My Date From Hell (9 page)

Kai shot him the finger.

A date, huh. Until I convinced Pierce to just shoot us into falling in love, I guessed it wouldn’t hurt to go on a date, since getting to know each other better was important when falling in love. I could handle that. “That would work.”

Kai focused on me with a look so intense it could fool any girl into believing she was the only thing of worth that existed. “It’ll be fun.”

Oh my, yes. My smiled widened. My heart raced. I was lightheaded with anticipation.

And nerves. Definitely nerves.

Because Kai was an ancient god who’d been with how many girls? During Persephone’s absence alone I got the sense he’d bagged a lot of trophies. Whereas my dating experience was limited to practically zilch.

I took a step back, discreetly wiping my palms on my thighs. I knew we had to be in love by the time the equinox rolled around in a couple of months. But especially if Pierce
wasn’t
going to help, I needed to proceed at a comfortable rate. I could talk big but channeling my feminine wiles wasn’t easy for me. It was actually kind of scary. Especially with Kai. Nevermind all my other issues with
her
. “It would. Be fun. But we wouldn’t want to rush things.”

“Speak for yourself,” he said, reaching for me.

I ducked out of his way. I’d set the pace here. “Nope. You don’t get what you want this time.”

Kai just grinned and grabbed me around the waist. He leaned in close. “I always get what I want.”

“
Bos
-sy,” Festos called out.

I flashed him a huffy scowl.

Then I tilted my head up to look at Kai.

Bad move. His face was inches from mine.

“What’s the matter, Goddess?” he murmured, his eminently kissable mouth right there in smooching reach. “What are you scared of?” He dragged his finger up to my lip.

Was that a challenge? I couldn’t help myself. I bit his finger.

His eyes flared dark.

“Holy Hannah, sister,” Festos said. “Changed my mind. Go with him before I combust over here.”

I walked forward, intent on backing Kai up against the wall. Making it clear I was in charge.

It halfway worked. Kai managed to flip our positions in a fluid motion so that my final step resulted in
my
back hitting the wall.

I gazed at him through half-lowered lashes. “Whatcha gonna do, bad boy?”

Kai leaned in, bracing his arms on either side of me. He shot me a grin that was 90% Cheshire cat and 10% wolf. “Do you even need to ask?”

His low, slightly accented voice vibrated through me all the way to my toes.

I barely registered Festos’ laughing comment of, “Ooh, I wish I had popcorn.”

Every cell in my body was hyper-aware of Kai, but other than my fingers twining into his soft, thick hair, neither of us pulled closer.

My body throbbed with wanting him so badly. But I couldn’t bring myself to close the gap between us and kiss him. It was irrational, but I was the tiniest bit nervous. Even though we’d kissed before, we were starting down a whole new path. Everything was on the line.

I chickened out. Instead, I made it his move, jutting my chin out, daring him to kiss me.

I thought he was going to. Not like he hadn’t before. But no. His eyes flared and an odd look crossed his face. Kai balled his hands into fists with a growl and took a step back. “Go back to Hope Park. I’ll meet you there and we’ll have our date. Properly.” He vanished.

My jaw fell open.

It was only somewhat comforting that Festos had the same expression on his face. “Did he just say what I think he did?”

I nodded, still stunned.

Festos looked worried. “You sure he wasn’t hit on the head?”

“Thanks a lot, dummy. Maybe he’s trying to do this the right way. Maybe I’m worth that?” Hope and doubt warred inside me resulting in a churning, queasy feeling in my belly.

“Maybe.”

I kissed Festos on the cheek, grabbed my coat, and carefully placed my flower in my pocket. After Festos pried the door free of the lava so we could open it, he came outside to cover me in case of incoming minions. None were about so I headed straight to my tree transport and back to school.

I arrived in a secluded corner of the back field in time to see Pierce holding a gold arrow. Along with Theo and Hannah, he stared at Bethany across the grass. As usual, she was holding court. The rain had stopped and the sun broken through, making it warm enough to hang outside.

I hurried over to my friends.

No sign of the Gold Crushers or Infernorators. Theo caught my upwards glance. “Reinforced the wards,” he said as I approached. “Don’t know if they’re coming back with new tricks, but all is quiet for now.”

“Any luck?” Hannah asked.

I pulled out my chocolate flower and cracked off a piece for Hannah. “Kai’s back. He brought gifts. He’ll be here soon.” I popped a petal in my mouth. “But in terms of the memory retrieval?” I shook my head and tried not to think of pain that came at levels of fourteen. “Plan B it is.” I munched on the daisy.

