“I hate you.” She finally moves, inching back to lean against the wall at my side. Her shoulder touches mine and she kind of melts against me.
“I know.” After a slight hesitation, I wrap my arm around her shoulders and tuck her more firmly against my side. She lets loose a tiny little sound that might be a sob. Neither of us comment on the way she shakes and presses her face to my shoulder.
I should be happy. This is part of Minos’s plan. Introducing the knowledge of the assassination clause to the Olympus population is key to destabilizing things and keeping the Thirteen more worried about their lives than about what Minos might be up to. He hasn’t explicitly said that he hopes the various murder attempts succeed, but clearly it would be to his benefit.
If Aphrodite dies, I will be free. No longer married to a woman I didn’t choose. No longer the laughingstock of this fucking city.
But the thought of this city without her in it isn’t one that brings me joy.
Instead, the thorny feeling in my chest tears deeper.
22
ADONIS
I find them in the shower. Theseus looks almost relieved when I walk through the door, but he won’t be after I’m through with him. He knew. For hours, he’s avoided my texts and left me thinking that the most I had to worry about was my heart getting entangled after what we shared last night.
Instead, he’d known all day that Eris had been attacked.
She looks weak and scared. Neither is an adjective I would ever use to describe the woman I love, but it’s the truth. My stomach drops out and I step into the shower, heedless of the spray. It takes a few seconds to turn off the water and grab two towels from the cabinet. One gets dropped on Theseus’s lap, and I use the other to wrap around Eris and lift her into my arms.
“I can walk.”
“I know.” I don’t put her down. I can’t put her down. Her little tremors reach me, even through the thick fabric of the towel. Gods, has she been like this all day?
Even as I think the question, I know better. “You stubborn fool. You pushed it down and pretended like nothing was wrong, didn’t you? I bet you even took clients.”
She ducks her head and presses it to my shoulder. “I have to keep up appearances.”
This right here is why I will never reach the heights she has in Olympus. I care too fucking much. My emotions might not rule me, but they affect me. Eris has every part of her under such tight lockdown that moments like these, where it backfires against her, are rarer than blue moons.
I don’t tell her that she should have called me. I don’t call her a fool again, even though I want to. Eris and I have had this fight more times than I can count. As much as I’d like to believe that this new violence would be enough to change her perspective, I know better.
I’m not her boyfriend anymore. There’s not a single reason for her to call me, or for us to have that fight for the thousandth time. Showing up here is crossing a boundary, but I don’t care. It doesn’t matter what we’ve done to hurt each other or how desolate my future is without her in it.
She needs me, so I’m here.
I set her on the bathroom counter and wrap the towel more tightly around her shoulders. “Don’t move.”
“I can—”
“Do not move.”
She drops her gaze and clutches the edges of the towel. “Okay. Fine.”
I hate this. I hate that she feels brittle, like one harsh word could send her crumbling. “If you’re not going to take care of yourself, then we’re going to do it for you.”
“We?” She looks up, some of the customary sharpness in her gaze. “You can’t honestly think—”
“What I think is my business. Stay there.” I stalk back into the shower. As I suspected, Theseus hasn’t moved. He tenses, but even as angry as I am, I’m not such a monster to mock his inability to stand. I’m glad he didn’t try on his own. The tiles are slippery beneath my feet, which makes for treacherous moving.
I might want to yell at him, but I don’t want him to hurt.
Gods, I’m pathetic.
I hold out a hand. “Come on.”
“I’m good.” He looks at my hand like it’s a poisonous snake. Instead of arguing, I just maintain my position until he curses under his breath and slaps his hand into mine. I carefully leverage him to his feet.
Then I shove him against the wall, my forearm against his throat. I lean in until our faces nearly touch. “I don’t give a fuck if you’re an enemy to this city or what your plans are. Our deal was that Eris would be kept from harm.”
“She’s living, isn’t she?”
Distantly, I’m aware that he’s letting me do this, that he’d have no problem fighting back and that we’d be damn near evenly matched if he did. “Don’t play with words, Theseus. You’re not good at it.”
He gives a grim smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “She’s shaken up, but she’ll be fine. You underestimate her.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I drop my arm and take a step back. “Are you staying or going?”
It’s only because I’m watching him closely that I see the indecision war across his rough features. He’s in over his head. He has been from the moment he entered Olympus, for all that he successfully murdered his way into being one of the Thirteen.
I knew that, of course. His visit to Hephaestus’s office and how he’s floundered on the public stage more than proved that he doesn’t have a handle on what it means to be a member of the Thirteen. Even when he held me close last night, I never doubted for a second that he was still an enemy.
Oh, my foolish heart wanted to believe otherwise, but no matter what my friends and family think, I know better than to believe the dream that the love of a good man is enough to change the people I care about. It didn’t work with Eris, and it certainly won’t work with Theseus.
But an enemy wouldn’t be worried about Eris the way Theseus is now. He can’t lie worth a damn, and he wouldn’t have called me, wouldn’t have sat with her, wouldn’t be hesitating now, if he didn’t care…at least a little.
“Do you want me to stay?” he asks softly, his voice almost uncertain.
I open my mouth to say I don’t care either way, but it’s a lie. I want him here. Gods, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’d like to think I’m not normally one to let my foolish heart lead me into inevitable pain, but my history with Eris more than speaks to the truth. “If you want to.”
He huffs out a breath and moves past me, wrapping the towel around his waist as he does. I watch him closely, ready to catch his elbow if he stumbles. He doesn’t, but I can tell his knee is bothering him by the stiff way he moves.
We find Eris exactly where I left her, which snaps my priorities back into place. Theseus can figure his shit out on his own tonight. She has to take precedence.
“This isn’t necessary.” She doesn’t lift her head. “I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
I don’t doubt it. Eris is a Kasios first, and after growing up seeing the things she did, she’s developed nerves of steel. It’s a token of how bad it was today that she’s this shaken up. I take her shoulders and wait for her to look at me. “Then be fine tomorrow, Eris. Tonight, you don’t have to be.”
Her lower lip quivers, just a little. “Why did you come here at all? Why are you being so nice to me? I know you’re too good a person to wish me dead, but I’ve prioritized the city over you again and again. I broke your fucking heart, Adonis. Don’t lie and say I didn’t.”
It’s true. But my pain is less important than hers right now. Tomorrow, we can go back to awkwardly staring at each other across the chasm of the hard decisions that brought us to this place.
I said I’m here for her tonight, and I meant it.
“Eris.” I love you. I don’t say it. Everyone in this room knows it for truth, but the tiny sliver of pride I have left won’t let me speak the words. Not again. “For once in your life, don’t argue with me.”