Heart (39 page)

I could have immortality. I could be
omnipotent and eternal.

I could have everything Nix ever dreamed of
and more.

And it would be mine.

Everything and everyone would be mine.

“Ivy, this is what I always wanted for
us.”

I stared into his endless eyes and knew that
he was telling the truth. Beyond the energy controlling me and him,
beyond our Greek natures and his centuries of life and destruction,
he was being as honest with me as he had ever been.

This was what he wanted.

I was what he wanted.

I couldn’t listen to it for another second.
“Hold still,” I commanded him.

Fear flickered in his eyes as I raised my
arms and plunged the sword straight through his heart. His face
contorted with pain as it slowly drained of life.

Suddenly he was too heavy to hold. I released
the hilt and let his body drop to the bottom of the expansive abyss
where he would never be heard from again.

I floated there for long minutes, watching
him disappear into a blackness so thick and dark, not even I could
see through it.

I kicked off and shot toward the surface with
new urgency. The power that consumed me soured in my system and I
fought desperately to tame it.

It consumed me, turning my thoughts wild and
sickening. It wanted ultimate control. The power had killed a god
and now it wanted the world.

My mind became a tangle of sanity versus
madness, a twisted dichotomy of morality versus wickedness.

I wanted blood and death and utter
annihilation at the same time I wanted nothing but peace and
normal.

My head broke the surface and I sucked in
lungs full of air, hoping to clear my mind and think lucidly. I
didn’t find anything but more confusion. The sky flashed with
lightning and boomed with thunder. The turmoil in the clouds
mirrored the battle I’d fought below the surface.

I continued fighting my way to the shore. I
swam and swam and swam until every muscle was exhausted and my body
threatened to give up.

But I still couldn’t shake the darkness. I
had given myself up to a power that shouldn’t exist… to something
so malicious that it would make every nation bleed until there was
nothing living left.

I stumbled over a shifting bottom when the
shore finally came into sight. The violent waves tossed and turned
me until I was choking on the very water that had saved me.

The ocean spit me onto shore with no
ceremony, as if it were as thankful to be rid of me as I was to
reach dry land.

My head hurt as I warred with the power that
was taking me in savoring degrees.

I couldn’t fight this.

I couldn’t win against this.

This was too much… too consuming.

I wasn’t enslaved to this, I
was
this.

But then he was there.

He was at my side. My head was in his
lap.

“Ivy,” he whispered and it was balm to my
broken soul. “Breathe, Red. I’m here. I’m with you.”

And so I did.

I took a breath.

Chapter Thirty-One

Warm sun on my face and the tickle of an
ocean breeze brought me back to life. Calloused hands wrapped
around mine, the faint scent of coconut oil shampoo and my name
whispered like a prayer in a gravelly, smoky voice brought me back
to myself.

I blinked up at Ryder’s concerned face and
smiled weakly.

“He’s dead?” he asked immediately.

I nodded, unable to find my voice to speak
the words.

Ryder’s face relaxed with potent relief. My
dried, cracked lips spread into a wider smile. I licked them,
tasting the salt of the ocean and the remnants of metallic blood.
My tongue tasted the reminders that he was truly dead, the battle
was finally over.

He didn’t say another word. He leaned over me
and pressed his lips to mine, taking my mouth in a hungry,
desperate kiss. I felt his need to my toes and then again as it
surged back to my heart.

He kissed me in a way he never had before. Or
maybe it was just different for me.

This was my first kiss in freedom. This was
my first kiss without the paranoia of looking over my shoulder or
the hushed conversations of how we would run away. This was the
first kiss of an unapologetic relationship. This was the first kiss
in which I gave everything that was me and didn’t feel like I was
poisoning Ryder with my lips or killing him with my touch.

This was the first kiss of Ryder and Ivy
forever.

And I loved the taste of it.

His fingers trailed over my stomach and
landed on my hip. He cupped the bone with his rough hand and
squeezed.

I loved the feel of him. I loved his
familiarity with my body.

