Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
If it doesn’t, I’ll be sending my people to their deaths.
25
Icarus
I’ve met both Hades and Zeus previously, but there was something about witnessing them standing with Poseidon, making war plans, that really drove home how different they are from me. A direct approach, decisive even, for all that it’s in service of a coup. A simple plan to slide beneath the radar and kill everyone who makes decisions, and then hand back all that power before anyone realizes they’ve stolen it in the first place.
It might even work.
What do I know of war? Nothing. Less than nothing. My skill set is better suited to the bedroom. But that doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. If I can pull my part of this off, it means Zeus’s plan has a better chance of success. It means that Poseidon is more likely to be safe.
I don’t know where that last thought popped up from. Except, yes I do, don’t I? This man has snuck beneath my skin. It’s actually hilarious, because Poseidon is so up-front that I don’t think he’s ever snuck anywhere once in his life. And yet here we are. The thought of being shut out by him sent me into a fucking panic attack, and in response he just held me until we both fell asleep. He’s too fucking kind and it’s going to get him killed.
I take a shaky breath. “Poseidon.”
“Hmm?”
“I need your phone. Not yet, but this afternoon. By then, my marks will have had time to realize they don’t have recourse.” It’s less time than I’d prefer to give them, but we’re definitely in desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures territory. “This will work.” It has to.
He finally puts the SUV into gear and eases back out of the parking spot. “It’s hurting you to do this. I’m sorry.”
I blink. Of all the things I expect him to say, this wasn’t even on the list. “What are you talking about?”
“Icarus.” He doesn’t look at me. “You promised not to lie.”
Something cold and ugly squirms through me. I don’t have a name for the emotion, only a deep desire not to be feeling it right now. I force a laugh. “Come on, big guy. I’m not lying. They can’t hurt me. They never could hurt me. The worst I got out of the experience is some lackluster sex.”
I expect him to laugh alongside me. To allow me to charm my way past his comment. To do anything but veer into a shadowy parking lot, still untouched by the rising sun in the east. He puts the SUV into park and twists to face me, expression severe. “Don’t do that.”
I don’t know how to do anything else. I manage another laugh, this one a little too harsh to be believable. “Don’t do what? This is who I am.”
“Icarus.” He reaches out slowly, as if he’s not sure of his welcome, as if I’m not about to throw myself into his lap and start sobbing without even knowing why. When he finally makes contact, cupping the side of my face with his big, rough hand, I quiver in something that feels almost like fear.
His eyes are filled with devastating understanding. “You did what you had to do to survive.”
I want to jerk away, but within the confines of the front seat, there’s nowhere to go. So I do the only thing I know how. I lash out, aiming to make it hurt. “Oh, please. I might have been a poor little rich boy whose daddy didn’t love him, but I never went without. I was never hungry or without shelter. What I did had nothing to do with survival.”
“Didn’t it?” Poseidon brushes his thumb beneath my eye and I’m horrified to realize a tear has slipped free. Where did that even come from? I don’t have an answer by the time he keeps speaking. “How old were you the first time?”
“I don’t see how that matters.”
“Indulge me.” It’s no less a command for being softly spoken.
I swallow hard. “Sixteen, but it’s not what you think.”
He nods, his amber eyes completely free of the judgment I expect. People have bargained their bodies since the beginning of time, for safety, for money, for food. I did it for secrets I didn’t even need. It’s not as if they paved the way to power. The most use I’ll get from them now is saving the lives of strangers who wouldn’t piss on me if I were on fire.
Apparently there’s no way but forward. I curse myself for the awful feeling in my stomach that I can’t quite dispel. “Look, no one made me do anything. Maybe at first I was looking for love in all the wrong places, but I figured out the game pretty quick. I always planned on getting out, Poseidon, but I didn’t want to do it with his resources.”