Page 31 of Invoking Ruin

I frown at her. She admitted her family is responsible for my suffering. If I’ve been reading her insinuations right, it wasn’t just my suffering, either. Other gods may have had their memories erased, too. It would be easy to condemn her along with them. To assume that’s what she should do as well.

It’s a trap. Her green eyes challenge me to say it in the dark.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your family.”

She shakes her head, but some of the defensiveness bleeds out of her. “It’s fine. They can suffer alone, for all I care. I’ve never been close with anyone. I don’t need to be now.”

“No one at all?”

Vita’s lips purse, and I know I’ve pressed too far this time, struck some deep wound. She pushes her shoulders back, and when she speaks, her voice is like honey.

“You should kiss me. It’ll make me feel better.”

The words sink in deep, like hooks. I shouldn’t kiss her. It will let her weasel her way out of this conversation, and that thin thread is already on the verge of snapping.

But her mouth distracts me, teased into a pout, and I can already taste her even before my lips crash into hers.

She moans, sliding closer to me, warm, naked flesh against mine under the blankets. I sink into the feel, sliding my hand into her damp hair and then down her back.

I start to push her onto her back when she breaks the kiss, gasping. She shakes her head.

“We should sleep,” she tells me, sliding her hand down my chest and pushing.

The rejection is sudden, and I’m left confused, and aching.

“Vita.”

Her eyes soften, and she says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” She pulls me close once more, but her touch is chaste, meant to sooth rather than excite.

I huff out a breath. “You’re confusing.”

“I know.” She sighs into my shoulder. “Go to sleep. You need it.”

She’s right, and sleep is far too easy to slip into with her so close. My sudden trust in her worries me, but not as much as the sound of a woman’s cruel laughter, haunting me just at the edges of my dreams.

Chapter eight

Atê

Idon’t sleep.

Instead, I watch over Sandro as he stays curled up in my arms. His golden hair tickles my fingers as I stroke it.

Laying with him at peace like this is a strange sensation. I’m not a comforting sort of goddess, but helping him sleep quiets the guilt rioting in my head.

I used my powers on him, which was something I’d sworn not to do. He doesn’t have his memories back, he’s only pressing for answers, which I can acknowledge—against my will—are his right. But I hadn’t wanted to answer him.

So I’d told him to kiss me, and he’d given in like it had been his idea all along. If he’d had his memories, he wouldn’t have succumbed so easily to my manipulation. He’d have known to be wary of me.

The taste of his kiss had been poison, the sweetness of it overwhelmed by the knowledge of what I’d done to get it. Even worse is what it means, my powers being so successful. It means that him kissing me, or even caring for me, is a bad idea. I would bring him ruin.

So I’d pushed him away.

I’ll be many things for this god, but never his ruin. I’ll end myself first.

I had come close to self-destruction earlier with Momus. If Dionysus hadn’t distracted him, we’d have likely been in a stalemate until the mortals tried to end us, or until the Nemesis-led cavalry arrived.

So close. So close to everything falling apart.

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