Heart (33 page)

I didn’t understand Ryder’s powers, but I was
thankful for them.

Ryder pushed forward, wading into
ankle-length waves that hadn’t yet disappeared. He threw out his
hand and Nix jerked backwards. I couldn’t see anything or how Nix
had been physically affected, but his hand slipped from my body
while he tried to regain his balance.

I didn’t wait around. I sprinted forward
toward Ryder.

Gods and goddesses appeared on the top steps
of the temple to watch the commotion, although none of them stepped
in right away.

Before I could get to Ryder, Nix hit him
again, this time using the water inside of him trick. Water
streamed down Ryder’s chin as he held his mouth open to let it out.
He shut his eyes and shook his head while he visibly choked on the
constant deluge of saltwater.

His hands flung toward Nix, knocking him
backwards three steps, then four. Nix grunted with the impact of
the last hit as if he’d been punched in the stomach.

Ryder had to do more or he was going to
die.

I found my footing a few yards away from Nix
and turned to help. I let my power pool in my blood for precious
moments before I set it free against Nix.

He stumbled as soon as my water hit him. His
dark eyes flashed to mine as he coughed water out of his mouth and
nose. His eyes were instantly bloodshot and dangerous.

“What is this?” Hera’s voice screeched from
the top step. “Make them stop!
Zeus
, make them stop!”

“Ivy!” Zeus hollered at me.

I realized that this was everything he spent
days arguing I wasn’t, but we were fighting for our lives. Nix
wanted to murder Ryder and run away with me.

We had no other choice.

Ryder fell to his knees, but tried to keep
fighting. He used his pulses of power to attack Nix relentlessly,
but there was nothing that could stop the god of the sea.

I attacked him with my power too, but nothing
slowed Nix down. Nothing was enough.

Ryder dropped to the ground, supported by one
hand.

“Smith!” I screamed for help. “Help us!”

“Enough, Poseidon!” Zeus’ voice boomed above
everything else.

Water started to bubble up around Ryder,
rising until it covered his knees, then his shoulders. In seconds
it would cover his face and he was too weak to fight it.

I abandoned my efforts to drown Nix and tried
to make my way to Ryder. The water that had invisible boundaries
pushed back at me. Violent waves kept me from making headway.

Frustrated, I thrust my hand into the salty
tumult, but this was not my water to command. I had no control over
this.

I fought until I was bruised everywhere from
the force of the waves. My gown was drenched and sticky and my
lungs breathless. But I couldn’t make it to Ryder.

Nothing I did was good enough.

“You will listen to me!” Zeus’ voice boomed
until my ears hurt. Lightning flashed constantly in the suddenly
dark sky. “Poseidon,
stop
!”

Just like that the water whooshed down the
street. I fell to my knees, bloodying them and ripping my dress.
Ryder collapsed on the wet ground, coughing up the remaining water
and sucking air into his raw lungs.

I crawled toward him. I was exhausted and my
body ached, but I did not stop moving until I grasped his
outstretched hands.

“You have gone against my orders!” Zeus
continued to bellow. “You have attacked those that I offered to
protect. You have violated our laws!”

Nix’s maniacal laughter answered Zeus’
accusations. I pulled myself to my knees again so that I could
watch the exchange.

When Nix stood on unsteady legs, he smiled at
Zeus and inclined his head toward me. “There will be new laws,” he
said with a raspy voice. His grin stretched wide and sinister
promise danced in his dark eyes. “And while we’re at it, there will
also be a new order.”

Zeus reached the bottom step and level ground
with Nix. “What are you implying, Poseidon?”

“I think you’re smart enough to figure that
out,
Zeus
. Or should I call you Smith like the child.”

Smith stepped forward. “You were out of
control. I had to step in.”

“You mean step on? You took what’s mine.
Where are the laws against that?” Nix’s golden face flushed with
fury. His robes were dripping wet like Ryder’s and mine, but the
sodden garments only made him look more savage… more primal with
his hatred and determination. “You interfered in my realm. You went
behind my back to sire a child that should have been mine. You
mingled in business that didn’t concern you. You have broken every
rule that you have ever established. Now you will be the one that
is persecuted.”

