Destined (40 page)

I hurried back to my feet, ignoring the trails of blood oozing down my own legs after that fall. My heart thundered as I tried to think of a new way to dodge his next charge. Jumping hadn’t been my best idea. As I slowly backed away from the ram, I realized he wasn’t getting up.

His side heaved with each labored breath. The ram expelled a final, fiery breath and then was dead.
 

Two thoughts crossed my mind at the same time.
I did it! I’m going to finish this task.
 
and
Crap! I just killed one of Aphrodite’ s golden rams.
No matter how much sparkly wool I hauled in, she would not be happy about this.

The clump of wool from the dead sheep was still clutched in my grasp.
Well, that makes eleven.
I scurried back to the place where I’d spilled the other ten balls and quickly gathered them back up. Praise the gods, none of the other rams had woken up during my fight. Just one more sheep to sheer and I’d be done.
 

When I turned to go to the last sheep, I realized I didn’t have my knife anymore. How was I supposed to cut off a lump of wool with no knife?
 

Running back over to the dead ram, I tried to roll him over, but he was too heavy. I even tried sliding my free hand under his carcass to get my knife back, but it was no use. I couldn’t wiggle my fingers enough under his massive weight to even find the handle. For all I knew, it was lodged so deeply in his side, I wouldn’t be able to get it out anyway.

Frantic, I looked around for some tool. I hadn’t come this far, shorn eleven sheep and battled to the death with a fire-breathing golden ram to fail now. I toed some rocks by my feet, but none of them had a sharp enough edge to cut through fleece.

As I stared at the twelfth sheep, another ram rolled over and butted his head right into its flank. The horns! I could use the horns as a knife. Tip-toeing around the two animals, I reached down and gently grabbed a tuft of wool right under the horns.

Please just don’t let them wake up.
I sawed one ram’s wool off using the other’s horns. If the other ram so much as raised his head, I’d lose my hand. But the horn was so amazingly sharp, it severed the wool like a hot knife cuts through butter.

With twelve tufts of golden wool in my hands, and the sun starting to sink almost directly overhead, I sprinted toward the river. “I did it!” I yelled to Alexa as I crashed into the water, splashing and tripping with every frenzied step. I scrambled up the bank, panting and dripping wet. “Did you hear me? I did it!”

But it wasn’t Alexa who answered me.

“Of course I heard you,” Aphrodite answered. She’d materialized out of nowhere and stood towering over me as I stooped to catch my breath. She unraveled the ball of fleece from my fingers and inspected it.
 

“You got all twelve, I see.”

“Yes,” I panted, still trying to catch my breath. Even through gasps though, I noticed I was smiling and Aphrodite was not.
  

“Is that your blood I smell, or have you injured one of my rams?”

I lifted the hem of my tattered dress and looked down at my legs. Angry red scratches and dried blood still lined my shins, but I’d stopped bleeding. That was probably more than I could say for the sheep.

Dropping my dress, I stood and looked up at Aphrodite. “Probably a little of both. One of your sheep attacked me.”

“Then the only way you could be here is if you killed it.”

My shoulders slumped. This didn’t sound like it was going to be good.

“I’m sorry, Psyche. But your task was to sheer the sheep without harming them.”

Um, how’d I miss that instruction? Maybe while I was focusing on trying to look like I was paying attention but not actually hearing a word she was saying
.

“Since you bested the ram, though, which is more than I expected, I won’t call off our deal just yet. I’ll give you another task.”

I wasn’t sure whether I should be grateful or pissed. I’d had a hand-to-hand duel with a killer sheep and collected twelve tufts of wool, just like she asked, but I wasn’t any closer to seeing Eros.

Then again, I wasn’t any closer to being turned over to Ares either. I guessed I had to take what I could get for now.

Chapter 48 - Eros

Eros raced back to Olympus, wishing for something more powerful in his quiver. If Aphrodite had so much as scratched Psyche’s perfectly tender skin, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold himself back. A week ago he’d cowered at his mother’s vengeance, but that was before he owed Psyche an apology. Before she became his everything again. Now, he wasn’t prepared to let anything stand in his way. Even his mother.

As he flew, Eros spotted a brilliant burst of color descending on him.

Iris. What was she doing here? He didn’t have time for her now. Still, he slowed his flight, flapping his wings only enough to keep him airborne.

