Heart (28 page)

He stepped forward, coughing at the same time
he shook his shoulders, flinging water off him in a wave of
release. He opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came
out.

Instead, his strong hand swept the air with
renewed energy and I felt the water bubble up in my lungs like a
geyser. I sucked in a quick breath just before I drowned in the
power of Poseidon.

I didn’t have his strength or his experience.
I fell to my knees in the next second, unable to support my own
weight. My eyes bulged as I choked on the water, suffocating in the
sea that Nix could produce with the fling of his fingers.

My chest tightened until I was positive it
would explode. My lungs couldn’t hold anything else and even though
water poured out of my mouth, pooling around my hands and knees,
drenching the cold stone beneath me, I couldn’t expel enough of it
to get a breath.

It was never-ending. I might have been able
to play this game for a few minutes, but Nix could keep this up
until I was a blue corpse, water-logged and lifeless.

“Enough,” a strange familiar voice commanded
from far away.

Sunbursts spotted my vision and a sharp
ringing resounded in my ears. My fingers clawed at the harsh ground
as I tried to find some purchase. Panic suffused every part of me,
even while I welcomed death.

So be it
, I thought.

“Enough!” the voice bellowed, shaking even my
drowning bones to the core.

At once, the water was pushed from lungs. I
coughed and vomited and emptied every ounce of sickly saltwater
onto the floor, collapsing on top of it in pathetic weakness.

Nix bent down to drag me to my feet. With his
hands wrapped roughly around my waist, he set me in front of him,
practically vibrating with the promise of his wrath. “Mine,” he
rasped through a strangled voice. “Mine or nobody’s. I will send
you back to the sea where I will rule you from your grave.”

“Never,” I hissed. My throat was raw and so
tender, but the fierce words would not be held back. “You might be
the god of the sea, but I am not yours. I am the force of nature
that will unseat you from your throne.”

He leaned into me, his voice pitching low
with fury. “I am the ocean.”

My heart hammered in my chest when I replied,
“And I am the flood.”

“Ivy,” someone snapped.

I turned to the voice I recognized, stepping
away from Nix on unsteady feet. I wobbled, but managed to keep my
balance. Smith stood before me in a toga so brightly white that he
seemed to glitter beneath the still sparking lightning
overhead.

His grim smile told a story I wasn’t sure I
wanted to hear. “Are you finished?”

The crowd of gods and goddesses erupted with
surprise. All around the room people called out, “Zeus!” Some of
them in outrage, some in shock, some with approval.

Hera slumped back in her chair, completely
shaken by her husband’s appearance. “It’s truly you, my husband?”
she asked with breathless wonder.

He seemed reluctant to take his eyes from me,
but he turned to Hera with a small, playful smile. “Yes, my
queen.”

“But how you’ve changed.” Her fingers brushed
over the back of her neck, a slight tremble barely visible quivered
through her torso. I thought she would be excited to see him after
all of the time he had been away, but more than anything she seemed
nervous. Her dark eyes darted around the room without landing
anywhere for long, except on Smith. And she straightened her back
compulsively, as if she was getting ready to run.

“I went through… mortality,” he admitted with
a chuckle.

Furious protests exploded around the temple.
The crowded room shrunk beneath the ego and anger of the collective
Pantheon. The gods pressed closer to me, anxious for Smith to
explain. They demanded answers and would have crushed me underfoot
had Nix not stepped behind me. He ordered them to move back.
Reluctantly they complied.

Smith held up his hands and pushed them
toward the floor in a pacifying gesture, “Worry not, my friends. My
immortality has been restored. I am once again… Zeus.”

Nix didn’t say anything even though plenty of
his brothers and sisters shared their opinions. I could feel his
tension skyrocket, burning through the thin atmosphere, pinging
from the stone columns to the sky overhead. His body thrummed with
quiet rage.

