All she could think, feel, breathe was Snow. The sensation of his hand cupping her breast, his fingers pinching at one of her nipples. The trembling whisper of his voice in her ear and the almost bruising indents of his fingerprints on her thighs.
By the time he was easing his way inside her, her whole state of being had narrowed down to a single point of sensation, a liminal space between existence and non-existence where it was just her, Snow, and the feeling of complete connection binding them together.
When he shifted against her, pulling back just enough to thrust in deeper, Jo unraveled. Each thrust had her crying out, sometimes just broken moans, other times a fragmented variation of Snow’s name, but always loud, always needy and pleading. She would be embarrassed, surely, if she could hear herself, but the building desire for release was a solid enough distraction. In fact, as Snow picked up the pace, slinging one of her legs under the bend of his arm for leverage, she could think of little else.
Jo’s other leg wrapped around the small of his back, ankle digging in probably enough to hurt, but she couldn’t help herself, trying to pull him in as close as she could. She wanted him to thrust harder, to leave marks, to break her down until nothing else remained but the feel of him against her. Her hands clung to his back and shoulders, nails probably scratching red lines into his pale skin, and she was suddenly consumed by the thought that she was breaking him down. That when they fell over the edge together, they might never come back.
She also thought that, maybe, that wouldn’t be so bad.
“Snow . . . Snow, please,” Jo gasped beneath a particularly well-placed thrust. She already felt so close, a hair trigger just waiting for that final bit of pressure. Jo had slept with a few men in her before-life, even adding Wayne to that list in the after, but she had never felt such a thoroughly rooted need. It was like her body had an unknown craving that only Snow could fill.
“Together,” Snow panted in response, the staccato of his hips already losing rhythm. “Please, Jo. I want—” It sounded like begging, the cut-off plea almost sending Jo over the edge all on its own. And she wanted to, she was so close, so close, she just needed that little bit to—
Amidst the roll of their hips and the grind of their bodies, Snow inched a hand between them, offering Jo the last bit of superb friction she needed.
It was not quite a tumble, though hardly a plummet. This fall into ecstasy was the first drop of a roller-coaster, the tandem jump of a skydive. Jo fell fast and hard, whole body tensing and back arching off the bed, but she fell with a deep-seated comfort, a contentment that kept her warm and buzzing from the high even long after she’d come back down.
She had just enough cognizance in the aftermath to feel Snow tense above her, lips mouthing Jo’s name into her neck on a ragged exhale. Then, with an equally contented sigh, Snow was pulling out and away, draping an arm over her waist as he collapsed into her side. Jo thought it only fair that she return the favor, cuddling up to him as best she could and soaking in the first quiet her mind had experienced in what felt like weeks.
A quiet that was not meant to last.
“Snow?” Jo whispered into the silence after what could have been hours. A small part of her cried out in anger at bringing an end to their blissful calm, but that part was a whisper compared to the questions rising up again from the tide of her unsettled mind. Still, she tried to keep them in their bubble, away from time and responsibility. She drew soft circles against his chest with the tip of her finger and tried not to think that she was ruining things.
When he hummed a warm sounding, “Mm?” into her hair, Jo almost lost her nerve, but she swallowed it back, opting for watching her own gentle ministrations rather than looking him in the eye.
“What did you mean?” she asked, hating how timid her voice sounded, how her heart raced. “When you said you couldn’t lose me again. . . when you said that it had been so long. It’s not the first time you said something like it. What did you mean?”
When he tensed beneath her at the question, she was hardly surprised. Even less so when he chose not to answer. In the silence, something bubbled to life behind the cherished boxes of memories, somewhere far, far back in the shadows of her mind. Jo tried to ignore it, tried to feel only Snow, as she had before, but the tickling at the edge of her memory was persistent. Eager.
“Snow, I told you, I need answers.” It might be an unfair play, given the circumstances, but she was desperate. His arms tightened around her, as though if he held her tightly enough it could appease her and he could avoid giving her the answers she sought. Jo sighed softly. “How am I supposed to love you the way I used to when I don’t even know who I am?”
Love you? Used to be? Who I am?
Jo had no idea where those words had even come from, let alone what they meant. And when Snow continued to lay beneath her without response, body still tense and breaths pulled so slow he might as well have not been breathing at all, she expected to look up and see her own confusion reflected back at her.
What she did not expect was the look of pure, unbridled horror on her lover’s face.
Chapter 19
Age of Gods
Jo swallowed; her throat had gone dry. “Say something,” she part-begged, part-demanded. She’d never hinged so much on the next words of anyone; it felt like everything she was could be undone by whatever sounds his lips decided to make.
“Jo . . .” Her name was a pained whine. Snow pressed his eyes closed, as if unable to bear for a moment longer the idea of merely looking at her. In contrast, his hands still sought her out—running up her bare thighs, his thumbs caressing the indents at her hips.
