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At least not until I have her in my arms and can reassure myself that she’s actually fine.
With nothing else to do, I turn my fury and frustration on the easiest target. Orpheus. “I hope you’re fucking happy.”
“Hardly.” He leans against the car next to me, his dark gaze pinned to the front door of the clinic. “But if she’s keeping secrets from you, proving myself to be untrustworthy just means she’ll be keeping secrets from me too.”
I understand what he saying, but that doesn’t make me want to strangle him any less. “You keep talking like we’re a team. We’re not.” It doesn’t matter that I decided I’m good with Orpheus being a package deal with Eurydice. What does matter is that she put herself in danger and he didn’t try to stop it.
“If we’re not a team, then why are you mad at me?”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. He has a point. I don’t like it, but he does. “You weren’t there the night she was chased through the warehouse district, terrified out of her fucking mind, and then attacked in plain sight of the lower city banks. You weren’t there when she pieced herself together over months, until she felt strong enough to go out on her own. If you had been, you would understand why I am so angry right now.”
“You’re right. I wasn’t there. I have so many fucking regrets about what happened that night, and how things fell out afterward.I’m glad she had you. Truly, I am.” He turns to face me, his body language still far too relaxed for my liking. “I know you’re scared shitless at the thought of her getting hurt. I am too. I’m not a fighter like you, but I would still put myself between her and any danger without hesitation.”
I don’t know if I believe him.
I don’t know if it matters.
We shouldn’t get too into shit without her here, but there’s something that needs to be said, and it’s better to get it out of the way now. “You mean to stay.”
Orpheus tilts his head back, giving me a good look at the line of his throat. I have the nearly overwhelming urge to set my teeth to that unmarked skin. He speaks before I can do or say something I’ll regret. “That’s up to Eurydice.”
It’s as good as saying yes. I respect him for not pussyfooting around the subject. “Are you planning to try to steal her back to the upper city?” My voice is deceptively mild, covering up the sudden shift inside me. I may have decided on her—and Orpheus—but that doesn’t mean either of them feel the same way. What if Eurydice only saw this year in the lower city as a pause, a moment to catch her breath before flinging herself back into the glittering poison seeped into the other side of the River Styx?
I can’t stand in her way. Doing so would mean clipping her wings, and I’d die before trapping her like that. Even if she takes my heart with her when she goes.
“I don’t know.” He sighs. “I didn’t exactly have a plan when I accepted your…invitation…to cross the River Styx. All I wanted was to apologize and to find a way toliveagain instead of just existing. Ididn’t expect to have even a chance with her again.” His lips quirk. “I didn’t expect you either.”
I know what he means, but I’m still pissed about everything, and I’m not willing to meet him halfway. Not right now. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you?” He moves faster than I would have believed possible and snags my wrist. One moment he’s standing beside me, and the next he’s in front of me, chest to chest. “So we’re just going to pretend I wasn’t choking on your cock a few hours ago?”
He smells really fucking good. I could push him off easily, but I let him press us harder against the car. The contact grounds something in me that’s been spinning out since Hades called and told me to go to the upper city to pick up Eurydice, who wasnotwhere she was supposed to be. I take a slow, deep breath. “You were there for the taste of her.”
Orpheus raises his brows. He really is pretty in a way that makes me want to smudge him up a bit. His lips curve. “Keep telling yourself that if you want.” His gaze drops to my mouth, and for a moment I really fucking hope he’ll kiss me. His smile fades, and he steps back slowly, almost as if he craves the contact as much as I do. “I might have come here for her, but plans change.”
I have to swallow down my desire before I can speak with anything resembling a normal voice. Only the fact that he’s suffering the same tempers the experience. “She might still send you away.”
“Yeah, I know.” He drags a hand through his hair. “Not a whole lot I can do about that. If she tells me to get lost, then I’ll respect her decision.”
“I don’t understand you,” I say softly. “I know your reputation,and I know what she’s told me about you in the moments when she was willing to talk aboutbefore, but you’re not acting like I expected.”
He shrugs, though there’s a new tension in his shoulders. “Both Eurydice and I have changed a lot in the last year.”
That’s the damn truth. Even as I tell myself now isn’t the time, I can’t help thinking about what we did this morning. Of her riding my mouth as he sucked my cock. A perfectly choreographed dance of three. There was no clashing of egos or friction to slow us down. I don’t know if we can get that synergy outside the bedroom, but if we can…
A car pulls up before I can finish that thought. I tense as Hades steps out. Gone is the relaxed man I talked to in the study earlier today. Instead, this is the lord of the lower city, the holder of one of the three legacy titles of the Thirteen. Two other cars pull up and Thanatos climbs out of one. He looks at me, and something almost like fear crosses his expression, but before he can say anything, someone starts cursing behind him, and he’s unceremoniously pushed aside.
Calypso takes his place. She’s a beautiful plus-sized woman with long dark hair and a mean streak longer than the River Styx. She’s also a gigantic pain in my ass. It looks like she’s going to keep that trend today.
“Please tell me you’re not all planning on standing out here like the firing squad.”
Hades gives her a cold look. “She claimed sanctuary.”
“Exactly.” She props her hands on her broad hips and glares. “No matter how she feels about what’s happening in there, she’sgoing to have a lot of conflict going on in her head when she walks out that door. The lot of you are going to scare the shit out of her.”
Sometimes I wonder what Medusa sees in her, but what do I know? The only parts of Calypso I ever witness are influenced by the fact that she doesn’t particularly like me much. She doesn’t seem to likeanyonemuch. I try to take it as a compliment, since she wouldn’t have dared be honest about her feelings while living in the upper city, but it’s hard to appreciate the sharp side of her tongue.
For his part, Hades is mostly unaffected. “You have a suggestion, I’m sure.”