“I did what I had to in order to save this
Pantheon. You want to destroy it. You won’t even win the mountain.
You’ll use power you don’t understand and obliterate everything
that we are.”

“You’re damn right,” Nix growled. “I’ll take
what is mine and then I will take everything else.”

“It didn’t matter what I did. As soon as you
found out what she is, who she is, you planned to take control. I
did nothing wrong except react to your treachery.”

Nix rocked back on his heels and surprised
everyone with a smile. His ancient accent thickened as he casually
smiled and admitted, “Fine, Zeus. Let’s have it your way. We’ll
call a stone a stone. Or in this case, a coup a coup. The Siren is
the key to all of it. Patrons, the mountains… control. Control of
the entire world. She is everything I need to assume the
throne.”

“How?” Hera demanded. She didn’t look as
desperate as Smith did. Her long gown billowed out behind her and
her voluminous hair whipped in the wind. If anything she looked as
though she were weighing her options and deciding which god to side
with.

“Her father is Pontus, her mother is Ava. She
is the true Siren. If she opened her lovely mouth and sang for us,
she could enslave the entire world with just a few notes. You my
friends, have no choice but to follow me willingly. But make no
mistake that you will follow me. She will make certain that you
do.”

“No,” Smith disagreed. “We’ve taken steps.
She can be controlled.”

I bristled. I didn’t need to be controlled. I
needed to be set free so I could make my own decisions and decide
not
to enslave the entire world.

It wasn’t much of a discussion for me. I knew
what I would and wouldn’t do.

But nobody bothered to ask my opinion.

“By your bastard? Not likely,” Nix scoffed.
“She’s barely old enough to tie her own shoe laces. She won’t be
able to match my Siren’s power. And by the time the little girl is
old enough, it will be too late.”

“Orpheus,” Hera stated, but it sounded more
like she was testing the waters than anything else.

“You heard him testify,” Nix laughed. “He
won’t hurt her. He won’t be able to do what is necessary to stop
her.” He lifted his chin regally and stared down his brothers and
sisters. Gigantes filled in the road behind me, empowering him to
be bolder. “Brothers and sisters, it is time to make a choice. You
may join me and forego the death I plan to rain down on anyone that
does not abide with me or you may meet your end this morn. I will
have the throne by the end of the day. And then I will have this
world.”

Fear and shame slithered through me. I hated
that I was the one that could make this possible for him. I hated
that I enabled someone so sickly corrupt.

I took a step forward, suddenly seeing
everything from a different perspective. I did give Nix access to
powers he could only dream of before I came along. But at the same
time, if I had been normal, er, normal for a Siren, then Nix would
have stayed evil, just on a smaller scale. He would have still
bought and sold women. He still would have spread his disease
across the earth; it just wouldn’t have been so obvious.

And nobody, not even Zeus, would have
bothered to stop him.

I brought it to light. I forced him to try
for bigger things. I made him come out of the dark holes he hid in
and aim higher.

And because he was now out in the open,
declaring his plans and setting up his world regime, I had the
opportunity to end him.

He would not become the most powerful god on
earth because of me. He would not get a world filled with patrons
worshipping at the feet of Poseidon. He would not cover the planet
with water and drown out all of those that opposed him.

Instead, he would die. Instead, I would make
him pay for every sin he had ever committed against women. I would
feed him the same poison he used to kill us slowly. I would make
him suffer in the way that we had for our lifetimes… in the way
that my mother had all of her days… in the way that I had since the
moment I was born.

I would take my vengeance for Eva and
Anaxandra. I would get justice for Exie and Sloane.

I would slay him with the judgment of
thousands of girls used against their will and stripped of their
free will and dignity.

Poseidon would die.

Today.

Ares moved to stand next to Nix and about
half of the gods followed him. The teams were evenly divided and
the only surprise game-changer was Hera.

