She’s only silent for a moment. “And the extent of Hera’s injuries?”
“She has a graze on her arm that required stitches and a fewbumps and bruises, but she’s otherwise perfectly fine. I’m taking her home and keeping her there tonight, but I will bring her out to the countryside tomorrow for you to spend some time with and reassure yourself that she’ll make a full recovery.”
“Very well. I’ll see her tomorrow and get full answers then. In the meantime, I have a certain lord of the lower city to call.” She hangs up without saying goodbye.
I turn back to find Callisto watching me with a strange expression on her face. Her lips curl the tiniest bit. “That was mean.”
“If he’s going to make dramatic statements and grand gestures, then he can deal with explaining why to Demeter.” He’s not going to be any happier with her than he is with the rest of us, and it’s just as well. The safest place for Persephone is in the lower city behind that barrier. At least while it still stands. I have no doubt Circe has plans for it to be destroyed as well.
Personally, I could use Hades’s help, but it’s clear his priorities are his wife and the twin babies she carries. I can’t fault him for that. Callisto doesn’t even know thatIknow she’s pregnant, and it’s everything I can do not to package her up and ship her away—or lock her in a room until this is over. She’d hate me for either choice, but at least she’d be safe.
Except, no, she wouldn’t. The first chance she got, she’d be knocking down walls and scaling the side of the building to go cause more trouble. My wife isn’t one to be content on the sidelines. She’ll be at my side instead.
Callisto sighs and starts to run her fingers through her hair, only to find it matted with blood from the cut on the side of her face. She winces. “I suppose a shower wouldn’t be out of order.”
Even with all my power, I’m no Hades to whisk her out of here despite the doctor’s protest. I’d like my personal doctor to look her over just to be sure she’s fine, but I already know she won’t allow it. Until she tells me that she’s pregnant, I have to tread carefully when it comes to her medical stuff. It takes another thirty minutes before I have discharge papers in hand and am able to usher Callisto into the black SUV I called to pick us up.
She slumps back against the seat in a way that makes my stomach twist. I’m a man of action. Give me an enemy to conquer, and I will dismantle it to the best of my ability. Give me a dispute to navigate, and I’ll find the best way through, weighing the scales to ensure the fairest solution. But with my injured wife, I don’t have the skills or the words to comfort her. I’ve never felt so inadequate in my life.
Ultimately, she takes the choice from me. We’ve only ridden two blocks when her eyes flutter closed, and her body goes limp, slumping down to rest her head on my shoulder. Panic flutters in my throat, but her steady breathing reassures me. She’s had a horrific shock, and an injury on top of that, not to mention the increasing amount of stress every citizen in Olympus is feeling—particularly the Thirteen. It’s no wonder her body shut down.
She’s still sleeping by the time we park in the garage in our building. I don’t hesitate to carefully scoop her up. Callisto is one of those women who’s larger than life in everything she does, but she curls so sweetly into my arms that it makes me sick with need.
The need to be a completely different person. One who isn’t the universally hated Zeus. One who she might want to marry for the man instead of the title. One who isn’t emotionally stunted and unable to provide the support she obviously requires.
She stirs as I walk through the front door. “I fell asleep?”
“Yeah.” I bypass the main living area and walk down the hall to the primary bedroom. I already know she won’t allow me to put her to bed until she’s clean, so I head into the bathroom and set her carefully on the counter. “Stay here.”
It’s a testament to her exhaustion that she doesn’t immediately rip me a new one. She merely sits and watches as I start the shower and then pull the first aid kit from beneath the sink. Only then does she speak. “I’m bandaged up just fine.”
“I know. But there’s a chance that cut on your face might reopen once we get it wet. And we’ll have to be careful of your arm.”
“Perseus…”
Hearing my name—my true name—on her lips stills me. I’m helpless to do anything but meet her gaze. I don’t know what I expect to see. I don’t know whatshesees, but she looks just as conflicted as I feel. She shifts uncomfortably. “I can’t—”
I cut in before she can rip my heart out. Again. “I know this changes nothing. But just…let me take care of you tonight, Callisto. Please.”
I can actually see the warring thoughts behind her eyes. My wife is perversely independent and hates me. And yet she nods jerkily. “Just for tonight.”
21
Hera
I know what Ishoulddo, but it’s perfectly at odds with what I have the energy for. Ishouldhop off this bathroom counter and walk away from the fragile new intimacy with my husband that I most assuredly did not ask for. But just because I didn’t ask for it doesn’t mean I don’t crave it with a strength that scares me. All my life, one truth has been drilled into my head, over and over again.
I cannot rely on anyone but my family.
My mother would go to war for her daughters, even as she expects us to take some hits in the process. My sisters would go to unthinkable lengths to protect each other.
But the rest of the world? They cannot be trusted. They hate us for reaching for the shining power they decided was theirs by virtue of birth, for being country folk who dare come into the city and pretend each to be one of them. We may be nearly as rich as the Kasios family but we don’t have a history littered with members of the Thirteen. Every Dimitriou hasworked, unlike the legacy families who crouch in the center of the upper city. Vultures, every one ofthem. They scheme and backstab and have no problem trampling others to get what they want. They would have killed Persephone rather than let her rise as queen of the lower city. Theydidtry to kill Eurydice. And Psyche, too. We’ve outlasted them all, through cleverness and strength and sheer perversity.
So the very idea of allowing my husband, holder of the hated title Zeus, to care for me?
Unthinkable.
But my body isn’t quite obeying my brain’s reluctant commands. Since our family moved to the city proper, I’ve been harboring an inferno of rage that will likely never be extinguished. How can it when nothing ever changes? Over and over again, I’ve comforted myself with the belief that I’m not like the glittering vipers—that my sisters aren’t, either. That belief doesn’t ring quite as true any longer.