She gave my arm a consoling squeeze before stealing the last piece of chocolate.

“Is it time for the firing squad?” I asked. “Who’s the contender?”

Hannah laughed and pointed over to Jackson Birt, doltish jock extraordinaire, currently attempting to crush a pop can with his head. After two misses he succeeded, thumping his chest with a “Who da man?” and a large belch.

“Not evil but still stupid, sexist, and egocentric,” Theo said.

“He’ll do nicely,” I agreed.

Pierce nodded. “Aphrodite has her knickers in a twist about getting this done, and now. Soon as Bethany gets in line with him? Showtime. Then your turn.”

“Curious about how any of it went?” I asked Theo as we waited. “Because Festos was delightful.”

Hannah got the significance of the scowl Theo bestowed upon me. “Really?” she gushed. “Do tell.”

“Nothing to tell,” Theo said. “Except treachery and deceit.”

“He was cute, if you like them cooler than thou,” I told Hannah.

“All the best love stories have treachery and deceit. Right, Sophie?” Pierce asked, as he notched up the arrow, Bethany coming ever closer.

“I wouldn’t know. Or care. All I want is to get Persephone’s memories back.”

He let the arrow fly. “And we’re off,” he told Hannah, since she couldn’t actually see his arrows.

“Has it hit her yet?” Hannah asked.

I shook my head, watching in fascination as it flew straight and true toward Bethany, waiting for the the hopefully painful impact.

But it never came. Instead, it flew right into Kai, who had chosen that moment to follow me.

Eight

Bethany may not have been able to see the arrows but she most definitely saw Kai. “You’re back!” she trilled, happily.

Theo swore. Pierce looked horrified.

I wanted to do something. Yell at Kai, shove him under a bus, anything so he wouldn’t see Bethany first and fall in love with her. He was mine. But I couldn’t react fast enough. I stood there like a big idiot.

“What happened?” Hannah asked.

“Arrow,” I bleated. In a fraction of a second, his head would jerk up from staring at where the arrow had gone into him and he’d be looking directly at Bethany, who even now was one step away from being in his line of vision.

“Oh crap,” Hannah moaned, understanding.

I tensed. At least I wouldn’t have to see Kai’s face, looking like a lifetime of Hanukahs, Christmases, and birthdays as he fell madly in love with Bethany. Small mercy, she’d be between Kai and me, blocking my view of him.

And Bethany wouldn’t need to be shot to fall for Kai in return. She was already there.

I held my breath, then released it as something black caught Bethany around the ankle and sent her sprawling, leaving Kai’s stare to land directly on me.

“Let’s get this party started, shall we?” I dimly heard Festos cry cheerfully.

A part of my brain registered Theo’s shock at Festos’ arrival but the rest was pre-occupied with staring back at Kai.

Here it was. The moment when Kai looked upon me with unadulterated love and devotion, courtesy of Pierce’s love arrow. My head throbbed. “Careful what you wish for” had never been so true.

He hadn’t needed an arrow with Persephone
, a insidious little voice whispered in my head. I punched it in the gut to shut it up.

Apparently Kai needed
multiple
arrows for me because that love-struck gaze didn’t come. Instead, he took one look at me, creased his forehead in confusion and began lumbering all choppy and mechanical toward me.

Was he kidding me? Flushing hotly, I stomped over to him, my insecurity and corresponding angry defensiveness floored in high gear.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pierce notch up another arrow. “Hannah,” he urged, motioning at Jackson who now headed back to the school with the other students, “go snatch him back.”

A loud buzzing noise filled the area.

Pierce’s body started to shake. He closed his eyes. “I’m royally screwed now.”

And with that, he disappeared.

Hannah gave a small cry at his disappearance, which thankfully no other members of the student body noticed since the only ones left outside were her, me, Theo, Festos, Bethany, and Kai. This was fortunate since I’m not sure how we could have explained a cute boy suddenly disappearing from our midst.

Just ahead of me, Bethany pushed to her feet with a evil glare at Festos. “Watch it, gimp,” she sneered.

“You’re
much
thinner in your photos,” he said, giving her the once over. “Reality is a harsh mistress.”

This earned a smothered laugh from Theo and would have gotten one from me under normal circumstances as I shoved past her, except all my attention stayed on Kai, moving jerkily toward me.

