Desperate Housewives of Olympus (29 page)

“Why not?” His golden brows arched in consternation.

“It doesn’t work that way.”

“Maybe with mortals it doesn’t.”

“With anyone.” Even though she knew better, she still wanted to believe him.

“There was a goddess who cared enough about me to open my eyes to the kind of god I was. I didn’t like what I saw when I looked at myself, but I admired what I saw when I looked at you.”

“And wanted to have it for your own. You already told me you were trying to get between my
bony
thighs,” she drawled.

“It isn’t even about that anymore, Merry. I saw your willing sacrifice for those you love, the uphill battle you had with me, but caved not because you didn’t want to do it, but because you thought maybe it would do
me
more harm than good. Maybe it would have, but it would have been better for you. But you didn’t see it that way. You’re like no one I’ve ever met before.”

“Only because you’ve never cared to really know the people around you. Look at your brother. He’s noble and good, but you don’t see it.”

“I do see it. Now, because you showed me. You make me a better god, Merry. And I find that when you look at me, there’s a light in your eyes I’ve never seen from another. I’d do anything to keep that light shining there. Anything. Even deny myself what I want.”

“Are you capable of denying us both for my own good?” Her lips parted in anticipation.

“Yes. I can do anything to keep you safe.”

“You say that now. But what about in a hundred years when you’ve not had intercourse with anything but your hand? Can you really live eternity that way without hating me?” The look of horror on his face told her everything she needed to know. “See, you can’t. And I understand.”

“I love you. I’ll wait to be with you, but if you think in a hundred years you won’t believe it by then, maybe that light I thought I saw in your eyes, that belief I felt you had in me for the god I could be, maybe I was mistaken.”

He was saying all of the right things, but she was so afraid. Afraid to really let herself love him, to let herself believe in him and the strength of her power. Abstaining had taught him so much already, unless he was only spewing a line, but his sincerity was sharp like a knife.

Zeus let go of her and finished laying out the lasagna in the pan and shoved it in the oven. She was struck by the mundane nature of the task, but it seemed to be laden with sorrow somehow.

Merry—for she was Merry now and not her office—she hated the pain on his face. She wanted to soothe him, to ease his burden.

“You know, if you cook while having high emotions, the food will taste of them. Nothing I ever made when I was upset ever tasted worth a damn.”

He pursed his lips. “It will be fine. Leave it in for an hour. I left more mozzarella and parmesan in the fridge to put on top when it’s done.”

Zeus walked away.

Wait, what the hell? Where was he going? Was he
leaving
? She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. He was leaving her alone. She knew by the way he’d spoken he wouldn’t be back.

The thought of never seeing him in her kitchen again, never laughing with him, or sighing with him over Buffy reruns, or any of the other things they’d come to do together left her with a great, empty chasm in her heart.

She loved the way he held her hand, the way his proximity warmed her to the core and even the way she yearned for him when she knew she couldn’t have him. He was leaving and he’d never come back. It was best that she let all of those things be lost to places darker than memory.

And at last, when it was all said and done, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t say goodbye.

Merry darted to the door and it was already halfway closed. “Stay!”

For one horrible moment, she didn’t think he’d hear her, or if he did, he didn’t care. His hand was still on the outside of the doorknob. This was the only time he’d ever used the damn door. “Please.”

The door creaked open and Zeus stood in the doorway, his presence filling the entryway. “You don’t want me, Merry.”

“I do!” she cried and reached for him.

He pulled out of her grasp. “No, you don’t. Not like you need to for this to work. You don’t trust me and it’s not that I mind earning your trust. I’ve promised I would, it’s that you won’t let me. You speak in terms of hundreds of years. If you don’t trust someone after that long, you never will and that’s not fair to either of us. I know I’m a work in progress. As much as it galls me to say it, I’ve realized I’m not perfect. But if you can’t love me the way I love you…” He shrugged and turned to go.

“I’m afraid,” she blurted.

“Who isn’t? This love shit is scary. I’ve never told anyone I loved them before. Not even Hera when I asked her to be my wife.” He stepped down the stairs. He was still leaving!

