Page 28 of Sweet Obsession

Poseidon slides down to sit next to me, his shoulder pressing against mine. After several beats, I finally force myself to speak. “What do you think about what she said? About Circe and Hera and Olympus and the rest?”

“I don’t know. I might not like her methods, but she’s not wrong about the system being broken.” He taps his middle finger againsthis thigh, his expression distant. “But I don’t see howthishelps the city. The barrier protected us from the outside world. It ensured foreign nations couldn’t meddle and use us. Now it’s gone and Circe is poised to invade. People are going to die. A lot of people. How can that be a good thing?”

That’s the question, but I don’t have the answer—or at least not an answer that’s comforting. “Maybe Hermes means to take the city for herself. Maybe that’s how she’ll break the system.”

Poseidon sinks down to sit next to me, his big shoulder pressing to mine. For just a moment, I can almost believe it’s us two against the world, rather than simply a captor and his captive, sharing a moment of mutual misery.

He sighs. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

16

Poseidon

I want nothing more than to sit on this kitchen floor all day, Icarus’s shoulder pressed to mine and his now-steady breathing centering me. Being Poseidon has never been easy, but it feels like the walls are closing in now more than ever. There’re no right moves, only wrong and worse. I don’t have any answers, and I don’t know the right questions to ask to find them. In short, I’m fucked.

But there are too many people depending on me. I can’t afford to sink into depression and hopelessness. I have tomove. I’ve already wasted too much time. I heft myself to my feet and give my body a good shake. “Come on.”

Icarus stares up at me and I have a hard time understanding what I see in his dark-brown eyes. It’s not fear, not horror, but there’s something I can’t quite define. Finally, he accepts my hand and allows me to carefully lift him to his feet. “Where?”

If I were smart, I would send him back to his room and lock him in for safety. I would set someone I trust as guard at his door to ensure no one gets any ideas similar to Polyphemus’s. But the thought of letting him out of my sight makes my chest hurt. “We’re going to the shipyard. I have to meet with my people. We might notbe officially at war, but we’re still the first line of defense.”

Icarus straightens his shirt, his expression concerned. “Before, you agreed to go along with Hera’s plan to deal with Circe.”

“Yes.”

“But now you’re going to…what? Double-cross her? Poseidon, that’s suicide.” He follows me out of the kitchen, so close that he’s nearly stepping on my heels. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do? Circe has an actual navy out there. It’s a small one, but still more than you have.”

That’s just another question I don’t have an answer to. The people under my command are sailors—at least some of them. But there’s a wide gap between knowing how to navigate a ship and knowing how to use one in a fight. We’re not a navy, and I’m sure as fuck not a naval general. I can do my best to prepare them, do my damnedest to ensure we’re ready as the front lines to protect the city, but in my heart of hearts, I’m certain I’m going to get every single one of them killed. For nothing.

Circe will still invade before the Thirteen can get their shit together and vote on war and unification. Even more people will still die. We just won’t be around to witness it because we’ll be the first people she cuts down. Even if Hera manages to work out some kind of deal, it won’t extend to me and mine. That’s just how she operates, and I have a feeling that’s how Circe does, too. Hera’s priority is her family. I don’t hold it against her, but it’s so fucking shortsighted I want to scream my frustration. Now Hermes is in the mix, no longer to play court jester, revealing just how dangerous she’s been all along.

We’re too fragmented, everyone looking out for their owninterests. We don’t stand a chance. Maybe we never did.

I open the front door and step aside so Icarus can follow me out. I don’t realize that I haven’t answered him verbally until he wraps his hand around my bicep. He tries to tug me to a stop. I’m distantly aware that I could just keep dragging him down the street, but I allow him to halt me.

“I mean it, Poseidon. Maybe it would be better if you made your own deal with Circe. If your people stood down, she’d spare them.”

“You can’t guarantee that.”

He looks like he wants to do just that, but huffs out a breath instead. “Okay, she’dprobablyspare them.”

I rotate to look at him. For once, there’s no apparent lie on his face, just a worry that makes my chest twinge in response. Or maybe he’s a better liar than I realized… “Are you that worried about me? You hate me.”

“Oh, that.” He waves it away as if our being enemies is something to discard so easily. “You’re not altogether terrible, but if it’ll make you feel better, call it selfish interest. Circe holds no love for me, not after my father and family failed her so spectacularly, and I intend to use my blackmail material to remove some of her. Maybe if she’s rushing past us, she won’t stop to cut me down in the process.”

The words are correct, at least for the playboy spoiled brat that Icarus has portrayed since arriving in Olympus. And yet…I don’t believe him. He wasn’t speaking out of self-interest. He was worried aboutme. I don’t know how to feel about it, so I push the sensation kindling in my chest aside. “Even if I were willing to do something so dishonorable, if Circe is as smart as you say—and she’s shown every evidence of being exactly that smart—she would agree to mydeal and then double-cross me the moment she made landfall. To do anything else would be to leave a potential dagger at her back.”

Even if shewouldtake the deal, I…can’t. Throwing all of the city to the wolves in order to save myself and the small group of people I’m personally responsible for feels wrong. Damn it. Not for the first time, I acknowledge that ignoring my inner moral compass would’ve allowed me to go much further in Olympus. But it’s not who I am. It will never be who I am.

“Well…yes. Her immediately murdering you and everyone under you is definitely a possibility, even if you make a deal.” Icarus sighs and drops his hand. I try very hard not to miss the contact of his fingers digging into my muscle. He sighs again. “We’re fucked.”

“Not yet.” Even if I privately agree with him, I refuse to do so verbally. It feels too much like giving in. My people are depending on me. Hope is already a nebulous thing, and giving it up without a fight means our deaths are a certainty instead of a probability.

Apparently Icanlie when my moral compass calls for it.

I lead the way to my SUV and hold the door open for him. He raises his brows but for once makes no comment. He hauls himself up into the passenger seat. As I circle around the front of the vehicle to the driver’s side, it strikes me that so much has changed in forty-eight hours. I can’t allow myself to think about what happened in the bedroom, both the pleasure and the release of the pressure that seems to follow me around every moment of every day. Ever since I was forced into the title of Poseidon, I’ve had the weight of my corner of the world on my shoulders. There’s no one to share that burden with, and even if there were, my people depend onme. I’m the one who bears the title. Not someone else.

It never occurred to me that I might find something resembling a safe space with a partner. My past lovers have been about lust, no small amount of loneliness, and occasionally desperation—but never whatever this is. They all cared for me in their own way, the same way I cared for them, but I never feltcared for. Not in the way I did last night with Icarus.

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