Page 30

30

Poseidon

We manage a shower before falling back into bed. I have the presence of mind to set an alarm and then I pass out, Icarus tucked against my body. At least until my phone wakes me up sometime later. I roll over, relishing the sting of the tiny burns Icarus made, the languidness of my body, and fumble the phone up to my ear. “What?”

“What did you do?” Hera is so coldly furious that I’m half-surprised she doesn’t manage to ice the entire room with her displeasure alone.

I check the alarm next to the bed but can’t quite manage to breathe a sigh of relief when I realize I have two hours before I need to meet Zeus and Hades. Except there’s no relief to be had because Hera is on the phone. She said something… “What?”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I don’t sound the least bit convincing. I’m a shit liar even when I have time to prepare. Icarus shifts next to me and makes a small sound. I don’t hesitate to cover his mouth with my free hand and give him a little shake to wake him up. I don’t think Hera is waiting outside the door to murder us, but I’d be a fool to underestimate her.

“Don’t insult me by trying to lie. You’re terrible at it,” she snaps. “Why is my husband missing, Poseidon? Did you warn him of my plans?”

“Zeus is…missing.” Belatedly, understanding rolls over me. Of course Zeus isn’t where his wife expects him to be. He’s staging a coup and planning a midnight attack.

She pauses for a beat. “That time, I almost believed you have no idea where he is.”

“I don’t.” That, at least, is the truth. I know where he’ll be, and I could take a guess or two to figure out where he is now—coordinating with Ares and Athena tops the list—but it’s not as if he provided me with an itinerary.

“Fuck,” Hera breathes. “This is a problem.”

She has no idea. “It might be a good idea if you go to the countryside with Psyche and your mother. Eurydice is safe enough with Persephone behind the lower city barrier.” For now. “If you’re worried about what Zeus is planning—”

“I’m not going to flee on the possibility that he’s finally got his shit together.” Sharp footsteps echo down the line. She’s pacing.

I knew that suggestion was a long shot, but I had to try. Hera’s the one person who can blow this plan right off the tracks, and while I’d like to think that she values her family more than she hates her husband and the city, I can’t be sure. “Well, I don’t know where he is. Is that all you needed?”

“Don’t get bitchy with me now.” She inhales and exhales slowly. When she speaks again, she sounds more like herself. Controlled. “I’m concerned about Hermes.”

“Everyone is concerned about Hermes.” And they should be. She was pretty clear with her endgame when she broke into my kitchen. I don’t necessarily disagree with her goals, but there’s a reason I refused to work with her. Her methods are just as suspect as the rest of the Thirteen. Which I suppose proves her point. “And no one can find her, so there’s not much to be done about it.”

I glance at Icarus. He’s fully awake now, watching me with large dark eyes. What little relaxation we claimed through the…claiming…of each other is gone. He lies there, tense and silent. I don’t stop to think. I set my phone down on the bed between us and put it on speaker.

She continues to pace, the sound echoing through the phone. “I think she’s working with Circe.”

“I don’t.” That, at least, I know to be true. If she was working with Circe, then we would likely all be dead and scattered among the ashes of the city. “It doesn’t make sense. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Well, you’re fucking Icarus right now, so I don’t think we can stand on your character judgment.”

I sigh. “Is there an actionable step you’re requesting, Hera? Or did you just call to yell at me over things neither of us can control?”

“You are such an asshole.” She hangs up.

Icarus props his head on one hand. “She’s going to be a problem.”

“Zeus’s problem. Not ours.” I wish I believed it. I never should have allowed her to convince me to join in that ill-fated coup attempt. It’s been nothing but trouble, pulling me deeper and deeper into the messy politics and backstabbing—literal and otherwise—that I’ve spent most of my time as Poseidon avoiding.

“If you really believe that, big guy, I have an ocean-front property in Arkansas to sell you.” He leans over and brushes a kiss to my lips. “You’ll handle it. I have no doubt about that.”

I huff out a laugh. “You have more faith in me than I deserve.”

“I have exactly as much faith as you deserve.” He kisses me again, longer this time. It’s surprisingly sweet and sincere enough to worry me.

I pull back and search his face. He’s still a better liar than I’ll ever be, but I’m starting to be able to read the real emotions beneath the careless mask. He…means it. He really has that much faith in me. It scares the shit out of me. “I don’t deserve you.”

