Aphrodite's Secret (12 page)

“Hopping Hades,” Jason snapped. “Can you drop the bureaucratic bullshit? Following the Council’s rules isn’t getting us anywhere.”

Zoë licked her lips. “Yes, I remember the profile they did on you after you escaped from Hieronymous.” Lane noticed the way she stressed the word
escaped,
as if she were being sarcastic. “You’ve never been big on following the rules or sticking with procedure, have you?”

“Not when the rules are wasting valuable time.”

Zoë just stared at him, holding Jason’s eyes until he finally spoke again, his eyes as cold as ice. “Dammit, what do I have to do to convince you? Hieronymous has my son. He has
your
nephew. Set me free so I can help find him. The Council’s Keystone Kops aren’t making any progress.”

He gestured across the enclosure, and Lane glanced that way, immediately noticing Boreas talking with another Protector. Neither looked particularly encouraging. Lane swallowed, a tear escaping as she thought of her baby with that monster and no one able to find him.

Hieronymous.
She’d first learned of Protectors and the Council when the big-shot Outcast lord had sent one of his flunkies to steal a stone she’d bought— that turned out to be an heirloom of Aphrodite. Not that Lane had known it was special; she just thought it was cool. In retrospect, the event hadn’t turned out so bad; she’d survived the encounter relatively unscathed, and she’d met Zoë. But it had also been a little like losing her virginity—after that, she was one of the few mortals
who knew.

Which meant she knew just how bad Hieronymous really was. Pretty damn bad. If Hieronymous had Davy—

“Why?” she asked, interrupting her own thoughts. “Why would Hieronymous want
my
kid?” She turned to Jason, her hands on her hips. “Well?”

He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

Zoë shifted on her feet, the looks she and Deena were trading making it absolutely clear that neither woman believed him. Lane wanted to; it had been hard enough believing that he’d left. Finding out now that not only had Jason ditched her and Davy but that he was a Protector
and
working for Hieronymous ... She shivered. Definitely not something she wanted to hear.

Yet she trusted Zoë and Deena. They’d all been through a lot together and, even more, Zoë was pretty clued in to the whole evil-Hieronymous thing. If she said that Jason had joined ranks with the H-man, Lane should probably listen.

She licked her lips, unsure. “I’m sorry,” she said, her gaze darting between Jason and Zoë. “I just don’t know who to bel—”

Jason reached out, silencing her with his touch. And then, with his eyes never leaving hers, he cupped her chin between his hands. The gesture was demanding yet gentle. “Lane, this is me.
Me
. Yes, I left. But I swear to you I didn’t mean to stay away.”

She opened her mouth, but he shook his head, continuing.

“Even if you don’t believe that,” he said. “Even if you think I stayed away on purpose for all this time ... Even if you believe all of that, do you honestly believe I could ever—
ever
—hurt my own child?”

“I...” Tears pooled in her eyes as Lane closed her mouth, unable to form words. She wanted to hurt him. To punish him for leaving her. To torment him for making her little boy grow up without his father. But she couldn’t lie. No matter what, she couldn’t do that.

“No,” she finally said, her voice strong. She twisted to face Zoë and Deena. “Jason may be a lot of things, but he could never hurt his own son. I’m certain.”

They weren’t that much was evident in their expressions. But to Zoë‘s credit, she put one hand on Deena’s shoulder and then moved back two steps, taking Deena with her, to give Jason and Lane the illusion of a private conversation.

Lane tilted her head so she could look Jason dead-on, knowing her eyes were filled with fear. “I still don’t know why. Why does Hieronymous want my little boy?”

He shook his head, then reached out for her.

Without thinking, she curled up against him. His skin burned against her, but she sought comfort in his familiar scent, that enveloping warmth. With one smooth motion, he lifted his arms over her head, then caught her in the circle, the binder cuff firm against her back.

“I don’t know exactly, Lane,” he whispered. “But I’ll find him. And I’ll make him pay. That much, I promise.”

She nodded, her face still pressed against his chest. It had been a confusing afternoon, and she still hadn’t gotten anything straight in her mind. But she knew one thing for certain: Jason had promised to find her son.
Their
son. And she believed him. So help her, she believed him.

