Things happen quickly after that. Ares’s people arrive. Half of them cart Aphrodite off in a black van; the other half act as our escort to Dodona Tower to face Zeus. Good. I have some choice words to say to him.
Eros sits next to me in the back of the car. He hasn’t said a word since Ares’s people showed up. He’s stayed close to me, but I can’t read the expression on his face. He’s iced me out. I open my mouth but decide against speaking before any words escape. We aren’t alone, and this needs to play out before we can have anything resembling an honest conversation.
I don’t know if he’ll forgive me for lying to his face and going behind his back.
We reach Dodona Tower and are escorted up to Zeus’s office. He’s waiting for us in nearly the exact same position he was during our last meeting. He glances up as we walk through the doors, his gaze landing on the soldiers behind us. “Leave us.”
They obey instantly. I’ve never had much desire to have power for the sake of power, but his ability to state commands and have people leap to obey is something that would be useful. Especially right now.
Zeus rubs his temples. For a moment, he almost looks tired, but it passes and then he’s the implacable cold man he’s always been in my presence. “When I said I needed evidence, I didn’t mean I wanted you to stream that evidence to half of Olympus.”
“The entirety of Olympus will have seen it by dinnertime.” I clasp my hands in front of me, hoping he doesn’t notice the way they shake. “Especially once MuseWatch picks it up, which we both know they will. A homicidal Aphrodite makes for juicy headlines.”
“She’ll be exiled.” He sits back, blue eyes cold. “But then, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
It’s exactly what I wanted. Killing Aphrodite, whether sanctioned execution or no, will hurt Eros. He’s shouldered enough hurt for a lifetime. I know I can’t shield him from it forever, but I can do this. “Yes, that’s what I wanted.”
Zeus shifts his attention to Eros. “And you. There are plenty of crimes to lay at your feet. I should exile you as well. It’s not only the Thirteen who will pay the price for breaking one of our most sacred laws; it’s also anyone they loop into the plot.”
“No!” I cry out before I can stop myself.
Zeus shakes his head slowly. “I would have done it. However, the situation has changed.”
The shift is too unexpected. I stare at him blankly. What could have possibly changed that saves Eros from punishment? “Because it was livestreamed?”
“No.” He gives me a long look. “Because you’re family now, and unfortunately, that allows you—and your husband—some leniency. As such, I will not be pursuing any sort of charges against either of you. However, this is your one and only warning. If you continue to plot and scheme and make my life difficult, I will make examples of both of you.”
Family? I frown. “What are you talking about?”
He leans forward and presses a button on his phone. “Send her in.”
Behind me, the door opens and familiar footsteps sound. Horror keeps my feet planted in place, but it doesn’t save me from the truth as my oldest sister rounds me and Eros and moves to stand at Zeus’s shoulder. Callisto is wearing a black dress, the sheer simplicity of the cut only serving to highlight her stark beauty. She doesn’t touch Zeus, standing a careful foot away, but there’s no denying what’s happened.
It’s written there on the giant diamond on her ring finger.
“No,” I whisper.
For his part, Zeus doesn’t seem overly smug. He just looks bored with this conversation. “The engagement will be announced in a few days. The wedding will be this spring. Under no circumstances are you to do anything to endanger that, or I will exile every member of your family.” His gaze flicks to Eros. “As well as your husband.”
“But—” I choke back my protest when Callisto shakes her head very slightly. When she said she’d take care of it, I was afraid she’d try to murder Zeus or something equally violent. I didn’t think she’d agree to marry him. Her words from yesterday come back to me.
You and Persephone have been taking care of us long enough. I’ll handle this.
I have to respect her choice; even if I don’t understand it, I know Callisto too well to believe anyone forced her into this decision, not if she didn’t want to do this.
I clear my throat. “Welcome to the family, Zeus.”
“Better, but I expect smiles and happy words when we officially announce the engagement. You will be nothing less than effusive and supportive.” He looks out the window for a long moment and then back at us. “That concludes things. You won’t be allowed contact with Aphrodite until she’s removed from the city. There will be a press conference in the morning that I do not want you to attend.”
“You’re going to spin the story.”
“Of course I’m going to spin the story.” He shakes his head. “Go home. Stay there. Keep making heart eyes at each other for at least a month. I don’t care what you do after that, but you will keep to this timeline to avoid people asking uncomfortable questions. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
Zeus turns that cold gaze on Eros. “And you?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Good. Now get out of my office.”
