28. Leni

Two hours pass, each second well used. I’m pink skinned from a scalding shower and wrapped cozily in Cross’s black shirt, wet hair soaking my pillow. A faded sky blue clings to the strands, cobalt and sapphire gone for good. My lips are chapped, my eyes sting, and my knuckles smart.

Somehow, Cross fares better.

I spear my fingers through the silky ends of his hair and cinch my ankle more securely around his calf. His bare chest reveals mending wounds, skin building anew quicker than I can comfortably watch.

The lights are out, a pillow stuffed in the gap under the door.

We should probably find an actual bedroom, where we can spread out and there’s no constant pulse of medical monitors.

We don’t.

We stay intertwined in a hospital cot. White sheets pulled medically tight, gleaming safety rails digging into our spines, hips uncomfortably sunk into a seam in the mattress. So miserable, it’s practically Spartan.

Fresh baked cookies couldn’t entice me to leave.

The spymaster’s thigh is wedged between mine. His big hand clutches my waist, as he smooths his lips over the bruises on my knuckles, eyes never leaving mine.

Shivers race from my head to my toes.

He’s hot and heavy, skin thrumming next to me, and the hardness throbbing against my stomach makes my cheeks burn, and excitement zing along my fingers.

We’re so close that I can trace dark green rings around his irises and smell the fresh, clean soap stuck to his hair after his shower.

Gently, his hand glides up my spine, taking away the sharp edge of the railing. “We agreed to rest,” he whispers, voice calm as lake at midnight.

Agreed under duress, bribed by green apple skittles. “Then close your eyes.”

His eyes drop to my mouth, lingering there before slicking back up, darkening. In a low rasp, he says, “I don’t wish to sleep.”

Heat spirals through me. Does that mean he wants to …

We also agreed to wait for that, for gentle. Not under duress.

“I’m afraid I’ll wake up alone. Afraid the curse has learned exactly how best to torment me.”

There it is again. Fear. From a male I’d never have guessed understood the meaning of the word.

He has seven circular scars now. Took seven bullets when Draven swept me away. Out-manned fifteen to one, he charged after me. Very briefly, he filled in the parts I was KO’d for—how he was set up, how he clawed to get to me—his voice had still contained a whipping, bloody fury, as if the hurt was still new and festering.

What are his fears? Not the ruthless Argos, Hera’s appointed peacekeepers, or the vicious Keres, not bloodthirsty Gorgons. Not Gods.

“Don’t think about it,” I coo, as if it were that easy.

His large hand cups the nape of my neck and a flutter stirs my blood, draws my thighs tighter over his. “What if you’d forgotten me, Leni? It’s all I thought about. What if you were trapped with him and you thought I wasn’t coming? That I’d abandoned you? I didn’t sleep as I plotted your retrieval. It devoured me, that you might not have hope.”

Emotion clogs my throat. Too much, too intense. “I’m not going anywhere until I have my wicked way with you.” It’s teasing, but the words stick to my ribs and droop.

I remembered him, and I still thought he’d never come.

No one comes for me. Prey gets trapped. It dies. The end.

But he did. He rescued me, even risked his family.

Hope. Gods, it’s alluring.

Cross pulls me tighter to him, until I’m sprawled over him, my cheek on his chest. His heart beats much faster than mine. “There’s nothing you could do to me that I’d consider wicked.”

I smile against his bare skin. “Because I punch like a wuss?”

“Because you’d be with me.”

“You like me,” I whisper. Accusing. Teasing. Fishing.

He chuckles softly, the vibration of his chest throwing a burst of sparks down my spine. “Yes, Leni. I like you. As well as a flame likes oxygen.”

I can feel the warmth of his breath on my forehead, stirring my bangs, mingling with the sweet scent of his clean skin. “But do you like me just because I’m the only one who remembers you?” I ask, stopping my breathing, going perfectly still.

He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

A wave of unease crashes in the pit of my stomach, twisting like a ball of ice in hot water. My lungs start to burn. I press my palm to my chest, pushing back from him, returning to my sliver of the cot.

Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, I guess.

“You’re upset,” he reads at my silence.

More like humiliated. I tilt my head back into the pillow and blink at the cracked plaster of the ceiling, wishing I could laugh. Not having the energy for it. “It’s not exactly a compliment, is it? I can’t help but remember you.”

“You can, and you do, but you underestimate yourself.” His fingers gently comb through my hair. He talks to the ceiling like me, weaving his arm back around me, returning me to his chest, clutching me, as if we’re lovers under a blanket of stars.

We’re strokes of dumb luck.

In a voice like gravel, he says, “For the first thirty years of my life, I believed in one terrifying bastard of a god, who taught love as a wholesome, stable entity, tepid water you ease into slowly. For a long time, I never understood the Olympians. At their best, they’re petty. At their worst, they’re deviant and selfish.” He pauses to place a searing kiss on the top of my head, and inhales so deeply that his chest expands, lifting me. “Now I understand. Their love is visceral and sudden. Chaotic and consuming, there’s no wading, no comfort. It’s as brutal as war, and woven in their blood and souls. They are bent and folded to love, helpless to it.” He laughs. “The Gods. Helpless. No wonder they’re spiteful.”

I don’t say a word. Hot emotion prickles at the back of my throat. As a byproduct of being raised by Yaya, I don’t struggle with words. She spoke loudly and not often in sequential sensible routes, and always demanded a rebuttal. Growing up, I learned to keep one on the tip of my tongue.

There are no words now.

He refers to love like it’s a sword hanging out of his gut, and he can either pull it out and die or learn to suffer.

Am I the sword? This brutal inconvenience? All because I remember him? Is he resigned to care for me? As much as I’ve dreamed of power, I don’t want to be a sword to him.

Don’t ask a question if you can’t handle the answer.

I don’t need to learn the lesson twice.

I clear my throat and change the subject. “I got you something,” I say, feeling small and stupid as I reach behind me to grab the transparent pink ball from the table. “It’s nothing big, just …”

He cracks it open into two perfect half spheres. “Batman?” He rolls the figurine between his fingers, the miniature cape and mask glint under the glow of the heart monitor screen.

“There were limited options at the Albany amtrack and I only found two quarters, but it reminded me of you.” Meda hadn’t been answering my questions, and I’d needed a spark of hope, something to hold me together, a purpose.

“It did?” he sounds amazed.

“Obviously. Textbook homicidal silhouette.” I laugh, but it’s choked out too quickly. “It will look nice in your bedroom. You could add to it.”

His arm tightens around me, gathering me into a bear hug. When he speaks against my ear, his breath is like shower steam and his voice is low and gravelly, far more serious than I expect. “My first knickknack, and it’s neither neon nor tacky.”

My hands are pinned, I can’t wipe my eyes. “I didn’t want to scare you off. This is a gradual introduction to clutter.”

His chuckle is warm blueberry syrup on my skin. “Gradual.”

“Hey, I can do gradual.”

“You’re as gradual as an avalanche, pyro. You change everything around you, unstoppable and bold and …” he sighs, as if suddenly lost to the Muses. “You’ve buried me. The entire world looks different because of you. Thank you.”

I nod against his chest, feeling whole steady pieces of me crack and splinter.

I like this male. Despite not wanting to, despite predetermining I won’t, despite his efforts to push me away.

In return, he likes me because I haven’t forgotten his name.

So what? Be grateful, take it.

The block of ice cream in my stomach revolts, twists into a swirling mint chocolate pit of we want out. I’m tired of being liked for things beyond my control. For my blood, for my lineage, for my appearance.

I swallow over a dry lump in my throat. “What should I dream about?” I ask. “Talk to me, or it’ll be him. It’s always him.” Or you.

Cross touch lingers on my hair—obsessed with my hair—separating strands like each one is a scientific discovery. “Do you know the tale of Tantalus?”

Yes. “Tell me it.”

