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“But that sweet marvelous little wonder of a Butterfly who stumbled into your realm? She saved you, you passionate pea brain. Aradia loves every damn part of you. The demon. The monster. The gargoyle. The god. The prankster. Love and Fornication.”
I go still in his arms as he rails into me, not once loosening his grip from where he has me on the broken bed.
“She lovesme,” he says. “She loves your brothers. And she’s not afraid to play with you or call you out on your bullshit, you vapid Valentine’s vacillator. And if you can’t see what all the restof us obviously see, then you truly are no better than a blind Cupid bastard of a baby firing busted arrows into the sky.”
He lets me go. Shoves me off him.
I don’t know whether to fuck him, thank him, or hug him. But when I turn to confront him, a deep ache presses in on my chest. He used his final song for her. He used his last words for me.
Steeling my spine, setting my jaw, I embark through the passage until I arrive at Psyche’s casket. She sleeps again. But I cannot pretend the change that has taken place here will simply disappear. Cres faded again. He will not wake until the balance is restored.
I stand before her casket, gazing down at my first true beloved. But my cock does not rise. I take it out, fisting it.
I consider Cres’s words. Because he’s right. Aradia did save me. Fuck, I think she saved me from the moment I hunted her through those mists. Her heart was great enough to latch onto mine.
No matter how much I fist myself, my damned dick still won’t rise. Not until I think of…her.
First, it twitches when I remember those loose curls bouncing against her cheeks. It thickens when I remember that impish smile whenever she teased or taunted me. Blood arrows right for it when I remember her naked glory suspended in that swing and taking everything like the dirty little slut she is—how she staked her claim with her very teeth.
But pre-cum slicks my crown most at the memory of her falling in love with my realm in a way Psyche never did.
Finally, I remember Aradia’s last words. Because she’s right. It would be the most meaningful death, a death of her choosing. It’s not her martyrdom that gets me off the most. Fuck, it’s the fact that she matched her soul to mine, claiming equality in the eyes of eternity. She did not bow. Nor did she truly beg. She fucking commanded me. Like a gods-damned Queen of Cupid.
The Butterfly looked the Beast in the eye and told him to go to hell.
Have her eyes stared down my Chaos this whole time? She tilted her head and smirked at it. She baited it. Tempted it. Wooed it. Shared her darkness with it. And her soul sang to mine like a damn Hallelujah Chorus.
I ejaculate all over the side of the coffin.
And growl low and deep. Of course, things are only clear to me once I empty my balls.
I must go to Zeus.
Epilogue
FOUR DAYS LATER
EROS/ARADIA
“Fuck, Butterfly. What have you done?” I demand with a tide of heartache crashing over my newly birthed heart. The night she restored my heart seems like a lifetime away.
She shrivels into herself as I kneel before her and comb my hand into her ragged and dirty curls. She shivers and curls tighter into the fetal position.
She’s been here the whole time.
A weak mortal dying slowly from hypothermia and starvation.
Countless ghosts have gathered around her. She lifts her head and smiles at them, barely acknowledging my presence—as if she believes I’m a mirage.
“Such pretty colors,” she murmurs, gesturing weakly to the ghosts. “Like the Northern Lights swirling around me.”
Her words slip into gibberish. She’s already lost weight in the four days she’s been here. Right here. Of course, I’m a fool to believe she would have left.
I’m careful as I sweep her into my arms and flex my gargoyle wings. Her wrist is still fractured. A hairline fissure that I worked to heal from a full break, but it would have healed quicker in Purgatory. Because I brought her here, returned her to the mortal realm where the bruising and inflammation grew worse.
I must get her back. In more ways than one.
“Rest, Butterfly. You will be home soon…”
