Redeemed

“Death’s crone, you have no dominion over my Temple!”

The video shifted so that they could see Neferet standing in front of what had to be the Mayo.

“She’s a bunch of fries short of a Happy Meal,” Stevie Rae said.

Aphrodite didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “That’s all you got, bumpkin?”

“I’d say crazier than a shit house rat,” Nicole said.

“No one asked—” Aphrodite began, but the explosion on the video cut off her words.

“Oh, Goddess, no!” Lenobia gasped as they watched Neferet blast a wave of Darkness after Thanatos and the rest of them.

“Father’s saving them!” Rephaim said.

“Look at him move.” Darius’s voice was hushed, respectful. “His speed and strength are incredible.”

Aphrodite didn’t get a chance to agree. The video ended with whoever was taking it jostling around to get inside the school’s Hummer, though he still managed to film Neferet and her bloody tentacles of Darkness slithering back inside the Mayo.

Then the interview began, and Aphrodite had to tell herself to close her unattractively gaping mouth because there sat Kalona, next to Thanatos—wings and all—on Fox 23.

“I am Kalona, immortal brother of Erebus. Once, when the earth was younger, I was Warrior and companion to the Goddess Nyx, but I chose poorly and because of that I Fell from the side of my Goddess in the Otherworld to this realm.”

“Erebus’s brother? You’ve got to fucking be kidding!” Aphrodite felt like her brain was going to explode.

“It is the truth,” Darius said quietly as the video concluded.

The screen went dark and Aphrodite stared at him. “You knew?”

“Yes, Kalona told us—Zoey, Stark, me,” Darius admitted.

“And none of you thought that was important enough to tell any of the rest of us?” Lenobia asked, looking almost as a

Darius’s wide shoulders shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t give the truth of it much thought. Kalona’s veracity has been more than questionable since the moment he appeared here.”

“But now you believe him,” Rephaim said.

Darius met his gaze. “I do.”

“Rephaim, did you know your daddy was Erebus’s brother?” Stevie Rae asked.

Bird Boy’s eyes looked sad. “Father never speaks of before.”

“Which means no, you did not?” Aphrodite asked.

“Correct,” Rephaim said, sounding eerily like his father.

“This changes things,” Lenobia said.

“Yeah, in an awesome way.” Nicole nodded like a bobblehead. “It means we have Nyx’s Warrior on our team.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Aphrodite said dryly. “It means we have Nyx’s ex-Warrior who screwed up so badly he got kicked out of the Otherworld on our team. And that isn’t so awesome.”

“He said he’s trying to atone,” Rephaim said.

“And he saved Thanatos and the rest of them,” Darius said.

“Sorry, but I’m not ready to jump blindly on Team Kalona,” Aphrodite said.

“I think it is blind to ignore what is in front of our eyes,” Rephaim said, gesturing at the dark iPad screen.

“And I think there’s a whole bunch of stuff about Kalona we don’t know.” She paused and gave Darius a hard look. “Or at least most of us don’t know. Now, if there isn’t something you’d rather do, I’d appreciate it if you’d round up all of the fledglings you think might have some Warrior talent. I’m pretty sure Thanatos is going to want a battle-ready head count. After watching Crazy on YouTube, I have a feeling Neferet’s not going to give a shit about Team Kalona.” Aphrodite slapped her forehead and then added sarcastically, “Wait! Effing Neferet probably already knows about the Kalona slash Erebus co

It wasn’t until Aphrodite got outside the auditorium that she slowed down and let her thoughts catch up with her emotions. Her heart was thundering and her stomach felt sick. She was pissed. Super pissed.

No, that’s not true. I’m not pissed. I’m freaked out and upset.

With a giant sigh, Aphrodite moved from the sidewalk to one of the benches under a budding oak. The hand that brushed the thick blond hair from her face was shaky.

Darius had kept something from her, something important. Until that moment she’d thought he was different from all the other guys on this earth. He was supposed to be honest. He was supposed to be loyal. And, most of all, he was supposed to love her enough never to lie to her or keep anything from her.

A lie count was the real gauge of how much someone loved you. Aphrodite knew that because she’d grown up watching an ongoing lie count grow and grow. Her parents had pretended to be the perfect couple, but the truth was they had hated each other almost as much as they hated her. Except for when they were in public, they’d lived totally separate lives—they hadn’t even shared a bedroom for more than a decade, let alone shared secrets.

They’d lied to each other on a daily basis.

When she’d been only eight years old, Aphrodite had sworn to herself that she’d never, ever get herself into anything like her parents’ marriage. Hell, until she’d met Darius, she hadn’t let any guy get close enough to her for it to matter whether he lied to her or not. She’d been sure she’d lied to them first. Cheated on them first. Broken up with them first.

“I can feel your sadness, my beauty. Please talk to me.”

Aphrodite looked up at the sound of Darius’s voice, but she didn’t meet his eyes. She stared over his shoulder. “What do you want to talk about?”

He sat beside her and used the back of his hand to gently wipe a tear from her cheek. She jerked away from him, hastily brushing at her other cheek. She hadn’t even known she’d been crying!

“I want to talk about us,” he said.

“Really? Wouldn’t it just be easier to keep on going like we have been? Pretending to be all ‘in love forever and ever’?” she air-quoted sarcastically.

“That has never been a pretense for me. You know that, Aphrodite.” He spoke calmly, earnestly.

She wanted to slap him—hurt him—make him feel even a little of the fear she was feeling. But she didn’t do anything violent. That would mean she’d lost control. That would mean she’d become her mother. Instead, Aphrodite struck him with words.

“And how the hell would I know that? I can’t be inside your head. I can’t even share your feelings like a real Priestess would. But, whatever. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine, and we both have a bunch of shit to do because, as per usual, Darkness is about to try to take over our world.”

“Darkness will have to wait, because you are my world, and if I lose you, I lose myself.”

Aphrodite meant to stand up and walk away and not look back. She was going to make her heart hard, like it used to be when it had actually protected her. Before the shit storm that was Zoey and her Nerd Herd and Darius had happened to her.

She was going to, but somehow Darius had said exactly the right thing so that her legs suddenly decided to listen to her heart instead of her head.

Aphrodite met his gaze. “You lied to me.”

“No, my beauty. I simply didn’t tell you something.”

“Why? Why did you keep that from me? Kalona being Erebus’s brother is a pretty big fucking deal!”

“I don’t care about Kalona or what he did or didn’t say. I care about you and what you say.”

“Me?” Aphrodite frowned at him. “What the hell are you talking about? Not once have I mentioned anything remotely like the possibility of Kalona and Erebus being brothers.”

Darius’s smile was slow and sweet. “Exactly. And if you, my beautiful, wise, gifted Prophetess, don’t have any insight into Kalona’s true past, then why would I care to mention an offhand comment the winged immortal made? Aphrodite, if it was important for us to know Kalona was Erebus’s brother, then I believe you would have told me.”