She stepped out of her garment. “Try not to sound so disappointed.”
I turned toward the window, watching the city as it cooked. I allowed her a semblance of modesty, feigning the role of a gentleman.
“Enjoying the heat?”
Past the clay roofs and monochromatic buildings, I fixated on the gilded sparkle of a far-off sea. I wanted to be near her, yet a thousand miles away whenever she spoke of her husband. I fixated on the glittering waves, one white and yellow speckle at a time as the water disappeared into oblivion.
“You’re the closest thing we have to snow in Athens.”
She pulled my attention back from the waves. “Hmm?”
“You and your ice, of course.”
There was a sing-song quality to her joke. She’d found my hair, my eyes, the pale flesh I wore worthy of endless commentary. I was marble. I was porcelain. I was whatever frosty peak her husband had shivered over a fire to survive before the army descended upon Armenia.
Bathing salts and fragrant oils rolled off her as her dress fell away, which wasn’t my preference. Wealthy Athenians were soaked, scrubbed, and doused in perfumes. Her servants drenched her long dark locks, soaking through her pores, masking that crisp, painful lungful of air that only she possessed. I missed the clean smell of her soul, but at least she was here. She was alive. She was mine.
I was better off staring at the sea rather than fixating on the ownership that consumed me.
Mine, mine, mine.
What was I doing?
Water. Window. House. Human. Ground yourself, for fuck’s sake. Pick something new. Be here. Be present. Control yourself.
I focused on the way the gauzy curtains tufted in the wind, appreciating the pale orange of late evening over the sea. The rustling of locks of hair, sweat unburdened by florals, and fabric let me know she’d slipped into her robe.
I heard her steps before I felt the brush of her skin against my back. My jaw clenched involuntarily as she slid into the space behind me. I closed my eyes as she ran one hand down my arm, fingers interlacing in mine. She pressed her cheek into the place between my shoulder blades. Her heat soaked into me, warming whatever I had that passed for a heart.
“Eleni…”
This wasn’t the first time she’d touched me, and I still didn’t know how to respond. I had a human once before, but never like this. Not one I could touch. Not one I could hold. I didn’t dare to take it further, as if my hands would stain her irreparably.
She was pure, and I was…me.
Eleni didn’t see it that way and had spent the better part of two years winning me over to her logic.
Two years that I hadn’t left her side. I’d walked home with her that night. I’d been her unseen sentinel, her companion, the center of her universe, as she was mine. I didn’t dare return to Hell for more than the barest of moments, never knowing if it would be a minute or a day or a week that had passed in the human lands. For better or for worse, I’d told Eleni how I’d first met her soul, of our time together, and how I’d burned her home to the ground when I’d learned of her death. I hadn’t known if honesty was the right decision when discussing our connection, but who else could I share it with, if not her?
Eleni had things to share of her own.
She’d likened our story to Eros and Psyche, though the human woman had lost her heart’s love once she’d looked upon his immortal face. Maybe that was the cautionary tale that kept her from pushing for more, though she certainly mentioned Zeus and his human lovers whenever she found a way to work it into the conversation.
My sister had found me once in the days following my disappearing act from the Grecian party. Izi’s amusement turned into something else when she called my attachment to this shimmering, opal soul what it was.
Obsession.
Telling her to go fuck herself was insufficient; so, I personally crafted wards to ensure that no infernal entity could cross Eleni’s threshold. I had no interest in hearing my sister’s opinion as I took up residence with the now twenty-two-year-old woman who studied the stars.
Hell would be fine without me.
But this soft, fragile creature with mere decades on the earth? She needed me.
Her betrothed, on the other hand…
Eleni’s husband would be gone for a long, long time. Faithful members of my legion clung to him like a second dusk. Thesmokey extension of my will gathered at his shoulder. Shadows beyond the veil borrowed the outline of his fingers, guiding him toward the sweetness of the wrong wine, the confidence in a mistaken battle choice, a snowy passage, a carelessly held blade, and, fuck it, a wild jackal sprinting into the camp from time to time when things weren’t moving fast enough.
If, ratherwhen, I orchestrated the man’s death, I could keep word of his passing at bay for decades. Eleni would never have to remarry, nor be forced to take on the social status of a widow, as long as her betrothed male was believed alive. It was an asinine system. The humans could learn a thing or two from the gods and the way we structured independence. But that, along with many of my uncontrollable feelings regarding mortal customs, changed little.
