Apathy's Hero: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Truth's Harem Book 3) Page 2

  Cerberus dared to look again, as he pushed himself into a sitting position. “I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore,” he muttered.

  “New Orleans.” Lexi was kneeling next to him. She didn’t look like herself, though. The starkest difference was the absence of a tattoo on her neck. She wore a black dress, and a streak of vibrant blue ran through her dark hair.

  “Not the underworld?” The last thing he remembered was fighting Hades—the screams, the exhaustion... He didn’t feel any pain, though. He must have slept long enough to heal.

  Lexi furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure when the last time was you looked at a map, but Kansas borders Missouri, not Tartarus.”

  They were in a park, in a patch of grass surrounded by trees and set back from the path. This was so bizarre.

  He leaned in closer, dipping his head near her neck for a better sniff, partly for comfort, but just as much to decipher what was different about her.

  “Whoa, pushy McShifter Boy.” She landed her palm on his chest and held him at arm’s length. “Getting familiar much?”

  “What’s up with you?” He sent the mental question.

  There was nothing. It wasn’t as though she’d locked him out of her head, but the link between them didn’t exist. He couldn’t feel her heart. Her emotions. He and she didn’t share a bond.

  Hades wasn’t in his head either, though. And he wasn’t dying. What the actual fuck? “Do you know me?”

  “I know you were lying unconscious in the grass. I know you’re some kind of three-headed shapeshifting dog-man. I know I’m not comfortable with you slobbering on me.”

  “How old are you?”

  She stood and brushed the grass from her knees. “Nope. You’re alive. I’m glad to see it. Or I was until you broke out the presumption. We’re done talking.” She turned on her toe.

  “Lexi, wait.”

  Her body went rigid, and a hint of fear wafted from her, mingling with her self-assurance. “That’s not my name.”

  She was a terrible liar. The woman who could see truth. Go figure.

  “Alexandra Leia Graham,” he said. No one knew her full name, except her parents and Cerberus. She’d sworn that when she told him.

  Sweat mingled with her familiar scent. Her heart beat faster. She clenched her fists.

  On the path, a pair of women chatted while they pushed strollers.

  Lexi reached in her purse. Before he could puzzle out what she was doing, she whirled back to face him and pressed a bloodstained gargoyle claw to this throat.

  “Tell me who the fuck you are and how you know my name.” Her voice was tight. Pink and purple flared around her, dancing like flames along her skin. “I don’t know if you’re one of those impossible to kill things, but I doubt it’s pleasant to have one of these buried in your windpipe.” A faint tremor ran through her hand, vibrating through the claw and against his skin.

  Cerberus tried to scoot back, and she pressed the tip hard enough to nick him. “Answer me,” she said. There was more than fear and command in her voice. Grief lay underneath. He hadn’t noticed it before.

  “We know each other.” He needed to tell her the truth, but without knowing when or where he was, he didn’t dare say too much.

  “Try again. I’d remember that.”

  “You told me your full name. Said only your stepfather used it.”

  She clenched her jaw and searched his face.

  Then vanished.

  Fuck. When were they? Who was she? This couldn’t be a younger Lexi. She hadn’t known how to make herself invisible until a few weeks ago.

  It was an illusion. Her scent wasn’t fading. It sang to his heart and soothed his soul.

  And the fact that she didn’t know him left an empty pit beneath it all.

  The only way through this was honesty. “You don’t trust the gods, their servants, or other heroes. I don’t blame you. Ninety-nine percent of them are selfish, lying assholes.”

  “Cynical much?” Her question came from empty air.

  “This from a woman who carries a gargoyle claw in her purse. Who didn’t hesitate to pull it on a stranger. Does Poseidon know you have that?”

  She appeared again. She hadn’t moved. “Some creepy-sexy guy I’ve never met pushes himself on me and knows my full name. You’d react differently?”

  “I’d tear my throat out. In my defense, I know you.”

  “So you keep saying.” She crossed her arms. The claw was still clenched in her fist, and she stood as straight as if she had a rod rammed up her spine.