We met and he threw his arms around me, like the earth wouldn’t keep spinning if he didn’t hug me.

“You’re not in love with me,” I said, struggling to get out of his ironclad grip.

“Nope,” he said, his voice oddly grim.

“It’s an excellent boa constrictor impression though,” Hannah piped up.

Bethany couldn’t stand Kai touching me. Despite the fact he had me in a death hold, she tried to worm her way in between us.

Literally.

“I was so worried about you,” she purred at him, elbowing me in the face as she tried to come between Kai’s arms and me. “After Sophie drove you away like that.”

Vines of moss green light shot out of my palms. “Don’t even think of pushing that whopper, you psycho.” I tried to wrap my hands around her in order to spin her until she crumbled to dust, but just ended up flailing them around spastically because my arms were still trapped by Kai.

“Let go.” I heaved at Kai but he didn’t budge.

“I. Can’t.” Boy, did he sound mad.

Bethany snorted in frustration and stomped off the other way. “You’re all so Z-list anyway.”

Trying to ignore the sensation of Kai now stroking my hair, I angled my right palm at his ankle, shot out a vine and flung him away from me. Okay, well, budged him three inches so I could wriggle loose. But in my head, I flung him across the field.

I wanted to kill him. “You were the one who said we had to choose to fall in love. But apparently, you actually hate the idea so much that you willfully blocked the effects of one of Cupid’s arrows.”

Theo was so mad at Kai that he didn’t even bother correcting my “Cupid” use. He inserted himself between us and turned to face Kai. “One time, could you not screw up the plan?”

“Being shot wasn’t the plan,” Kai retorted, once again taking hold of me.

“Yeah, actually, it was. Finally, Sophie was thinking straight around you.”

Kai froze. “You wanted Pierce to shoot us? After everything I told you, how I was willing to risk it and how important this was, you wanted to use arrows?”

O-kay. Given the thundercloud look on his face, I may have been wrong about him liking that idea.

I felt guilty, which led to me feeling defensive, which progressed to anger and resulted in me shooting my mouth off. “Newsflash. No girl wants to fall in love as part of a job description. Just because I agreed we had to doesn’t mean I didn’t want to do it with the least emotional damage.”

Kai’s hands tightened on my arm. “What damage? I’m not going to hurt you. Stop making me the bad guy.”

He’d already hurt me. Not his fault, but the best case scenario was me always being his runner-up. Not that I’d tell him that.

Hannah yanked me out of Kai’s manic grip. “Everyone is getting a little worked up here.”

Theo snorted.

“I think it’s fabulous,” Festos crooned, both hands on top of his cane.

“In what universe?” I snapped back.

Kai reached out for me again. “Theo,” he said, almost shaking with the effort of forcing himself to stop. He threw Theo the chain he’d stolen from him back in Delphyne’s cave. “Bind me.”

Props to Theo. I figured he would have brained Kai with it now that the chain was back in his possession. But all he did was say, “With great pleasure.”

He wrapped Kai in the chain, which not only kept him in place but gave off some good sizzling noises with a free side of burning cloth and singed arm hair.

Kai twitched once but given how tense he looked, I suspected it was more a psychological issue with being bound again than the actual effect of said binding.

Not that he was getting my sympathy.

I snorted. “You would rather burn than be in love with me.”

“You want me in love with you like this?” he fired back.

“No. I don’t want you in love with me any way. Excepting the absolute minimum amount of time it takes to do the ritual.” I turned to Festos. “You’re a god. Undo this.”

“Not to be Mr. Negativity, but no can do.”

“Then I want the antidote,” I said. “Those lead arrows.”

“We have no idea where Pierce is, Magoo,” Theo replied, the chain glowing in his hand. “Or if he’ll agree.”

“Oh Pierce will agree, if I have to milk his nipples and get the damn antidote that way,” I insisted. Every second I had to watch the infamous love arrows do zilch when I was the object of desire was beyond depressing.

“There’ll be no touching of Eros’ nipples, Sophie,” Kai said.

Festos unconsciously rubbed a hand in sympathy pain across his chest.

“Not to mention you’re not in love.” I batted my eyelashes at him to see how he’d react.

“Is the fight between your brain and your mouth finally causing spastic overload?” Kai asked. “Because you sound nuts.”

I felt nuts. Out of control and insanely hurt. “Not in love. Conclusive results,” I said.

Kai’s hands clenched. “What’s conclusive is you being ridiculous. Pierce screwed up somehow. It’s not indicative of my ability to fall in love with you.”

