Chapter Eighteen
Maelea’s stomach churned with so much force, she was afraid she was going to be sick.
She stared at Gryphon across the granite island where he stood behind the couch, his eyes hard, cold, light blue orbs, so like the icy eyes she’d looked into from the first. Dead. Haunted. Not a bit like the soft, caring eyes she’d peered into this last week as they’d sat together in front of the fireplace, played on the beach, teased each other in the kitchen, and made love in her bed upstairs.
I won’t do to you what was done to me.
His words from the motel, before they took that shower together, when he’d convinced her he wouldn’t hurt her, came back with a vengeance.
He was telling the truth. She could see it in his hard face. Bile rushed up her throat. She swallowed hard to keep it down.
“Wh-who?” she managed to ask. “Who did that to you?”
“Krónos.”
Oh gods. Oh gods. The King of the Elder Gods. The most horrific god imaginable. Trapped in the bowels of Tartarus for all eternity by her father, Zeus. And thanks to her twisted family tree, technically, her grandfather. She gripped the edge of the counter. “Y-you saw Krónos?”
“Atalanta took me to him.” His voice was callous, unfeeling, as cold as the ice suddenly rushing through her veins. “She knew the Argonauts were going to try to rescue me, and she was desperate for a way out of the prison Orpheus and Demetrius had locked her in with their witchcraft. So she asked Krónos to tether us together. And he did. Gifted me with the darkness of the Underworld so she could call on me whenever she fucking wanted.”
As Maelea’s stomach churned again, everything—all his twitching and wild eyes and paranoia and haunted looks—finally made sense.
“He made her a deal,” he said when Maelea finally looked up. “Gave her six months to find the Orb of Krónos or he’d bring her back to the Underworld. Bring me back.”
Her pulse picked up speed. His jaw hardened until it was nothing but a slice of steel beneath his skin, and for a moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest. Knew she had to.
“And then,” he said in that same emotionless tone, “he sealed the deal by having his way with both of us.”
Shock rippled through her. But it was quickly followed by a wave of emotion that rolled like thunder through her blood. Her heart went out to him right there, in the middle of her kitchen. She’d suffered over the long years of her life, but it didn’t even come close to what he’d been through. What he must be reliving every single day. She wanted to cry for him. Wanted to hold him. Wanted to do anything to take that haunted, dead look out of his eyes.
She stepped out from behind the counter. “Gryphon—”
“You think that’s bad?” Her feet stilled at the rage in his eyes. “If you go after Zagreus, it’ll be a thousand times worse, I guarantee it. He’s as sick as his grandfather, and Hades has unleashed him on the human realm to do whatever the fuck he wants. And he will fuck you, Maelea. Make no mistake. If you get near him, he’ll fuck you and he’ll kill you. In whatever twisted, gruesome, new way he can. You won’t even last a day.”
She reached for him. “Gryphon—”
He jerked out of her hand and stepped away, putting the coffee table between them. “Don’t touch me.”
Her heart raced. He didn’t think she wanted him anymore. He couldn’t possibly know she wanted him more. “Gryphon, just let me—”
“Don’t you get it?” he said with such venom, she drew up short. “I agreed to it. I agreed to be Atalanta’s slave to stop the torture. I did every vile thing she asked me to do, just to save my ass. And I didn’t fight. Not when she took me to see Krónos, not when she traded away my freedom, not even when he put his hands on me.”
“Y-you did what you had to do to stay alive,” she said.
“I was already dead,” he snapped.
She took a step closer. “It wasn’t your fault, Gryphon.”
He scrambled backward, around a chair. “The others…they wouldn’t have agreed to any deal. They would have fought.”
He was talking about the Argonauts. And as she stared at him, she realized where the dead look came from. It was shame. That he hadn’t lived up to his guardian class, to his kin. That somehow, he’d failed them.
Even though she knew she shouldn’t, that eventually she’d get hurt because he wasn’t ageless like her, her heart filled. She took a step around the chair. “You’re wrong.”
He moved back again. Hit the wall. Panic filled his eyes when he realized he was trapped. Panic and fear that speared her heart.
“They would have done whatever they had to in order to stay sane, too, Gryphon.”
He pressed his hands against the wall. Looked toward the door as if judging the distance to freedom. “Don’t touch me,” he said in a strangled voice. “Just…don’t.”
Her heart broke all over again for him. She didn’t want to push, but she needed to touch him. Needed to show him just how much he meant to her. Needed him to believe it.
She moved in close, slid her hands up his chest. Every muscle in his body tensed as he drew in a ragged breath. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gryphon. I would never hurt you.”
“Ah, gods,” he whispered, pressing himself even farther into the wall. His head hit the drywall. “Please don’t. Not right now.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, eased up on her toes, was just about to brush her lips against his stubbled jaw when his head snapped her way.
“Didn’t you hear a fucking thing I told you?”
She stilled, because there was such rage in his eyes. But she wasn’t afraid, because she knew no matter what, he’d never harm her. “I heard everything. Every word you said. And if you think any of it makes me love you any less than I already do, then you really are insane. Which I know you are definitely not.”
“You what?” Disbelief widened his eyes. “No, you don’t. You can’t. What…what the hell is wrong with you?”
A weak smile curled her lips. “Where do you want me to start? I could come up with a whole list.”
He stared at her so long her skin tingled. She couldn’t read him. Didn’t know what he was thinking. Feared she’d just put herself out on the ledge again, taken a chance on loving someone, even knowing how bad it was going to hurt in the end, all for nothing. But he needed to know, needed to understand that what he’d been through didn’t change how she felt. It never could.
“You should be running from me. You should be repulsed by me. You shouldn’t want to be in the same room with me. You should be—”
“I should be kissing you.” She brushed her hand against his jaw, eased up on her toes, and pressed her lips to his cheek.
He froze. A strangled sound echoed from his throat as he closed his eyes. As he whispered, “Maelea—”
She kissed his temple, ran her fingers through the silky hair at the nape of his neck. “I love that you watched me from your window. I love that you protected me in those caves. I love that you were willing to let me go when those daemons found us, even knowing you might die in the process. I love that you did whatever you had to in the Underworld in order to survive so you could be here with me now. That you’re willing to do whatever you can to keep me safe, even share this horror with me. Because that’s what it is, Gryphon. It’s horrible, awful, wretched, and vile what they did to you. And it wasn’t your fault. None of it was your fault.”
A tear slipped from the corner of his eye, one she captured with her lips. One laced with pain and heartache she felt all the way to the depths of her soul. “And if you think, for even one second, that you aren’t brave enough, aren’t strong enough, aren’t everything any woman would want and need, then you’re wrong. You’re so very wrong. I want you. I need you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I love you, Gryphon.”