After seven years, Jason was unprepared for the ache in his heart and the burning of his blood when he held Lane again. Hell, he’d been watching her and Davy from a distance for a year, utilizing the Council monitors while he’d been stuck in the Olympus debriefing facility. But video surveillance was nothing compared to holding this woman in his arms, feeling the soft press of her breasts against his chest, feeling the rhythm of her beating heart.

From a camera, he couldn’t detect the hint of vanilla she’d dabbed on herself. Couldn’t see the way the sunlight caught her plain brown hair, turning it into a fabulous crown. And he certainly couldn’t see her eyes, at first cold, slate-gray, and angry, but now warm and wounded—though those two emotions he’d put there, and neither one was good.

After a moment she pushed away, leaning against his chest, then looked up at him with raw, red eyes.

“You left,” she said simply, her pain evident. His gut twisted, and he realized he wanted her angry again. Anger, he could fight. But the hurt... Well, he’d caused that. And seeing it in her eyes only reminded him of his guilt.

“You left me,” she repeated “You left Davy.”

He shook his head. “I was trapped, imprisoned. By
him
. I didn’t mean to stay away.”

A flash of shock crossed her face. “By Hieronymous? All that time? Jason, that’s horrible.”

Hope built in his chest. “I went after him. I thought I could defeat him. I
needed
to do that.” He exhaled, his body sagging with the memory. “But I failed, and he trapped me.
He
kept me away from you.”

Jason closed his eyes, fighting the fury that inevitably came with the memory. “Around and around,” he said. “In a glass bowl. Nothing to see, nothing to do. And so very far away from you. From Davy.”

A hint of pain appeared in Lane’s eyes. “Oh, God, Jason. That must have been horrible.”

He flashed a wry smile. “Believe me,” he said. “Captivity’s bad reputation is well-deserved. I would have given anything to get out of there and back to you.” That wasn’t entirely true, of course. He wouldn’t give himself to Hieronymous’s evil.

Lane’s eyes were warm, but she shook her head. His stomach twisted as hope evaporated. “I’m sorry, Jason. Truly, I am. But the truth is, Hieronymous kept you away, but he didn’t make you leave.
You
did that.”

He could only nod. What she said was true.

She looked him in the eye, and a single tear trickled down her cheek. “I needed you, but you left. You walked away when I needed you more than anything. You didn’t even wait until morning. You didn’t hold my hand and tell me everything would be okay. You just went away, and you didn’t even tell me why!”

“I know.” He inhaled, trying to draw in courage. “But I want to make it up to you.”

She flinched, recoiling from his words. Her brow furrowed, and she stared at him as if he’d gone mad. “How?”

A simple question, but it hung heavy in the air between them.

He wanted to shout the answer—
by rescuing Davy
— but he knew that wasn’t enough. He’d rescue the boy; of that much, he was certain. But he wasn’t naive enough to think that returning their son to Lane would mend what he’d broken so many years ago.

“I don’t know exactly,” he finally said. It was an honest answer, and the only one he could come up with. Before, he’d entertained the fantasy of seamlessly stepping back into her life. Now, he was living the harsh reality.

She licked her lips, her face contorting as if she’d just tasted his words and found them bitter. “You can’t,” she said. “It’s done. Over. I’ve moved on with my life, and we can’t go back. Not unless you can turn back time.” For a brief moment, hope entered her eyes, and he saw just how much weight she gave Protector powers.

“Er, I don’t think anyone can. Well, Zephron, maybe, but—”

“Not you.”

“Not me.”

“Oh.” She nibbled on her thumb, then lifted her head to look him straight in the eye. “So you can’t make it up to me, and we can’t go back. But you
are
going to rescue my son.”

“Our son,” he corrected.

“He’s all I have,” Lane said, tears spilling out of her eyes. “You can’t let anything happen to him.”

Despite the cuffs binding his wrists, he twisted and managed to grasp her hands, squeezing until she squeezed back. “I know,” he said. And he did. Once upon a time, she’d had him, too. But no more. Now it was just Lane and Davy. And if Jason wanted back into their family, he was going to have to work his tail off. He was going to have to rescue Davy—and he was going to have to do a whole hell of a lot more, too.

The cold steel elevator descended. And descended. And then descended some more.

