Empire of Lust (Gods of Olympus Book 2) Page 3

  “We enjoy eating,” I said. If we were going to state the obvious, then I would play that game too.

  They both stared at me for a few seconds that felt like hours before returning to their conversation.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while,” Willa said.

  “No, I’ve been holed up, working. I’ve got an exhibition coming up that I’ve had to prepare for. I’m behind schedule,” Laird explained.

  “That’s got to be exciting.”

  “Definitely. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Will you be exhibiting that sculpture you were working on yesterday?” I asked, interjecting myself into the conversation. Why wasn’t Laird paying me any attention?

  His gaze reluctantly slid across to me like it pained him. “Yes, that is one of the pieces.”

  “It was very lovely.”

  “Thank you.” His attention went back to Willa. “You should come to the opening night. I’ll arrange for an invite if you’re keen.”

  “That would be amazing, thank you,” Willa replied. “Let me know the date, and I’ll make sure I’m not working that night. Wouldn’t want to miss the big opening.”

  “I definitely wouldn’t want to miss it,” I added.

  He looked at me as if he’d already forgotten that I was there. What was wrong with him? “Two invitations then. I’ll put you both on the list.”

  I wasn’t originally on the list?

  Laird pushed his cart. “I’d better keep going. It was nice running into you.”

  “You too,” Willa and I said at the same time. It was going to bug me for the rest of the day wondering who he had been talking to—Willa or me? I got the feeling it wasn’t me.

  After we’d turned the corner, I was able to speak freely again. “He really doesn’t like me, does he?”

  “Laird? He seemed fine to me.”

  “He doesn’t even like talking to me.”

  She shrugged like it was no big deal. “Laird’s an artist, he takes a while to warm up to people. He probably only speaks to me so I don’t complain about his music being too loud at two o’clock in the morning.”

  She was being nice and being a good friend, but I could see through her platitudes. There had to be something wrong with Laird. In over three thousand years, I had never met anyone that hadn’t fallen under my spell. There wasn’t a man alive that didn’t lust for me.

  Until now.

  There had to be something wrong with him, that was it. Because it couldn’t be me. I couldn’t be losing my desirability after all this time. Everyone else seemed to be still affected. It was his problem that he was different.

  I wished I could believe that.

  All I kept wondering was why on earth I cared so much what Laird thought about me. His opinion should mean nothing to me. He was a mere human while I was an immortal goddess.

  Why?

  Seriously, why?

  4

  All my new clothes were piled high on the bed next to me. Willa didn’t have enough clothes hangers for me to fit them all in the closet. I was going to have to be choosy about which outfits to hang and which to fold into the chest of drawers.

  That task could wait for a while longer. I held in my hands the letter that my father had included with the package of money. I’d put off reading it this morning, and now there was no reason to. I didn’t have Willa waiting for me to leave for shopping, I had all evening stretching out in front of me.

  I could leave it unread. My father would never know that I had ignored his letter. He didn’t want me to be in Olympus, he had no right to dictate what I did in exile. He wasn’t the boss of me over here.

  But he actually was.

  Sadly.

  I belonged to my father for as long as he breathed air into his lungs. He was my father and I was his property. He had proven that to me time and time again. The marriage to Ermolai was just the latest show of his power.

  There was no way around reading the letter. Plus, a part of me burned to know what he deemed so important as to put ink to paper. What message did he want me to know while I was banned from our home? What could he possibly say to me that my exile hadn’t already spoken?

  Carefully, I broke the wax seal and opened the envelope. The thick vellum unfolded with my shaking hands. It wasn’t a long note, but I feared it was powerful. There was no use delaying now. I had to read it.

  Aphrodite,

  I trust this money will see you through during your time on earth. Please be careful with it as there is no more I will be sending.

  You have severely damaged this house and our reputation with your unconscionable behavior. Not only that, but you have ruined your chances here in Olympus of making another match. There will be no man that will touch you after what you did, goddess or not.

  You should feel shamed and sorry for your actions. I never thought a daughter of mine would carry on like you did. I have never felt so embarrassed and angry in my life. You are lucky I only exiled you and did not order your immediate death. Consider this a very generous mercy.

  Your exile will last until the memory fades enough for me to see you again. I suggest you use this time to redeem yourself and make sure you can act properly again here amongst the gods.

  You will only hear from me again after you have served your time.

  Father.

  Tears stung at my eyes, but I would not let them fall. My father’s words felt like someone had taken a dagger and shoved it into my belly. Then twisted it, hard.

  He probably had a right to be angry, and the bitterness jumped off the vellum in painful bursts. But he wasn’t looking at the situation from my perspective. He saw it all as king of the gods, the all-powerful god of the sky. He could not see it from my side at all.

  But even if he could understand my actions, it didn’t make any difference. We all played our roles in Olympus, and I had failed in mine. I had refused to be the puppet and play the game that everyone else did. I rebelled and it had landed me in exile.

