Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83786 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 419(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
If I tell her I couldn’t give a shit about public perception as long as my family is safe from Circe’s coming purge, she’ll see it as a weakness. She’ll think I don’t believe we can win. And she’ll be right. We can’t win. We have yet to be victorious in a single fucking battle against Circe and her people.
But nobody wants to talk about that.
“Callisto, don’t go back to the city tonight.” Psyche starts to move toward me but stops when I shake my head sharply. She looks so worried that my heart aches, but I don’t have the words to comfort her right now. She glances again at Eros. “We have plenty of beds. Just stay here until you can calm down. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re feeling right now, so I won’t patronize you and say I do. If Eros knew you were here, he wouldn’t have allowed you to find out like this.”
I glance at my brother-in-law, at his carefully blank expression. “I know.” He might be a murderer, but he would never do something to upset his wife—and upsetting me upsets Psyche.
She presses her lips together and lifts her hands before letting them fall back to her sides. “It’s not a good idea to drive when you’re so out of sorts. It’s not safe.”
“You should know better. I don’t drive anywhere.” I force my expression into an irreverent smile. “I’ll be fine. I have my team with me.”
Instead of looking relieved, she only seems more concerned. “I know they mean a lot to you, but you’ve only had them such a short time. They aren’t your family.”
“I know.” And, frankly, that’s part of the attraction. I don’t wish any ill on my team, but the fact remains that they can take care of themselves. If it were a choice between them and my sisters, it would be no choice at all. That makes me a monster, no question, but I’m willing to live with it. “Stay here. Stay with him.” I jerk my chin at Eros. “Stay safe. Please.”
“I will, but we have to talk about—”
“Later,” I cut in before she can speak the truth of my current predicament aloud. “And until we do, I don’t want anything we discussed to be shared. Promise me, Psyche.”
I’ve never seen my sister look so conflicted. She worries her bottom lip and finally nods. “Okay. I promise to keep your confidence, but only until the day after tomorrow. Then all bets are off. So don’t be late when you come out to us again.”
As threats go, it’s efficient. If my mother finds out I’m pregnant from anyone but me, especially in such a tumultuous time, she’s liable to go on a rampage. No one wants that. “I’ll be here. I promise that, too.” I turn around and walk away before either of us can say something we’ll regret. I know Psyche doesn’t like this, but I don’t, either.
A fucking sex tape.
Even as I tell myself not to, I pull my phone out and look. Texts from Ares, from Persephone, from Eurydice. Not from my husband. If those three and Eros have already seen the video, then it’s all but guaranteed he has as well. There’s no reason for it to hurt that he hasn’t reached out to make sure I’m okay. Of course I’m okay. It’s a fucking video…showing me in an incredibly intimate moment I never would have shared publicly if I had any choice in the matter. But it’s sex, and no matter how vulnerable I was in the moment, Olympus has seen its fair share of sex tapes. Surely this won’t hold water when held up against the threat of Circe and the evacuation to the countryside. Surely our people have better things to worry about than me fucking my husband in a semi-public place.
Surely…
But I know better, don’t I? It’s written there on Ixion’s, Nephele’s, and Imbros’s faces when I approach the car. They’ve all seen it, and even though they stood outside the building while it was happening, it still clearly affects the way they view me. It’s going to affect the way the entire city views me.
Nephele opens her mouth, but I hold up a hand before she can get a single word out. “I don’t want to talk about it. I would like to go home.”
Home. The very idea is laughable. That penthouse I share with my husband is no home to me. It’s a prison to be endured until this sham of a marriage is at its end, preferably with his death. And yet the closer we drive to the city, the more my heart rate can’t decide whether it wants to ease or pick up. The more the memories of what happened earlier today—and now writ large in grainy video for all the city to see—echo through my body.