Page 30 of Immortal Sun (Dark Olympus)

CHAPTER 30

CLEO

“Stand by your own trial and not by what others say.”– Gudmundur Jonsson

I hate him, but I can’t hate his tears.

My own cascade down my face.

He’s cruel.

Mean in a way I never thought possible.

He knows that every touch he gives me is like a gift and yet he uses it as a curse, and I hate him for it. Every time he leaves this cave, I’m left wanting. This time he was trying to punish me, but I think he’s the one who got the punishment.

My single goal when he came in here was to try to seduce him, to get him to falter, to fall. Instead, I was the one tricked, the one who was broken, or so I thought for a few brief moments.

He digs his hands into the dirt and screams. “The gods have failed me, I have failed myself.”

His hands shake as he lifts them from the ground, covered in dirt, he presses them to his chest, then his eyes flash to mine.

I’m not sure if he saw what I saw, him forcing me, him silencing me, but it’s all I can do to sit there, mouth open, tears streaming down my face, for him, for myself.

“Why would you do this?” he rasps.

“What?” I question. “I did exactly as you asked.”

“The cold is gone.” He gulps and looks away, hands shaking. “I can’t—” His eyes divert to the ground again before he stands and dusts off his robe as if nothing even happened. “Time to train. Today we talk about Dag. He likes?—”

I reach for his hand and pull him toward me. He comes willingly, and I realize that his hands feel like ice on the tips but are warm across his palms. “What just happened?”

“Nothing but what could have happened.” He steels his expression and jerks his hand away nearly sending me flying toward the wall. “Dag prefers leisure, so if you want to choose him all you need is wine and good food. But, later, he’s going to want you on your back screaming.”

“Lovely.” I lick my dry lips and go to the bed. Cyrus’s robe is still wide open, showing me…everything. He shrugs out of it then joins me and covers himself with the duvet and leans back against the headboard, his eyes steely, trained straight ahead, watching my eyes intently.

“Thought we weren’t supposed to do that,” I say.

He smirks and crosses his arms over his bulky chest. “It’s like staring at a reflection for me.”

“Do you like what you see?”

His jaw clenches. “I see nothing but my purpose.”

“And what’s that? To bully people like me? To force sexual acts on humans, force them to pick a god and then force them to say ‘thank you’? What do you see, Cyrus? Because what I see is you playing an immortal who’s lost himself.”

He grabs me by the throat and shoves me down against the bed. “Say it again.”

I can barely breathe, but I do say it, I squeeze out the words. “You’re not what you were created to be.”

His eyes go completely black. It’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. As his hand clutches tighter against my throat, he grinds out, “I am Ra!”

“You,” I rasp. “Are. Lost.”

He shifts until his forehead touches mine. He releases a scream right in my face, and I feel the power surging from him all the way down my body.

I’m shaking so hard my teeth chatter. I’m sure he’s going to kill me right here, right now. There will be no picking a god, there will be no eclipse, no celebration, no more preparation.

Only blood.

He releases my neck and grips the headboard above us with both hands.

His eyes remain black.

It’s like he’s possessed.

He spreads his arms wide as flames erupt up and down his body. He’s in turmoil so thick with sadness and anger that I can taste it on my tongue.

Slowly, I raise my hands to his neck, he could burn me, kill me right here and now. I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that I should walk away but I’m compelled to pull him close.

I wonder if he realizes that he is the one who’s dying, slowly, from the inside out. The sun has stopped shining—but it doesn’t even realize it’s self-inflicted.

He’s living in hell.

The God of the Sun hasn’t been the sun itself and shone his rays in eons.

His skin is hot to the touch, his lips are bright red as he stares down at me. His massive shoulders flex as he grips the sheets on either side of me, bunching them in his hands and pulling like they’re tethering him to this world, like he’s afraid he’s going to fall into the pits of hell. His naked body is freezing on top of mine.

With every exhale, I see more and more ice flames form from his arms and fingertips, though none of them singe me. I no longer feel the sun around me, on me; he needs to become himself again. Will my sacrifice help? Will my willingness fix this? Fix him? And why would I be the one to do it? His eyes go cold like he’s given up.

I grip him harder around the neck and pull him closer, I have no idea what I’m doing, maybe it’s instinct, maybe it’s pity.

It definitely isn’t love.

Maybe it’s more sacrifice.

I pull him with every ounce of strength I have.

He comes down on me willingly a guttural moan escapes between his lips when I bring my mouth to his.