  Nobody in Olympus would give me pity or understanding. There would be nobody on my side if I begged for mercy. Being exiled really was light punishment considering what Father could have done to me. There would be plenty of others demanding my head decorate a stick outside the palace walls.

  With the way my father had yelled and thrown vases at me, there might have been a few thoughts of his own that included my head on a stick. Just the memory of the look on his face was enough to have me quaking in my new shoes. I’d never seen him so angry before.

  But, then again, I hadn’t been that mad before either. I didn’t do what I did for fun. I did it because I saw no other way out of the situation. If he hadn’t put me there in the first place, I never would have had to do it.

  In the end, it came down to a battle of wills. I could continue to be stubborn and stick by my actions. In which case, I might end up in exile forever. Or I could be the good daughter and beg for forgiveness. That way I might be able to return home before too much changed without me.

  I wasn’t sure which way I was going to go. I did really want to go home, but I wasn’t ready to bow down and repent just yet. Maybe the time apart would be good for both of us.

  Maybe the court would settle down in the meantime, too. There will be another scandal soon that would have everybody talking about something else. I just had to wait for that to happen before slinking back in.

  At least that was the theory.

  My scandal would be very difficult to top.

  I flopped back on the bed and let Father’s letter fall to the floor. At some stage, I would have to hide it and the money he had sent me. Nobody could know my name was Aphrodite. I couldn’t let my secret be known, or my exile would last even longer.

  It was enough to make me exhausted.

  The room darkened as I laid there. I didn’t worry about dinner and fell asleep sometime later. Luckily, I didn’t dream again that night. I couldn’t take another trip down memory lane.

  The alarm clock on the bedside table flashed ten a.m. when I awoke in the morning. Way too much sunlight was streaming in through the window and highlighting dancing dust particles.

  I showered and let the water finish waking me up. The house was quiet when I ventured downstairs. Willa was nowhere to be seen, and her handbag was no longer on the kitchen counter where she seemed to regularly leave it.

  My stomach was grumbling from hunger. I’d never had to prepare my own meals before, but I supposed there would be no servants hurrying to fetch me something here. I was going to have to learn to feed myself, or I was going to starve.

  The kitchen was a complicated place. Back home, our servants cooked over an open fire. They had pots that could hold enough liquid to feed a hundred people and ovens that made the room unbearably hot. That was more than enough reason for me to stay out of there.

  I couldn’t see one place to light a fire here. Searching through the cupboards, the Froot Loops were nowhere to be seen. I didn’t really feel like them anyway. My taste buds craved something hot so I would have to work out how to use the metal oven.

  Some eggs were in the refrigerator, and they seemed easy enough to start with. Just a little heat and they should cook with no further intervention being needed.

  I’d seen Willa use a pan from the cupboard next to the oven. I took out the one she used and placed it on top of the stove. A round knob at the side turned it on.

  Easy.

  Only a small amount of eggshell ended up in the pan with the eggs. I fished it out with a fork and watched my creation cook.

  Too easy.

  I didn’t understand why the cooks back home were always complaining. There was nothing to it. Besides the heat of the kitchen, there was little thought or effort involved in the whole process. r />
  The eggs started to whiten, and the yolk turned a lighter color. They were almost ready. A few splatters jumped from the pan onto the stove. I grabbed a paper towel to wipe it up.

  My hand was burned as the towel instantly caught fire. The flaming paper fell from my hands onto the counter. The hand towel next to it caught the flames and immediately lit up with burning-hot fire.

  It was spreading fast. The entire roll of paper towels was set alight with a spark from the original piece. It burned quickly and thoroughly.

  I frantically looked around the room as I tried to find something that would extinguish the ever-growing flames. We used to have a bucket of sand handy back home. They would sit in nearly every room, ready to be thrown on a fire that burned out of control.

  There was no bucket of sand.

  Who didn’t keep a bucket of sand handy?

  The curtains surrounding the window caught fire and started glowing shades of orange and yellow. If I didn’t do something soon, the whole house would burn to the ground.

  “Help!” I cried out. “Fire! I need help!”

  My hand throbbed from the burn, but I couldn’t stop to deal with it yet. Willa wouldn’t have a home to return to if I didn’t stop the fire.

  The heat coming from the blaze reminded me of the kitchens in Olympus. They would have had a bucket of sand on hand to deal with an emergency like this.

  Water. You could douse a fire with water too. It wasn’t as easy to come by, but it would certainly extinguish a fire if there was enough of it.

  “Help! Fire!”

  I turned on the faucet and used my hands to scoop up the water and throw it on the flames. It did little. I needed more of it. Willa kept glasses for drinking near the fridge. I grabbed the largest one and started filling it. When it was full, I threw it at the center of the fire.

  The flames sizzled when it connected to the water, but it didn’t stop burning. It didn’t even grow smaller in size. If anything, the whole thing was only getting bigger.

  Thick black smoke was starting to linger in the air and absorb all the oxygen from my lungs. I started coughing as it choked my throat and made it sore.

  I continued to scream and throw water from the glass. No matter how many times I refilled it, there was never enough to stop the fire.