“Tantalus was a man of no special descent,” Cross begins in a smooth, dulcet tone. “He was born in a time of desolation and worked relentlessly to make himself known. After years of labor, the Gods recognized his effort, and he became like family to them. Zeus helped him rise to be a powerful mortal king. Tantalus was revered, loved, rich beyond belief, and in return for the generosity of the Gods, he made sacrifices for them in the name of family and hope and prosperity.”

Dread unfurls deep within me, like a single drop of poison in the bath, slowly diluting, spreading and ruining. “Those are noble reasons to sacrifice.”

“Noble reasons to kill?” Cross laughs, and it’s not the one I like. Not the warm, almost surprised catch of his breath. This is timed and cracked. It’s bitter. “Zeus strike me if my influence has altered your values.”

I can lie.

I’ve spent half my time with him lying. I can tell him he’s a loose end that will be severed from my greater tapestry, a dull bead on a necklace I’m sick of wearing. That he’s had no effect on me.

I can convince him I’m above violence and killing and death. That I am better than him, that I see no merit in survival at the cost of others.

I can lie and he’ll believe me.

I can pretend he’s foul and terrible and call his deeds reprehensible. But I understand him. I see through the black a male who fought relentlessly for good, who made sacrifices, who killed in hope of a realm without killing. Guilt swims in him, as well as regret and still he tries to do the right thing. Tells princesses to run, threatens princes.

I have no desire to lie. Not about this, not about how I see him.

He came for me.

“Death isn’t all bad,” I whisper.

He hums, neither approving nor chastising, fingers still stroking my hair. “King Tantalus was adored, granted everything he’d ever wished—a palace, food, luxuries, family. Yet he never reached contentment. He constantly strived for more, possessed by greed, until one of his own family died at his hand.”

The offense is etched in my memory. A blood crime. “He killed his son.”

“In retaliation, Zeus sealed Tantalus in a pool of frigid water with fruit hanging directly above him. Except whenever Tantalus reached for the dangling fruit, it rose just out of his reach, and when he bent to scoop water to drink, it retreated. Above him, a boulder loomed, ready to crush him if he dared to leave.”

I close my eyes. “So he starved.”

“No. He was one of the Gods’ beloved and gifted immortality. To this day, the fallen king Tantalus stands agonizingly close to satisfaction but is always denied it.“ Cross’s voice hangs rough and gritty in the air between us.

I tilt my head back to look up at him, only to find him already staring down at me. I soak him in. Eyes like stars. Black stars that I’ll remember until I die. His leg has somehow forced its way between mine again, unmistakable hardness relocated to my hip, seemingly only content when touching me.

The pads of his fingers cup my chin and heady desire arcs inside me, as potent as lightning. I press myself down on his leg to relieve an spreading ache between my thighs.

“Leni.” My name, a warning and consecration.

“What tempts you, Cross?” I hardly recognize my voice.

He groans, bites his lip, a wild look flashing in his eyes before he steals my stars, hides them away from me under brown lashes. His fingers fold into a fist at my hip, thigh ever so slightly offering me the pressure I crave. “Right now, sleep.”

You’d think his curse was back from the tendons bursting in his throat, the bunch of his stomach under my hand.

I have pity on him. Tonight. I tuck my head back in its spot over his heart. “Then sleep.” My voice is as hoarse as his. “Imagine golden sand and turquoise waters. Palms rustling in the wind, seagulls cawing.”

“You swimming.”

I wince. “I can’t swim. But I’d watch you.”

“I can teach you.”

“I’d rather watch.”

He nods, goes somewhere far away, somewhere sunny and tropical, heart slowing to its normal slog under my ear. “Could you be happy there?” I ask.

A lazy sigh is all I get in response. Asleep.

I try to envision him at the beach, pacing beneath the bright yellow sun, holsters empty, tattoos bared. No shadows, no darkness. A scowl on his face.

I should’ve asked what I really wanted to. Would you come with me?

No. He’s given me an answer and lesson in one. Cross sees himself as Tantalus, forever serving penance for his supposed misdeeds. He believes he doesn’t deserve more.

He believes there are worse things in life than death.

How do I tell him he’s right?