Without warning, I swing the door open. I should probably start using the peep-hole to avoid having a shotgun blast to my chest. Normally I would have been more tactical and smart about how I answer the door, but I was just so exhausted. However, I wasn’t usually careless. I was distracted at times, yes, careless no.
“No, I think my session is now. Don’t you? I mean, what’s the point in this? This was Persephone’s gig, right? And she gave up on me, too?” I tilt my head once before going back to my reading. “I mean, no hard feelings. It’s not you. It’s me. Also, I think this will be the last session I have.”
Now, as I walked through the heavy wood doors, I took a deep breath, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders. The mortals got one thing right. It is Home Sweet Home.
Yet, I’m being summoned to fix something, something I thought I already fixed. Leave it to them to make something which should be incredibly simple nightmarishly complicated.
All that show did was drive a larger wedge between us. At least now I know who truly cares for me, even if I feel used for it. It is and always has been the mischief family I had made.
Regardless of what happened between us and my callous ways, it proves one thing. Erebus cares for me. Which is a problem. So me being me, I do what I always do. I destroy it. Everything he bought, everything he gave me. Ruined.
I can do this. It is only temporary, right? I survived trying to destroy Olympus and a thousand years in Tartarus. This will be easy. I’ll just live with the man I am in love with but can’t have, try to hunt down two mad titans, avoid my enemies from my past, and control my powers. Piece of cake.
I raise a brow at her. “Come again, Miss Shrink Lady? It sounds like you just asked for my help in locking Atë up? I guess you didn’t find in your research, that while I may have helped contain Atë, as you say, I took no pleasure in that. In fact, it tore me apart.”
“If you leave, you terminate this program. If you fail with me, you terminate this program. If you refuse to engage, you fail this program. I have strict orders from your father, Zeus, yes? If you fail, you return to Tartarus,” she said with a smile that sent a chill up my spine. “Also, no mind games either.” She shrugged, still sitting and still smiling.
It took me the better part of the morning, but I found her. It looked as though she had been on a shopping spree. She was carrying half a dozen bags. Retail therapy, really? Murder spree, epic fight, sex, and shopping. I shrugged to myself. Yeah, that sounded about right. I didn’t want to interrupt what seemed to be a carefree morning for her. Now that she was out, I had all the time in the world to figure out what she was up to.
We work silently, and soon the remains of my doors are in the trash, and Atë’s staring at the floor with a strange expression.
Hitting her affectionately on the shoulder, I murmur, “It’s strange, isn’t it?”
Her eyes turn to mine. “What is?”
With a smirk, I ruffle her hair lightly. “Cleaning up your own mess.”
My back arches and I grind against the caresses, my moans an answer to his groans of pleasure. My pace quickens, and his hips buck in helpless need before I feel his hand tighten in my hair, scrunching it, knotting it, and I know I don’t need godly powers to own him.
Her voice echoed through the expanse. “Oh, I remember everything. That’s what Tartarus does. It was a thousand years for me. A thousand years of nightmares. Of torture. Of Darkness. Reliving my mistakes over and over again until I begged for an end.”
Sitting back on my heels, I looked at her, taking every inch of her all in. My breath caught in my throat. “It would have at least been nice to be given a choice. But you took that away from me.” As angry as I was, I knew she was right. My eyes softened.
“Atë?” My eyes cut through the darkness as the raven hopped forward on its two legs. Its black eyes stare back at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was something familiar about the bird. A cold shiver ran down my back as a dark mist covered the room, and just like that, the bird was gone.