  “Why haven’t you left?” he asked.

  She clenched her jaw.

  “Because you know I’m telling the truth.”

  “You believe you’re telling the truth.”

  “Which means I’m not lying to you.” He didn’t want to spend the afternoon nitpicking the finer points of truth versus reality with her. “My name is Cerberus.”

  Her nostrils flared. “You served Hades.”

  “Past tense. Correct.” He had to measure his response carefully. The wrong answer would send her running. “You and I met online. You were looking for more information about Hades. Your stepfather told you the history books lied and Hades was still alive. I don’t know why you don’t remember. There are things we’ve shared that mean more to me than most people can imagine.”

  “Like what?”

  He tsked. “Trust goes both ways. There are some things I’m not willing to share with just anyone.”

  “Like how much you love someone who looks just like me.”

  She was observant. It had kept her alive for this long.

  “She doesn’t look like you. She is you.” Cerberus didn’t understand why he was certain, but he was.

  “We’re at an impasse, then. You won’t open up to me. I’m sure as fuck not telling you anything.”

  There were only a few topics he was keeping off-limits. “Ask me another question.”

  “You know me, but now how old I am. How does that make sense? Is this a Sliders thing? Quantum Leap?”

  Wow. Her stepdad had gone old school with her geek-education. Had Cerberus traveled in time? “Neither, as far as I’m aware. You’re missing some of the scars my Lexi has, so I assume you’re younger. My turn. Why do you have a gargoyle claw in your purse?”

  Her laugh was bitter. “The police said I could keep it. Dad was sacrificed, not murdered, so it’s a souvenir, not a murder weapon.”

  “That’s fucked up.” Like so much of what came with the enlightenment. “Are you dressed for a special occasion?”

  “You don’t get two questions in a row, but I’ll give you a freebie. Yes. As horrifically special as this moment in any child’s life is, when the gods have picked a loved one for sacrifice—my father’s funeral.”

  That told him she was in her early twenties. Had he time traveled? It wasn’t as though Hades and the world around them exploded, and threw him back a couple of decades. If Actaeon and Icarus were facing the opposite direction, did they go forward in time?

  Another pair of women walked by, chatting and pushing strollers.

  Or they were the same pair.

  Having the same conversation?

  Something wasn’t right. He sniffed the air. The only scents were those of Lexi and the foliage.

  “I get a question now,” she said. “If you know me as well as you think, does this ache in my chest ever go away? Do I ever stop missing Dad?”

  “No. It changes shape. There are some days when it doesn’t hurt as much, but it never goes away.” He’d felt it for himself—that quiet sadness that lived in her heart. There was a piece of her that had never moved past her stepfather’s death.

  That was important. Why?

  Lexi settled onto the grass, tucked her legs to the side, and smoothed her skirt. “Maybe you do know me.” Sadness dripped from her words.

  The two women with the strollers walked by again, having the same conversation.

  Were Cerberus and Lexi stu
ck in some part of her mind? The bit of her that had never escaped her past? That was almost as ridiculous as the time travel theory. He wouldn’t smell her, if that were the case, because she didn’t pick up her own scent the way he did.

  A memory nudged his thoughts, then burst in uninvited.

  He kissed along the back of Lexi’s neck. Her groan danced over his skin and through the bond they shared. “I’ll always know you. Your smell. Your taste. Your voice.”

  “What do I smell like?” she asked.

  “Lilacs and ozone.”

  She giggled. “So poetic.”

  “You bring out my inner Vogon.”

  “I actually like your poetry.” Lexi snuggled into him. Her bare skin against his was one of his favorite sensations. “What would you do if you couldn’t smell anymore?”

  “I’d know your voice anywhere. Recognize your aura from a mile away.”

  “And what if all your senses were gone?” It was a somber question, but her tone was light.

  “My heart would still recognize you.”

  She sighed and pulled his arms tighter around her. “From anyone else, that would fall strictly in the cheesy as fuck column.”

