“Killing someone,” he said, watching her carefully. “You, who doesn’t even like to kill spiders.” While he despised spiders with a passion, thanks to his time in the Underworld, he’d watched her rescue two from the bottom of his boot before he could smash them, and release them outside. She hated death. And even though she hadn’t had much of a choice, he knew she was still wrestling with the fact she’d had to kill those daemons back at that motel. Daemons she’d killed to save him.
“I know, right?” A weak smile ran across her face before she looked back at the fire. “Which is part of the reason I’ve put it off so long.”
She drew in a breath, let it out. “For a while now I’ve been keeping my eye out for the dark one. You know, just waiting to see if I ever even had the opportunity, not that I had to follow through on it or anything. When I first saw Orpheus in that concert crowd, I thought he might be the one. His daemon was very strong then. He radiated darkness. And I thought if I killed him, I might finally prove my worth. But things didn’t turn out like I’d planned, and by the time he came to find me, his daemon had already faded. Then everything happened with Hades’s hellhounds finding me and Orpheus and Skyla taking me to the colony and then you coming back from the Underworld, and…and I realized I’d been thinking too small. I finally figured out who I have to kill to get home.”
His lungs squeezed tight. Before she even said the words, he knew she’d realized the darkness in him was so strong, he was the one she had to kill to prove her allegiance to the gods.
She ran her hands through her hair, pushed off the couch. “The reason I asked you to teach me to fight is because I know I’m not ready yet. I still need time to develop whatever gift is inside me. So before I go and face Hades’s son, I need to make sure I’m not only stronger but way more skilled.”
She picked up their empty wine glasses from the coffee table and turned for the kitchen. “I’m going to open another bottle. Do you want a glass?”
The air whooshed out of his lungs. Was replaced with a fear that shot straight down his spine. Hades’s son? That’s who she was planning to try to kill? Zagreus? The prince of the fucking Underworld?
Slowly, because his legs were shaking, he pushed from the couch and turned to look at her standing at the island, pouring more wine into both their glasses. “Um, no.”
She looked at the label on the bottle. “Did you not like this year?”
He raked a hand through his hair. She was talking about the wine when he felt as if he’d just been sucker punched in the gut. “Um, no, you’re not going after Zagreus.”
Her hand stilled. Her eyes lifted to his. “What?”
“You’re not going after Zagreus,” he said again. “I wouldn’t even go after Zagreus, and I think most of the Argonauts would agree I’m a fucking loose cannon right now. None of the Argonauts would dare go after him. We leave him the hell alone.”
She frowned, poured more wine in a dismissive move, as if he were talking out his left earlobe or something.
He took a step closer to the kitchen, his chest vibrating with worry and fear and panic. “Maelea, did you hear me?”
“I’m not going after him now, Gryphon. I already told you I’m not ready yet.”
“Not ever,” he said with conviction.
She looked up again. Except this time her eyes weren’t warm and soft, as they’d been on the couch. They were cold and hard. And very, very determined. “What does it matter what I do in the future? By the time I’m ready to confront Zagreus, you won’t be here anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, this,” she waved her hand around. “Us, here, this is only temporary. I know you’ve been enjoying relaxing and having a little downtime here with me this last week, where no one can find us, and that you needed that, after everything you’ve been through, but as soon as you decide to go after whatever it is you were planning to go after before I brought you here, you’re not going to care where I am or what I’m doing.”
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“About what I do after I confront Atalanta.”
Her hand shook as she set the bottle of wine on the counter. “Atalanta? That’s who you’re trying to find?”
The darkness inside him vibrated with revenge. “Not find. I could find her anytime I want. All I have to do is get away from you and listen to her fucking voice calling me, and it’ll lead me right to her. No, I intend to kill her, Maelea. It’s why I left the colony. It’s the only way I’m going to be free of her for good.”
“Atalanta received her power from Hades in the Underworld,” she said to herself as she stared at the counter. “That’s why you needed me. Why you kept me with you. Because the light in me…what?” She looked up. “It loosed her hold on you somehow?”
He hadn’t planned to tell her any of this, but now that it was out there, he wasn’t going to lie. He owed her more than that. And he could see her thinking back, remembering what he’d been like when they first met. Twitchy, paranoid, frenetic. All the things he hated being. All the things he’d be again as soon as she left him. “At first? Yeah. When I was near you, I didn’t hear her voice as strongly. I could think. That’s why I didn’t let you go after we came out of the caves.”
Understanding dawned in her eyes, followed by hurt. A hurt that told him she thought that was the only reason he was with her now. He wanted to tell her that wasn’t the case, that things had changed, but before he could, she said, “How? How did that happen? Has she always had a hold on you like that?”
His stomach tightened. “No. She was in the Underworld. With me.”
Horror seeped into her eyes. Horror and revulsion. “What happened?” she whispered.
Sickness rolled through his stomach. He didn’t want to tell her the truth, because he knew as soon as he did, she’d look at him differently. As half a man. As a weakling. And he didn’t want that. What he wanted was to go back to the way things had been moments before he’d started this stupid conversation. When they’d been snuggled together on the couch and he was everything she wanted. But he knew now there was no going back. Their little bubble of happiness had exploded, all thanks to him.
His heart cinched down tight. The heart he’d realized he did still have, all thanks to her. There was no way she’d stay here with him now, no way she’d wait for him to get back from his quest to find Atalanta. Not even if he asked. He could see it in her eyes. She was already looking at him differently. But maybe by telling her just what kind of shit he’d done down there in the Underworld, he could somehow convince her Zagreus—Hades’s son, the prince of darkness who was as horrific as any in hell—wasn’t someone she should even consider tangling with. Maybe, if he shocked her enough, she’d stay away—far away—from the sick son of a bitch. Because he knew if she went ahead with this idiotic plan, she’d lose. She’d lose big.
His heart pinched so hard, pain lanced through every cell in his body. He’d do anything to keep her safe. Even confess his darkest, most gruesome secrets. At this point, that was the only choice he had left.
“You wanna know what happened?” he said in a low voice. “Really know?”
She nodded slowly. Didn’t dare look away from him.
He narrowed his eyes. And steeled himself against her reaction. A reaction that was going to change their relationship forever. And likely break him for good in the process.
“I fucked her,” he said, watching the shock and repulsion rush across her smooth, perfect features. “And I got fucked. By something a thousand times worse than her. But since I’d agreed to be her doulas, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about either one. At least not until now.”