He beamed broadly. “Wait until they all meet you, little one. You will be more powerful than even you know. It will drive them all mad.” He laughed.
His words made no sense to me. I blinked, and then suddenly I was turned toward the bed. And I saw him. The beast. My beast. For the first time.
I gasped, and brought the hand up that’d been clutching the dagger to my face. But that cry alerted him and when he sat up, I knew who it was staring sleepily back at me.
Golden hair that spilled across his sun-kissed forehead. Eyes so blue they looked like the clouds he loved to fly in.
And his body…
“Oh, my gods,” I breathed, realizing that I stared not at a monster but the most beautiful male in all of the cosmos.
“I know who you are. You are, Eros. God of love.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, alert where he’d not been just a second ago. He looked at the blue flame in my hand. Then his gaze jumped to the blade in my other hand. And a look I knew would haunt me all the rest of my days flooded his beautiful eyes.
“Psyche. Why?”
I was blinded by my tears and I wanted to tell him it was not what he thought. That I was merely taking the knife with me as protection against…well, him. Against the monster my sisters had told me he was.
My body trembled. Ached. Because I sensed the hand of fate then. “I… I… it is not. I did not. You must believe—”
“You did not believe me,” he said quietly, and maybe because he did not roar, he did not rage, his words wounded me even worse. “Why would you ever imagine I would now believe you? You tried to murder me?” Tears swam in his eyes.
I gasped, dropping the blade with a clatter to the marble floor beneath. “No. No! You don’t understand.”
“God flame?” His face contorted and I knew I was literally seeing a man’s heart shatter before me.
“My…my love, you don’t understand.”
“You’ve betrayed me. I…I tried to shield you from her. I tried to keep you safe. I…loved.” He sniffed and shook his head. “Mother’s right, love is a disease. It’s poison. You’re poison. I will never forgive you.”
And then snow white wings tore out from his back and he looked like a sylph, a beautiful devil with pain and fury burning in his blue eyes. Golden light radiated from within his flesh and I gasped. Hating that in that moment I felt myself becoming even more besotted with him because of his looks. Which made me shallow and vile. I’d loved him before I’d seen him, but now…
“Please, don’t go!” I begged. “You don’t understand. My sisters they told me horrors. They said you wanted to fatten me up. To use me for your dark and twisted spells. That you wanted to kill—”
“And yet it was never I that held a blade to you. Was it?”
I gasped, covering my mouth with my free hand. “It’s not like that.”
His brows furrowed. “Goodbye, mortal.”
“NO!” I screamed, rushing to him, holding my arms out, trying to pin him to that bed. It was love. It had been. I’d been seduced by doubt, but it had been only a moment of weakness. “Forgive me, Eros, please!”
But my angel, was gone.
And all I could do was scream my pain to the heavens.
Eros
I’d betrayed all I was and the only woman who’d ever truly loved me for another who’d planned to murder me. The feeling of guilt and disgust twisted me up inside.
Broken to my very soul I decided it was time to reveal myself to my mother. To bare my soul and accept whatever punishment she handed out.
I knelt before her throne.
She stared down upon me, and I keenly felt the full weight of her displeasure.
“Look at me,” she said, voice deep and full of disapproval.
Taking a deep breath, I did look at her.
She studied me for several long, tense, and silent moments. I wanted to fidget. I wanted to stir. I wanted to scream.
And dammit, I desperately wanted above all else to find Psyche and cling to her. I hated her. But I loved her.
I didn’t really hate her.
I wasn’t sure I ever could.
“Tell me the truth, my son, and whatever you say now will impact your future consequences. So, I’d advise honesty above all else.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded once. “I vow it.”
“What is that you want?”
I’d confessed my crime to her.
I could never return to Psyche anymore, even if I wanted to. She was now in mother’s crosshairs and if she knew, for even a moment, that I still desperately ached for my wife’s touch she would kill her. She would hurt her.
Psyche said she hadn’t wanted to kill me. But to find her leaning over me with that blade in her hand, I couldn’t understand how there could be any other reasonable explanation. I’d given Psyche everything. And she’d shattered me. Ruined me forever.
But if mother believed that she no longer meant anything to me, then Psyche would fall off her radar. She would simply become another silly mortal. Beneath her notice or time.
“I wish to never see her again. You were right, mother. Females are meant to be little more than play things. I was beguiled by her beauty for a moment. But that has passed. Though she has opened my eyes to the touch of feminine flesh. And I will not lie to you any longer, I want more of that. I will no longer be denied the taste of a female or several at once. But my heart will never belong to any of them.”
Her eyes thinned and I knew that I’d given too much away. I’d all but confessed of my deep seated love for the mortal Psyche. And though every inch of my soul cried out to go to her, to settle this terrible thing that’d happened between us, I also knew that loving a mortal was foolishness. I’d seen mother fall in love with two.
In the end they’d both died and something within her had shattered because of it.
But then her lips curled into a smile and she nodded. “Very well then, you shall never see her again.”
My heart clenched, but I could not show any outward displeasure. Even now I found myself wanting to protect her. But she was no longer mine to protect. She had betrayed me. She’d shown no trust in me, even after months of me showering her with nothing but love.
A nagging voice cried out that I’d never been totally honest with her either. That perhaps I’d been a huge reason for why Psyche had acted as she had.
I clenched my jaw.
Fire and brimstone rushed through my veins. Her sisters. Those damned brats had poisoned her mind. Her heart. It was their fault.
But again, I knew I was casting for blame. Refusing to accept that I’d played any part in this betrayal.
Mother knew now, I could not take this back. Psyche had gotten that god flame from someone. Someone here on Olympus. Someone who’d played us all for fools.
Then mother clapped her hands and where it’d just been her and I in her chambers, now there was a sea of nymphs, all naked. All staring at me with huge, willing smiles.
“You say you wish to sample the wares of the feminine. Then this is my gift to you, my beloved son. Forget that bitch, she is nothing to us gods. Nothing.”
And then mother stood and was gone just a second later.
I did not want to take mother’s gift. I cringed from their touches. Their mouths on me. But then one of them took me in deep and I could not fight how good it felt. The pain within me was so vast. So deep. And some twisted part of me simply wanted to forget that Psyche had ever happened.