“Are you real?” he whispered, his voice trembling, his thumb stroking her cheek.
She nodded, and the world stopped turning.
“I was wrong. Dean, I don’t want anything but you. Will you forgive me? Will you give me another chance?”
And he smiled the smile of a man pardoned from the gallows. “Anything you want. Everything I have to give. It’s yours.”
A tear slid down her cheek, and when his lips touched hers, the soft brush of forgiveness, every second of loss was erased.
Dean broke away and pulled her into his chest, holding her so tight, she knew he would never let her go. He looked down at her, smiling as he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her out of the bar.
Half of the crowd cheered, and the other half realized the show was over and booed, heckling Roe when he stepped up to the mic with his bass hanging around his back.
“The power of love can’t be contained. Head to the desk and leave your name and email to get free tickets to our next show. Let’s give the happy couple a hand, yeah?” He ducked as someone threw a shoe. “Hey, better than a beer. Let’s get Gary’s Curse back on the stage for another set.”
Kevin high-fived Travis over the drum set and did the running man off the stage as the crowd dispersed, and the overhead music came on.
Roe set his bass down and hopped off the stage to where Kara stood. He grabbed her around the waist and kissed her.
“I think we did it.” He smiled, his face buried in her hair.
She leaned into him and closed her eyes. “I think we did, too.”
Dean was grateful he only lived a few blocks from the bar as they hurried down the sidewalk, Lex tucked into his side, her arm around his waist under his jacket.
He couldn’t stop touching her.
His hand on her hip shifted, his fingers unwilling to be still. Every crosswalk was a pause he used to kiss her, to touch her face, to whisper to her that he wanted her, that he needed her. To thank her.
By the time they reached his building, he couldn’t wait any longer.
They trotted up the steps and down his hallway, hand in hand, and when they reached his door, Dean grabbed her around the waist, pressing her against the door to kiss her.
Not willing to stop, he fumbled blindly with the keys, and they fell to the ground with a clink, though Dean couldn’t even care, not with her arms around his neck and her body pressed against his.
He needed her inside. Now.
Breaking away with a curse, he bent down to snatch them off the floor and unlock the door. He stooped to kiss her again, not wanting to let her go, and when he turned the knob, they fell into the room.
He kicked the door shut with his arms around her waist and hoisted her up to carry her into the bedroom, kicking his shoes off on the way.
Her legs, her gorgeous legs, wound around his waist, and his hands roamed up her thighs, to her ass, and when she moaned against his lips, he hummed in answer.
The room was dark as he laid her down, hovering over her, nestling his hips against hers.
His hands had a mind of their own.
Down her waist they ran, from her hips to her long white thighs, under her skirt and to her ass again. Her skin was so soft, her mouth hot on his, her body soft and giving against his fingertips.
She was all he imagined. More than he imagined. More than he deserved.
But he would earn the right. He’d do anything for her.
Dean shifted to roll them over, keeping her hips pressed against his and her legs parted, palming her backside, his fingers toying with the hem of her panties between her legs, running over the line at her center and to the tip of her, circling gently, just enough to arch her back, just enough to speed up her breath.
She broke away and sat, watching him with a heaving chest for only a moment before climbing out of his lap and off the bed, and he propped himself on his elbows to watch her as she stood before him, her eyes locked on his, open and calling to him.
Her arms crossed her body as she reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it over her head. With long fingers, she unzipped her skirt, dropping it to the ground. Then it was her shoes, one then the other, dropping her a few honest inches, the pads of her feet against the floor naked. Her bra, unhooked with a flick of her hands, sliding down her porcelain arms. And when she pushed her panties over her hips and down her legs, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move.
It was an offering of her body, of her heart. Her ivory skin glowed in the moonlight, a white column in the dark, her hair painting negative space like midnight over her chest and shoulders.
She was light in the darkness. She was a beacon that spoke his name without saying a word.
And he had to answer.
He pushed himself up and stepped to her, reaching for her, breathing her in. Kissing her lips. Touching her skin. And when he laid her down, he offered himself. He offered his heart as he kissed a trail down her body. He offered his soul as he hitched her legs over his shoulders. He worshiped her as he buried his face between her legs and told her with his sweeping tongue that he needed her.
When she called for him, when she begged his name, he backed away, stripping his clothes with his eyes on her.
He would offer his body just as she had. He would give her all of him. There wasn’t a choice — he was hers. The fact was one not lost on him, a simple truth of the universe, something he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to.
Dean reached into his bedside table for a condom, gripping his base as he rolled it on, her eyes locked on his hands.
She whispered his name, and he was in her arms.
The kiss he laid upon her lips was deeper than before, more than before, heavy with intention, with anticipation, with promises of tomorrow and forever. And when he pressed against her center, when she breathed a plea, when he flexed his hips and slipped into her, he knew he’d found the only woman he’d ever love, even though he couldn’t place the feeling. It was beyond him, bigger than him, too deep to touch, too enigmatic to comprehend.
And for the first time in his life, he knew he where he belonged.
In her heart.