She took steps toward Nix before turning
around to face Smith. Her eyes turned black and she screeched at
him until her face turned red and her hair rose off her shoulders
with a life of its own. “You had a child? That’s where you’ve been
for the last two decades? You’ve been
raising a child
?”

Lightning stabbed the ground right next to
her. She didn’t flinch. The sky overhead continued to darken, more
lightning flashing across the wide expanse, displaying the
intentions of the gods on the ground.

“To protect you, my love,” Smith ground out,
not even trying to make his excuse sound sincere.

“Another affair!” she shouted. “Another
whore! Your heirs must number the stars by now. How lucky the world
is to have so many descendants of Zeus running around, causing
trouble,
cutting off people’s heads
!”

“That happened once!” Smith yelled back at
her, losing all of the careful control I usually associated him
with. “You won’t let that go! You’re going to nag me about it until
the end of time!”

Hera’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Lucky
for you, the end of time seems to be nigh.”

Smith’s shoulders deflated and behind his
sparking brown eyes, he seemed… lost. “You would side with him? You
would choose to stand with a child abuser and debaucher over your
own husband?”

Hera’s mask of hatred slipped for just a
moment. I wasn’t sure if anyone else saw it, but I had been
watching her closely. “It is an insult to call you my husband. You
are nothing more than a stray dog that has come to the back door
for scraps. I would no sooner side with you than I would a man that
sells children and exploits women for his own twisted pleasure.”
She glanced back at Nix. “You are one and the same to me.”

With that final blow, she turned on her heel
and walked away from the fight.

For a few moments I felt pangs of sympathy
for the mistreated queen. No wonder she was as hard as granite and
impossible to crack.

Then I remembered she had just sent a Fury to
kill me and I got over feeling sorry for her.

Weapons appeared from everywhere. Gods and
goddesses of every kind brandished fiery swords or huge sparking
hammers or flexed their fingers in promises of lethal pain.

The air crackled with tension and aggression
that seemed to originate beyond time. These were ancient hatreds,
ancient grudges. Ryder and I had been thrust into something that
had been going on longer than we could comprehend.

But I was the catalyst that finally set this
war into motion.

I could live with that. As long as I was also
the final piece that ended the conflict.

Kill Nix, end the war.

Kill Nix, save the world.

Kill Nix, be free.

I met his fatal gaze from yards away. His
black eyes glinted with promise and victory. My green ones must
have whispered something equally as confident because he cocked his
head with bemusement.

“Come get me,” I mouthed to him.

Then everything exploded.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

It should be said that I had never been an
athlete. Not a day in my life.

I didn’t exert myself physically, because I
wasn’t allowed. I didn’t play sports. I didn’t run. Hell, I didn’t
even walk fast.

But if there was ever a time to see what you
were made of, it was running from the god of the sea.

Ryder and I were ripped apart in the sudden
turmoil and thrown into battle on opposite sides of the plaza. He
fought to get to me.

And I fought to get away from Nix.

I turned around and took off like a shot out
of a gun. My legs weren’t used to this kind of physical strain and
my lungs burned with the effort and high altitude. But I didn’t let
any of that stop me.

I ran like hell. I ran like the hounds of
hell were chasing me.

And maybe they were.

On Olympus, I didn’t expect for anything to
be simple or normal and the mountain did not let me down. I watched
gods and goddesses grow in front of my eyes. Gigantes became
towering giants that destroyed entire buildings with one crushing
stomp of their massive feet. Fire and lightning zoomed around me
and rained down overhead.

I lunged forward only to jump back when a
streak of hot lightning speared the ground right in front of me. I
darted around a crumbling building and managed to duck out of the
way just as it crashed to the ground, spitting boulders of stone
and debris.

Another building collapsed to my right and
forced me back to the main battle that I was desperately trying to
outrun.

I stretched my legs and leapt over piles of
burning roofing. I was disturbed to see more than a few dead bodies
littering the ground. They weren’t the corpses of gods or
goddesses, but of the lesser Greek beings that had come out to
help.