“You can stay the night.”

“Not good enough.”

“You said I taught you things. Maybe you can teach me too,” Merry said desperately.

Zeus turned and came back just inside the door. “I’m listening.”

“I’m willing to learn to trust you.” The words fell off her tongue like lead weights, but after she said them, she wasn’t so afraid.

“That’s all I was asking for. I know I don’t deserve it yet. I hurt you, caused you harm. I don’t expect to be immediately forgiven. Only that it’s possible.”

It seemed Zeus really had learned some sort of lesson, if all of this were real. His words were so pretty, but could it be something that would sustain them? Merry realized then that she didn’t need that answer right now and to demand it wasn’t fair because it wasn’t something either of them could answer. They’d have to jump off that mountain ledge together. He’d jumped already and was tugging on her ankle, but she refused to let go of the rope. That’s why it was called “falling in love”. One had to let go and fall.

She’d been tripped and pushed, but maybe it would be okay to enjoy the view on the way down. Then she let go with both hands. “I love you.”

Merry kissed him with all of the passion she had in her heart.

While later, she’d say she got a little dizzy, it was from the shared intensity of their kiss and not because she was about to die. Although, the lasagna burned and took half her kitchen with it, but they were too busy kissing to notice.

PERSEPHONE

Persephone was cold. She couldn’t get warm. Thanatos had plied her with warm fig cakes and wrapped her in down blankets—he’d lit a blaze in the fireplace and given her hot cocoa. Her hands were shaking too violently to hold the mug.

But none of those things offered the heat she craved. She wanted Thanatos to hold her.

She’d always heard Death was cold, his fingers clammy and kiss frigid and sharp like an icicle dagger. But he was none of those things. His flesh ignited hers with his heat, his hands strong and warm, and his kiss—Sweet Elysium, his kiss was like nothing else she’d ever experienced.

Part of her said this was wrong; she wasn’t the only one vulnerable. He was too because he’d made the mistake of loving her. Persephone knew she wasn’t worthy of him. She was selfish and vain; she and Hades had been a good match. He’d seen what he’d wanted and he’d taken it, kidnapping her and keeping her from the topside… Yet, somehow, he’d grown. He’d changed.

Then there was the part of her that had only now matured and she ached with the need to be touched. Persephone could see the way Thanatos looked at her, the way his eyes were drawn to the plunging neckline of her Grecian gown, the swells of her breasts as she breathed. He wanted to touch her as badly as she wanted to be touched.

“Still cold, Seph?” He tossed more wood into the fireplace and the flames leapt high.

The way the orange firelight played over his ethereal features entranced her. Almost as if he wasn’t Death at all, but the Dawn. And maybe he was. The Dawn was the beginning of things emerging out of the dark.

“I can’t get warm. I suppose it’s my just desserts for freezing all of Olympus with my emotional vomit.” She gave an uncomfortable laugh and shivered.

“You were upset. It was a reasonable reaction. It’s not like you killed anyone.” Thanatos grinned.

“Thank you,” she blurted.

“For what?”

“For everything? For coming when I called you.” She bit her lip hesitantly. “For caring about me.”

“Seph,” he began.

“For asking Hades to take me because you’d rather see me with him than dead of a foolish broken heart. For being patient with me even when what I’ve done hurts you. For treating me like a goddess instead of a porcelain doll. Everything, Thanatos.”

“That’s what friends are for.”

It sounded as if it had almost killed him to repeat those words to her and oddly enough, it hit her the same way. She didn’t like it. “I think we’ve already crossed the friend line, haven’t we? Eros is my friend, my very best friend and he’s never had his face in my nether bits.” She blushed.

“That’s because two virgins don’t know what goes where,” he teased.

Her face flushed a brighter crimson. “No.”

“Well, why hasn’t he then?” Thanatos smirked.

“He doesn’t make me feel the way you do,” she confessed and Persephone felt the tension in the room like a lead weight.

“And how do I make you feel that’s so different?” He took off his trench coat and hung it carefully over the back of the chair.