Day Twenty
The Olympians watched silently, all of them packed into the theater room. And when the alarm dinged, and the water turned green, the tiny mechanical birds flew in a cluster like starlings around the statue of Aphrodite.
The room erupted in cheers and laughter. A few gods were quiet, their eyes on Apollo, having all sensed the change in him this time, so different from competitions before.
Dita was elated, unable to stop herself from shooting out of her seat with Perry. They jumped up and down, screaming hysterically — her relief for Lex and Dean overwhelmed her. It was over. They could be together.
As the initial adrenaline rush left Dita, she collected herself, remembering Apollo. Her eyes found him, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.
Dita made her way through the crowd and laid a hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged her off and stood, the anguish written in every line, every plane of his face. “Don’t. Please,” he whispered before turning for the elevator.
Dita’s stomach twisted. It was too much. It had gone on too long. And it was her choice to make — hers alone.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Adonis might never forgive her for what she was about to do, but she had to. Because it was just as right as Lex and Dean and long overdue.
She turned to Eros, who had shown up for the showdown, and smiled, determined and ready to do the right thing.
“Come on. We have some explaining to do.”
Eros and Dita stepped out of the elevator and into Artemis’s domain, bathed in moonlight as they made their way up the path through the trees. Dita’s canvas shoes kicked up dust, and Eros’s wings beat softly as he flew beside her, and they hurried through the forest to Artemis’s pond.
“I hope this works, Dita,” Eros said, shaking his head. “Peneus has always been a di
ck.”
She laughed, despite herself. “I know. This isn’t going to be easy. We have to get past Artemis and try to convince Daphne’s douchelord father to let her go. And he’s stiff and hard.”
Eros snorted. “Say it, Dita. Peneus. Come on.”
“Peneus,” she said, giggling.
He laughed.
She tried to smooth her face. “This is serious, Eros. And can you not make penis jokes at him? Because that’s not really going to help our cause.”
Eros rolled his eyes. “Gods, sometimes you’re a real killjoy, you know that?”
They wound their way down to find Artemis standing on the large boulder that bordered the water. Thirty Oceanids, young and beautiful nymphs, had bows drawn and aimed at them, lit from below by their crackling campfires.
Artemis called to them, “You are not welcome here, Aphrodite.”
Dita put her hands up, slapping Eros in the arm when he didn’t mirror her. He threw his hands up, too.
“Hear me out, Artemis,” Dita said.
Artemis drew her silver bow up to her cheek and closed one eye as she pulled the string taut. “Leave this place.”
“Wait! Artemis, I am here to free Daphne. Please, grant me passage.”
Artemis opened her eye and lowered her arrow a hair. The Oceanids looked a little too eager for Dita’s taste, and she hoped no one got trigger happy. Not that they could do much real damage, but it would hurt like a motherfucker.
“If I grant you passage, you must agree that I will accompany you.”
Dita relaxed. “Of course, Artemis. I believe you can help, if you are willing. Peneus isn’t generally forthcoming.”
Eros snickered, and she shot him a look.
Artemis lowered her bow and slipped her arrow into her quiver in one fluid motion. The Oceanids lowered their arrows in unison and dispersed, and Dita and Eros moved through the nymphs’ camp under their cautious gaze as they fletched arrows and worked on stretched hides.
Artemis climbed down from the rock and walked to meet them. “Come,” she said as she turned for her unicorn.
She jumped on its back and extended an arm to Dita to pull her up with swift strength.
“H’ya!” Artemis shouted as she dug in her heels.
They shot into the thicket, and Eros flew behind them as they bolted through the forest, the trees whipping by them in a blur.
A river ran beside them, bringing them to a black lake that shimmered in the moonlight. Artemis jumped down, and Dita grasped her hand, sliding off after her. They walked over to the mouth of the tributary, and Artemis knelt down to lay her palms on the surface of the water.
“Peneus, rise,” she called, her voice amplified, the leaves on the trees around them rustling. “Rise to meet us from the dark, wet abyss of your domain.”
Eros snorted, and Dita coughed as she swatted him in the arm.
“Pull yourself together,” she hissed.
The water bubbled, and Peneus emerged. His flat face was framed by his beard, his sopping dark hair hanging lank down his back, and small horns protruded from the top of his head. His hairy barrel chest tapered to end in a serpentine tail that coiled under him as he rested on the surface of the water.
He folded his arms across his chest with his mouth twisted in a scowl.
“What is the meaning of this?” His big voice thundered, gravelly and low. “You have brought these deceivers here? And you, whom I trusted … surely you are not in league with these miscreants who ruined my daughter?”
Eros flew forward a few feet, a condescending smile on his lips as he spoke with a flourish. “Dearest, most grand and mighty Peneus, we have come to free Daphne from the spell of the arrows. If we do so, would you free her from her prison?”
Peneus’s brow furrowed, and he slithered around. “How can I be certain that this is not a trick? Apollo will capture her, rape her. I cannot be sure that your words are truth — I do not understand the games that you of Olympus play, and I have no desire to.” He shook his head with decision. “No, no — I believe she is safe where she is. Safely locked in my wood.”
