Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Her words match what I’ve seen, but that doesn’t make them the truth. I turn away, barely catching myself before I drag my fingers through my hair in frustration. Hera and I aren’t alone. Her trio watch us with wary expressions, and there’s a bartender lurking in the shadows.
So many walls that she insists on throwing up between us. If we had been a true partnership in the way I originally wanted, maybe we could have gotten the rest of the Thirteen to vote to take on Circe properly. Maybe we could have united to stop the threat against the city before the conflict reached this point. It’s not fair to blame Hera solely for that, but I can’t help blaming her in part. She may have agreed to this marriage, but she never wanted it.
She never wanted me.
Before I realize what I intend to do, I’m already speaking. “Everybody out!”
7
Hera
I am still reeling with shock that my husband is here of all places, let alone commanding my people—and the godsdamned owner of the building—out. “What are you doing?” I mean for the question to come out sharp and serrating. Instead, the words waver around the edges. Almost as if I’m afraid.
The strange thing is…I’m not.
My recent conversation with Circe has shown me what true fear is. It’s my sisters’ and mother’s faces in the sights of a sniper rifle. What are my husband’s cold temper tantrums compared to that?
It’s because of Circe that I’m still so shaken, because of this damned baby in my stomach that I’m feeling strangely weak and sick to my stomach. Not because of him. Even when my husband loses his temper and actually finds the capacity to be more than a human-shaped icicle, he still draws the line at abuse in any form. Smart of him, because even in my diminished capacity, I would cut off his hand rather than let him hurt me. I am my mother’s daughter, after all.
And it’s been a long time since I actually properly stabbed someone.
While I’m sitting there, wrapped up in my own thoughts, Ixion is looking at me for direction. Of course he is. He doesn’t answer to my husband; he answers to me alone. I nod. It seems Zeus and I will be having this fight one way or another, and I’d rather not do it in front of an audience. The bar owner would likely take to MuseWatch and report every bitter detail. My team might very well shoot my husband.
Why don’t I let them?
I shove that thought away before it can take root. I won’t let them for the same reason I don’t stab him in his sleep, for the same reason I haven’t given in to my mother’s less and less subtle recommendations to poison him. When Zeus dies—and he will—it can’t be linked to me. It can’t affect my future child’s reign as leader of Olympus. I will allow no scandal to touch them before they’ve even drawn breath.
“Go on, Ixion. It’s okay.” I sit there and I watch my people file out of the room, each looking more unhappy than the next. They don’t go far. I can see the outlines of the trio and the bartender through the glass of the door next to the street.
I turn my attention back to my husband. “Well?” He’s still standing on the other side of the table, looming over me. Still staring at me with a strange expression in his pale blue eyes. It looks almost human. I snap my fingers, more to jar myself out of the strange feeling twisting in my chest than to gain his attention. “Zeus. Speak. You threw a hissy fit to get me alone, and now you’re just sitting there staring at me. Let’s get this over with.”
He plants his hands on the table slowly, in a way that makes me think he wants to rip it right off the floor and throw it to the side. “Are you here on a date with Ixion?”
The question is so shocking that I forget to mask my response. My jaw drops and I stare at him. “What?”
“Ixion. Your lover, Wife. That’s the only thing it could be, right? Because not even you would be foolish enough to continue with your plans to murder me while the city burns around us.” He speaks softly, practically biting out each word. “You may be safe from me, but he is not. Cease your plotting, or I’ll kill him myself.”
A shiver goes through me, and I can’t even pretend that it’s fear. This is the most honest I’ve seen him. It proves that, for all his icy exterior and attempt at civilization, my husband is a monster right down to his core. He’s just as twisted and broken as I always suspected.
Just as twisted and broken as I am.