The freezing temperature might’ve harmed him if grief hadn’t already sucked the life and energy from his very existence. He grabbed Ella, turned her face up, felt the unnatural way her head flopped on her neck. “Oh love, oh love, oh love,” he keened, hugging her face into his throat. She was warm against him, and it was a horrible lie. A horrible fucking facsimile of life.
Zeph flashed them to the debris-strewn surface of the bridge footing and fell back against the concrete with Ella in his lap. Since she’d been gone for a few minutes, he didn’t possess the level of power required to bring her back. The worthlessness and uselessness might’ve been soul-piercing if every part of him wasn’t already obliterated. Around him, the sea, the air, the sky mirrored the catastrophic turmoil in his heart and soul.
Head to the heavens, Zephyros screamed and screamed.
Hands pulled and tugged at Zeph, but he barely felt it, couldn’t decipher the meaning of it.
“Z, come on, buddy. Z? Zephyros! I can’t get through to him. Damn it all to Hades, B, we gotta roll in more fog.”
A cold hand fell on his forehead. “Zephyros. I summon thee. Brother mine, maybe there is hope,” came a deep voice.
Chrys cursed under his breath. “B, what are you—”
“Zephyros, the Acheron.”
“Oh, fuck, Boreas. A human can’t—”
Zeph groaned and his head lolled on his neck, but slowly he regained control of his muscles, his faculties. He blinked, surprised to find Chrysander and Boreas hovering over him—he thought he’d dreamed them. He almost couldn’t make them out through the white blanket of some of the thickest fog he’d ever seen in his life. In the near distance, booming horns sounded from multiple locations.
“Gone,” he croaked, his vocal chords destroyed.
Huge hands grasped his face, tilted it upwards. “What would you be willing to sacrifice?” Boreas asked.
Zephyros sucked in a shuddering breath. “Anything.”
“Then take her to the Underworld. And make haste.”
“Fuck,” Chrys bit out again, blinding gold light blazing from his eyes. “This is such fucking shit!” He whirled on Zeph. “You go. You save her, Zephyros. You fucking save her. I’m going after Eurus.”
“Chrysander, no!” Boreas shouted.
But it was too late. A searing hot wind flashed through the fog and disappeared.
“Damn it.” Boreas’ head sagged, then his silver gaze cut to Zeph. “All right, Zephyros, give Ella to me. Come now, we must go.”
Zeph clutched her against him, heart thundering in his chest.
“Let me carry her for you. Your godhood is dangerously depleted. Concentrate on yourself, and I will take care of Ella as if she were mine own.”
“Please,” Zeph said, not recognizing the thin, shaky voice that came out of his mouth.
“You have my word.” Boreas slid his arms under Ella and lifted her from his brother’s lap.
Zephyros rose with her, as if they were attached. And they were. His heart, his soul, everything that was good and worthy about him, she owned every bit of it.
They shifted into their elemental form, rose up through dense fog that seemed to go on forever. Up, into the starless night sky. Away, toward the Realm of the Gods. Zephyros struggled to keep up with Boreas, but no way he was letting himself be separated from Ella, no way he was letting Boreas slow down. As they passed through the divine realm, Zeph imbibed the smallest amount of additional power. Drained as he was, it made a huge difference.
Down they soared, through the Styx and into the ancient Underworld. Zephyros went on full alert, every sense heightened and anticipating attack or interference from every direction. As they approached the Acheron, one of the five infernal rivers of Hades, they returned into corporeality.
Feeling a gratitude he might never be able to express, Zephyros quickly took Ella back into his arms. So pale now, so terrifyingly pale.
Ahead in the distance, Charon’s red eyes watched them, beckoned. But Zeph had no intentions of turning Ella’s soul over to the demonic ferryman to shepherd across to the Isles of the Blessed.
It wasn’t her time.
Zephyros turned to the water. As with all things divine, the Acheron worked on a give-and-take. The water possessed miraculous healing abilities, but it came at the cost of pouring your sorrows into its cold, dark currents. Over a year ago, Owen had found himself in need of the river, and said of the experience it was like living through every sadness and tragedy of your life as if they’d happened all at once and would never end.
