she looks young to me, and I don’t see her in that moment as my motherly figure, the one who encourages me, helps me and guides me. Now I can see she’s as lost as I am. She can no longer tell me the answers I’m looking for. The only ones left are the ones I’m avoiding.
              “If Eros did find out about your infatuation with Josh, then no he’s not going to be the happiest God in the world but I highly doubt your relationship would lead to you being banished to the Underworld.” I gape as what she’s saying sinks in.
              “Really! I thought the Underworld was pretty much a done deal if I did anything with Josh, but you don’t think he would send? I knew he didn't care enough about me to banish me!”
              “Hey, hey, hey don’t get ahead of yourself, I'm not saying he wouldn’t – I'm just saying it’s unlikely”
              Hot tears begin to spike my eyes as my options form in front of me: a life of misery in this world or a brief happiness that will possibly lead me to a world of darkness. But why would Zeus create a mortal that would lead to my end? Having me made would have been a complete waste of time. The fog of questions clears from my mind. Josh isn’t mortal; he’s from the Underworld that’s the only explanation for all of this.
              I study Allana as she bites her lip nervously, but I can’t let her continue. I need to tell her first. “He saved me today from a merfolk attack. Do you think he’s a demon working for Hades, so he saved me from the merfolk because he’s been sent by Hades to get me?” Speaking my new theory out loud makes it sound entirely plausible but what would Hades want with me?
              Allana and Amora are much more powerful, and they can do more than I can, and Hades most certainly wouldn’t want love spread around the Underworld. He thrives on them being miserable. Maybe he wants one of us to make all the wrong matches; to inflict more pain and misery to those already suffering, as Eros did all those years ago.
              “Calm down, Cas” She puts her arms around my shoulders and squeezes. She’s back to being my mother again.
              “I’ve already spoken with Hermes. There’s no rogue God from any of the worlds walking the earth wanting to cause any of us any harm. Josh is an ordinary guy who, for some reason, doesn’t possess an aura. His great-granddad, or someone distantly related to him, was probably a demi-God or something, so his aura is so diluted we can’t see it.” Allana turns onto her knees and places her hands on either side of my face, bringing me round to look at her.
              “You don’t need to worry about anything. No one is out for you. You should really enjoy your relationship with Josh and see what happens. Leave Eros to me”
              I'm about to believe her and jump through the roof, but this is so different from our last conversation.
              “You said last time experiencing anything with him isn’t possible because I belong to Eros” I look at her quizzically “What if Eros finds out?”
              Allana sighs. “Maybe it would do us all a favour if he did,” she stares straight ahead rather than at me.
              “What do you mean?”
              “Nothing, ignore me. There’s a lot of history that remains unresolved. Nothing to concern you, though.” She smiles at me and climbs to her feet, but I grab her down again.
              “Sorry,” her smile now appears a little tighter on her face, “I just need to know, what about the mermaid attack?” She thinks for a moment, and I'm not sure if she’s actually trying to give me a real answer or concoct an exceptionally good lie.
              “From what I know of the merfolk, they are very devious and playful creatures. I guess they recognized you were a Goddess from your light, and wanted to take you home with them. They, unfortunately, don’t extend invitations in a very polite way. Don’t worry about them. Anything else?”
              They sure as hell don’t ask in a very polite way. I was freaking bleeding from those monsters , but I think I’ve given Allana enough to be worrying about, so I smile at her and shake my head. “Nope, all cleared up, thank you” I squeeze her hands, and she nods at me.
              “You’re welcome, now why don’t you get out of here while I clean up this mess?” She points down to the glass shards next to me. “No, it's ok, I’ll pick the pieces up” I protest and start to scrape the glass into my palm. “No, you won’t. You go do something to chill out, is that what they say? A merfolk encounter, friendly or not, can really take some getting over.”
              She eyes the marks on my legs suspiciously and I can tell the depth of my attack is sinking in, so I smile at her and rush out of the kitchen before further explanations are required. Amora sidles back in and prevents Allana and her questions from following me.
I stop at the middle of the stairs, so I'm still in ear shot of them, but out of sight as I'm sure there’s more to this than they’re telling me. I listen to Allana brushing the glass into a dust pan.
              “Don’t bother Amora.”
              I can almost hear Amora’s smile creeping back to her lips
              “You know you’ve effectively signed her death warrant, right?” Amora starts but Allana doesn’t answer. “I mean telling her to go for a relationship with Josh? And all that crap about speaking to Hermes. I know for a fact you haven’t been to Olympus in over a week. I checked with Aphrodite.”
              Amora is taunting Allana, but she doesn’t take the bait.
              “And next time maybe you can try to fill her head with even more crapt about the merfolk? Geez, if they had managed to get her down to Poseidon; she’d be a prisoner and who knows what they would have done to her. Judging by those marks she’s got, they already had a pretty good go at tearing her up.”
              Allana is refusing to bite, but Amora has never been one to give up the fight.
              “Not that I’d care. The sooner she’s out of here, the better, you've probably done me a favour telling her to go for it. I may run along and tell Eros myself. I'm sure he’ll be thrilled to know what she’s up to”
              That pushed Allana’s final button! The clatter of the dustpan echoes through the kitchen.
              “Don’t you dare.” Allana speaks slowly, precisely, but with a deadly edge to her voice that I’ve never heard before. “You won’t tell Acacia, Eros, Aphrodite or anyone anything. She is meant to be with Josh. You know that we are only capable of falling in love with our soul mates and that can only be undone by death. I know Josh is no threat, and I also know that Acacia does not need to be concerned with the threat of the merfolk - there’s a war going on between all three lands and Acacia has no place in that, ok? So you keep your poisonous mouth shut. Just because, Acacia has what you are yet to find, doesn’t give you any right to take it from her.”
              There’s silence, apart from the thudding of both theirs and my heart.
              “Well …” Amora’s tone is smugger than I’d expected; I was sure she’d be angry at Allana’s scolding.
              “If this can only be undone by death; I guess when Eros finds out, he won’t be thinking about his choice of punishment for long”
              Amora’s footsteps come towards the door. I start to run up the stairs when they stop.
              “How do you know Josh is no threat?”
              I can’t believe how genuinely interested she sounds in the answer, almost as interested as I am.
              “I just do. You don’t need to know why.” The back door closes, and I know Allana has left, so I run upstairs. I don’t fancy a second Amora confrontation today.