Psyche turned their game back on themselves, resulting in Eros’s mother being exiled. Persephone committed to a relationship with Hades that started as a way to ensure Zeus would never want to touch her again and ended with her becoming one of the most powerful people in the city in her own right. Even Eurydice, our precious baby sister, partnered with Eris to orchestrate Ariadne Vitalis betraying her father and her people. Through it all, I’ve schemed and manipulated and blackmailed as necessary to protect my family and secure my position of power.
I almost got my sister killed tonight with those schemes. I’m not that different from the legacy families after all. None of us are.
So I don’t hop down off the counter and flee from my husband. There’s no escaping the new truth nestled beneath my breastbone, a hot coal I want to claw out. I just sit there and shake as Perseusbrings the shower up to a comfortable temperature and moves to stand in front of me. If he asked me if I need help, I would have choked on my own tongue before admitting that I do. But he doesn’t ask.
He simply sinks to his knees in front of me as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. Just like he did in the hospital. Except this time, there’s no one else in the room with us. I’m not even sure where Imbros went, and that oversight should scare me. It will in the morning, but it doesn’t feel like anything can penetrate the numbing agent of my new awareness.
I’ve failed. I’ve failed so spectacularly that it’s almost laughable. It will be my sisters who pay the price for that failure—and my mother. Persephone loves Hades with everything she has. If something happens to him, I’m afraid it will break her. Not to mention she’s in the same position I am, pregnant with his heir. That means if he dies, she becomes regent until their child is of age. Her children aren’t any safer than her husband is.She’snot any safer than her husband is. I refuse to allow my sister to be hurt. She’s making the wrong decision, but if I could just talk to her, could just make her see reason—
At my feet, Perseus pulls off first one boot and then the other, quickly followed by my socks. He slides his hands up the outside of my legs, under my dress, to grip my hips. “I’m going to need you to stand. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can.” I’m not so sure, though. Every part of me feels shaky, as if I’m held together by stubbornness and nothing more—and I’m all out of stubbornness. I ease off the counter and he tugs my panties down, waiting until I lift my feet to step out ofthem before he sets them aside in the growing pile of dirty clothes.
My dress is next, slid carefully over my head and dropped down next to me. The sports bra gets tangled around my neck, because of course it does. There’s never been a graceful undressing involving a sports bra in the history of the world. But he eventually manages to free me from its confines and then I’m standing naked before him.
He surveys me with a critical eye, his attention lingering on the butterfly bandages on my shoulder and the dried cut on my face. “You’re not supposed to get the bandages wet.”
“You just got me naked and the shower’s running. Figure it the fuck out. I’m getting in there and I don’t give a shit about the bandages.” The words are right, but the tone is wrong. It’s almost pleading. I’m shattering before his very eyes and I don’t know how to stop it. Normally, in the rare moments when weakness sets in, I have a private room to retreat to and no one to stand as witness. There’s no opportunity for that now. It’s come on too fast, and I’m out of control.
I don’t see a way out of this. Both Hermes and Circe, have put me in an impossible position, trying to dismantle legacy titles that have existed since the founding of this city. No single person can do it. If they could, Hermes would have accomplished her aims long ago. She hasn’t. SheknewI would fail. Circe too. And still they let me flounder. Maybe they think it’s funny. It doesn’t feel very funny right now. It feels like despair.
While I’m spiraling, Perseus has come up with a solution. He kicks off his shoes and socks and pulls off his shirt. Even in my distracted state, I can’t help the little flip my heart does at the sight of his bare chest underneath these unrelenting lights. Of the scars Inoticed last time. Scars that tell a story, even though I don’t want to witness it. And yet I don’t stop looking.
He takes my arm and tugs me behind him into the shower, still wearing his pants. “This only works if you stand exactly where I tell you and do exactly as I say.”
I don’t have the energy to make a smart-ass comment or push back. I merely nod and allow him to arrange me with my back against the tile wall, the water beating on my right side. At least for a moment. Then he takes the shower handle, adjusts the spray a little, and starts easing it over my body.
I jolt; I can’t help it. “What are you doing?” I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to ask when he came into the shower in the first place, but apparently this is a step too far.
“You promised to come home tonight and do what I say.” He says it so mildly that I can almost convince myself there’s ice beneath his words, just like there always is. Almost. It’s not the truth, though. He’s being gentle with me—caring, as if I’m made of spun glass and he’s afraid of shattering me.
“Only part of that is true,” I finally manage. “I never promised to do what you say.”
“I know.” His lips curve, just the tiniest amount, but on Perseus it’s practically a boisterous laugh. “Can’t blame me for trying, though.” His expression falls back into more familiar, serious lines. “You can’t shower without the risk of getting your bandages wet, and even if they weren’t a factor, I wouldn’t leave you in here alone. You look like you’re about to collapse. Stand there and let me take care of you.”
Take care of me. The very idea is absurd. I’m the one who takescare of the people around me. Not always in the way they would prefer, but a sharp cut accomplishes a whole lot more than a soft word, especially in our world. Perseus has been consistent since the beginning of our marriage, cold and distant and unknowable. Even now, he’s awkward in his ministrations. His touch is tentative in a way I’ve never experienced with him—not even on our wedding night when we were new to each other. It’s as if he’s never done this before.
He’s never done this before.
The realization rolls over me, sending my mind into perfect blankness. When would he have learned comfort? My mother may be a particular way with the public, but the moment she stepped through the door into our family home, she put down the Demeter persona and became herself. Still sharp, still ruthless, but warm in a way that had nothing to do with manipulation.
My husband doesn’t do that. I had thought it was simply because I’m an enemy just like the ones outside the penthouse walls, but suddenly I’m not so sure. His home was hardly a refuge growing up. He would have learned there was no safe space. He was well and truly bereft of someone to comfort and hold him.
“Oh, Perseus.” The words emerge as a sigh.
He pauses. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
I press my lips together hard, but it does nothing to steady me. “No.” I swallow past the lump growing in my throat, the burning in my eyes. “Don’t stop.”
“Okay.” He gently tilts my head back, supporting my head with one hand, and brings the shower head to wash the blood from my hair. The look of concentration on his face makes my stomachflutter. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s still doing it. For me. Because he…cares?
That can’t be it. He hates me as much as I hate him. And Idohate him. I’m sure of it. The feeling might be a little less ragged than it was several months—or even a week—ago, but it hasn’t gone away.
He’s the instrument of so much pain, the representation of everything wrong with Olympus. A nepo baby handed a title that has been used to hurt people for countless generations. Just becausehehasn’t hurt anyone yet doesn’t mean he won’t in the future, given enough time and opportunity. His reign has hardly been without peril.
But even as I think of the words, they don’t feel fully true. Not anymore.
I close my eyes and let my husband wash my hair. Having his hands on me like this, in warmth andcare, feels so good that I let him wash my body as well. The silence between us is charged with all the things left unsaid, but I don’t have the strength to cross that chasm. Not yet. It’s not until he shuts off the water that some of my old strength comes back. Or maybe it’s just desperation. I’m not going to be able to sleep, no matter how much my body needs it. I’m too aware of all the ways I’ve fucked up; my brain will not let me rest.