“Snow.” She punctuated his name by grabbing his hands and stopping all movement; the bliss had lifted. The reassurance of their relationship—whatever, exactly, it was—couldn’t settle her. The foundation of her world was too shaken to get lost in it again so soon. “I know you’re trying to protect me, even though I don’t know from what. And I believe that, in some way, you feel that you’re doing me a favor by saying nothing. But things are changing—” Her voice dropped to a quivering whisper, but Jo did not let it break or fizzle. “And I need your help now. Please, Snow. I need more than, than silence.”
After a small eternity, he gave a nod.
Jo pulled herself off of him, willfully ignoring the absent feeling between her thighs that came with the disappearance of his presence; even through satiation, she could apparently ache for him. The lust was gone, but the desire for closeness never seemed to fade.
Snow stood, retrieved his pants, and slowly slid them on. He fussed with the buttons at the front, stalling maybe, taking time to work out his words. Jo did much the same. For all she wanted, needed, answers. . . the idea of getting them after what had transpired frankly frightened her.
“You’re right,” Snow said, having found his resolve somewhere next to his shirt. “This is not the first time we’ve met.”
She didn’t quite recall saying that in so few words, but it was a feeling that’d been so clear, Jo knew they were on the same page. In fact, the feeling had been so distinct that Jo couldn’t even act shocked or surprised, hearing the truth of it now. “How?”
Her heart was pounding, though she had no idea why.
Snow walked back over to the bed, sitting heavily on the edge. The time-worn sheets didn’t rumple under his weight, the floor didn’t creak. If anything it looked. . . better, with him sitting on it. He placed his elbows on his knees and rubbed his palms over his face, eventually folding them together when he seemed to have calculated his next set of words.
“Do you remember the time I told you I came from?”
She’d only been trying to research it for weeks. “I do. The Age of Gods.”
“Yes.” Snow stared beyond her, through the window, utterly transfixed by the rolling green horizon.
“I also know things lingered from that Age,” she said, trying to summon him back. It worked.
“What?”
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“I don’t understand it all yet, but I will,” she declared, far more confident than she had any right to be. “I know that lore from the Age of Gods has lingered through time, despite all the wishes, all the remade realities. It seems that every culture has overlapping mythologies and stories—too much to be coincidence. I’ve been trying to boil it down.”
“What have you found?” He almost sounded impressed.
“There’s one particular story that I keep coming back to. A story of a divine war, and destroying a great evil by shooting it. The names are different in every culture, but the roles are very much the same.”
“I should’ve known you would’ve begun figuring it out.” Snow ran a hand through his hair. “We were named after what we were—Life, Death, Pleasure, Pain. But different mortals decided to give us other names like Horus, Thanatos, or Tlazolteotl.”
“Egyptian, Greek, and Aztec.”
“You know your mythology.”
“I’ve been researching. And it was the sort of thing my grandmother would tell me.” Jo paused, thinking of her abuelita. She used to be able to remember the woman with true-to-life clarity, but now. . . She raised a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. Just one memory. She had to find just one clear memory. “My grandmother . . . Snow, was she really—?”
He was standing before her, pulling her hand gently away from her face, though Jo didn’t recall him moving from the bed. He cupped her cheeks, looking down at her with an expression that could only be described as pure serenity—as if he was trying to pour it from his face into her being.
“Yes. And no. Your mortal casing now, that is carrying your immortal soul, was born. You lived life as a human. The memories you made there were real. Well, as real as anything is in a world torn apart and rebuilt.”
“Then why does it feel like someone keeps hitting backspace on my brain?” Jo’s hands clutched his shirt, drawing deep wrinkles between his collar and his chest. It didn’t make sense. She remembered wrinkled hands pushing her hair out of her face. She remembered the smell of the kitchen before dinner, filled with spices. She remembered protective hugs and time-worn stories. Yet somehow the memories seemed faded, like the fraying ends of a dream upon waking.
“When you were mortal, the sliver of your magic that you still carry lay dormant. You were protected out in the world, hidden among normalcy and shielded by your own ignorance. But joining the Society. . . You cast off your mortal casing and now live as an immortal. . . So the memories of your past life—your first life—are returning.”
“So I am the same as you, then.” Jo thought back to the readings off Charlie’s sensors. That she and Snow shared similarities, but not her and Takako. “I’m a demigod.”
“You don’t seem surprised.” If anything, Snow was the one who looked surprised.
“Call it intuition.” Jo looked down at her hand, thinking of the desk and everything else that had gone awry.
“If I’m a demigod, then why was I born? Why am I in a, how did you put it, mortal casing?” Her memories were being muddled, pulled apart, like two images overlapped; neither was clear no matter how hard she tried to sort them. Even with the little bit of information Snow was giving her, she couldn’t make sense of them. “I feel like I should know, Snow, but I. . . My memories may be coming back, but they’re doing so in bits and pieces.”
“You were born mortal because your magic threatened to destroy the world—making you mortal was how such a fate was prevented.”
Destroy the world. Well. No big deal then. Despite herself, Jo blurted a loud “HA!”
“Jo—”
“I’m just a piece of work, aren’t I?” Heart hammering and stomach clenching, Jo shook her head. “A demigod that was going to destroy the world? So, then, what? I was put down by the other gods?” She pictured the canine version of herself forgotten in some twisted divine shelter, dragged away by vet techs to be prodded with needles until it was certain she’d stop biting volunteers and just accept her fate.
