Her hands flew up in the air. “Ew. No one is close to her. Not it…”
Wide eyes I looked at her, wondering where she heard a question mark; there wasn't one. Luna volunteered without me having to scold anyone. The ritual was happening, and I needed a plan to keep Ari safe—not me or the circle, but her.
Without Zeus’s power living in her, bets were off; we might be stuck here forever, just as a punishment for the gods dying while we were here influencing the 20th century.
No one planned on being in prison for fourteen years.
I was well over it all—hormones, this body, the rules, the feelings…
“Ari, stay out of it and act clueless still.”
She nodded in response, and I was surprised she didn't fight me. She was still reeling from her sudden memories with Nyx that no one expected either.
Now that they knew what was happening in the shadows, we could better prepare for the dance in a few weeks.
Caellum’s whistle stopped me in my tracks and urged a grimace across my face that felt tight, strained.
“What Caellum? Don't make me regret bringing you in on this.”
“Coming to the dark side, huh? All for some girl who looks petrified to know the truth.”
I crossed my arms in front of me, standing tall, “She's adjusting. She’s getting better at control,”
Caellum walked by me, with his broad shoulder colliding with mine. “That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it.”
I wasn't the only one with memories; Caellum had his memories too—not the same ones. None of it mattered, since he was at another school entirely, after using some black magic to release the chains on himself, leaving the circle behind. He didn't stop to think of anyone else, but I didn't need his memories competing anyways.
Every time we had a meeting with the circle, his ego drove a wedge between us, creating sides and opposing ideas. With him gone, I became even more the king.
Caellum almost made his voice sing-songy when he shouted, as he walked away, “Tell her everything, Bolton, or I willlllll….”
I see he didn't let the threatening tone of his voice go, but I needed him for this to work. He was strong, and he was also the only person willing to go against me.
Nyx was her confidant back home. Their friendship was secret, because he was the son of Hades, her father’s enemy. She would meet him in the fields of truth and complain of her father’s rules, her lack of freedom, and probably about me. We weren't destiny or fate; I was the guy her dad chose for her.
Now Nyx was remembering more than I thought he'd ever care to.
Zeus had almost died more times than I could count. He had many enemies, but half of those times could have been pinned on Nyx. He would have done anything for Ari, even if she didn't ask. She complained, and Nyx snapped into some hero act, slaying all her monsters.
When Zeus died for the last time, we were stuck as mortals here. I couldn't blame Nyx for his final death. He was stuck here with me. Everyone felt a sharp pain at the same time, and we knew our home wasn't the same anymore.
Ari was not going to end up with Nyx—over my dead body.
As soon as I exited the hall to my secret room, I made sure everything was sealed, and I took Arianna’s hand in mine, reminding her that she was mine, despite her new memories leaking into her consciousness.
Her small voice asked me, “What now?”
I squeezed your hand so you know you're mine and I'm not letting you get away this time. That's what now, is what my mind thought, but the only words that came out of my mouth were: “Act normal.”
Really, I meant act an Ari type of normal: loud, obnoxious, impatient, not the Ari that was still silently digesting the news dropped on her.
After classes, we had been going to the abandoned building toward the back of the campus to control her power and give her a rundown of the gods we now shared.
She didn't know Apollo from Diameter. She was catching on quickly, but her memories were still out of my grasp. I couldn't ask Cheyanne to do the voodoo she does without putting Arianna at risk.
Cheyanne was asking too many questions that didn't matter, and I noticed.
Alba was hiding her file from everyone.
People were picking sides without telling me, and that was just cause for the wrath I was about to bring down on everyone during the ritual.
The next morning, I woke up as usual, with a body full of aches and pains from football and a kind or tired that coffee couldn’t help. This morning was different; Arianna fell asleep in my bed last night. I looked down at her sleeping with a pillow between her arms and her head barely on it anymore.
My alarm went off, and she didn't budge. Leaning over her, I planted innocent kisses along her shoulder, hoping she'd wake up.
She moved her hand trying to slap me away from waking her up when I whispered into her hair, “We have a test. Get up.”
She groaned loudly, rolling over onto her back and looking particularly unmotivated.
“Let's skip. We'll get coffee and hide out,” her voice sounded hopeful, like I might agree. I was killing her hope by getting dressed and clapping my hands together just to annoy her this early in the morning.
“Come on, Ari. Don't tempt me with a good time…” I held up my hoodie that she had been wearing for the past week, overlooking the burn marks her lightning imprinted.
She popped up, sitting up, with her arms outstretched in her small black tank, creating a search party for her nipples. I found them. They perked up, getting hard, and I smirked in a satisfied sneer. I tossed the hoodie on the bed, wondering how I kept my hands off her last night.
It wasn't easy. It was hard, and so was I, all night. I remember pushing my hard on into her ass cheek, hoping she'd throw me some kind of bone, but my rejection was still living in her head.
She still didn’t remember who she was to me, but the hormones inside me raged to be between her legs again.
The bed sunk down with a creek as I pushed my boots on, which seemed stupid with khaki pants. Ari, the shortened name I had gotten used to calling her the past few weeks, her name suddenly too laboring to scold her with, crawled up behind me, pushing her chest into my back and wrapping her arms around my neck from behind.
“Okay, so we can't skip, but can we be late at least?”
My rejection had dropped off her radar, and she was testing my ability to keep my hands off her. My hormones were raging and knocking around my organs trying to land at my dick, which was what I was trying to avoid.
If all the tension found my dick, I wasn't going to be responsible for the aftermath.
Barking out my next move, standing up, and feeling her warmth against me fade, I snapped my suspenders closed on my jeans, “I'll be outside.”
I left her in my room, alone, yet no alarms went off inside me.
I wanted the football season to be over so I could finally enjoy a clean scent coming from Nyx’s room at the end of the hallway as he poured out. His undone boots, his rings acting as built-in brass knuckles, and his long hair unbrushed were just a part of his “don't care” attitude, when he really did care under it all.
We cared, at least enough to keep us here, tied to those emotions.
He walked by me, pushing his hand into my chest and pinning me into the wall. “When were you going to tell me?” He dropped his arm and stood there, letting me have a fighting chance before he gave me another shiner.