Zeph would gladly open himself up for the soul-letting so she could partake of the healing.
Aeolus appeared out of thin air, right in his path.
“You cannot do this, Zephyros,” he said in a gentle, pitying voice.
Before Zeph even opened his mouth, Boreas stepped up next to him. “My lord, surely you can—”
Aeolus held up a bandaged hand, dark green eyes flaring. “This is not your concern, Boreas.”
Zeph narrowed in on the injury. “What happened to your hand?”
Aeolus glared. “It matters not.”
In that moment, Zeph agreed. Ella was what mattered now. Only Ella. Zeph nodded to his brother. “He’s right. You’ve done enough. I’ll take it from here.”
Boreas’s eyes flashed a sharp silver and his displeasure cut deep creases into his face. He shifted that intense gaze to their father. “I am going to say something that needs to be said, and you can strike me down for it if you want. But none of this would be happening if you had dealt with Eurus earlier, or dealt with him at all. Her death lies at your feet as much as Eurus’s.”
From behind them, a deep voice boomed. “I have to say, I rather agree.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The wind gods pivoted, Aeolus and Boreas falling to a knee immediately. Zeph sank down slower, careful of the precious cargo he carried in his arms, and gaped up at one of the most powerful deities in the entire fucking pantheon.
Mars.
Breathing hitching within his chest, Zephyros met the god’s gaze head-on. Hope—deadly, dangerous hope—flared in his heart. While Mars and his brother Ares shared a legendary masculine aggression, Ares directed his toward war-making, while Mars focused on peace-making. Moreover, because Mars’s power extended to guardian of the earth’s cultivated plant life, he possessed enormous life-giving abilities—abilities so potent they made what Zephyros could do look like a child playing at magician. He was male enough to admit the disparity.
Dressed in his traditional military regalia, Mars stood in front of Zeph, his dark gaze tracing over Ella’s face. Lost in thought, he tugged at his curly dark beard.
“My lord,” Aeolus said from behind Zephyros.
“Silence,” Mars said quietly. He knelt in front of Zeph, who drew Ella further into the shelter of his body. Muscles so tightly wound they might pull loose from his joints, Zeph saw the warning his body issued the stronger god reflected in the blue light that colored Mars’s face. “Fear not, Zephyros.” Gingerly, he reached a hand out and stroked Ella’s forehead and hair. Zeph relaxed, minutely. “She is one of mine.”
Zephyros gasped, his gaze lifting from Ella to Mars—no, from Marcella to Mars. The pieces clicked into place just as an intense wave of calm and peacefulness poured through Zeph. By the gods, what flowed from Mars’s energy was a thousand times stronger, but it was the same calming influence he’d wondered at over and over in Ella’s presence. Still, he had to hear the god spell it out. “Are you saying—”
“My blood runs through her veins. It is a generations-old familial connection, but I felt the call of it as soon as you entered the divine realm.” Mars cocked an eyebrow. “You bear the name of Martius. You come to power in the traditional month of my dominion. Why would this surprise you so?”
Zeph shook his head, at a loss, his brain struggling to keep up with each new input of information the situation threw at him.
“Do you love her?” M
ars asked.
“With everything I am,” Zeph said.
Mars nodded, then stood and moved to Aeolus. “Rise, all of you, so we can sort this mess out. Boreas, your father was correct in one respect. What is to be discussed here does not involve you. And, at any rate, I suspect your youngest brother needs your assistance.”
“Thank you, my lord.” Boreas nodded, cut a supportive glance to Zephyros, and dematerialized.
“Now,” he began. “Aeolus, your son, Eurus, is unworthy of his godhood. He has wreaked havoc on the human realm for years, without provocation, without retribution. For gods’ sake, he killed one of his own sons—another god. He has been out of control for years, but the ruling pantheon has not interceded because it was largely your family’s affair.”
Zeph took a certain satisfaction in his father being confronted with the fact his treatment of Eurus was half the problem, had been for eons.