His hands shift to my breasts, gripping them, massaging them. I gasp into his mouth.

He tastes sweet and salty all at once, like warmth, like creation.

Raw.

Impossible to contain.

Wild.

My nails dig into his back. Our tongues may as well be flickers of white-hot flames fighting against each other. Our thoughts mold together.

Death.

Destruction.

Creation.

Thousands of towns are burning in the background, and with each kiss I see Ra walking up to another soldier and dispatching them to more and more cities.

For the ones who didn’t die with the sword still in their hands, he picks up the sword and places it in their hands and then sends them off, one by one, thousands upon thousands—to the skies.

Later, the people celebrate victory with loud shouts and cries.

He watches in the shadows while they kiss their wives and hug their children.

Ra doesn’t celebrate, he just watches, sadness etched on his shadowed face.

He has no partner. No children. He has nothing but himself, always looking down, while we look up.

He lowers his head and returns to the mountains of Olympus. They don’t worship him. They merely acknowledge his win. They don’t appreciate what he’s done for their very power, for their families, for the world. They expected it and when any being has expectations that are met, they simply…forget the sacrifice made. Expectation can easily be confused with chaos itself.

I expect you to do the dishes—why would I celebrate your accomplishment?

I expect you to do your job---why give you an award?

Some might even say expectation is worse than evil. Evil at least manifests itself. Expectation simply stares, nods, and forgets why you had such a strong purpose in the first place.

I break away from our kiss.

“What was that?” I ask, gasping.

“The past.” His eyes are still black, but I’m not as afraid as I was. He’s being gentle with me when he could kill me with a flick of his finger. “Humans can be so off putting, patting themselves on the back when the battle wasn’t even won by them, but by assistance from the gods, and because of our benevolence, when they went to drink, we went to each sinking ship and sent off their warriors so they would be celebrated. And what do they do? They ignore us!” He grits his teeth. “So now you see why we’re owed a sacrifice. We. Are. Owed!” He jerks back. “Thousands of years of cleaning up messes, and all we ask is for this one small thing. All I ask.” He chokes. “And yet I can’t anymore. I. Can’t. Ask.”

His hair starts burning with a low orange and blue flame.

I reach up and pull him back down, only a little surprised that he comes willingly. “Tell me about Daggon.”

He relaxes against my chest, his head so big that it nearly covers both breasts.

He sighs and then sighs again like he’s tired of existing, tired of talking, just tired. “Wine and dine him, he would be easy, Cleo. So very easy to seduce.”

“And you?”

His eyes dart away. Confidence suddenly gone, sadness replacing what was once there. “Nobody has accomplished it.”

“I guess I need to work on my kissing skills.”

“It’s not that,” he says softly. “My heart, while still dead inside, is trying to beat for you. How sad, to have the realization that if I had made another choice, things would be different, but I don’t think I would survive it.”

“Survive what?”

“Killing you. If I didn’t stop myself.”

I take a deep breath. “And you’re so sure your heart is frozen right now?”

“Halfway, at least, unless you keep forcing me to talk to you and humanize you.”

I can’t help the smile that forms on my face. For an ancient immortal, he’s kind of clueless about what he protects. “It’s kind of what humans do.”

He laughs; it’s mocking. “I’m aware. I am, after all, one of their gods.”

“What do you do for fun?” I ask.

He’s quiet for at least four or five minutes and then answers stiffly, “I don’t really know.”

“Do you like to run? Play board games? I mean you’ve at least played Monopoly, right?”

He tenses and stares out at the sea. “I play with the world, with the gods, my creations, I don’t play board games.”

“You should.” I grip his shoulder. “Tell you what, if you play checkers with me, I promise I’ll write another three hundred names tonight.”

He does a double take, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Three hundred?”

“You have to sacrifice soon, right? So the sooner the better? Just play checkers with me.”

He snaps his fingers into the air, Dag appears inside the cave. “Yes?”

“Get a game of checkers for us.”

Dag’s eyes go between us briefly before he frowns. “Um, but why? You don’t like games and---”

“---Do not question me!” Cyrus yells.

“But—” He looks at me.

I shake my head.

I can’t tell if his stare is more judgmental or concerned that Cyrus has finally become unhinged. “Right away.”

By the time he’s back, Cyrus’s been quizzing me on ways to win, competitive god that he is.

And by the time the checkerboard is there he just picks up the pieces and goes. “I’ll be red.”

“Shocker.”

I set up the board, and he stares down at it, tears gone, and smiles.