“Pierce didn’t screw up,” Hannah said hotly. She turned to me. “To be fair, that was hardly a proper experiment.”

“Less scientific procedure, more best friend supportiveness, Pumpkin.”

“Science is your friend,” she told me, “considering there is an antidote. Time,” Hannah said. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “What? It’s proven. Dad’s a divorce lawyer. People fall out of love constantly. He makes a very good living from it.”

I would have been struggling with the looming shadow of Persephone had the arrow actually worked. But this continual reminder of how lacking I was in Kai’s eyes?

This made my loserdom a million time worse. “I don’t
have
time. This needs to happen now.”

Kai threw me a taunting look. “Get over yourself, Sophie, because like it or not, not only am I not going anywhere, I just made it my personal mission to get you to fall for me so hard, you won’t know which way is up. And I won’t need an arrow to do it!”

He added something in Greek for good measure which made Festos start and Theo give a sharp nod. Theo had to shove Kai to get him to move in the opposite direction from me but they managed to walk away over the grass back toward the school.

“Should I come too?” Festos called out to Theo’s retreating back but he didn’t answer. “Okay. We’ll work on that.” He watched them walk away another moment. “You know, that was actually kind of
—
”

“Infuriating?” I asked.

“Hot,” Festos said.

“Enlightening.” Hannah added, a thoughtful look on her face. “The way Kai challenged you like that. Got you all worked up and out of your comfort zone.”

“That doesn’t get him points,” I protested.

“It makes him more well-rounded than previously thought.” Hannah looped her arm through mine. “Dinner?”

I quit my muttered cursing long enough to say, “I’m too mad to eat.”

“Uh-huh.” She glanced over at Festos. “You coming?”

His eyes widened in surprise. “You want me to?”

Hannah shrugged. “Are you going to dish about Theo?”

He lit up. “I could.”

Hannah held out her other arm. “Then come on.”

“Great,” he said, taking her arm. “I’m freezing my bollocks out here.”

Hannah only gave one look back.

I squeezed her arm, feeling bad for her, despite my anger at my own situation. “You’ll see him again.”

Festos elbowed her. “I could dish about Pierce too, if you like.”

She nodded. “I like.”

It should have been a highly entertaining dinner, with Festos telling us stories about Theo and Pierce. The cafeteria was only two-thirds full, which meant we had our choice of seating area. And tonight we were having Mexican. Hope Park may have been stuck in the middle of nowhere, but we had good food.

Not everyone had returned from winter break, start and end dates being somewhat fluid around here. With some parents still around visiting their kids, no one batted an eye at our extra guest.

A million evil thoughts swirled around in my head as I ate Hannah’s quesadilla. She’d gotten two, not believing for a second that I was really too mad to eat.

So, Kai hated the idea of loving me that much, did he? Stupid god and his stupid hangups over Persephone. Not to mention the sheer gall of Kai thinking he’d be able to make me fall at his feet. “We’ll see who falls in love with who.”

Hannah looked over, her fork and knife frozen in mid-cut. “You do remember the fate of humanity stuff, right?”

“Yeah yeah. But he’s going to fall in love with me first. For real.” That was my new plan. Undo the arrow and dazzle Kai until he couldn’t live without me. Until Persephone was just some chick he used to know.

I knew that wanting Kai to fall for me first was incredibly childish, but it had become the one thing that could help me feel a tiny bit better about the entire crappy deal.

Hannah set her cutlery down with a clatter. “Well, I feel
so
reassured about my continued chances for existence since you’re acting so mature about this.”

“I’ll spirit you away somewhere safe,” Festos promised her.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Since I’d scarfed my food (children were starving and I had a fast metabolism) I pushed away from the table, aware that Hannah and Festos were following.

“Twenty minutes longer than I thought she’d last,” Festos said to Hannah.

“Well, there was food. And this was about the limit of her holding out,” she replied.

“Thank you,” I said, as we headed down the corridor leading to the dorms, “for making me sound like a huge slut.”

“Slut, glutton, you have a very limited window of willpower for things you want,” she said, all matter-of-fact.

“If I was straight, I’d love you,” Festos told her.

“Since she actually prefers her boys pretty, gay, and unreciprocating, you’ll do as is,” I assured him, heading through the door into the dorm wing and starting up the stairs.

Hannah traipsed up alongside me. “I’m evolving. Pretty and
straight
moves to number one. More actual fun, less voyeuristic of other people’s fun.”