I loved him.

When he pulled back there was a smile on his
face and light in his eyes. “You nearly killed me.”

I didn’t tell him how close I’d come to
killing myself. “I had to do it.”

He nodded, the humor draining from his face.
“I know. But no more. Please. For my sanity… for my heart.” He took
my hands and pressed them to his chest where I felt the steady
thump-thump beneath corded muscle.

“There are no more demons to fight. We’ve
slayed them all.”

We stared at each other until someone cleared
their throat behind Ryder. I found Hermes standing not far away. I
realized we were still on the beach. Ryder had carried me away from
the water, but not far. Hermes looked incredibly uncomfortable as
we lay side by side, drinking in our special moment.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said dryly. “But
we’ll need to go back to Olympus and… fill them in.”

“No.” Ryder jumped to his feet and pulled me
up with him. “There’s no way in hell. We’re
not
going back
there.”

Hermes looked to me with beseeching eyes. I
doubted he wanted to go back to the mountain any more than we did,
but he was right. We needed to explain what happened or this would
never go away. Olympus would bother me until the day I died.

“We’ll go with you,” I told the Messenger.
“This one last time.”

“Ivy,” Ryder growled.

I slid my hand over his roughened jaw and
coaxed him to look at me. “It’s okay, Ryder. This time we’re
calling the shots. They can’t touch us.”

His forehead wrinkled with worry. “You’re
sure?”

“Yes,” I answered confidently. “I promise
we’ll be okay.”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair,
but he nodded his consent. “One last time. If we have to.”

Hermes’s shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
He didn’t bother saying another word, but I heard his unspoken
irritation. He had lost three brothers in the last few days. They
were evil men, but to Hermes, they were family.

I couldn’t say what waited for us back on
Olympus. We could be walking to our death. But for some reason I
doubted it. I trusted Smith enough to go back and face the
consequences of my actions.

Plus, I needed to say goodbye to Honor. I
couldn’t leave her again without at least offering her a sanctuary
should she ever need one and giving her the tightest hug known to
mankind.

Hermes stepped between us and put a hand on
each of our shoulders. Before I could take a breath we were back on
the mountain. We were standing in the same frigid spot he’d first
brought us to. The same ice cold wind assaulted our bare skin and
after the warmth of the beach, the difference in temperature was
shocking.

We stepped through the gates and hurried up
the hill again. It wasn’t at all quiet this time. It was loud and
restless and I had to strain to hear myself think. Signs of the
battle littered the streets and razed buildings. The carnage was
overwhelming even after being a part of it.

We walked in complete silence all the way up
the hill. When we reached the plaza in front of the temple, we saw
the true slaughter of the bloody battle.

Servants to the Pantheon worked hard to clean
up the blood that ran like a river through the streets. There were
dead bodies everywhere and the stench of it made me want to
gag.

A huge funeral pyre had been made off to the
side. The dead were collected and delivered unceremoniously onto
the pile. The fire roared so loudly I couldn’t hear anything above
the sound of it, not even my own thoughts.

I kept my eyes locked on the columns, anxious
to get inside the untouched building.

Hermes seemed just as determined. We walked
quickly through the chaos and ran up the long sets of stairs.

Inside the temple, the remaining Greeks were
gathered around Zeus and Hera. Their robes had been switched to
black, a sign of mourning.

They lifted their heads to find us walking
toward them with a mixture of relief and animosity. Most of the
gods had survived the battle. There were a few noticeably absent
that I had watched die and a few more that could be dead or just
not here. I didn’t know enough about them to make that call.

“Poseidon is dead?” Hera asked in her usual
demanding tone.

I tried not to look cocky when I answered,
“Yes.”

“How?”

“Chained to the bottom of the sea as
requested.”

Hera lifted her articulate eyebrow. “What do
you mean
as requested
?”

The Fates appeared just then. They popped
into view parallel to Ryder and me, but they left several yards
between us. My mother lay unconscious at their feet.