Icarus chuckles awkwardly and sits up. “I think you’ll find that the situation is reversed. Hera is right, you know. As soon as the Thirteen and the rest of Olympus find out you’re fucking me, any credibility you’ve gained over your tenure as Poseidon will be gone. They’ll call you a traitor and worse.”

“Fuck them.” The words burst out of me, far stronger than I intended. I didn’t intend to say them at all. “I never signed up for any of this, and I’ve still done my duty to them for most of my life. You’re the only person who’s actually seen what I need and tried to give it to me. You’re the only person who’s seen me .”

“Poseidon.” I hate the way he says my name, like I’m a silly teenager experiencing puppy love instead of a man who’s seen the backside of forty. Icarus turns away, his shoulders hunching a little. “I know the sex is good, but it’s just sex—and good kink. You’re experiencing emotions that are the result of that, not because of me.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He flinches and spins to face me. “Excuse me?”

I stand and cross to him in two steps. He backs up and I shadow him, stalking him across the room until his back hits the wall. Icarus stares up at me with wide eyes, nothing like the sweetly sadistic Dominant he is when we engage in a scene. Both are him, but the other is at peace with how much I want him. This version needs more assurance. Is it any wonder? He’s experienced so much trauma in the last few weeks—watched his abusive father die and his beloved sister sail off without him. Of course he doesn’t believe that I might have actual feelings for him.

I plant my hands on either side of his head and lean down until our faces are even. “I need you to listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Kind of hard not to,” he murmurs. He’s not panicking, though. He’s certainly not afraid. Good. I don’t want him scared. I just want his attention.

“I’m not one of your marks who only sees the fantasy and not the man beneath.” I’m not the kind of person who always knows the right thing to say. I’m pretty sure I’ve never known the right thing to say. It’s a damn shame, because I need the words to chase the lost look from his eyes and I don’t fucking have them. “I see you. What I feel for you is the result of you seeing me, too. I’m not distracted by the sex and kink. It’s simply part of the whole picture.”

He blinks at me, looking wounded and confused, and I don’t know how to fucking fix it. Especially when he licks his lips. “It will never work. Olympus will never accept me. If you appear to choose me over the city, even your own people will hate you. It will ruin everything good you’ve spent decades creating. You’ll start to resent me, and eventually that resentment will turn to hate.”

We might both die tonight, so I don’t see the point in worrying about a future that might never come. I know better than to say as much, though. It will come across as dismissive and will hurt him, which is the last thing I want.

“I never wanted to be Poseidon. I’ve held the title this long because there was no one else.” Technically, Triton could have held it if something happened to me, but he would have been an unmitigated disaster as Poseidon. “I can train Triton’s eldest daughter to take the title and step down. It will take some time, but once I’m no longer Poseidon, it won’t matter what the city thinks. We could…” I take a deep breath and a leap of faith. “We could meet your sister in Brazil for Carnaval. We could go anywhere, do anything. Whatever you want.”

Icarus laughs in my face. It’s a desperate sound. Wounded. “Stop it.” He pushes at my chest, and I release him and step back so he can slip past me. He drags a hand through his wavy hair. “I know I can be an asshole, but you’re being cruel. Even if the title and the city didn’t stand between us, we stand between us. We’re too different. I’ll disappoint you. You’ll drive me to distraction with your rigidity.”

I flinch. Rigidity. That’s one way to put it. It’s almost kind, which somehow makes it worse. I’m a fool for thinking he might not find me lacking the way every one of my past lovers have. “If you don’t want me, all you had to do was say so, Icarus. I have no desire to force you into anything.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

Frustration is thick on my tongue, a buzzing beneath my skin. I have to turn away, have to release the pressure by tapping my fingers against my thigh even though I know it’s giving my agitation away by doing so. “Then what do you mean?” This isn’t the time for this conversation. I should have known better than to start it. I’m a fool a thousand times over for thinking he felt the same way.

“Poseidon,” he says softly. He waits for me to turn and face him to continue. Icarus looks as lost as I feel, and somehow instead of comforting me, it only makes me feel worse because I’m the one who’s put that expression on his face. He takes a deep breath. “I’m fucking this up. Can we pause, please?”

“Of course.” There’s nothing else to say. I can’t push forward and drag him along behind me when he obviously wants to be anywhere but here.

“Okay.” He paces from one side of the room to the other. “Okay, give me a second.”