  The whole house was going to burn down.

  And it would be all my fault.

  5

  The back door suddenly opened, and Laird rushed through it. He took one look at the horrifying scene, and his eyes widened with shock. “What the hell…?”

  “I don’t know how to stop it,” I said, my voice far higher than it normally was.

  He grabbed the curtain rod and pulled it down, dumping the blazing material into the sink. He turned on the faucet and let the water run directly onto the fabric.

  Smart move.

  I should have thought of that.

  He then used the empty curtain rod to poke the roll of paper towels into the sink. He managed to extinguish the flame in less time than it took me to start the fire in the first place.

  Only smoke and a large lump of ashes remained. I opened the window and door, hoping the smoke would be encouraged to leave and not linger inside the house.

  “Thank you so much,” I started, “I panicked, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. If you hadn’t arrived…”

  Laird turned the stove off and placed the burned pan into the sink to join the rest of the smoldering mess. My eggs were burnt to a crisp. In all my panic I’d forgotten to turn them off.

  “You’re going to need some more eggs,” he pointed out.

  “I’m not very good at cooking.”

  “No kidding.” I thought he was angry with me until his lips quirked into a smile. “Maybe you should have started with toast.”

  “I’d probably burn that too,” I joked.

  His smile dissolved into a frown as his eyes scanned over my arm. “You’re hurt. Your hand, let me see.”

  I tried to hide my burnt hand, but he wasn’t having any of it. Laird stepped toward me and my breath left me. He was so incredibly hot, and even more so up close. He pried my hand from behind my back and gently turned it over.

  “It’s nothing. I’ll just run it under some water. It’s fine, really.”

  “It’s not fine,” he rebuked. “You really should go to the emergency room and have it seen to.”

  An emergency room sounded official. They would probably need to know who I was and want to know all kinds of personal information. That would not assist me with blending in. I shook my head. “It’s fine. Willa probably has a first aid kit here somewhere. She’s a nurse, after all.”

  “Let me help you find it, then.”

  I could agree to that. Mainly because the pain was radiating out from my hand, and it meant he would be sticking around for a little bit longer.

  Laird stalked through the house while I followed on his heels. He walked up the stairs and headed for the tiny bathroom. Once inside, he rummaged around in the medicine cabinet until he found some ointment and a bandage.

  “Here we go. I knew Willa would have the goods. I cut myself once when my sculpting knife slipped. She patched me up better than a doctor could. She even put in a few stitches for good measure.”

  “She’s quite remarkable,” I agreed.

  Laird gestured for me to sit down on the edge of the bathtub while he sat on the fluffy toilet lid. Our knees had to rest against each other so we’d fit in the small space. I was ultra-aware of where our skin touched.

  He took my hand, and I opened up my palm to show the rawness of the burn. It felt like I’d placed it directly on the flames and held it there. I could still feel the heat radiating out from it.

  “I think it’s only a minor burn but still pretty nasty. This should help.” He squeezed out the ointment and gently spread it over the burn. It instantly cooled and soothed the angry heat. “Sorry if I hurt you.”

  “It’s okay. I really don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come to my rescue.”

  “I was outside and heard you yelling. I came as soon as I could get over the fence.” Images of Laird jumping over the fence filled my mind. I could picture his tanned muscles straining as he pulled himself up and over. It was a nice montage to distract me from the pain.

  “I kept thinking of the look on Willa’s face when she came home to smoldering ruins of her house.” That image wasn’t so nice, but it was true. There was no way I wanted to hurt Willa like that. She’d been nothing but nice to me since I arrived.

  “How’d you manage to do it in the first place?” Laird asked as he started wrapping my hand in the bandage. The touch of material on the wound brought tears to my eyes.

  “I was wiping up some splatter and the paper towel caught on fire. I was just trying to cook some breakfast and the next thing I knew the whole kitchen was on fire.”

  “Maybe you should stick to having cereal for breakfast.” Amusement danced in his hazel eyes. When I really focused, I could see golden flecks in amongst the colors of his iris.

  “You think this is hilarious, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I kind of do.” He started laughing and I couldn’t help myself, I joined him. It was ridiculous to think I couldn’t even cook a simple meal for myself without burning down the house.

  I had never been this completely useless before. I may not have been able to prepare meals back home, but at least I had something to do. I played my part as mighty Aphrodite of Olympus. Daughter of one of the greatest gods in history. Goddess of love, fertility, and desire.

  Here, there was nothing.

  I was Dita, the useless roommate who couldn’t even feed herself.

  My laughter stopped as Laird finished with the bandage. “Can I ask you a really big favor?”

  “Sure you can.”

  “Can we please keep this from Willa?” I asked, quickly adding, “I’ll clean up all the mess and replace everything that was ruined. I just don’t want her thinking I’m completely hopeless. I really like her, and I don’t want to move out.”

  Laird nodded and caused a rush of relief to flood through me. “I won’t tell her. This can just be between us. You’ll have to come up with an excuse for the burned hand, though.”