I don’t know if I’d have argued further. Eros doesn’t give me a chance. He turns to me and, with a hand at the small of my back, guides me out of the room. It’s a small touch but no less dominant for it. We don’t speak as the elevator goes to the ground floor. Only then does he hesitate. “Are you up for the walk to our place?”
Our place.
He says it so freely, without hesitation or stumbling. As if the penthouse is really both of ours, rather than just his. As if this marriage was anything but a con. A month. A month is all we have left. After that, we’ll have no reason to stay married. No reason except for the love that’s threatening to rip a hole in my chest.
Eros told his mother he loved me. He told me he cared about me. But we’ve both spent so long pretending for other people, I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore.
“I can walk.”
“Okay.” He loops his arm through mine and turns us in the direction of his building.
It takes half a block for my feelings to get the best of me. “Eros—”
“Not here.”
Right. Not out on the street where anyone can overhear. I should be smiling up at him like the newlywed I am, but I can’t manage it.
As long as I’m moving, I’m okay, but the second we get back into Eros’s penthouse and he closes the door behind me, my knees give out.
He catches me before I hit the floor. Of course he does. Eros scoops me up and takes me into the bedroom that’s become ours. Only then does he sit me on the bed and crouch before me. The ice is still present in his eyes, but the way he holds my hands is soft and sweet. “Breathe, Psyche.”
“I am breathing.” Except my voice is too high and thready. And I can’t stop shaking. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Adrenaline letdown.” He rubs my hands gently. “It will pass.”
Of course he would know. He’s been in dangerous situations over and over again. I’ve only done it twice, and the feeling bubbling up inside me after the assassination attempt in the parking lot was nothing compared to this.
My throat is too tight, but I have to get the words out. “I’m sorry.”
He frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m sorry. You told me to stay here and I couldn’t. I couldn’t let you bear the burden of hurting her. She’s your mother.”
“She’s a monster.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t love her.”
He sighs and moves to join me on the bed. “No, that doesn’t mean I don’t love her, if you can call it that. I…” He curses. “I’m fucking furious with you. You put yourself in danger. You didn’t fucking talk to me. I thought I was going to show up and find you dead. I can’t… Psyche, I don’t care what burdens I have to bear; they’re more than worth it if you’re safe.”
I reach out tentatively and sink my fingers into his curls. “I had things under control.”
“In hindsight, I’m aware of that, but there were so many variables.” He shakes his head, the move tugging on my hold a little. “You were faking it, weren’t you? Being that scared.”
I shudder to think back to the moment I was crouching on the ground, staring down the barrel of a gun. “Only partly.” I swallow hard. “She needed to think she’d won. She’s too vain not to say all the ugly stuff out loud, and I needed that on the video.”
Eros stares at me. “You’re terrifying. Do you know that? Absolutely terrifying.”
“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Neither can I.” He leans down and presses his forehead to mine, a grounding touch that eases some of the tension in my chest. “So. A month left.”
Just like that, it’s back. “That’s what Zeus said. I expect he doesn’t want anything to detract from the narrative he’s going to spin, and once he announces the engagement with Callisto—” I break off. “I can’t believe she did this.”
“Really? I can.” He carefully extracts my hands from his hair and links his fingers through mine. “Your sister is going to be Hera.”
“It seems that way.” I can barely comprehend what that will look like. The last Zeus went through three Heras over his time with the title. Rumor is that he killed at least two of them, but no charges were ever leveled at him. As a result, the title of Hera has become something of an empty one. It technically still has duties and an area to rule like all the other Thirteen, but the last three people to hold it were overshadowed by Zeus. I don’t know what my sister will do with the title, but I can guarantee she won’t be the easy, biddable wife that this Zeus is no doubt hoping for.
But I don’t want to talk about Callisto.
I take a slow breath and stare at our linked hands. “So much of this has been pretend. From the very start, we’ve been lying to the public.”
“I’ll give you a divorce.”
That stops me short. I lift my head and blink at him. “What?”
“A divorce.” The winter night outside the window is warmer than Eros’s voice. “You married me to keep safe from my mother. She’s no longer a threat, and I know this isn’t what you would have chosen for yourself. When the month is up, I’ll get the divorce papers written up. You can have whatever you want. You’ve more than earned it.”
I have to take my hands back from him to avoid doing something I’ll regret. “Eros.”
“Yeah?”
“Will you let me finish before you sprint to leap on your own sword to save me from big, bad you?”