There’s nothing to do but sit on the chair and wait him out. His mind moves so fast, he doesn’t make me wait long. He spins to face me, pointing an accusing finger at my face. “If I trust you to know your own mind, then you have to give me the same courtesy. Deal?”

I swallow down the instinctive agreement and examine his words from all angles. I don’t know if I’m sensing a trap, or if I’ve simply been a member of the Thirteen for too long and have trust issues. It seems simple enough, though. I nod slowly. “That seems reasonable.”

“Good. Great.” His body shifts like he was about to start pacing again but he forcibly jerked himself to a stop. “I meant what I said about caring about you. That isn’t just sex and that isn’t manipulation because you’re keeping me safe. I don’t understand how we could possibly have a future together, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the idea of it.”

I have to grip the edge of the chair to keep from going to him, from hugging him until he loses that ragged edge of fear, because that’s what you do when people are upset and you have a certain level of intimacy with them. But it’s not the right move right here, right now, with him.

I force myself to pause and think and reason through this the way I promised I would. “I care about you, too,” I say slowly. “I appreciate how similarly our tastes run sexually and that you’ve opened up a new world there for me, but I also appreciate how brave you were on the docks to defend your sister. I hate that you don’t feel like you’re good enough when you’re clever and kind and have a great capacity for love.”

“I’m not kind.”

I narrow my eyes. “I thought we were agreeing to know our own minds.”

Icarus lifts his hands but lets them fall back to his sides in defeat. “We are. You’re just…you’re seeing an idealized version of me.”

“No, I’m not.” I don’t know how to get him to understand . “I don’t see the idealized versions of people. I see what I have evidence to see. You may be capable of monstrous things, but that doesn’t make you a monster. It doesn’t mean you’re not worthy of love.”

“Love,” he says faintly. He scoffs. “Love doesn’t exist.”

“You love your sister.”

“That’s different.”

“Yes, but it’s proof that love exists.” I can’t quite contain my agitation, so I push to my feet and cross my arms over my chest to keep from fidgeting. “I’m not saying what I feel for you is love, but it could be. It will be if we live long enough.”

“Poseidon…”

“My point is that the future is one I’m willing to work for and reach a compromise about that makes both of us feel good. But I fully intend to be an active participant in that conversation—and expect you to be one as well. You don’t get to make sweeping generalizations. I’ll resist doing the same. Understand?”

“But—”

I swallow hard. “You’ve been forced into too many relationships throughout your life. I won’t be another one to hurt you with my selfishness. If all you want is sex and your freedom, I understand.”

“What? No. ” He crosses to me in a rush. “That’s not what I’m saying at all.”

“Icarus.” I feel like I’m drowning. I don’t want him to end this, but I don’t know how to say that without it coming across the wrong way. “What are you saying?”

“Fuck, I don’t know what I’m doing.” He drags his fingers through his hair again. He looks actually tormented. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I never bargained on you, on feeling…”

That makes two of us. “If it helps, I don’t know what I’m doing, either.”

He sucks in a breath, pauses, and exhales slowly. “That does help, actually.” Icarus smiles a little, though he’s clearly still frazzled. “I just… I’ve never been in a real relationship where I didn’t have a goal in mind. Which is really fucking sad, but there it is. I don’t know how to do this.”

“I don’t, either. I’ve never been with anyone like you.”

“There’s no one else like me, big guy.” His attempt at humor falls a little flat, but I think it’s a good sign that he’s trying.

I carefully take his hands. “We can figure it out. Together. If you want to try. With me.”

Icarus searches my expression. I don’t know what he sees. I’ve never been particularly good at hiding my thoughts; something I’ve never had cause to be grateful of before now. I want him to see how confident I am that we can make this work, how much I care about him…how I’ll force myself to let him go if that’s really what he needs.

“Together,” he repeats slowly. “I guess that’s a fair ask.”

“Only if you want to.”

This time, his smile is smaller, but significantly steadier. “I do want to try, Poseidon. With you. Even if it seems impossible right now.”

I slowly pull him closer until he slides his hands up my chest to loop around my neck. It feels good. It feels right . “Then we’ll try.”

He hugs me tightly. “Promise me that you’ll stay safe tonight,” he whispers. “Promise that you’ll come back to me.”

“I can’t promise that without lying.” I brush a kiss to his forehead. “But I promise to try.”