The Goddess Inheritance
Page 11

“I’m fine,” I lied, and my voice broke. “Don’t sit up. You’re losing too much blood.” How much did gods have in them? The same as mortals? How much could they live without?
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. “I thought— Ava said—”
“It’s not your fault.” I shakily brushed my mouth against his. He tasted like rain. “None of this is your fault. I should’ve never trusted her. I should’ve never left you. I’m sorry.”
He kissed me back weakly. “Was that—was that baby...”
A lump formed in my throat. “Yeah. He’s your son.” I managed a watery smile. At least Henry knew. “I named him Milo. We can call him something different if you’d like.”
“No.” He coughed, and a few droplets of blood stained his lips. “It’s perfect. So are you.”
I leaned against his chest, putting as much weight on the wound as possible. I refused to say goodbye like this. Not to Henry, not to our life together, none of it. I wasn’t ready, and Milo deserved to have a father. I hadn’t had one growing up, and like hell would I let him experience that same emptiness and uncertainty. He deserved more than that. He deserved to have a family.
My arm bled freely, and within moments the room began to spin. Henry’s moonlit eyes remained open, and he smiled. “Never thought I’d have a son.” His voice trembled. “Never thought I’d have you.”
I gritted my teeth against the dizziness, my body growing weaker by the second. “You’re going to have me for a hell of a lot longer than this.” My vision blurred, and I struggled to look around us. Where was everyone? Why couldn’t they feel the life drain from Henry the way I could?
Because it wasn’t his life I felt draining away. It was mine.
“Kate? Henry?”
My mother’s voice washed over me, and I let out an exhausted sob. “Mom?”
She knelt beside me, radiating warmth and the scent of apples and freesia. “Let go, sweetheart,” she murmured. “I’ve got you.”
I couldn’t force my hands from Henry, though. He was cold now, his eyes wide and unblinking, and his chest was still. Gods didn’t need to breathe, but Henry always had. His heart had always beaten, but now I saw no hint of a pulse.
He was dead.
I didn’t remember the others appearing. One moment my mother held me against her chest, her hand wrapped around my bleeding arm as I screamed and cried and disappeared into myself. The next, Walter hovered over us, and Theo knelt beside Henry’s body, his lips moving at a furious pace.
“Get her out of here,” said Walter, his booming voice distant as I cowered in a dark corner in the recesses of my mind. Gentle hands lifted me, and I thought I heard James’s voice murmuring words of comfort I didn’t understand, but outwardly I thrashed and shrieked. I couldn’t leave Henry. If I left him, I would never see him again, and then he really would be gone.
He couldn’t be, though. He just couldn’t be.
Another pair of hands joined us, but I was so completely submerged into myself that I might as well have closed my eyes and disappeared in the dark. In here, nothing could touch me. In here, Henry was everywhere. In here, it was winter again, and we curled up together underneath the down comforter in the Underworld as the hours passed by. His chest was warm under my palm, and his heart beat against my fingers, steady and eternal. In here, no one died.
A whimper caught my attention, and I opened my eyes again. The golden room was gone, replaced by the sunset nursery in Calliope’s palace, and my heart sank. There, lying in the cradle, was Milo. My mother hadn’t saved him, after all.
I stood beside him, pretending I could touch him and rock him to sleep. Pretending that it wasn’t just a matter of time before the Titan fire in my veins consumed me and Milo would be orphaned. I had never known my father, but I treasured the time I’d spent with my mother. Milo would never have that either. The only time we would have together were those few seconds before Calliope had killed his father, and he would never remember them.
No, we had now. Even if he didn’t know I was with him, I could be there. I would be. Settling in beside his cradle, I watched him unblinkingly, soaking in every second.
And I waited for the inevitable to come.
* * *
Kate.
James’s voice floated toward me and wound its way through what was left of my heart. I blinked. How long had it been? Minutes? Hours? Days? No, Calliope might have been a monster, but she wouldn’t have left Milo alone for that long. He slept soundly in the cradle, his little chest rising and falling. I took comfort in each breath.
Come back, Kate.
His words were a whisper against my ear, but I stayed put. There was nothing left for me in reality. My mother had lived for eons before I’d been born; she could do without me once more. She would have to.
The air grew thick with annoyance. Kate, I swear, if you don’t come back, I will tell Henry you kissed me. And that you said I have a nice ass.
“Henry?” My eyes flew open—my real eyes this time. As it had each time before, the wrench of leaving Milo took my breath away, and fuzzy shapes floated in front of me until I managed to focus.
A sky-blue ceiling and undoubtedly a sunset floor. But unlike the room bathed in golden light, this was different. Smaller, muted, and darker somehow.
Frantically I looked around the room for any sign of Henry, but he wasn’t there. James’s sick idea of a joke then, to pull me away from the only thing that gave me any small measure of comfort now.