Shattered Gods (Dark Olympus, #10)(22)

There’s so much to do and so little time. The people of Olympus are galvanized, but if I don’t follow through on my promises of a new power structure after the death of the old one, they’ll turn on me the same way they’re turning on the Thirteen and legacy families now.

Antigone will return with at least a few of the Thirteen as captives, which will be a good start. The team in the lower city is taking longer than I’d like to find the machinery to bring down the secondary barrier, but they will find it. I want to have things buttoned up in the upper city before they do.

It’s best not to fight battles on two fronts.

With that in mind, I make my way back to where Nerissa stands guard over the room containing Hecate. “I’ve handled Demeter. Station two people you’re sure of on this room and check in with Antigone to see what she needs. I don’t want anyone else to slip through the cracks while I get some rest.”

She hesitates. “You’ll actually rest?”

My team is so damned invested in me sleeping, as if sleep truly brings rest instead of nightmares. “I will. I promise.” I slip back through the door and into the room. Only to pull up short at the sight of wide dark-brown eyes blinking at me. She should have been unconscious for hours, but Hecate is already fighting her way back to consciousness.

I smile. “It’s time we had a chat.”





9

Hermes




I’m getting really fucking tired of being drugged. My head feels too large on my shoulders and my body isn’t obeying my commands to move. Circe closes the door softly behind her and walks toward me, every inch a goddess taken human form. I’m so angry at her, I shouldn’t be fighting not to whimper at the sight of her beauty. I contain multitudes.

She sinks down on the couch next to my reclined body, making the cushions dent and sliding me toward her. I try to fight it, but I might as well be a human doll for all I’m successful.

“I must have gotten the measurements wrong,” she murmurs. I can’t feel the fingers she brushes down my cheek, but heat blooms in their path all the same. “It’s for the best. We’re running out of time.”

I want to blame the new tension in her body on guilt that she just gunned down two people in cold blood, but I know better. She wasn’t shaky after she shot Eros—gods, he’s really dead—so something else must have happened.

She keeps stroking my face almost absently, her mind clearly focused on other things. “I meant my offer to Hera, you know. I’ll kill her if I have to, but it brings me no pleasure to remove a Hera from this world. I can’t let her keep the baby, Hecate. We both know too well how the desire for vengeance can taint a life. I have no desire to turn around in twenty years and find some fresh-faced young thing with my murder in their eyes.”

There’s no reasoning with her, even if I could talk, but I’m a damned fool for this woman because I want to try. My lips work, the effort to press out one word leaving me exhausted. “Ex. Ile.”

“How well did that work for me?” She smiles sadly. “I realize it’s not the same. Zeus truly thought I was dead, otherwise he wouldn’t have rested until he ensured the rumor was truth.”

All these years, and I still don’t know the details of what happened. Zeus returned from their honeymoon claiming she was swept out in a riptide, only to drown trapped against the barrier. Her body was never found, but there are plenty of sea predators who could have done away with her. It didn’t matter, though. The most powerful man in Olympus wasn’t interested in recovering her remains, and so there was no search conducted.

“I can see from your eyes that you want the story.” She sighs and glances at the door. “We have a little time, so I suppose it doesn’t hurt to share it now.”

Once I realized she was alive, it was simple enough to take a trip to Aeaea and find out everything I could about her time there. How she came to the island with little but managed to draw in and manipulate all the rich and powerful who wanted more than their island home offered. How she spun her plan for vengeance expertly, a spider in the center of her web until it was time to strike.

What I couldn’t find out was where she spent the year between her “death” and her arrival to Aeaea.

She picks up one of my limp hands and traces a finger over my palm as if she can truly tell my future from the lines fracturing there. “It’s more or less what you’d expect. He wanted me for my beauty, and the fact I didn’t return his desire only made me more attractive prey. If I had been smart, I could have used that to my advantage, but I was young and scared, and you know how I was back then when I got scared.”

She got angry. The Circe I knew never allowed herself to sit in fear. Not when she could act out instead.

“He started beating me the night he took me.” She says it flatly, simply reciting the facts, as if she’s not tearing my heart out of my chest with her words. “Aphrodite had an awful time finding a wedding dress to cover up the bruises.”

“Circe,” I rasp.

“Shhh.” She keeps up her methodical stroking of my palm, over and over again. “I couldn’t stop fighting him. I didn’t know better. All I wanted was to escape and get back to you.” She smiles almost fondly. “I tried to kill him the first night we were on the coast. I dosed him with rat poison I found in one of the outbuildings. I was too hasty, though, and didn’t get the dosage right. He was violently ill, but not enough to call in outside help, and certainly not enough to kill him.”