Downcast (30 page)

I swallowed hard against the lump of desire in my throat and made an awkward sound that was between a laugh and a gasp. He gave me a swift kiss then released me.

"The bathroom is down the hall on the left," he said. "I'll meet you back here."

***

Hot water rained down on me, and for the first few minutes, all I could focus on was scrubbing the layers of grime off my body and shampooing the heck out of my hair. The grunge, though, had been a kind of protective shield against the reality of everything. With cleanliness came clarity, and with clarity came pain.

I couldn't think about myself as an alien energy mutant or whatever. I knew what I felt, and I knew the power that flowed within me. But, I was still in the mind and body of Stephanie Starr. This was all I had ever known.

And it was beyond devastating to know that my own mother had tried to kill me.

Bewildered tears began to fall, turning into begging sobs, as I huddled in a ball on the floor of the marble shower.

What had I done that was so terrible to deserve her anger and her hatred? I had truly tried to be a good daughter. An obedient daughter. A respectful daughter. I had tried to make her happy by being everything she wanted me to be.

I had loved her.

I loved her still.

Even now, she was my mother, and I knew her and loved her, even though it hurt my broken heart.

Was what I had wanted, as just plain old high school senior, Stephanie Starr, so terrible? A little freedom? A little room to be myself? Why couldn't she still love me if I grew and changed?

The answer was sharp, instantaneous, and terrible.

She had never loved me. She never loved her mortal daughter Stephanie.

She loved the adoration and veneration I gave her. She loved the feeling of being the one to ”give birth” to such power, to control it, even to end it.

She didn't love Stephanie Starr because she had no use for Stephanie Starr. She only wanted to possess Persephone, goddess of new life, the first spark in the universe, the only creature with a power equal to Death’s.

Exhausted, I leaned back against the warm marble, sobs slipping into silent tears.

I still didn't know what to do, and the pain was fresh and bleeding freely in my heart, but the blade of sorrow had finally sliced away the knot of guilt that had held me prisoner for so many years.

I no longer felt guilty for wanting what I wanted, and in the face of all my other problems, having one less issue felt like a major achievement.

Shutting off the water, I got out and ran a towel over my hair. I loved how my new short hair was so quick to dry. It even looked decent all wet and sticking out every which way.

I put on Haley's black shirt and black boxer shorts, feeling more like a love goddess as I inhaled his scent that clung to the fabric. How much had I drooled over him in this shirt? The feel of the fabric against my skin filled me with anticipation.

Barefoot, I padded back to Haley's room.

And almost passed out from want at what I saw.

Shirtless and wearing only black pajama bottoms, he stood in front of the windows, looking out into the night. My eyes approved of every line of muscle in his lean back.

My heart skittered around in my ribcage as he turned around to face me. Bare-chested, he looked like an alabaster statue with burning black eyes. He deliberately walked across the room to me, towering over me as he stood before me. His lips curved up in the slow, devastatingly sexy smile he had dropped on me during the first few days of school—was it only last week?

"I have wanted to see you in my shirt very badly," he said, his voice low and rumbling as he undid the top three buttons, leaving it much looser around my shoulders.

I barely had enough breath to breathe, let alone speak.

The next few moments were a jumble of lips and hands and movement, and I only vaguely noticed that we were now on his bed.

He had pulled the shirt off my shoulders and was kissing my neck and collarbones. I grabbed at him to bring him closer to me. I wanted to feel every inch of his body pressed against mine. New, almost scary, sensations were spiraling out through my body as his cold hands searched out my skin.

I took every chance I could to touch him, to learn the subtle pattern of his bone and muscle.

"Oh, my love," he groaned as I trailed my fingers up his spine. He then attacked my lips with a renewed vigor, and our bodies began to rock with a tentative but tense rhythm.

"More," I gasped with the tiny bit of breath I could catch between kisses.

His hands found new places on my body, and I whined in frustration because it was thrilling and scary and not enough all at the same time.