  “Why is it different coming from me?” He already sensed the answer. It flowed between them, unvocalized but potent.

  “Because you mean it.”

  Cerberus shook the thought aside. “Are you coming or going? From the funeral?”

  “Going. I couldn’t listen to them anymore. So many people lining up to lie about their feelings for Dad.”

  “Your stepfather was a good man. I’d expect people to adore him.”

  She gave him a twisted smile. “What was it you said? Ninety-nine percent of people are assholes? I suspect most of them liked him all right. But the platitudes and glowing praise? They’re lying. I don’t know why. Maybe they’re bitter that he was a better man than any of them will ever be. Besides, one of them must have thrown his name in the sacrifice hat. Someone in that fucking church was the reason he was killed.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.” She plucked a strand of grass, shredded it into several smaller pieces, then discarded the remains and moved to the next blade. “Is it?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I didn’t have any idea who or where you were at this point in your life. But I’ve met some of history’s best and brightest, and from the things you’ve said about your stepdad, a lot of them couldn’t hold a candle to him. I would have liked to have met him.”

  “See, that, I believe.” She let out a frustrated groan and scrubbed her face. “This sucks.”

  Her pain echoed in his chest. Even without the bond that connected them, he felt for her. “It does.”

  “That’s not comforting.” She rolled onto her back, face to the sky.

  “You’d rather I lied?”

  She patted the ground next to her. “I’d rather you watched the clouds with me.”

  “When did we reach that point, where you decided to trust me rather than kill me?” Not that he was complaining.

  “We’re not there yet. But I’m exhausted. It’s been a long week. I just want to feel the rain on my face.”

  Dark clouds appeared, blotting out the sun in a heartbeat.

  A high-pitched whine split the air, threatening to do the same to his eardrums.

  He pressed his palms to his ears, but the noise was in his skull. It was too loud. It gnawed at his brain, until the only thing he could think was make it stop.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Icarus paced his room. At the end of each circuit, he turned to look at Lexi. She lay on his bed, unmoving.

  She was alive. It wasn’t obvious from here, but when he was next to her, he saw her chest rise and fall.

  He didn’t have to be watching her to see how fucked up her aura was. The jagged shards of pink and purple faded to near invisible, before growing beyond the expanses of the room, then shrinking into her again.

  What was he supposed to do? He knew electricity. How to weave it with magic. Lexi had plenty of both, especially right now.

  But he didn’t know how to make them work with a human body.

  “Damn it, Jim. I’m an inventor, not a doctor,” he muttered to his comatose audience.

  He couldn’t see into her thoughts. They’d only shared the bond for a few days that gave them an almost psychic connection. In that short amount of time, he’d gotten used to holding mental conversations with her and glimpsing pieces of her past, through her eyes.

  He’d managed to meditate long enough to probe the edges of her mind, but when he prodded, he was thrown out.

  Icarus wouldn’t be surprised if the shock from the last attempt left his hair standing on end.

  The proximity alarm around his property went off. He’d tuned it so the high-pitched whine went off anytime an immortal other than himself or Lexi stepped inside.

  A flicker of hope sparked in his chest. It could be Actaeon and Cerberus. Would their presence bring Lexi back where Icarus hadn’t been able to? He wouldn’t be surprised if Cerberus could. Actaeon... Icarus couldn’t deal with that land mine from the past right now.

  He snapped his fingers, and the screen on his wall flickered to life, showing a picture provided by the camera on the front of his shop. Disappointment flared inside at the sight of Aphrodite knocking. It was a beautifully polite gesture, considering all of the glass in the windows and the door was broken, and his shop had been trashed.

  He didn’t expect to see her again so soon. They’d left her less than an hour ago, when he and Lexi landed back on Earth, alone, after fighting side-by-side with Actaeon and Cerberus to kill Hades.

  He squeezed Lexi’s hand. “If you could wake up while I let our guest in, that would be swell.”

  With one more glance at her motionless form, he headed upstairs.

  “Love what you’ve done with the place,” Aphrodite called, when he stepped into the main room.

