Lia sat up.
All the lights were on in the room again. Lights. Electric lights. She nearly cried with relief at the sight of them.
Her heart pounded so hard in her chest she thought it was trying to escape. Where was she? Her bedroom? Yes, this was her pink-and-white rose-print bedspread. That was her fireplace mantel, painted white. Aphrodite sat upon it and smiled benevolently down at her. And there was the door to the bathroom...that Lia ran through so she could promptly throw up her dinner.
That helped.
She rinsed her mouth out and brushed her teeth. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw a pink-cheeked woman of twenty-one with pale brown hair partly braided into a crown, partly down and curling. Midnight blue eyes, just like her father. Annoyingly large breasts, just like her mother. A tiny gap between her top two front teeth.
It was her. Not anyone but Lady Ophelia Godwick, Lia to her friends.
What the hell had just happened?
The kylix. August. The world turning inside out.
The rock. The monster. Perseus.
She’d married Perseus and they’d made love. Twice. She could still feel his hands on her breasts, hear his laughing voice, his cock inside her, his come...
His come.
Panicking, Lia slipped her hand under her dress and pushed her fingers into her knickers. She was wet. Extremely wet, like she always was after having an orgasm. She pulled her hand out of her pants and looked at the wet shimmer on her fingertips. Only her wetness. No semen.
And she felt...normal? Not like she’d had sex with someone. She knew what that felt like, even though it had been a long time.
All right. So whatever had happened, she was pretty sure she hadn’t actually had sex with August Bowman. But something had happened between them.
Where was August?
Lia stumbled into the sitting room. “August?”
No answer. She saw the Rose Kylix sitting on the fireplace mantel, next to her statue of Aphrodite that August had yet again turned to the wall.
Under the kylix was a note.
Lia—
The disorientation will pass quickly and you’ll be feeling on top of the world very soon. I’ve left you the Rose Kylix as it is legally yours, but please, I beg of you, do not drink from it again. It’s very unsafe to drink from it alone. I’ll explain more if you’ll see me again. Apologies for leaving you. There’s a side effect to drinking from the cup that I thought we ought to avoid.
I have to say, I loved playing Perseus to your Andromeda. We should have made the bird noises.
Love,
August
Bird noises.
August knew about the bird noises.
That meant she hadn’t dreamed it. Two people couldn’t have the same dream.
It had happened. It was real.
But it couldn’t be. It just...couldn’t.
Yet, what if it was?
Lia read the rest of the note.
PS: The Moirai, otherwise known as the Three Fates, who weave our destinies just as you weave stories on your loom, have a bad habit of getting their threads tangled sometimes. The thread of your life and the thread of mine are knotted together for reasons unknown to me. Don’t fight fate, Lia. You will not win.
Lia jumped when she heard a sudden knock on her door. She put the cup back into the box and went to answer it.
“Yes?” she called out. Her mother poked her head into Lia’s sitting room.
“Darling? You all right? You’ve been gone almost an hour.”
An hour? Lia thought half the night had passed.
“I threw up, Mum,” she said, a truth if not the whole truth.
“Threw up?” Her mother came in and put her hands on Lia’s face, her skin was cool against Lia’s flushed cheeks. “Too much to drink?”
“Empty stomach plus wine,” she said. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right. You can go to bed. Party’s almost over, anyway. Most people left as soon as the lights came back on.”
“What about David? Is he still here?” she asked. “I should say hello to him.”
An hour ago, she would have hidden behind the wallpaper to avoid David Bell. Now she wasn’t just ready to face him, she was eager.
“He had to run,” her mother said. “You really look flushed, sweetheart. Why don’t you go to bed?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” she said. “I’ll come down.”
“Are you sure?” Her mother laughed a little. Lia might have been acting a little odd, not that she cared.
“I want to,” Lia said. August had been right—she did feel suddenly...heavenly. She blinked and smiled. “I’m fine. Very fine. Just had to get that out of my system.”
“All right. We’ll serve the coffee, though. That should get everyone else packing,” her mother said.
They left her suite together and walked down the stairs.
“You didn’t see where August went, did you?”
“August?”
“Um... Mr. Bowman?”
“He told us goodbye. Said he had to work tomorrow. Thanked us for a nice evening. Why do you ask?” Her mother wore a devilish little smirk on her lips. She probably thought Lia and August had sneaked out of the party and had sex.
Well, they had.
Sort of.
“No reason.” There was a reason, and the reason was that she wanted to jump on top of him and stay on top of him until dawn. Dawn of next year. Ohh...that must have been the other side effect August had warned her about in the note.
“Are you sure?” her mother asked. “He was paying you quite a bit of attention tonight. Couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“We were just talking, that’s all. About the kylix Daddy gave me.”
“Did he have any insight on it?”
“A little. He said it’s from the Cult of Eros, not Aphrodite.”
“Eros was the son of Aphrodite, right?” her mother asked. Lia nodded. “Can you imagine having the goddess of love and passion for a mother? That would have to be awkward, wouldn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. She would know.
Lia laughed. For no reason. None. At all. A laugh just burbled up out of her stomach like a cork from a champagne bottle. Pop and it was out.
“Lia?”
“Nothing,” she said. Then she giggled.
“Good to hear you laugh. Even if it is alcohol-induced.”
Well, she’d had that one sip from the Rose Kylix. She could blame the wine.
“Mum...” Lia said.
“What?”
She giggled again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, darling,” her mother said, shaking her head. “But let’s go and get this party over with.”
They turned a corner to the main staircase, and she saw her father passing by at the bottom of the steps.
“Daddy!” Lia skipped down the stairs and launched herself into his arms. He caught her, just barely.
“Lia? You all right?” he asked, holding her tightly to him.
“I’m...wonderful,” she said, grinning. She kissed his handsome cheek, ruffled his salt-and-pepper hair and rested her head on his strong shoulder. He really was the most handsome papa in the kingdom.
“Did you enjoy your party? Too much, maybe?” he asked, laughing as he patted her back.
“I have to tell you something, Daddy.” She pulled back and took his face in her hands. “Something very, very important.”
She patted his cheeks, his dear cheeks, his dear old darling cheeks.
“And that is, love?” She could tell he was trying very hard not to laugh in her face. Apparently, he and her mother thought she was drunk. Well, fine. She was. Drunk on happiness and magic and Perseus and bird noises and August and...and...and...
“Daddy, I’m being serious,” she said. “You have to be serious with me.” She put her thumbs on the edges of his lips and forced his smile into a frown.
“Better,” she said.
“Mrph,” he replied, unable to open his lips now.
“It’s about my graduation present,” Lia said. She released his face and now held him by both shoulders. She raised two fingers to his eyes and then to her eyes to make sure she had his entire attention.
“The kylix? What about it?” he asked.
“The thing with my graduation present...”
“And that is?”
“Daddy... I love it.”