Page 128 of Crown of Olympus
“Nightshade,” he whispered, gingerly scooping an arm behind my neck to help me sit up.
The world tilted on its axis, churning like I’d been tossed in a Charybdis’ whirlpool again. I clenched my eyes shut and forced myself to choke down the rising vomit. A few tiny breaths later, I cracked open a single eyelid, relieved to find the world had stopped spinning. The pain, however, would be hanging around for a while.
Aros, Apollo, and Arch bolted down the dune, panting and soaked. Their faces wore various states of shock as they glanced around.
“What the fuck happened?” Aros swore angrily, glaring at the unconscious god of the sea.
“What happened is I won,” I croaked, forcing a grin and baring bloodstained teeth. “Pay up, bitches.”
Aros barked a sharp laugh, echoed by Caelus andArchimedes. Apollo smiled so brightly it was a wonder the planets didn’t decide to orbit around him instead.
Caelus helped me to my feet, refusing to let go when I swayed. He grunted, and frowned when Aros threw a casual arm around my shoulder.
“Come on, darling. You look like you could use a drink.”
CHAPTER 38
Caelus
I was goingto murder him.
Poseidon’s days were numbered. I’d make sure of it. Ares’ too.
I swallowed roughly, my breath hitching as my mind replayed the last few hours. Nyssa had saved me from the siren’s lure. Not that I’d ever admit it aloud, but the voice had sounded exactly like hers — as if she was calling out to me, crying out for help.
I succumbed to the panic without thinking; consumed by the desperation to save her, completely obliterating my knowledge of the fact that she had been within arm’s reach the whole time. Also, the Nyssa I knew would never ask for help. She faced everything head-on, completely on her own. I both admired and hated it.
She was fearsome and powerful, and dangerously skilled with a blade. She could definitely hold her own. She’d make a fine Queen. But that did nothing to temper the desire — the relentless need — to be the one who holdsher,helpsher. And I so desperately longed to be the arms she allowed herself tofall apart in.
When I lost sight of her in the wreckage of the ship? When I realised she’d been stuck in the rotten decking? I lost it. I’d screamed at the others to help me find her, not that they needed the motivation. We were all on the same side, after all.
On the third dive, Aros found her. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down with him. We descended just in time to see her giving up. She’d stopped fighting the tide and the timber, drifting calmly into the ocean’s darkness.
Panic once again held my heart hostage — because the woman I had fallen for was resigning herself to being claimed by either the waves or the beasts.
And then she had looked up.
Those perfectly fractured emerald eyes met mine, piercing what soul I still possessed. Surprise crossed her face — like she didn’t know I’d kill myself to save her.
But I guess she didn’t.
She had no idea our destinies were entwined, that our souls had been woven together in the tapestry of fate — wound together by my own hand.
Which meant she also had no idea that because of that linked thread, I could feel everything she did, the moment she felt it. So, when Poseidon had taken advantage of her uncontested win, when that bastard had broken his own knuckles beating her, I felt every blow. Every ounce of pain. Every flicker of fear.
But I also felt her tenacity to survive.
I ploughed through the water harder and faster than I’d ever been able to swim before. Didn’t even pause for breath. I raced up that dune like a man possessed, with Aros hot on my heels — he had an uncanny knack of knowing when violence was brewing.
My heart twisted painfully when I saw Nyssa, battered and bleeding. My primal side instantly took over. All I could see wasPoseidon’s smug face as my lightning and fists lashed out, electrocuting his body with every blow.
And now?
Now I was forced to sit here in this derelict Aetherion tavern, watching every patron gape at the goddess who sat among them. Watching Nyssa’s face darken, her eyes swell shut, her face turn a horrifying shade of plum. Her godly healing was taking far too long to kick in — stretching her pain into something sharp and raw. She numbed it with spirits. Aros kept the drinks flowing and, loath as I was to admit it, he kept her from sinking into the despair I knew hovered perilously close in the background.
“I know this one,” she mumbled around a split lip, humming along to the tune of the fiddle and tapping her fingers on the table.
“Do you know the words, though?” Arch asked, grinning with a raised brow as the performer began to sing about a mortal couple in the woods.
