Page 59 of The Chosen Son

Now, though, maybe it was finally time to let myself believe that a happily ever after was possible for someone like me.

And it all started with righting one serious wrong.

Even though I knew the winter wind was howling somewhere outside, inside the cave, it was like another world entirely. The only sound was thedrip, dripfrom stalactites into pools below, and the temperature was hot as hell—literally. I’d immediately stripped off my thick down jacket and had already begun sweating through my paternity shirt, and we’d only been down here ten minutes.

“I warned you, Deimos, that it could not be undone,” the goddess Apate rasped from where she sat on her rock-hewn throne, her facehidden beneath the black veil. Her skin where it could be seen around her gown was pitch-black and seemed to move in eddies and swirls, like a living oil slick.

I shivered and wrapped my arms protectively around my round stomach, and Deimos tightened his grip around my waist. “I’m not asking for you to undo my curse,” he said. “I’m asking for you to quit playing games with the humans.”

The fluctuation of Apate’s skin seemed to still, like a pond suddenly without ripples, which was somehow even more disconcerting. “What games?” she asked with feigned innocence.

“Cut the bullshit,” I said, glaring. “We know you’re responsible for the Chosen Ones, and we are telling you to stop. I don’t know what kind of sick amusement you got out of toying with humans, but you are ruining lives and tearing families apart! No more unlimited power bestowed to children. And that’s final!” I felt like I was scolding a naughty toddler, but I figured it didn’t hurt to practice now before our baby arrived.

“What will you give me if I do this for you?” she asked slyly.

Deimos leaned in, his lip curling in disgust. “How about we don’t tell Loki that you’re peddling shady magical deals in a pocket realm beneath his city…”

She huffed but relented without putting up much of a fuss. “Fine, but I cannot take back what lingers in this one,” she said, wiggling a finger at me. “He’s been altered.” Maybe it was just me but she sounded kind of put out, as if someone had broken her favorite toy.

“Don’t worry about that. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” Deimos turned and gave me a wink. In fact, we’d been doing just fine managing my powers. He siphoned them off as needed, and he’d started finding ways for him to burn it off, for “magical emergencies.” Though he never took credit for it, he’d become a real-live superhero for the city.And if the power still managed to build up too much, he’d even found a way to force it back into the Valleywood power grid. Somehow, this awful thing I’d been forced to live with my entire life had become a benefit to others.

It was clear Apate wasn’t pleased to have her fun ruined, but as we turned to climb our way back up the slippery cave path, I thought I caught a peek of her face through the veil, a hint of mischief in her smirk, and I knew this wasn’t the last we’d heard of her.

“Are you sure we can trust her?” I asked, panting as I took Deimos’s hand and let him pull me up the incline.

“Not even a little,” he admitted with a surprising amount of levity.

I frowned up at him. “How can you be so easygoing about the whole thing? She’s a menace! Like, a literal manifestation of evil incarnate! Think about the countless lives that were lost for the sake of one goddess’s amusement. And what about me? I lost my parents to this Chosen One nonsense, and it was nothing more than a fucking game!” I’d been thinking a lot about my parents lately, and the brother I’d never met. Would they want to see me now that my human life was over? Would they want to meet their grandchild?

Deimos stopped where he was on the path and turned to look at me. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I snapped, then took a slow breath. “I’m fine, I just need a bath.”

“And maybe a backrub?” he asked coyly.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not fooling anybody. I know exactly what you mean when you say ‘backrub.’”

His smirk did things to me. “Hey, there’s rubbing, and it’s definitely somewhere on the back of your body…”

“Get walking, mister, or we won’t get home before the storm hits. And then nobody will be getting anyrubbingtonight.” But as wecontinued up the short incline, I realized for the first time in months, I wasn’t in the mood to get frisky with him. I felt sick and tired and sore.

Uneasiness filled me, and I was suddenly very eager to get the hell out of this cave. Deimos seemed to sense my urgency and picked up the pace, pulling me firmly above ground.

Stepping out from the cave into the narrow, garbage-strewn back alley felt like emerging into a different world, and I supposed that was exactly what it was. Deimos had mentioned a pocket realm, and while I wasn’t entirely sure what that meant—I was new to this whole god thing, after all—I decided it was a problem for another day. Right now, I had something more important to worry about. Namely, the band of pressure that was beginning to tighten around my middle.

Panting to catch my breath, I struggled to get my jacket back on. “Damn, how long were we down there? It wasn’t snowing like this when we went in.” It was as if hours had passed, though I could’ve sworn it was only 20 minutes. The blizzard was already in full force, and even tucked between the buildings like we were, snowdrifts had begun to build up and were already up to the top of my boots, tight around my swollen feet.

I tried to pull my jacket around my stomach, but it no longer reached, this close to the end of my pregnancy, but I pulled my hood up and low over my forehead. I blinked quickly, trying to see through the blustering snow as ice pellets stung my cheeks. This was what the news outlets had been threatening all week. The blizzard of the century.

Deimos had a tight grip on my hand and walked slowly, ensuring I didn’t slip. Immortal or not, I was still pregnant with his child. “Where the hell is our car?” he grumbled, squinting through the pelting snow. We trudged through knee-deep snow to where we found our vehicle.

“I bet you’re glad I made you buy the SUV now,” I snarked. He’d wanted to keep driving his little black sportscar, and I’d wanted a mini van. We’d compromised.

“Sirs! Over here!” I could hear Zeek, but it was impossible to see a thing in all this snow. Then, the twin headlights cut through the whiteout.

Deimos practically picked me up and carried me to the car, loading me into the back, then he climbed in behind me, slamming the door shut. We took a moment to just catch our breath. My eyelashes were caked with ice and my cheeks were raw. “Zeek, take us home,” Deimos said, but I quickly corrected him.

“Uh, actually, can we take a detour to the hospital?” My voice quivered nervously as I realized the back of my pants were wetter than with just snow. “I think my water broke.”

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