He broke our kisses to stare deeply into my eyes, and I happily drowned in his darkness. Then, with an aching precision, he undid the rest of the buttons on my shirt. His fingers traced the exposed line from my neck to my belly and trembled at the edge of the fabric.

"I wonder how many times we can do this before midnight on Saturday," Haley whispered with a grin.

"Wait, what's Saturday?" I panted, logic barely surfacing from all my desire.

"That's when we shed these mortal bodies and return to the Underworld as gods," Haley replied matter-of-factly.

WELL, THAT WAS
a mood-killer.

Clutching my shirt closed, I wriggled upright. Haley sat back on his heels, looking mildly surprised, but still mostly interested in our previous activities.

"Shed these mortal bodies?" I exclaimed. "Return to the Underworld? Hang on, I didn't sign up for that part. I mean, you can't just make plans for Saturday night like that without asking me first!"

Haley's expression fell, and he looked away from me. My brain was fully reengaged now, and another realization popped up.

"Wait, that's why you repeated that 'thirty-six hours' I said earlier," I stated. "Saturday night is thirty-six hours from now."

"It's also the fall equinox," Haley added quietly. "It's the moment the Earth tilts away from the sun, beginning the cycle of death and winter. It's when my true nature grows too strong to be contained in a mortal body."

I stayed silent, fear squeezing my heart until I could almost see my vision jump with my pulse. I didn't want to say out loud the awful guesses I was making.

Haley saved me the trouble.

"Remember how I told you that I might not be around for long?" he asked with a sad smile. "You can’t just put Death into a human body and expect the body to be happy about it. It took all of Katie Jones' power to contain me. The best she could guarantee was a month. It took me two weeks to get used to being a mortal, and then once school started, I hoped two weeks would be enough time to convince you that you belong with me."

"So, basically, what you're saying is that you're going to die on Saturday night?" I whispered hoarsely.

Haley shook his head. "This body will 'die,' but I will not. I am a god. I will exist until the end of time. So will you."

"Okay, so, maybe, I technically understand all that," I said carefully, fighting to keep my tears at bay. "But, I hate the idea of it. I don't want you to die at all. I don't want to 'die' or leave this mortal body or whatever. It may be all I know, but I like it. I'm not done being Stephanie Starr, even if I am immortal Persephone. Up until a couple of hours ago, my life plan included college, some kind of career, getting married, having children, watching them grow up, and growing old with my husband. I can't just flip a switch and not want that just because I found out that I’m something other than human."

Haley rubbed his hand over his jaw, frowning.

"I know," he said. "But, at least for me, I don't have a choice. Katie Jones' magic will only last so long.”

He sighed, and I could see his jaw tighten as he added, "I have no choice, but you do. After all, you're the goddess of life. Nothing is wrong with your mortal body. You could live out your biological lifetime just as you planned. I wouldn’t be here with you, but I’d be waiting for you."

The thought of losing him sliced my soul in half, and my joy bled out in ugly tears.

"Well, it's a shitty choice," I said. "I want it all. I'm a goddess for crying out loud! If I can't have it all, then who can?"

"Ah, yes," Haley replied ruefully, reaching out and taking me in his arms, pulling me onto his lap as he leaned us back against the pillows. "I forgot to mention, one of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing can ever be perfect."

"The universe sucks," I whispered. I simply couldn't think about an existence without him. It was too painful, a fundamental agony that ripped me apart.

He ran his hand up and down my arm soothingly, and said, "There’s the one part about the myth of Hades and Persephone that I always thought was the most interesting."

"What part?"

"The pomegranate seeds," he replied. "The myth only states that Persephone ate the seeds, but not why she chose to eat them."

"Maybe she fell in love with Hades?" I mused. "Wait, hang on. Was that the necklace that you gave me? The rubies represented the pomegranate seeds?"

"Perhaps it was a small nod to the myth," Haley acknowledged with a laugh that echoed pleasantly in his chest. "But mostly, it was a small talisman to help protect you—both from your mother and yourself."

"From myself?"

"Yes, it held a small amount of my power which balances yours. I had hoped it would be enough to contain you safely if you accidentally unleashed yourself.”