  Icarus choked off a laugh. A pre-fight fight with Hades was responsible for some of the mess. The rest was courtesy of his neighbors. People he’d stood by for years. This was their thanks.

  Then again, he’d brought destruction to their front door. They deserved a little leeway for their response. “If you’d like, I’ll give you the name of my interior decorator. Come on in.”

  Aphrodite picked her way gingerly through the shattered remains of electronics. In her wispy, flowing, white dress, she looked Photoshopped on top of the mess. She paused in front of a Barbie doll nailed to the wall, and ripped it down—an effigy of Lexi that Icarus’ charming neighbors left behind. The plastic and rubber burst into flames in her palm, and were ash a second later. “Charming.” She looked at Icarus. “Where is she? Is she all right?”

  “No.” Icarus gestured toward the stairs. “She’s unconscious. Talk to me. Why did you come back?”

  Aphrodite followed him into the basement. “Hermes is seeking out Actaeon and has a message for you from Charon. Lexi is becoming the underworld, and she doesn’t know how to handle being both a person and a place. She’s fracturing.”

  Well, fuck. That sounded bad. He stepped into Aphrodite’s path. “Why do you care?”

  “Am I not supposed to?”

  “Not like this.” The gods did things that served their interests. Even the nobler ones. “You’ve taken a personal interest in Lexi since the day you met her. You brought Conner into her world, to introduce her to the gods. You’ve always kept her safe. Off everyone’s radar. You’re there at the right time, when she needs you. Why?” This might not be the right time to ask, but he wasn’t letting her near an unconscious Lexi if she had ill intentions.

  Could he stop a goddess?

  He’d die trying, if it took that.

  Fuck. Apparently Actaeon and Cerberus’ martyrdom was contagious.

  “Has she told you about the red strings of fate?” Aphrodite asked.

  “You mean those cords only you and she see, that di
ctate whom she’s supposed to love?”

  “I’ll take that as a yes. True love is rare. So many people never experience it once, and she’ll fall three times over. I can’t turn my back on that.”

  Icarus frowned. “That’s it? You’ve done all of this for Lexi, because fate wants her to have extra feels?”

  “And why are you doing it?” Aphrodite’s smile was tight. “I don’t expect you to understand. It’s not something that can be logicked into existence.” She sounded as if she was speaking to a child. “Love isn’t this tiny, insignificant thing. Not to her and never to me. If you’d fallen, you’d see that. I’m the goddess of love. Lexi embodies the thing that gives me life and power. Of course I’ve gone out of my way to protect her.”

  “Can you help?” Changing the subject was easier than admitting he almost understood.

  “I don’t know. May I see her?”

  He gestured to the bedroom. “Yes.”

  Aphrodite’s frown grew as she approached the bed. She sat on the edge and took Lexi’s hand. “Did anything unusual happen?”

  “I don’t know what you want. Nothing about her life is normal. She’s a goddess, and fate is making her earn it.” Icarus had learned the truth when he visited Lexi’s past in her mind, and accessed a memory Aphrodite had hidden from her.

  Aphrodite pursed her lips. “Put aside the typical trials. What’s left?”

  Typical trials was a wide spectrum. Lexi hadn’t fought a hydra, but she had gone to the underworld and back for loved ones. “I don’t know.” Icarus had only spent a few days with her. They had a fascination that might become more, when she woke up. Creation, let her wake up soon. “I was able to share her thoughts. I can’t now. As I understand it, the link between her and me wasn’t the same as it is with Cerberus?”

  “She’s not completely here.”

  “Thanks. I got that far. Especially after your she’s becoming the underworld explanation.” Taking out his frustrations this way wouldn’t help. Sarcasm wasn’t even making him feel better.

  “Is there anything else at all? Significant or otherwise?”

  It was a long list for the short amount of time he’d know Lexi. “Lorelei tried to break her. Hades sicced a chimera on her. She’s been to the underworld and back twice. She hears voices. All standard-trial stuff.”