“There you are, Eros. ” Iris stopped herself on Eros’s chest. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I was thinking, maybe today we can find prayers to answer in a town where it’s already raining. That’ll make things easier.”

Eros put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her out of his way. “I can’t today. I’ve got to get back to Olympus.”

Iris’s lips pursed as she set her jaw. “I suppose this has to do with Psyche?”

“I’m sorry, Iris. She might be in danger. I have to go.”
 

Eros flapped his wings to continue his flight to Olympus, but Iris reached out and caught his wrist. “Wait.”

Eros glared at her and she released his hand.
 

“I mean, let me help you,” Iris offered. “You think she’s with your mother, right? Why don’t you let me go to Aphrodite? You can wait in my palace, and I’ll figure out a way to borrow Psyche so you can see her.”

“You’d do that for us?” Eros’s lip curled up in a soft smile. “You’d really help us?”

Iris shrugged. “No, but I’ll help you. This isn’t for Psyche. I’m just trying to help my friend.”

Eros crushed Iris into his chest. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

Iris clutched Eros’s hand and launched into a flying sprint toward her palace, moving so quickly she almost dragged Eros behind. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll think of something,” she called over her shoulder.

Chapter 49 - Psyche

“You’re trying to kill me!”

I blurted out the words before my brain registered that it wasn’t smart to yell at a goddess, even if she was sort of your quasi-mother.

“On the contrary,” Aphrodite responded, twirling a golden coin over and under her fingers, “I’m saving you.”
 
She flipped me the coin and I caught it over my head.
 
“The coin will ensure you get safely into Hades.”

“And what about coming back out?” I demanded.

Aphrodite laughed, throaty and indulgent.
 
“Smart girl. You did pay attention during our visits.” She materialized another coin and tossed it to me.

I put the coins into a little wooden box and tucked it under my arm.
 
For my second task, Aphrodite told me to take the box to the Underworld and borrow some of Persephone’s beauty.
 
To hear Aphrodite tell it, the stress of everything that’d happened between me and Eros had melted away some of her eternal glamour.
 
And somehow, although Aphrodite was already prettier than everyone else anyway, Persephone would gladly give up some of her own beauty to make Aphrodite feel better.
 

In my opinion, that wasn’t likely.
 
Never mind that humans don’t go into Hades and come out alive –- or come out at all for that matter.

So, setting aside the fact that my task was basically doomed to failure, all I had to do was get Charon to ferry me into Hades, sneak past Cerberus the three-headed guard dog, find Persephone, convince her to give me some of her beauty for Aphrodite’s benefit, get back past Cerberus, and get Charon to ferry me out of Hades.
 
Oh yeah, and I had to get half-way across Greece before even meeting up with Charon.
 

No problem.

“Don’t be so traumatized,” Aphrodite said, probably noticing the glazed-over, scared-half-to-death look in my eyes.
 
“You’re a demi-god, remember? You can do it. Besides, I’ll take you to Charon myself.”

My heart lightened by the weight of a feather. There was still a ton of crap to get through, but at least one part of this trip would be easier. “Thank you.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when she grabbed my wrist. Salt water rushed into my mouth and my face was pelted by sea spray.
 
I choked back the panic of drowning and tried to crunch the sand out from my teeth.

As quickly as the ocean assault began, it was over. As we regained our footing on solid ground, Aphrodite looked refreshed, her cheeks glowing. When I reached up and felt my own hair, I was convinced I looked like I’d just lived through a hurricane.
Great.

Our new location was obvious even though I’d never been there before. There’s only one way to get into Hades and that was through the gates in the Alcyonian Lake.
 

Aphrodite’s hand lingered on my wrist before she released me.
 
“Here you are then,” she said.
 
“See you on the other side.”

“How will I get back?
 
To Olympus, I mean.”

“When
you make it out, I’ll come fetch you.”
 

When. She’d said when, not if. Could it be that she was actually rooting for me now?

With another burst of sea spray, she was gone.
 
And I was alone staring out across the endless blackness of the lake.

From a distance, I heard small splashes coming toward me.
 
As I watched, Charon emerged from the mist, plunging his pole into the water as fast as he seemed capable of moving.
 
He paused only once to rub the sheen of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.