Eros coughed. “Uh, ahem. If we forge an oath that we will release the spell, would you agree? Apollo will not lay chase. We can assure you of that.”
Dita was grateful Eros hadn’t mentioned that Daphne would run straight to Apollo whether he chased her or not.
Peneus stroked his beard, his ugly face bent in a frown. He turned to Artemis. “Do you believe that these gods speak true?”
Artemis assessed them with deep, dark eyes before glancing back to Peneus. “I do, but you should require an oath.”
Peneus’s posture shifted in decision. “If you have Artemis’s blessing, then you have my word. Let us oath, for good measure.”
His tail uncurled, and he sank into the water, gliding to where Dita stood at the shore. They clasped forearms, though her hand merely rested around the expanse of his arm, and her forearm hung loosely between his thumb and forefinger. His wet, cold skin was slightly slimy, like the skin of an eel.
Dita schooled her face from reacting and body from pulling away, and she held her chin up high to meet his gaze.
A stream of blue water wound its way around Peneus’s arm, and another, a white stream of water like diamonds moved down Dita’s. They wound together, sparkling, moving in a current.
She spoke first. “I swear to free Apollo and Daphne from the curse of Eros’s arrows.”
“And I swear to free Daphne from the tree of the laurel.” Peneus’s voice boomed.
The currents shimmered, splashing away in a twinkle as their bond sealed. He released Dita’s arm, and it took all of her will not to shiver, wipe it off on her pants, and hop around with her face twisted. She moved her hands behind her back and tried to wipe the slime off her arm as inconspicuously as possible.
“Come, she is this way,” he said as he turned and slithered up the river.
They followed him up the shore to the most tremendous laurel that Dita had ever seen. Daphne’s body was visible in the trunk, the bark twisting around her, her face frozen in terror. Her arms wrapped across her torso and wound around the tree in thick strands, and her hair flew around her, curling to form the branches of the tree.
Peneus slithered up to the banks where Daphne’s branches hung over the river and reached up, closing his eyes as he touched a wide branch. It began to recede, as if growing backward, branches turning into twigs, leaves turning into sprouts turning into buds. The trunk began to untwist, revealing Daphne, who fell out into the grass, small and trembling.
They ran to her, and Dita caught the nymph as she collapsed. Daphne turned her sweet face up, her green eyes shining as she cried, and Dita pulled her close, smoothing her copper curls.
“Shh, child. All is well. All is well,” Dita soothed.
“Please, Aphrodite,” she said, her voice small and heavy with longing. “Please, take me to him.”
Dita’s eyes found Eros, whose hand rested on Daphne’s back, and they smiled, having finally made things right.
The sky burned red outside Apollo’s windows as the sun creept toward the horizon, and he sank to his knees in front of his speakers as they crooned a haunting, solemn song. Pain ripped through him, and he dropped his head back, closing his eyes tight against it as the music washed over him.
He’d lost. And Daphne was lost to him still.
The pain was so great, he thought he might split, shatter, and he felt heat radiate from his skin as he began to glow. He had let himself believe. But he had lost her again, and the agony was almost as great as on the day he’d lost her first.
“Apollo?”
Her voice was some magic, some sorcery, and he opened his eyes as if waking from a dream.
It cannot not be real, he thought, his heart still and quiet as he slowly turned.
Daphne’s hair was wild around her small face, her green eyes wide and sparkling — his memory of her had been a sad substitute for the truth of her, worn down by
thousands of years without looking upon her face. But there she was, right before him.
Apollo closed his eyes, pausing for a moment, certain that he would open them to find the room empty, but when he did, she was there. She was real.
He stood and staggered, and then he ran to her.
Her body in his arms, his face in her hair, the scent of earth and sunshine overwhelmed him as they sank to the ground.
“Is this a dream?” he asked, his voice but a whisper as he leaned back looked into her eyes.
“No, my love. I am here. I am yours.” The sweetness of her words washed over him, and a sparkling tear rolled down her freckled cheek.
He cupped her small face, brushing the tear away with his thumb, and she closed her eyes at his touch with a sigh. And he pressed his lips to hers as the sun — his sun, his love, his soul — broke the horizon, bathing them in golden light.
Dita twisted her robes in her sweaty hands as she waited for Adonis, nervous for the first time in their thousands of years together.
The weight of her consequences pressed on her, the high of the action itself fading with every footstep as she paced.
He would see it as a betrayal. And there may be no coming back from that, no convincing him of her reasoning. No seeing eye to eye. And with that knowledge, she sat under the tree and waited for her lover, her judge, the casualty of her choice.
Adonis walked out of the underbrush cheerily, but his smile slipped when he saw her. He hurried to her side and knelt, cupping her cheek, turning her face to his. “What is wrong, my love?”
She looked down at her hands, unsure how to explain. “The contest is over,” she hedged.
Adonis turned and sat heavily beside her, stricken. “Gods, you lost.”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
His face relaxed, and he covered her hand with his. “Then all is well. What has upset you?”
She turned and looked into his indigo eyes.