“Not put down. . .” Despite it all, as Snow spoke, hazy memories began to fill color into his words. A sort of clarity that came from the reassurance of knowing a deep truth at the very core of her essence. “You loved the world, and all its mortals. You feared for them. For while it was your magic that threatened the world, it was not you wielding it that was the true threat.”
“The true threat. . .” A conversation tickled the edge of her memory. Jo blinked, trying to pull the images into focus, desperate to read the lips of those speaking in the hopes that she may be able to pull the words out of the ether of her mind. There was truth there that Jo needed, information she craved. Information she was owed. “Snow, how were demigods made?”
He had walked over as she’d spoken. Now standing above her, he loomed like a gentle judge—but one who was passing judgment on her fate nonetheless.
When he didn’t answer right away, Jo clenched her fists by her side, looking away. “Tell me,” she whispered. It was important; it was a binding thread. Every fiber of her being screamed for it. After a long, agonizing moment, Snow relented.
“There were two ways. Birth—well, being carved out of time by greater gods—or by splitting the essence of a god or goddess.”
“I was split.” The conclusion felt right, memories returning in wide swaths.
“Twice.” Snow knelt down, taking both her hands in his, now shifting to look up at her. “You made the ultimate sacrifice. The first time you were split was when you were born as a demigod. Then you allowed yourself to be split again. Because for a demigod to be split is for that demigod to be made mortal. You gave part of your power to me for safekeeping, to use as a tool to destroy the world and with it she who would try to use your power against you. Then I could rebuild everything with my own magic of Creation.
“With the part of your essence you gifted to me kept safely beyond time, your soul would not die, but be reincarnated—ever seeking its other half—and I would find you again in the world to reunite you with your magic and divinity.”
“But it didn’t work.” He winced, even though she hadn’t aimed to be harsh.
“It did, and didn’t. Because of you relinquishing your power, I was able to bring about an end to the Age of Gods.”
It was Jo’s turn to mindlessly stare out the window. Processing everything was all too easy, and that almost made it harder. She wanted more resistance to accepting the fantastical claims he was making. But there was too much evidence that it was true. Denying it was pointless. Fruitless.
“Well, here we are,” Jo said finally, not quite looking at him, but reveling in the feel of his touch nonetheless. “You ended the Age of Gods and rebuilt the world. And then did it again, and again, countless times in the Society.”
He nodded solemnly.
“And yet myths of gods long gone still linger,” Jo whispered, swallowing. “And it’s still not safe, is it?”
Snow didn’t answer right away, eyes shifting to the side almost as if on reflex. Jo knew what that look meant. She’d seen it all too many times from the secretive man. The curiosity she’d pushed aside from earlier came roaring back.
“She, you said, the one to use my magic as a weapon. . . You mean Pan?” It was the only thing that made sense. Pan’s fearsome power. Her age—both immeasurably old yet childish at the same time. The way she seemed all too giddy from the moment Jo had walked through the door. All the moments Jo had looked at her as if seeing a familiar face.
“Yes. Which is why we must return to the Society soon, so as not to arouse her suspicion.”
She suspected it may already be too late for that.
“There’s one more thing.” If they were putting everything on the table, then it needed to be everything. “You said I wasn’t the true threat, that it was Pan. But. . . I may be a threat now.”
“What do you mean?”
“My magic is no longer acting like everyone else’s. I can affect the real world without clocking in.”
br /> “What?” He went stone-faced, his usual pallor became ghostly.
“When Wayne and I were at the police station, for the wish. Outside of time. . . I broke something in the real world. I don’t even know how, but I did. Then, when I tried to implement my code, the USB exploded in my hands. It seems erratic and inconsistent, usually breaking things, but not always.” Jo left out Charlie. He had his secrets, and Jo would keep hers—for now. Besides, if she needed to lean on Charlie again, Jo didn’t want Snow getting in the way.
“Wayne knows?”
The sudden question caught Jo a bit off-guard—given that she would’ve thought the USB to be the most pressing matter—but still she nodded. “I don’t think he’ll say anything to anyone else. . .” Jo omitted the fact that she was the one to have said something to someone else.
Snow thought it over a moment, and though there was noticeable conflict in his expression, he seemed to come to the same conclusion. “We must be even more careful now. I have been the one carrying your magic all this time, wielding it to destroy the worlds of wishers so that I may rebuild them. I fear our proximity to one another may be drawing it out.”
“But couldn’t we use this to our advantage?” Jo finally asked. “If I can destroy things, I could bring an end to the Society, and set us free.”
“If you destroy the Society and revert the world, Pan will also be set free, which is something we’re not prepared to deal with yet. But we’ll find a solution this time. I promise you that.” With a much less sad smile now, Snow leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead. When he spoke, she could feel his lips moving against her skin. “And until then, to the best of my ability, I will make sure your magic hurts neither you nor anyone else. As much as I detest restraining you in any way. . . I will do what I can.”