Aeolus bowed his head. “Everything you say is true, my lord. I—”
“The only thing I want to know is how you’re going to help make this right. She. Is. My. Blood,” he thundered.
Zephyros glanced around the dark, bleak landscape bordering the river, wondering what kind of attention they were attracting. At some point, this wouldn’t go unnoticed. But you didn’t rush a god of Mars’s standing.
“Restoring a life would require major sacrifice,” Aeolus said, voice respectful but firm. “The balance of nature must be preserved at all cost.”
Mars nodded. “I don’t disagree with you there. But your son killed my daughter—makes no difference to me she’s several long generations removed. So, between the three of us, we will make a bargain big enough to pay that cost.”
Aeolus’s eyes went wide. Zephyros almost fell back to his knees in relief.
Mars whirled on Zeph and narrowed his gaze. “How much are you willing to sacrifice to have her live?”
“Anything.”
The god arched an eyebrow. “So be it. Ella will have no memories of you unless her love for you was true and strong enough to bind them to her soul.”
A weight fell over Zeph’s heart and he stumbled back a step. The cavernous space of the Underworld closed in on him until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. What if she didn’t remember him? What if she hadn’t loved him enough to meet the god’s requirement? He’d failed her in ways too numerous to list, and they’d been together so few days…
But, still, she’d live. Even if she never remembered him, never loved him again, he would take solace from knowing her beauty and strength still walked the world. In a voice so strained it hurt to speak, he said, “I accept and agree, my lord.”
“On the chance the gods smile upon you and she remembers, you need also to agree to allow Aeolus to appoint Alastor as your heir, or else you will have made no sacrifice at all.”
Zeph ground his teeth until his jaw ached. The thought of losing even more to the god responsible for taking so much of what was rightfully his sat like a white-hot rock in his gut.
“The blood of spring flows in his veins, Zephyros. Alastor is not his father.”
Zeph’s gaze fell to Ella, skin porcelain white, lips a bruised blue. She’d remember him. She had to. Nothing else mattered. Cutting his eyes to Mars, Zeph nodded once. He said he’d give anything, and he meant it. “So be it.”
Mars nodded, turned back to Aeolus. “You will sacrifice your third son’s life.”
Zephyros barely restrained the growl of approval that clawed up his throat. Death was the least of what Eurus deserved. Frankly, it was more than he deserved. After all, dying was easy, freeing. It was living—in want, in need, in solitude—that was so goddamned hard.
Aeolus’s eyes flashed green and his mouth dropped open. Outside of occasional bursts of rage, it was more emotion than Zeph had ever seen his father express where Eurus was concerned. So blinded by his grief over their mother’s childbed death, Aeolus couldn’t see what he was doing to Eurus, to all of them.
As Zeph stood there holding the love of his life in his arms, her body cooling with each passing moment, he found himself understanding his father in a way he never could before.
Mars continued, “At my behest, the ruling pantheon has already met and drawn up a list of charges so long they had no choice but to find for the death penalty. Do it yourself or deliver him to me, I care not, but it must be done as soon as possible.”
Aeolus looked shell-shocked. His gaze slid to Zephyros, then to the woman in his arms. “I…I agree and accept,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
“My sacrifice will make both of yours worthwhile. I will remain here in the Underworld and meet whatever demands Hades requires to release her soul to my care.” Zephyros opened his mouth to protest, but Mars cut him off. “Understand me, Zephyros. She can be your consort, if she remembers you and so chooses. But her human life force is gone. When we restore her, her godly lineage will come to the fore. She will be a goddess. And she will work for me.”
…
She was disconnected, adrift, floating. A soul without a corporeal home.
Time passed without meaning, without context.
All she knew was the fundamental urge to search. For what or for whom was just beyond the reach of her consciousness. But she knew she must find…whatever it was. When she did, everything would be better, would make sense again, would have meaning once more.
Indeed, deep yearning was all that defined her. She must not give up, lest she fade to nothingness altogether.
