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“Come on. Let’s get you home.” I helped her to her feet.
She rolled her shoulder, wincing a little. But the fact she could move it already told of how quickly she healed. Her power was so much stronger than it had been before. Injuries like this shard in her shoulder wouldn’t last very long. It was a relief—and meant she’d be harder to kill because serious injuries would heal quickly. But it didn’t make her completely immortal.
“I’m headed out,” Ares said with a growl. “I’m going to see if I can find the fucker.”
None of us tried to stop him. I doubted he’d find X, but I understood what he needed to do—release pent-up anger. And Ares couldn’t die, so even if he got into a hell of a fight with X, nothing was going to come of it. Not for either of them. It would be good for Ares to have a place to get rid of his rage.
He turned to Elyse and ran his fingers through her hair. He was so gentle with her when he could be such a steamroller in any other situation. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll make sure of it.”
Elyse nodded, and he brushed his lips against hers before he vanished.
After Ares disappeared, Heracles and I walked Elyse to her car and helped her in. As soon as I closed the door, I turned to him.
“We’ll fix this,” I instructed.
“You’re damn right.” He looked just as pissed off as Ares, the corners of his mouth pinching, his shoulders squared. “I’ll be back. I need to pay Dad a visit.”
“Again?”
He nodded. “This needs to come to an end. There’s only one way to get around it.”
“If he hasn’t listened to you before, why would he now?”
Heracles scowled and raked his hand through his hair “If he’s going to let her die, he’s going to lose a hell of a lot more than just a bloodline on Earth. I’m going to make him see that.”
I understood what he was saying. If Elyse died, Zeus wouldn’t only lose the Lowe bloodline that he’d endowed with magical powers. He’d also lose Heracles and me.
Elyse opened the car window, and Heracles leaned in and squeezed her hand.
“It’s going to be fine,” he said, reassuring her with a smooth voice and gentle smile.
We all treated her like cotton candy, and this time she accepted us taking charge.
Elyse nodded, even though she looked as though she didn’t quite believe him. He nodded once more but almost as if he were confirming something to himself. He turned around and marched a couple of steps away from the car before a ray of light shone down on him from the heavens and he disappeared, too. He wasn’t going to try to find X like Ares was and fight him here on Earth. Heracles was headed straight up to Mount Olympus, and I prayed Zeus intervened.
I rounded the front of the car to the driver’s seat and climbed in next to Elyse, the car feeling small. I took her hand and kissed her knuckles then directed her palm to my thigh before I put the car in gear and pulled onto the road. I’d driven vehicles a few times and understood how they worked; plus, it helped she drove an automatic.
“No one took care of the mirror inside,” Elyse said.
“Don’t worry about that. We’ve got it covered.”
She nodded and leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes, her warm hand still on my thigh—she probably needed our connection. We’d make sure the place looked like it had never been touched before the mortals arrived. They couldn’t know what had happened. They wouldn’t believe it, anyway. But Elyse came first.
I drove her to my place, as I didn’t want to have X waiting for us. Not that I thought he’d be stupid enough to do that now, but with him, one never knew.
When we headed inside, Elyse walked straight to my bedroom. “Do you mind if I lie down?”
I shook my head. “Never.”
“It’s not that it hurts. I mean, it’s practically healed. I just feel…flat.” Her voice floated away, and she vanished into my room.
I worried for her state of mind. I got that she felt sorry for herself, but she’d have to find a way to find strength once again because X wasn’t giving up, and I couldn’t lose her.
In the kitchen, I put on the kettle. Humans loved their coffee and it was some kind of pick-me-up for Elyse as well. I didn’t understand the stuff—it tasted horrible and didn’t do anything for me. But I was going to make her coffee if it was what she needed. I’d made sure to have some in the house, knowing she liked it.
I checked on Elyse while the kettle boiled. She looked tiny, lying in the middle of the king-sized bed, and I was hit again by how frail she seemed. She might have been powerful, able to hold her own—she’d made that very clear when she hadn’t died in this fight against X—but I was concerned about her and that we wouldn’t get through this with her alive on the other end of it. The dread in my gut persisted, an instinct things were going to get worse, but the ache in my heart said I’d never stop fighting for her.
When the kettle whistled in the kitchen, I hurried back and pulled it off the burner. I filled the mug with hot water, mixing in instant coffee, sugar, and milk before I carried it through to the bedroom. When I returned to her side, she opened her eyes.