I realized how well I knew him as I stood
there next to him. I could anticipate his frustrated facial
movements and the clenching of his fists. I instinctively felt his
mind spin with everything that had happened in Omaha, everything
that happened right in front of him. My mother had married Smith at
Nix’s command. Smith had gone through mortality under Nix’s nose.
Smith’s power, his money, his prestige… all of it belonged to
Zeus.

I knew the second Nix’s thoughts dipped to
Smith’s protection of me. His enlarged muscles contracted and
swelled until he stood three inches taller. I wondered if Nix was
remembering Honor too, and how Smith had done everything in his
power to keep Honor out of Nix’s filthy reach. And the god-killer
that my mother had in her possession the night Nix tried to rape
me, had no doubt come from Smith, who had brought it straight from
Olympus.

Nix had missed everything, every little piece
of this complex puzzle until this moment. And now his brain worked
furiously to put everything together. I sensed his struggle to hold
his fury in check. Nix had become a foaming volcano. His blind
madness was barely caged in the hulking mass of his body. He wanted
to kill someone.

And that someone might end up being me.

Nix wasn’t alone in his confusion. There were
pieces to this puzzle I still didn’t understand.

If no one knew that Smith was Zeus or that
he’d fathered a child with my mother, how did they recognize him
here? He hadn’t changed more than Nix had. Sure, he was taller,
broader, more muscled and wore the same kind of toga that everyone
else did. But for the most part, his features were the same.

I recognized him immediately.

And what did it mean for my sister that her
father was the king of the gods? If she was part goddess, part
Siren, how did that affect her powers?

I shook my head and tried to reconcile
everything I knew about Smith with his infamous godhood. I couldn’t
do it. I couldn’t figure it out. Zeus was a cruel, heartless
man-whore. Smith had been compassionate at every turn. He had
sacrificed greatly for me. He had done everything in his
temporarily limited power to make sure I survived.

The two beings did not match up.

I didn’t know if Smith’s presence was a good
thing for my case or a bad thing. But, I wanted to believe he would
help me… and if need be, save me.

If Smith had been willing to risk everything
for me in Omaha, he might be willing to save me here too. Besides,
it was more than convenient for him to show up just as Hera brought
me to trial.

This had to be more of his games… more of his
plotting.

Maybe he had constructed this entire thing,
all of the events of my entire life. Maybe I was nothing more to
him than a pawn on a chessboard.

“What are you doing here, Smith?” Every voice
fell silent at the sound of my voice. Resentment stirred in the
air. They didn’t want to hear his answer as much as they wanted to
figure out how he and I had a familiar relationship.

Hera’s sharp voice rang out from across the
room, “You will address your king with reverence, Siren, or I will
allow Poseidon to finish what he started.”

I met Smith’s stoic gaze and jerked with a
sudden pang of fear. He might be here to save me from Nix, but he
couldn’t save me from Hera. “Zeus,” I murmured reverently,
trembling into a shallow bow.

His eyes regained some of the Smith I knew
and loved. “The one and only.”

“Where’s Hon-”

“You’ve gotten yourself into some trouble,
Siren.” Smith/Zeus cut me off with a warning glance. I hoped that
meant Honor was safe somewhere.

“I didn’t mean to hurt Hades,” I said
honestly.
But I planned to kill Poseidon
.
I planned to
murder him with my bare hands.
I kept that juicy piece of
incriminating evidence to myself.

“What
did
you mean to do?” Smith was
colder here, removed and distant. He had always treated me with
warm respect at home. He had taken care of me when nobody else
would, he had provided for me when I had no one else. But now,
there was a stark desolation to his blue eyes, a frigid aloofness
that made him feel untouchable and superior. I couldn’t tell if
this was a role he was forced to step into because he was king or
if this was the real version of him and whoever he was back home
had been a role he played to get what he wanted.

But what was it that he wanted?

I pulled back my shoulders and met his
appraising gaze. “I meant to stay alive. I succeeded.”

Nix snorted a derisive laugh, his ire curling
through the sound, sending a clear warning of his displeasure. “And
yet whenever you’re in my presence you’ll do anything to die.”

My voice shook, but I felt the truth behind
each word. “Death is more appealing when you can’t see the
Underworld waiting for you.”