“Our part of the deal,” Isadora explained
coldly.

I wanted to run to Ava. I wanted to pick up
her frail body in my arms and hold her to me until she forgot any
of this happened. Ryder’s hand on my wrist kept me from moving.

“You had something to do with this?” Hera
asked the Fates.

Isadora lifted her chin haughtily. “My dear,
we had everything to do with this.”

I choked on my outrage and took long strides
to stand before them. “If you mean you stirred the pot to begin
with, then sure, take the credit. But you had nothing to do with
Poseidon’s death. That was me. That was
all
me.”

“She’s says it so proudly,” Enid sneered.
“She brags about the death of your brother, my queen. Something
needs to be done. She cannot be allowed to roam this world freely.
She’ll kill you all before she’s finished. She’ll take down Olympus
one god at a time until the throne is hers alone.”

Hera stood up from her powerful seat and put
a hand to her throat. “You’ve seen it?”

In her creepy child-like voice, Veda said,
“We see all.”

Hera turned to her husband, “Zeus, we have to
do something. She is responsible for the death of two of your
brothers and the musician killed two more. You cannot let this
behavior go unpunished.”

“I told you, wife, I would banish them from
the mountain.” His voice was hard and unrelenting. His starling
eyes met mine across the distance and held something I couldn’t
decipher.

“Not good enough!” Hera screamed.

Echoes of agreement shouted through the
Parthenon, filling the open space with anger and resentment. They
hated me. All of them.

Lucky for me, the feeling was more than
mutual.

“She’s a child,” Zeus argued. “What would you
have me do?”

Isadora waited until the room fell silent
before suggesting sagely, “Give her to us. We are strong enough to
keep her from harming anyone else. She would be safe with us.”

Hera looked at the three witches
thoughtfully. “They could keep her safe. They could keep us
appraised of her power, of her comings and goings. It’s wise, my
husband. We should think on this.”

Zeus looked at Hera like she was out of her
damn mind and I tried not to smile.

Hermes stepped forward and threw his hands
out. “Do you not see what they’re doing? They wish to control
everything. They wish to turn Olympus-”

“Quiet, Messenger!” Enid screamed. “Quiet
before I cut out your tongue, you stupid fool!”

“Enough!” Zeus bellowed. “You’re giving me a
headache.”

The murmuring that rippled through the crowd
was aggressive and pointed mostly at me. No matter whose side
they’d been on during the battle, it seemed the majority of their
animosity was pointed towards me.

“Let’s vote,” one of the gods I couldn’t
remember suggested. “In favor of not having my remains chained to
the bottom of the ocean, I vote we hand the Siren over to the
Fates.”

That suggestion met a round of applause from
the rest of the crowd.

This was a witch hunt. Unfortunately I was
the witch.

“You just saved most of their lives,” Ryder
growled next to me. “I think you should chain them
all
to
the bottom of the ocean. What a bunch of assholes.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “They’re more
concerned with their own lives than the good I did for them. I have
an idea though.”

Ryder’s amused look made me laugh.

“It’s a good idea,” I whispered. “I
promise.”

“So it’s settled,” Isadora called out. “We’ll
take the girl.”

“Yes,” Hera declared.

“Wait!” Zeus growled. “There has to be
another way that will satisfy you.”

“It’s not like we can drop her off on an
island and feed her sailors, Zeus!” Hera whined. “Times have
changed. This is the simplest solution.”

“And how do you know that we can trust the
Fates with her?” Zeus asked.

Before anyone else could say another stupid
thing, I spoke up. “You can’t.”

Every head in the room swiveled toward me.
The rustling of robes seemed to scream through the tight
tension.

“What was that?” Hera screeched.

I cleared my throat and tried again. “You
can’t trust the Fates. They want exactly what Nix wanted. And what
Hades wanted.” I cocked my head for dramatic effect. “And… what
Ares wanted. They want to use me to take Olympus. And probably…
eventually the world. You can’t trust them, just like you can’t
trust me.”