Page 54 of Invoking Ruin

It’s almost more infuriating than before. Seeing half the puzzle, when you used to see all of it, is harder than not knowing there was a puzzle in the first place.

“Why would they mislead you?” The Fates had never misled anyone before. They weren’t exactly benevolent goddesses, but I know more of their kindness than most.

She snorts, derisive. “My aunts have no desire to help me. No one does.”

Right. Her family. Nyx, her beloved—or not so beloved—grandmother is behind all of this, and Nyx is mother to many, many deities. I’m sure she has many strings she can pull. Plenty are loyal to her simply because of family ties.

All but Atê. No one is loyal to her, and she is loyal to no one. Her confession last night, with only the darkness and I as witnesses to her vulnerability, proved as much.

Chaos, she had been so small, there in that hotel bed. I’d wanted to gather her up in my arms. The urge had been so foreign to me. Sandro liked to imagine himself unattached. For me, being unattached is a reality. Even now, I know it would be like holding onto a lynx. If I’d tried to cradle her back in the hotel, she’d have ripped me apart for the weakness.

Instead, she’d sunk her hooks into me and made me kiss her. As though I’d needed the suggestion.

“Then why did you trust them?” I ask.

She sighs, shaking her head, beating herself up without any help from me. I wait her out.

“Because I have something they all want, and if I can keep it out of their hands, then I can control the game a little longer.”

The knife, then. The one Nemesis mentioned. I don’t know how a knife could be worth all this trouble, but it clearly is.

But the knife isn’t something Sandro knows about. Chaos, what a stupid name. I should have known it was not mine from the moment I heard it out loud.

“You mean me?” I ask, playing dumb.

Atê finally glances at me, the tilt of her mouth telling me I’ve at least amused her. “You’re important, but not that important, Sandro. If it were just you, they’d forget about you. I could wait it out.”

“You’re very flattering.”

“You don’t need my help being flattered.”

And yet, we both know it’s a lie. She’s always flattered me. I’d known in a vague, back-of-my-mind sort of way that Atê desired me, obsessed over me, but it had never sunk in as truly real. I certainly never saw it as a danger.

Not for me, anyway.

For those around me, it had been a different story, not one I am willing to forget any time soon.

This time, Atê is at my mercy, and I’m not willing to pass the opportunity up on the grounds of ease or justice or whatever else Nemesis and the others have in mind.

“Where are we going?” I prompt again. We can’t linger here, or it will become obvious she’s not being chased anymore, and I can’t have her realizing that.

She bites her lip, drawing all my attention there. The last time I kissed her, I’d been fully consumed by my memory loss. I don’t want to kiss her now. If she needs someone to bite her, though, I’m happy to do it.

Fuck, she shouldn’t be this distracting.

“Home,” she decides at last, tugging the reins until Pegasus turns southwest.

“Where’s home?”

Atê has been banished from Olympus for thousands of years. If she had a place on Gaia, I never knew about it or even heard rumors.

She doesn’t answer me, only urges Pegasus into flight. The chariot leaps beneath us, and I grip the edge to keep my balance.

At least the motion is no longer making me sick.

I step behind her, sliding my hands over her arms where they grip the reins. Her shoulders tense up. She doesn’t trust me. Just as well. As of a few hours ago, I’m not any more trustworthy than she is.

I don’t want to be taken in by her, but Chaos, her skin is warm. I curse inwardly as my cock recognizes this fact. It’s been at least two thousand years. I hate this goddess, but my body doesn’t care. It remembers how hot and tight her cunt was around me, the way her legs pulled me in deeper, the scratch of her nails.

---