“The descent into hades?”
“And back. The journey every earlier labor had trained Heracles to make. Make your own myth, my friend. I know you can.”
Could he?
“She told me I was the most trustworthy man she’d ever known. And yet she didn’t tell me her secret.”
“So, give heryourtrust. Show her how much you need her. She is afraid. Show her you will not only accept, but embrace, her child. You would, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would!”
He would doanything. And yet, he might not succeed.
He’d wished for love. If he’d known what he’d wished for would entail this—the complete upending of his world—he would never have wished it.
Only, that was a lie, too.
The last time he’d faced overwhelming odds against him, had not been by choice, but, quite literally, by accident.
Surviving horrible destruction—being changed, utterly…destroyed by knowledge of the fragility of breath, and yet having to carry on, to inhale, to return to the mundane with that new reality always pulsing, a part of his heartbeat, now.
He’d thought to mend the part of him that was Pen’s.
He’d got what he wished.
And he was worse off than he’d started.
To procure a wife and an heir had felt like a simple matter of making a list. To find a love and build a life too precious to risk its loss…?
It might well destroy him.
But who was he if he did not find the courage to try?
Internally, he repeated the words he’d said to Hera.Love will not fail.
Nor would he.
“Will you call back the others?”
Chev smiled slowly. “Ash! Pen!”
They entered.
“Hurtheven, I think, has something to say.”
Hurtheven exchanged a glance with Chev. Then, he faced his friends. “I need your help.”
“What was that?” Ash put a hand to his ear. “I didn’t quite understand.”
“Oh, stop it,” Pen scolded. She smiled radiantly and then held out her hand. “Of course, we’ll help you—in any way you require.”
* * *
So far, the two-day journey to London had been fraught. Hera had done a good deal of hidden-as-best-she-could weeping, only to have Alicia encourage her to give way to her sentiments, assuring her that airing them would purge them.
Hera knew better.
The pain she was experiencing was pain that would never heal. At best, she must learn to live with the constant ache.
