“I didn’t humiliate you.” She settled herself beside me. “Stop being such a drama queen.”
“Didn’t you?”
“Did I?”
“Larkin, I’m still learning how to be a Goddess. I cannot control my aura properly yet. I’ve caused more trouble than I probably should have. I’ve made friends and I’ve made enemies. We’ve just gone through a war and I almost lost Gray.”
“No one’s asking you to be perfect. That is an expectation you have of yourself.” She stretched her legs out in front of her and flexed her feet. “We need someone with a fresh perspective. You have that. You’ve been a chameleon for the last few months. How you got so many minor Gods on your side?—”
“Until they thought I was some power-hungry woman that was willing to leave Gray for dead and move up in the world.”
“We are fickle beings,” she mused. “But they’ve had the rose-tinted glasses removed now.”
I sighed and stared at the wall ahead of us. “It was brave of you to show them everything.”
Larkin nodded slowly. “I knew there would come a time when I needed to. And it would have been unfair to Archer to let him take the fall for it all.”
“I was worried he was about to give up his life.”
“We assumed that wouldn’t sentence him to death because of the damage the oleander had done again. It was a risk.”
Considering how selfish the Gods had shown themselves to be, I was grateful that Archer and Larkin had spoken to each other about how to move forward. I was also deeply grateful that Larkin didn’t allow Archer to take the fall.
“Why didn’t you put yourself forward to lead?” I asked her. “You know Elysia and the others. You’ve seen what it’s like.”
“And for all intents and purposes, I’m a murderer. They might understand why I did what I did, they might even agree with it, but they aren’t about to put me in the sacred spot. They wouldn’t trust me enough.”
I shook my head. “Why did you do this? This is what you meant when you said to trust you. You already had this planned.”
“I did,” she admitted. “Although, if I’m honest with you, I wasn’t sure it would work out. There were so many things that could have gone wrong.”
“So, why?”
The silence stretched out between us and I assumed Larkin wasn’t going to answer my question, but then she spoke. “I think we’ve previously discussed how we are not that different, Quentin.”
“Yes.”
“It is ambition that drives us. My ambition is to see a change up there. And yours…” She trailed off, looking at me.
“Is to go down in history for something founded in the lab.”
“That’s not really an option for you anymore. This is the chance for you to still go down in history.”
“You should have spoken to me about it first.”
“I couldn’t. If you knew, your reaction wouldn’t be genuine and Gray would have figured something out. The whole of Elysia saw the surprise on your face when I nominated you. They don’t think this is a calculated act.”
I chewed on my bottom lip.
“I think it’s time for us to take back some control,” Larkin continued. “Kieran held power, then Hunter, and now it was meant to be Gray. A succession of men dictating what’s best for us all. I grew sick of it. And…”
“And?”
Larkin reached across and took my hand. “And I want to make sure you’re safe.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I married Hunter, I believed he would treat me as an equal. Clearly that wasn’t the case, and I struggled to find my voice and to find a way out. After all, he ruled Elysia, and I was his wife. People had already made plenty of assumptions about me.”
