22. Adonis

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.”

Her lips curve in a sad smile. “I guess that’s the least I can do.”

When I rushed over here, I wasn’t thinking about how much it would hurt to be in her presence. Theseus leaning on the bathroom counter just out of reach doesn’t make things feel less complicated. He hasn’t bothered to get dressed yet, and I will not think about the fact I licked my way down his thick chest last night.

Instead, I focus on Eris. Words aren’t going to make her feel better right now, and telling her everything is going to be okay feels too much like a lie.

We have enough lies between us.

Her skin is mostly dry by this point, but I grab a second towel and twist her hair up into it. I can feel Theseus watching us closely, but he’s not my problem right now. Eris is terrifyingly passive as I work lotion into her skin. It’s not something she often had the patience to let me do in the past, but it’s a small act I’ve always enjoyed.

At least until I get to her legs and start taking off the wet bandages. There are easily a dozen cuts on each leg, ranging from little more than a scratch to one on her left thigh that I’m a little worried might need stitches.

I finally glance at Theseus. “First aid kit is under that sink behind you.”

He’s got a strange look on his face, and for the life of me I can’t tell if he’s studying us like enemies or like he wants to memorize exactly what I’m doing so he can replicate it in the future. For all that I’m drawn to this man, a moth to his flame, I don’t fully understand him. He’s harsh and driven and violent, but there’s a raw emotional center there that he works hard to keep locked up. I only get glimpses, but it’s enough to make me wonder what kind of man he’d be if given the freedom to make his own choices instead of playing the part of marauder for his foster father.

He pulls out the kit and sets it on the counter between us. Eris sighs. “That’s not—”

“It’s necessary.”

Theseus crosses his big arms over his chest. “You said you would get these looked at. You didn’t. Those are the bandages I put on there.”

It’s hard to tell with her head ducked, but I think Eris flushes. “There wasn’t time, and you did a fine job.”

I’m not sure what to think about that. Saving her life is one thing, but taking care of her afterward? He hates her—or at least he says he does—but if you hate someone, you don’t spend a prolonged time bandaging their wounds. You don’t check up on them later that night. You don’t call in reinforcements when you’re in over your head.

But what am I going to do, accuse Theseus of having feelings for his wife?

I want to accuse him of exactly that.

Desperate to escape the conflicting feelings inside me, I gently touch Eris’s knee. “These were caused by glass?”

It’s Theseus who answers. “The glass divider thing in the lobby shattered.”

Again, the anger that he kept this knowledge from me for hours rises, and again I shove it down. “Let’s get these bandaged.” That, at least, I can do. The action calms the worst of my whirling thoughts, if not my emotions. I never would have considered myself naive, and yet I can’t help thinking, It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Not Olympus falling apart around us, violence rising with each day.

Not Eris, married to another man—a man who is partially responsible for that rise in violence.

“Adonis.”

I hate how small Eris sounds, hate it so much I finish with the last bandage on her right leg before I look up to meet her gaze, giving myself time to control my expression. “Yes?”

Eris opens her mouth, but seems to reconsider whatever she was about to say at the last moment. “Thank you for coming. I know I don’t deserve this, but…thank you for being here.”

I finish bandaging her second leg in silence. By the time I’m done, she’s weaving a bit, clearly exhausted. “Have you eaten anything?” I noticed takeout bags in the kitchen when I arrived, but I’d been too focused on getting to her to investigate.

“No, but I’m not hungry.”

I give her the look that statement deserves. “Eat something and then you’re going to bed.”

She narrows her eyes. “I don’t need a keeper.”

“Don’t you?” I push to my feet. “You’re doing a bang-up job of taking care of yourself lately.” More words bubble up, ones that have no satisfactory answer. Eris has never had any qualms about the fact she puts this city before everything. When we first started dating, I thought it terribly heroic.

That was before I knew the cost.

“This city is going to kill you,” I grind out.

“Maybe.” She tucks her hair behind her ears and slides off the counter. “But at this point, we can only deal with the circumstances we have instead of the ones we want.” With each word, she sounds more like herself and less fragile. “I have no intention of dying, Adonis. I can promise you that.”

She doesn’t bother to keep the towel wrapped around her as she walks away from us. I know this woman’s body as well as my own—the curve of her waist, the dimples at the top of her perfect ass, the two crooked fingers on her left hand from when her father slammed it in a door when she was fifteen and broke them. Everyone thought it was because she fell during ballet practice. I’m the only one she told the truth to.

I have to turn away, but that doesn’t help because Theseus is still here, still wrapped in that damned towel, still watching us as if taking mental notes. And why not? I doubt he learned much in the way of comfort and softness in Minos’s household.

Things would be so much simpler if I only wanted Eris. I drag my hand over my face and speak softly, pitching my voice to only carry to him. “I am very angry with you.”

Theseus nods slowly. “Yeah. I get that.”

“You get that. I—”

He snags me around the waist and drags me against him. It’s similar to the moment when I pinned him against the shower wall, but even with the obvious threat, I can’t help staring at his mouth. If he smiled right now, I might punch him in the face, but he just looks vaguely tormented, as if he’s not any happier with how things have developed than I am.

Theseus squeezes my hip. “Would you believe me if I said I didn’t want her dead?”

“No.” But I want to. Gods, how I want to. I want to so desperately, it shakes me. “You hate her.”

“Yeah, I guess.” His gaze tracks toward Eris’s closet. “Feels more complicated than hate these days. She’s a monster, maybe even my monster. I don’t like seeing her declawed.”

He sees her. Actually sees her. Not the wild-child party-girl persona she picks up and sheds like clothing. Not the cold Aphrodite who makes calls solely to save her city.

Eris. Woman. Monster.

Mine.

Except she’s not mine any longer, is she? She’s his.

Having sex with this man was a mistake. I knew it when it happened, but with my foolish heart lurching in my chest as if trying to close the distance between us further, I have to admit exactly how thoroughly I’ve screwed myself.

I’m falling for my ex’s husband.

And I’m still in love with my ex.