He took a step toward her, his feet never touching the ground as the wings on his sandals fluttered. Hermes was not a warrior god, only a messenger. He would not harm her, but he wasn’t harmless. As he reached out a hand to her and flashed his most seductive smile, she knew he was trying to lure her in. Other, far more dangerous, gods would reward him handsomely if he succeeded.
“Only to introduce you to your kind,” he said smoothly. “You are one of us, Princess. Why are you wasting yourself among humans? Olympus will want to welcome you properly.”
Liam stepped in front of her. “Go, Charlotte,” he whispered to her over his shoulder.
She took a step back, her legs shaking. “I’m not strong enough to carry us both.”
“Go without me. Please. Now!”
Hermes’s smile morphed into something far more sinister, his lips pulling back from his teeth. Blinding light filled the room.
Liam covered his eyes with his arm, screaming, “Go, Charlotte, go!”
Charlie had no choice but to do as he said. She was too weak for anything else. She pivoted, sliced open a portal between dimensions, and traveled home.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Charlie slammed into the stone floor of her ritual room, facedown and covered in sweat, trembling uncontrollably. Tears spilled from her eyes, her body wracked with sobs. She covered her face with her hands, curling onto her side. Oh gods, what had she done? She’d left Liam to Hermes’s mercy.
Strong arms gathered her up. She gasped and blinked in surprise at her father’s scent.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
As angry as she was at him, it felt good. He loved her. No matter what, she knew that to be true. Maybe that was why she’d returned herself to the same hour she left. Although she’d been gone for days, to her father, she’d been gone maybe forty minutes or so. He’d obviously been waiting for her return.
She sobbed harder. Why was she such a coward? She’d left Liam in an impossible situation. She should have stayed. She should have faced Hermes and protected Liam. What would happen now?
Her father set her on her bed and brushed her hair back from her face. “What happened? Do you want to talk about it?”
“I have to go back,” she croaked. She pushed herself to a seated position and wiped under her eyes, blinking rapidly.
Gabriel folded himself into the chair next to her bed, his face somber. “Where did you get that dress?”
She froze. Purple sequins were not a thing in Paragon, and the cut was entirely human. “Macy’s,” she said simply.
Her father swallowed and gripped the arms of his chair. “How long were you gone?”
“You tell me,” she said softly.
“In your sequence of events, not in mine.”
“Four days.” She shivered, too exhausted to defend herself from his anger or to dodge his questions.
He leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. “Thank you for coming back.”
She hesitated, knowing that the truth could get her into a world of trouble but not caring anymore. Whatever punishment her father doled out, it couldn’t be worse than the pain gripping her heart. What was happening to Liam? “I wanted to stay.”
His brows ratcheted up and talons sprouted from his knuckles, digging into the arms of her chair.
“You’re going to pull the stuffing out.” She sniffed and pointed to the chair arms.
He lifted his claws, his throat bobbing before he gritted out, “Why did you want to stay?”
She sighed and wiped her eyes again, but there was no slowing the tears. “I love him, Dad. From the moment I saw him.” Her breath caught. “Even in the beginning when I thought he was a miserable, gruff pain in the ass, I loved him. He made me feel alive. He made me feel like the world had color, and the thought of continuing on without him feels…”
“Gray?” he finished for her.