Now it’s his turn to blink. “I’m as much a monster as my mother. That’s empirical fact.”
“Did you mean what you said to your mother? Do you love me?”
“I don’t see how that matters.”
Gods, this man. I grab his face and bring it down to mine, nearly close enough to kiss. “Answer the question.”
His huffed breath ghosts against my lips. “Yes, I meant it. I love you. But that’s not a good enough reason to keep you chained to me. I’m a selfish bastard and I thought I could do it, but I can’t bear the thought of you trapped. Not even by me.”
I close my eyes. It’s that or start crying all over him, which he’ll misinterpret. “You might be a monster, Eros, but you’re my monster. I love you, too. I don’t want a godsdamned divorce. I just want you.”
He’s silent for so long, I open my eyes to find him staring at me. He reaches up and cups my jaw with a hand that trembles. “If you’re serious—”
“I’m serious.”
“Be sure, Psyche. If you really mean it, be sure. I can’t… I don’t have the strength to let you go twice.”
I turn my head and kiss his palm. “You don’t have to let me go at all.”
“Thank fuck.” He yanks me into his arms and holds me tightly. The same tremors that shook his hand work their way through his entire body.
I kiss his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.” And then I’m kissing him properly. He hugs me tighter, as if he can’t get close enough to me, and I feel the same way. Things could have gone so wrong today. They didn’t, but that doesn’t change the way I need this man. Right now. Tonight. Forever. I break the kiss long enough to say, “Eros.”
He’s already moving, pushing to his feet and yanking off his clothes. “I need you.”
“Yes.” I let him pull my dress over my head and toss it aside. Then he’s there, bearing me back onto the mattress, his hands moving over my body as if to reassure himself that I’m whole, that I’m here. I push on his shoulders, and he lets me roll him onto his back and climb up to straddle his waist.
Gods, the way this man looks at me.
He grips my hips, devouring me with those fiery blue eyes. “You’re enough to make me want to get into photography.”
That surprises a laugh out me. “Eros, surely you’re not suggesting taking dirty pictures of me.”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.” He cups my breasts and leans up to lavish kisses over them. “Just for us. Only ever just for us.”
It strikes me all over again that we have time. We can act out every fantasy, explore every nuance of the thing that’s flared to life between us. I roll my hips, rubbing myself along his length. “One condition.”
“Name it.”
I grin down at him, so happy I feel downright buoyant. “Take me in front of every mirror in this house, Husband. Let’s put them to good use.”
He pulls me down into a devastating kiss. “That will take years, Wife.”
“Good.”
He smiles against my lips. “That’s my girl.” Eros reaches between us, and I lift my hips so he can notch his cock at my entrance. I keep kissing him as I work myself down his length, guided along by his hands on my hips.
It’s only when he’s seated fully inside me that I sit up and brace my hands on his chest. “I love you.”
His smile is wide and happy and free of any shadows. “Say it again.”
I ride him slowly, reassuring both of us with touch and pleasure that this is real, that it’s not going anywhere. “I love you.”
Eros slides a hand down to press to my clit, so that every stroke winds my pleasure tighter, hotter. “Again, Wife.”
“Again? Really?” I moan and pick up the pace.
“I’ll never get tired of hearing you say it.” He tightens his grip on my hip, urging me to move a little faster, chasing the orgasm I can already feel building deep inside me. “I love you, too. Psyche. So fucking much.”
Between his words and his touch, I’m lost. My orgasm crashes through me, drawing a cry from my lips. “I love you!”
Eros topples me to the bed and then he’s thrusting into me, harder and faster, his expression a mask of need and love. He wraps his arms around me, holding me to him as he grinds into me, chasing his pleasure. I dig my nails into his ass to pull him closer, needing this moment of connection as much as he does. When he comes, he buries his face in my neck.
He goes to slide off me, but I’m having none of it. I wrap my legs around his waist and hold him close. “Not yet. I’m not ready to let you go yet.”
“You never have to let me go.” He presses a kiss to my neck and leverages himself up so he can look down at me. Eros gives me a crooked smile. “Look at us. Beauty and her Beast. Happily ever after and everything. Maybe fairy tales do exist.”
“You’re much prettier than the Beast ever was.”
He gives a rough laugh. “And yet much more of a beast than he could ever be.”
“I don’t care. Beast, monster, man, it doesn’t matter to me. You’re mine, Eros Ambrosia.” I tilt my head up and brush a kiss over his lips. “And I’m yours.”
