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Both his hands trembled when Elpida was about to leave the apartment. In a pantsuit and flats, and with her hair pulled back into a small bun at the nape of her neck, no makeup on, she was still the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. He made a show of closing the distance to her, and didn’t feel even a little sorry for messing her updo when he cupped her head and crushed his lips to hers. She should remember whom she was coming home to, when she was out with that Stelios guy. Remember whom she belonged to.
“You’ll make me late.” She laughed against his lips, and his cock twitched. He could stop her from going. Tear off her clothes and take her against the wall. Claim her. But she’d be back. And then he’d make sure she never wanted to leave him again.
The door closed between them, but the feeling of her lips on his lingered. He still tasted her, over the remnants of toothpaste and coffee. She was under his skin. In his thoughts. In his blood.
Was this what Kronos had meant to happen? What Rhea had tried to warn Epimetheus about? Was the perfect woman a spider, weaving her web around him?
To what purpose? Kronos was gone. Had he hated Epimetheus so intensely for siding with the Olympians that his revenge scheme spanned millennia?
No. Of course not. Elpida had no clue what Epimetheus was. She was drawn to him because she was his. Meant for him.
Meant by whom?
The question sounded too much like it was spoken in Rhea’s voice. He couldn’t give credence to the doubt taking hold inside him. There was no hint of duplicity in Elpida’s mind the moments she was completely open to him. When she had him in her mouth—that divine, scorching-hot mouth that he’d kill for—he could hear her thoughts as clearly as if she’d spoken them aloud. All he’d seen was hunger, as raw and primal and intense as his was for her. She craved him like he did her, and nothing—no Titaness and no just a friend—would stop him from making her his tonight.
No. Sooner than that. As soon as she walked in through that door.
He willed the day to move faster, but the minutes dragged by, and with them went his certainty about her motives. What if she didn’t even know she was to be the bait for him? Pandora hadn’t, when the gods presented her to him as a gift. And a gift she was, full of life and love and wonder for everything the world had to offer.
Elpida had been right; it wasn’t Pandora’s fault she opened the pithos and allowed everything that now plagued humanity to escape. She’d been designed to do so. The Olympians had been resentful of the fact that Epimetheus and Prometheus gave humans the fire, because the more humans prospered, the less they turned to gods for help and guidance. The less they worshiped them. And without worship, gods would fade.
They did fade, eventually, and though Epimetheus had fought on their side against Kronos’ madness, he was glad the Olympians were no longer around. He never forgave them for what they did to Pandora. It was because of them that joy dimmed in her brown eyes and her smile never lit them up again as brightly. Until the end of her days, she carried a burden they’d laden her with. One Epimetheus couldn’t share, much as he’d tried.
Kronos might have taken a page from his son’s book and hidden something horrific within Elpida’s grasp, to be triggered by Epimetheus’ love.
If that was the case, Epimetheus would travel to Tartarus, to make his brother pay. But in the meantime, what would happen to Elpida?
He paced the length of the living room and punched the wall. Plaster and brick gave way under his superhuman strength, but he felt only a second’s relief before using his powers to reshape the broken fragments into their initial form and fixing the damage. Elpida wouldn’t appreciate coming home only to find he’d filled it with holes.
“She’s got you wrapped around her finger.” Definitely Rhea’s voice this time. “Pity she’s probably out there fucking a mere mortal because—instead of killing her, as you should have—you went and fell in love with her.”
“Shut up,” Epimetheus roared. “You’re lying. She has a business meeting. Why are you trying to make me kill her? What will you gain?”
“The world.” Her soft answer came whispered on the wind but reached his ears as hard as a gunshot. “Kill her, or I will.”
White-hot anger boiled in his gut. “Why don’t you try?” he growled. He’d destroy Rhea and this world too, to protect Elpida. It was silly, when he’d only known her a little more than a day, but she held his heart in her small, human palms.
“Because they won’t let me,” Rhea shrieked. “The witch is cloaking her. I only found her once, when I sent her to you.” Her tone went from manic to conversational. “I saved her life, you know. For you. She was going to die in a car crash, and you were going to stay buried another hundred years.”
Epimetheus ignored the gnawing behind his ribs at the thought of Elpida’s body, broken and bloody, torn by the metal supposed to protect her. “What are you talking about, woman? What witch?”
“Stop asking questions. It’s not for you or me to think. We are puppets, meant to do our betters’ bidding. Kill her, and we’ll all be free.”
“Free from what?” he asked. And who was their puppet master?
No answer.
“Rhea. Talk to me. Who is pulling your strings?”
Silence. Like Elpida, she was gone.
“Fuck,” he screamed at the empty room. “Fuck this cryptic nonsense. I am nobody’s puppet. I alone control my actions. I make my own destiny.”
But his hands trembled again, and with them, the ground shook. The balcony door swung open so hard, it crashed into the wall and erupted into a million shards. His glass with the remaining froth toppled over and rolled off the table, to smash to the floor. One by one, the cabinet doors opened, to spill out their contents. The cacophony of rattling and crashing seemed to last forever, but it wasn’t the worst of it. A cyclone formed at the center of the room, and the walls swayed inward. He was destroying Elpida’s apartment, after worrying over a single hole. It would be funny if he could laugh, but his jaw was clench shut with the effort to control his powers.
He had to leave before he brought down the whole building. He’d return later for the damage. But where would he go? All he knew of Modern Greece were the places he’d visited with Elpida.
His burial spot should work. It was out of the way, and he had a better chance of not being noticed there than—say—at a hospital. He ducked out of the way of a flying table lamp and focused on blinking there. The coffee table caught him in the stomach and was totaled against his indestructible body. He tried again, bringing to mind the smell and feel of the damp earth pressing in on him, and ordering his cells to dissolve and reform there.
His effect on his cellular structure was as nonexistent as it was on the destruction surrounding him.
Stop, he told the air that whooshed in, ripping pictures off the walls. The tiles jiggled beneath his feet, and slabs came off to gouge at the walls.
What was happening? He never had an issue controlling himself or his surroundings before. Like he’d never had any trouble controlling a human’s mind before.
This had nothing to do with Elpida. The earth and the water and the air and the fire and the ether bowed to his will; they didn’t rebel against him.
The couch toppled over and collided with the wall, to come apart in a shower of splintered wood, torn fabric, and tufts of stuffing. When Epimetheus looked at what was left of it, his vision split. He saw the debris, but overlapped on it, he saw Kronos’ face, contorted in rage. He heard him scream and saw him fight against his own body, that was as solid and unmovable as Epimetheus’ had been a couple days ago.
Only, unlike Epimetheus, Kronos was conscious.
And something was impossibly, irrevocably wrong.
For the first time in the millennia since he realized he couldn’t stop Pandora’s demise, the Titan who co-created humanity, weathering the wrath of his brothers and the gods alike, felt fear.