Page 49 of The Chosen Son

His skin was wet and heated from the scalding water, but he politely rotated us so I could have my share of the spray. I kept my gaze focused on the dark hair on his chest, trying not to notice the care he took with me as he lathered the soap between his hands then soothed my body with a gentle touch.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he said, reaching for the shampoo next. “Was it too much?” Those were his words, but what I heard him say was “AmItoo much?”

I shook my head as he began to work the shampoo into my hair. “No, it was just enough.” Peeking up at him, I asked the question that had been bouncing around in my head since Phobos first told me about it. “What was he like? Your lover?” He must’ve been someone special to drive him to such lengths for revenge.

His hands stilled, and shutters seemed to drop down over his eyes. After a second, he resumed washing my hair, but it was with clinical efficiency, none of that intimacy from a moment ago. He turned me around and tipped my head back to rinse.

Neither of us spoke. For a minute, I thought he wouldn’t answer, that I had crossed a line in invading his personal life, but I refused to take it back. He knew things about me—intensely personal and embarrassing things that no one else knew—and I knew hardly anything about him, outside of his sexual preferences, so I felt like I had the right to at least ask. He could tell me to fuck off if he didn’t want to answer.

“He was… human,” Deimos said eventually, his gaze unfocused as he revisited the past. “Gorgias was mischievous and funny and… mortal, and he made me want to be a better man. I’d always known he would die too soon, but I’d assumed we would spend that short life together.” His eyes hardened into chips of amethyst. “So when Loki came along and lured him away, I felt cheated. Time passes so quickly for us gods, but I would never get those handful of years back. Gorgias wasn’t just my lover, he was my chance at a family, and that was what Loki stole from me. A future.”

I thought of what it had felt like seeing my ex on his knees. He’d stolen something from me too, and to see him taken down a peg, begging and weak, had been a rush. In that moment, it had gonestraight to my head, leaving me dizzy and giddy. And even though I couldn’t turn back time, couldn’t reclaim what was taken, I had felt vindicated. Was that what Deimos felt, chasing his revenge against Loki? The chance to make amends, even after all this time?

Smoothing my hands over his chest, I pressed a kiss over his heart. I felt too close to him, but also too far. I felt anger for all that he’d done wrong, but also sympathy and affection for what he’d gone through.

“What we have, what we’re doing, it isn’t healthy,” I said, trying to build a barrier between us, even as I felt like it was far too late to stop it. “I’m using you to make me feel better, and you’re using me for your revenge.”

Deimos drew me close, the water sluicing down between where our bodies were joined. “Do you want to stop?” he asked.

“Fuck no.”

We both laughed. Toxic relationship or not, I wasn’t about to walk away. There was a good chance I would die without him, but it wasn’t just that. He made me feel better ineveryway. And while I wanted to believe I was the good guy here, I knew better than that.

Both of us were colored in shades of gray.

“You know I’m not him, though, right?” I asked, feeling vulnerable. I wasn’t trying to replace his lost love.

“What?” he asked, confused, but then realization dawned, and he stroked his fingers through my hair. “Yes, of course I know that. I would never dare compare you to anyone. I’ve never met anyone like you before, Cameron, and you’re better than us all.”

“You tell the most beautiful lies,” I said with a sad smile.

And then he kissed me, and we spent the rest of the day helping each other forget, until all that I knew was Deimos.

Chapter 20

Deimos

Cameron still hadn’t gonehome. I’d made sure he knew he could leave whenever he wanted, but there was no way I was about to kick him out of my bed. It had been weeks, and Phobos’s calls had become more frequent as he grew increasingly desperate for news.

“Give me back my sidekick!” he’d shouted when I finally picked up the phone last night; it had almost become a mantra, I’d heard it so many times.

“He’s not mine to give or take. Cameron is his own man, and he’s nobody’ssidekick,” I’d said with a sneer. “He deserves to be someone’s partner.” I wished I could be the one to stand beside him, but we all knew that would never happen.

That had shut my brother up, and he’d immediately backed down and bid me a chilly good night.

As much as I loved to stick it to my brother, my mood had been in a steady decline since then. That was probably why I decided it was time to put my plans into action.

I glared down at my phone, Loki’s stupid face staring back at me from his Novel social media page, and I waited for the usual searing rage to burn through me. I could feel it inside when I looked for it, but it wasn’t the roaring blaze I’d stoked for the past 300 years. It had dulled down to a bed of warm coals, and when I thought about trying to stir it up again, I found myself reluctant.

Planning his demise didn’t bring me the same satisfaction I’d once felt. I’d lived with the constant anger that it was almost like a best friend, and it felt foreign to be without it—not entirely unwelcome, though, when the golden glow of happiness was what was keeping me warm now.

Because as hard as it was to believe, I washappy.

I almost didn’t recognize the feeling. It was lighter than hatred, more sunshine and roses, the churning in my stomach more excited butterflies than indigestion. The thought of what I was about to do, though, was causing full-on nausea.

“Why won’t you tell me where we’re going tonight?” Cameron asked with a teasing lilt, and I set down my phone, giving him my full attention. I met his gaze in the mirror and shook my head. “How about a hint?” he tried again.

“Then it wouldn’t be a surprise,” I flirted, watching him from my place on the bed, leaning back on the headboard, feet kicked up. I suspected, the way his eyes lit up, that he liked this game. He didn’t really want me to tell him, it was all part of the fun.

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