Out of nowhere, pain, like the sensation of pins and needles, only a thousand times stronger and with actual pins and needles, wracked her whole existence. The torturous assault concentrated at the very center of her being, sent her heart pounding at such a rate it must surely give out. But even in the pain, there was relief. Because the torment gripping her heart meant she must be corporeal again.
Time stretched on indistinguishably as the phenomenon spread out from her heart in concentric circles of agony. It was like someone was taking her apart and putting her back together again, none of the pieces fitting the right way because the very shape of her had somehow changed.
As the pain roared out her extremities, something miraculous happened. Incredible relief flowed in behind the pain, a wave of peace so sublime she could’ve cried, would’ve begged for more. But she couldn’t, because while she now felt a physical presence in herself, she was still disconnected, still searching, still yearning.
Her hearing came back online first. She couldn’t make sense of the words, but there was something about the voice that made her want to listen and decipher. Feeling returned next. Warm hands surrounded hers, caressed her face, brushed her hair. Her soul sang out at each and every stroke. The sound of it was so loud in her head, she didn’t know why whoever showed such tenderness didn’t hear it.
Sight, speech, and smell came back at the same time.
For long moments, she didn’t realize her eyes had opened. Her optic nerve seemed disconnected from her brain. Then a world in brilliant Technicolor slid into focus. There were colors even for which she had no name. Details she never before noticed. A depth of perception that swamped her in vertigo. A loud moan sounded, and she finally realized it poured from her own throat, but that didn’t mean the voice was familiar to her.
Pounding steps rushed toward her. “Oh, thank the gods. Ella, you returned to me.”
Under soft covers, Ella scrabbled back against…her eyes skittered around, surveying, assessing…she was on a bed, crouched, back against an enormous wooden headboard. As she moved, she didn’t recognize the feel of her own body. Stronger muscles, faster responses. Within her, intense pressure built up, and she had the oddest sense she could release some of it if she wanted.
“Ella?”
Her gaze swung on the male standing at the edge of the bed. Recognition flickered in her mind’s eye, but she couldn’t hold onto it. Power radiated from him, setting off her body’s defensiveness. Worse, looming in the doorway ac
ross the room, two other beings stood. Huge males, both of them, and powerful.
“We first met in a hospital, Ella, after the True Blue was damaged in a storm I caused. Remember?” His eyes were a beautiful blue and terribly sad. She could barely look away. “And then I came to your house and healed you. We made love. You made me pancakes. And we went sailing on the Chesapeake Bay. Gods, please remember.”
He ducked his head and heaved a breath, looked over his shoulder to the others.
“Keep it up, Zephyros. She is in there. We’ll leave you.” The men at the door turned and left.
The blond one leaned back in wearing a big smile. He waved. “Welcome back, Ella.” Then he was gone and the door clicked shut behind him.
Ella frowned. Fragments of words and images flashed through her brain, but nothing would stick.
“I’m going to sit right here on the corner. Okay?” the man with the sad blue eyes said in a heartrending tone.
She had the oddest urge to crawl to him and stroke his hair. “O-kay,” she said, trying out her voice again. It sounded almost musical to her own ears, and loud.
He sank to the mattress, his body angled toward her. “Your name is Marcella Raines, but you prefer Ella. You had a twin brother named Marcus whom you loved dearly.” He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Ella climbed across the bed, just partway, but felt as if he’d reached into her chest and pulled her to him. “I know you,” she said.
His eyes flashed open and flared an incredible dark blue light. “Gods, yes. You do, Ella. Because I love you. And you love me. We are together. Please remember.”
Warm pressure filled her chest and dragged her forward until her knees touched his thigh. He froze and she lifted her hand between them.
“Go ahead, touch me.”
Lightly, she pressed her palm to his cheek. The skin at his jaw was prickly, and it tickled her hand. She stroked up to his temple and her fingertips pushed into his short hair. She gave into the urge and petted him, softly, slowly. The intense joy and desire reshaping his face nearly knocked the breath out of her. In that moment, she would’ve done anything to draw out his pleasure.