“How would I do that?”

“Remember this morning?"

"Yeah?"

"From what I can tell, your mother revealed part of her true form to you last night. Just like the Greek myths say, a mortal cannot see the true form of a god and survive. She almost destroyed your mortal body by doing that. She mostly ended up stripping away a layer of the protective magic that helps keep your godliness in check so that it doesn't destroy the body. That meant that your true form was beginning to show through. The more it showed, the more your human body would have weakened until it died, releasing all your power, which incidentally would have put everyone else around you in danger of dying as well."

"I could have killed Helen and Morris," I exclaimed, horrified.

"And everyone in first period, in the halls, and on the stairs, had it gone any further."

"So how did Katie Jones fix me?"

"She used a basic man-from-clay spell to 'reapply' that protective layer over your humanity."

"Man-from-clay? Oh! That's why she used the dust and the water, right? She was making clay?"

"Symbolically."

"Oh my gosh!" An idea struck me. "Can't she just do that with you again? Keep you alive by reapplying your humanity or whatever? That way we can have more time like this?"

Haley's chest rose and fell with a deep, slow breath.

"No," he said. "My true nature is too powerful. Death cannot be contained by life. Entropy and nothingness are too vast to be squeezed into cells and tissue for long."

His words were like a sledgehammer to my fledgling hope, crushing it flat. I took in a shaky breath and tensed all my muscles, as if that could hold back all that I felt.

"I'm scared," I said quietly. "The thought of being without you is terrifying. You are the other half of my heart, and human beings need their hearts. But the thought of dying in order to be with you isn’t great either."

Haley bent his head over mine and kissed me gently, his lips brushing softly over mine. His touch was comforting, but reality was a cold chunk of ice in my gut.

"This is going to sound awful," I warned him, looking into his eyes and allowing him to see everything I felt in mine. "I don't want to lose you, but I don't want to leave this life yet, either. This is all that I know. It's like looking at the edge of a cliff and having no idea how far the fall is or what is waiting at the bottom. I don't want to stop being Stephanie Starr, even if I have immortality ahead of me. Maybe I'm just dumb or being a chicken."

"You are neither," he replied. "Everything you have said is natural, normal, and understandable. Even more so, because your true nature, your power, is that of giving life to all things. Death is your opposite, and your nature is to fight it."

He chuckled and traced his fingers up my thigh, toying with the hem of the boxers I wore.

"Life and Death are in constant struggle," he said with a wicked grin.

His words and his touch stirred that new warmth in me, and his kiss was like the taste of forgetfulness.

"Thirty-six hours?" I breathed against his mouth, feeling all my thoughts turn hazy as his hands began to wander softly over my body.

"Plenty of time," he replied, his voice now a growl of pure need.

"I agree."

***

Drifting. Warm. Happy. Quiet. Darkness.

***

Something is wrong. Broken. Freed.

I awaken panting, and at the same moment, Haley sits bolt upright in the bed, his face a mask of fearsome anger.

"What is it?" I whisper, clinging to his skin for comfort, still trying to pull my mind fully away from the sweet confusion of sleep.

"The Furies have left the Underworld. They have been summoned to judgment."

He didn’t leave me any time for questions. Before I could even take another breath, Haley was out of bed and moving through the still-dark room. I heard the rustle of clothing, and saw his silhouette as he opened the door to his room.

I sat in the still-warm bed, clutching the sheets around me. Memories fell like rain around me, each moment touching my skin and waking me up further. I was hyper-aware of my body, everything from the very real soreness between my legs to the phantom echoes of pleasure.

My first time having sex had been half-amazing and half-awful. Thankfully, Haley had ignored my moments of embarrassment and introduced me to the amazing part first, taking his time and making sure I was completely and stunningly fulfilled before moving on. When he entered me, I remembered thinking that the few romance novels I had sneaked were full of shit. It hurt, and it didn't 'quickly subside' and turn into 'waves of pleasure' with a 'build-up to a second climax.'