Mordi’s head began to pound from breathing the car’s stale air. And from guilt. He closed his eyes, remembering the look of betrayal on Davy’s face when he’d been forced onto the elevator with Clyde. Those two had descended first, and by now Davy was surely tucked tight into one of his father’s notorious “guest rooms.”

Mordi himself had shifted back into his own self, happy to shed Jason’s image. Now he was following Clyde and Davy down, right into the belly of the beast. He shifted his weight, one foot to the other, and tried not to think about the danger he was again in. One little accident of birth and he was stuck with an Outcast for a father who wouldn’t know affection if it walked up and punched him in the mouth.

The elevator slid smoothly to a stop, its doors opening to reveal a cavernous, steel-reinforced room. “Wow,” Mordi said, stepping out. His voice echoed through the near-empty chamber:
WOW
. . .
Wow . . . wow . . . wo
...
w . .
.

“I’m glad you approve,” Hieronymous said. The man brushed past, his cloak managing to flutter despite the still air. Or was it still?

Mordi sniffed, for the first time noticing his surrounding no longer smelled stale. He glanced around, his curiosity increasing as his headache faded.

The room was the size of a large warehouse, essentially empty except for a large table, a metal grid hanging from the ceiling, a clear pool of water in the floor with three arteries snaking off beneath the stone walls, and a large blob covered with a piece of black silk. Mordi stifled the urge to peek under the material. “So, where exactly are we?” he asked instead.

“Under the volcano,” Hieronymous said. “Don’t worry; it’s dormant, I assure you.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “At least, it is now.”

Mordi frowned, not sure what his father meant. “Now?”

“Now that your father’s stolen its
oomph
,” Clyde said, stepping into the cavern from one of the many adjoining hallways. Mordi made a mental note of which one. Presumably, Davy was down it somewhere.

Clyde shoved past, heading for the steel table that stood in the center of the room. Mordi ignored him. Clyde didn’t like Mordi, and the feeling was quite mutual.

At the moment, Clyde was a fugitive, wanted by the Council for questioning in connection with a charge of Power Exploitation. Under other circumstances, Mordi would happily have turned him in. For this assignment, however, he would be forced to put up with the buffoon’s presence. He was on probation with the Council, jumping through all the necessary hoops to prove he was a good guy, loyal to the tenets of the Venerate Council, eager to protect mortals from all forms of evil, including his father.

He knew that he was paying the price for his past foolish decisions, but it still irritated him that the Council didn’t trust him. And so he was being forced to prove his loyalty. Hieronymous had managed to avoid capture in the past by delegating his dirty-work. The Outcast was at the center of so many nefarious plots, and yet he often walked away without a blemish. The Council knew what he was up to; proving it was a different matter.

Mordi was supposed to find the proof. Find it and—if necessary—step in and thwart his father’s schemes.

A daunting task. And one that, by necessity, put him in close proximity to Outcasts like Clyde who were not, in Mordi’s opinion, at the top of the food chain. He didn’t enjoy the duty.

He turned, trying to discern more about his father’s scheme. “You harnessed the volcano’s energy? How? Why?”

Hieronymous seated himself at the table, pushed an inset button, and a bank of monitors slid gracefully from the ceiling, already tuned in to world financial programs. “ ‘How’ requires far too technical an answer for you to understand,” he said.

Mordi scowled but didn’t argue. He’d just been insulted, yes; but he could hardly get bent out of shape about the truth.

“As for why,” Hieronymous continued, “my latest invention requires more power than simply plugging in to ConEd. This volcano suffices. Also, so long as I am siphoning off its energy, the risk of an eruption is significantly reduced.”

“An eruption?” Mordi gulped, then glanced around for a neon sign designating an emergency exit. Of course there wasn’t one.

“A minimal risk,” his father assured with a quick wave of his hand. “And well worth it for the outcome.”

“Which is ... ?” Mordi prompted.

His father’s eyes burned with black fire. “Why— me, of course,” he said. “Becoming even more brilliant than I am now.”

Mordi blinked, unsettled by the implications. “Uh, I don’t suppose you’d care to elucidate?”

Hieronymous’s laugh echoed through the chamber. “Difficult to comprehend, I know. How could I possibly be more intelligent than I already am? But it’s possible. Astounding, but true.” The animation in his face made him look almost gleeful. The expression didn’t quite suit.