Low murmuring rippled through the room. Hera
glided gracefully to her feet and took her place next to her
husband. “You went through the Underpass?” she demanded.

I nibbled on my bottom lip, realizing I
shouldn’t have mentioned that part. “We got lost.”

“You got lost?” Hera’s eyebrows lifted to her
hairline, challenging my lie.

“We just followed the road…” I glanced back
at Ryder. He nodded his agreement and struggled against the gods
holding him in place.

Nix paced around me, unable to settle and be
still. “So,” he began in the tone of a lecturing teacher. “You’re
telling us that you left dinner last night, wandered down the
Road of No Return
, walked into the Underpass, which is the
only road that goes through the Underworld, met Hades, killed
Hades, then somehow reappeared right here, in the middle of
town?”

“Is it really called the Road of No
Return?”

He shook his head slowly, amused that I would
have the guts to ask that question. “It’s a nickname.”

“I brought her back,” Hermes called out. “I
lost her when she went through the mountain, but as soon as she
stepped out again, I brought her and the musician back.”

“Hermes, you’re implicating yourself in
this?” Hera demanded.

He pushed through the crowd and stood between
Ryder and me. His face was pale for a god; his golden Greek glow
had disappeared completely. “I had no idea about the Underpass
until they were already in it. And after they were gone for so many
hours, I expected to find them dead. I couldn’t have guessed all
that they’d gotten themselves into overnight.”

Zeus cupped his chin thoughtfully with one
hand. His long fingers curved along the line of his jaw and
scratched at barely-there stubble. Over the last year, I had
speculated that maybe Smith was Zeus. Now I had my answer. And
while he might have remained Smith to me in Omaha, here, on
Olympus, there was no mistaking his godhood. This was the king of
the gods, this was almighty Zeus.

“They are your guests, Hermes?” Zeus
asked.

“And I will vouch for them still,” Hermes
answered immediately.

“Then escort them back to your home until the
morning. My queen and I have much to discuss. Until then, keep a
better eye on them.”

Hera turned incredulously to her husband,
“You’re letting them go?”

He let out a ragged sigh and replied, “I am
weary, wife. Let me have some wine. Let me greet my brothers and
sisters. The Siren and her musician can wait until morning.”

With ice in her veins and stone in her heart,
Hera reminded him, “Your brother is dead, Zeus. Do you not think it
wise to punish those who have killed him?”

“My brother ruled the Underworld,” he gritted
out. “He was already halfway there! Now be silent woman and let me
be glad to be home!”

Hera’s mouth snapped shut and she stormed out
of the building. Lightning snapped overhead, violent bolts of light
chasing each other across the sky in her wake.

Smith turned away from me to answer questions
from some of the other gods, but I felt his attention stay with
me.

I thought about approaching him, but before I
could move my feet, Nix leaned over and murmured in my ear. “Soon,
Ivy.” His lips brushed over the shell of my ear and I tried not to
shiver from revulsion. “You’re almost mine.”

I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my
mind, but he had already disappeared into the crowd. Hermes
appeared in the next second. He wrapped his hand around my bicep
until I winced from the burning pain. He had Ryder in his other
hand and he dragged us out of the temple like we were naughty
puppies.

“You’re going to get yourselves killed,” he
snarled vehemently.

Intuition punched through my gut. “You might
be right about that.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

We were silent the rest of the walk to Hermes
house. I got the impression he was afraid that we would be
overheard.

Nobody followed us down the road, but plenty
of Greeks had moved onto the steps to watch us walk away. Gods and
goddesses of course, but there were also servants that paused to
watch the show.

The ones who had given me the most cause for
alarm had been the Furies. They watched us with undisguised malice.
Their focus had been unnerving, but the power that danced around
them in a palpable field of energy had been terrifying.

Hermes had noticed them too and his tight
grip on my arm had eased. I thought he might have felt sorry for
me.

“Tell me exactly what happened,” he demanded
as soon as we were through the door to his mansion.