Persephone liked to watch him move, the way the light played on his skin and the sheer grace with which his hard muscles all worked together. She liked the outline of his biceps in his t-shirt, the planes of his broad shoulders and the curve of his back. Persephone loved how his hair looked like moonlight—it was exactly like his mother’s, but there was nothing feminine about it on him.

He sat down and tugged off his boots. “You don’t know or you don’t want to tell me?”

“What? Oh.” She’d been utterly distracted simply watching him. “I’m embarrassed to tell you.”

“Persephone,” he said and made it a point to look at her. “After a god has been ears deep in your
nether bits
as you’ve described them, and you’ve ridden his face like a pony, nothing should ever be a taboo discussion between you. If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay.”

Persephone blushed so hard she thought her face was going to explode. Memories of that night came flooding back to her and she licked her lips as desire flooded her. Her gaze was immediately drawn to his mouth and all of the delicious things it could do to her. She realized she was staring and the long moment that was all the heavier for the silence. She took a shaky breath, as if something so banal could ever wipe out the flame of white-hot desire for him. But she had to say this, lust or no, embarrassed or no. He deserved to hear it.

“I never saw you until you kissed me. What I mean is I never really
looked
at you.”

He waited patiently for her continue, no judgment on his face and no other emotion either. He was Death in that moment and yet he was not. It was a curious melding and she was intrigued. Most gods would already be wound up by what she’d said, done listening with a retort on their tongues. Not Thanatos. He listened to her—heard what she had to say before he started thinking of his own reply. She imagined he’d been a solemn little boy and wondered what he’d been like then. Nyx had kept him away from the other godlings until he was old enough to control his power. He must have been so alone. The thought twisted her heart.

“But when you kissed me, it wasn’t supposed to be something real.”

“What do you mean by real?” he asked evenly. Still, there was no judgment on his face, no reaction to her but wanting the meaning beneath her words before he responded.

Persephone looked into the crackling flames of the fire, watching them dance instead of looking at him. It had been easier to speak of such things when she’d been close to orgasm and the stark, blunt force of her words had been used as a tool. This was a baring of her heart and her soul, of her deepest desires. Ones she’d only now come to face.

“It wasn’t supposed to make my skin feel like it was on fire. It wasn’t supposed to keep burning after you’d stopped. The memory of it wasn’t supposed to live in a whisper and haunt me with fantasies of all the other things that could happen between us.” She forced herself to look at him so he could see the truth of it in her eyes. “If you wanted them.”

This time, it was Thanatos who couldn’t look at her. With his elbows propped on his knees, he leaned in to the bowl of his hands before he pushed his hand through his hair. “Gods, Persephone. You scare the shit out of me.”

His reaction wasn’t what she’d expected. “I don’t understand. Tell me what I’m doing wrong,” she pleaded. Should she not have told him how he made her feel?

He focused on her. “You’re offering me almost everything I want, Persephone.”

“Almost? Where have I fallen short?” She didn’t ask this as a precursor to an argument, she wanted to know what he thought was lacking and if she could fix it, she would. Persephone wanted to please him.

“You don’t love me, Seph. You’re in love with Hades.” He spoke as if this were an irrefutable fact.

“What happened to simply taking what I offered?” she asked quietly.

“Because I’m not that kind of god anymore.” He shrugged as if this revelation had only hit him in the last few moments. “I used to be, but I want someone I can bring home to my mother. I want my own godlings. I want a family, a life. Tail is easy to score—even tail as lovely as yours.”

“How do you know I don’t want those things?” she questioned, ignoring the slap to her feminine charms, and biting down on the core of what he’d said.

“You don’t want them with
me
.” He leaned back in the chair, so sure of the truth in his words.

The way he said it tore at her. As if there were no way she could possibly want a future with him. Images of what their godlings would look like slammed into her hard and fast. She wondered what it would feel like to be round with his young and her power sang at the thought of bringing forth life. She’d never thought of this with Hades, it had never occurred to her. But the idea of that part of Thanatos growing inside of her filled her with joy.