Poseidon (The God Chronicles) (18 page)

“Audrey,” he said softly, as if trying to remember. “I was happy with you, yes?”

“I thought so,” I
asserted, nodding.

“John loved you,” he said slowly. “But we were not soul mates.”

“What do you mean?” I asked tearfully.

“I mean, you and I were in love and happy. I remember very well now how much I loved you. But we are not soul mates.”

“How can you love someone so much and not be soul mates?”

“My first wife—Penelope—is my soul mate,” he
explained, wiping away my tears as I cried harder.

“So I don’t matter at all?” I couldn’t believe that I was finally with my husband again and he was tossing me out into the wind.

“Of course you did,” he laughed. “Just because we aren’t soul mates doesn’t mean we loved each other any less. But think though; how does Poseidon make you feel?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said bitterly.

“It does though. I imagine he puts your emotions in a spin? Makes you feel so happy at one moment and so mad at the next?”

“Yes,” I
agreed haltingly.

“That is because you are his soul mate.”

“What?” I questioned, yanking away in shock.

“Your emotions match his—like waves in the ocean. That’s why you always felt so unstable around him. As I look back, it makes sense. You are perfect for him.”

“Do not say that!” I yelled, tears splashing onto the ground around me. “I was married to you! I love you!”

“I know you do,” he
acknowledged, smiling. “And I love you. But it’s not the same as finding your soul mate.

“Penelope makes me feel all those things and more. I have never experienced such joy and such anger as when I was with her. Think about it,
Audrey. You feel the same way for Poseidon. It doesn’t mean you love me any less. It means that you can be happy again, something I want for you.”

“But what about you?” I cried, so many feelings swirling inside me.

“I have my Penelope.” He smiled and gestured behind him. “She is somewhere here. Whenever I die, I come and find her and we are together again. ”Unfortunately, she did something to anger Persephone a long time ago and that is why I keep getting reincarnated—to punish my soul mate by taking me away from her.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” I said tearfully. “I want you, not Sy.”

“That’s what you think,” he argued. “Because you have never given yourself the chance to truly let go and love him fully. Do it, Audrey,” he urged. “You will understand what I’m talking about.”

“I can’t,” I cried.

“You can!” He pulled me into another bone crushing hug. “Let yourself feel that bond. Let go of the past and move forward.”

“We were going to have a baby,” I sobbed. “Am I just supposed to forget everything we went through together?”

“Your past makes you who you are,” he said softly. “Don’t banish it, grow from it.”

“We must leave,” Athena spoke up.

“No!” I cried out.

“It will be okay,
Audrey,” he comforted me, rubbing my back. “You’ll see.”

“Don’t make me go,” I sobbed. “Don’t send me to where you aren’t.”

“I will always be with you.” He smiled and released me, stepping backwards.

“Please, John. Don’t go.”

“Go to your soul mate, Audrey,” he said, slipping into the crowd of people around us. “Tell him you love him—because you do, even if you don’t believe it.”

And then he was gone. I felt the same as I did when I’d first learned of his passing.

“He didn’t even want me,” I gasped tearfully. “He couldn’t wait to pass me off to someone else.”

“That’s not what I heard,” Athena
came to his defense. “I heard a man telling a woman he loved to find happiness.”

“I guess,” I shrugged, my face still getting soaked. “That’s not what it feels like.”

“Sometimes things are better meant that said?” she suggested.

I
stood in the same spot, looking at where he had disappeared. I wanted to run to him, to hear him say that I was the only one he loved, and proclaim that no one would ever separate us again.

“Is he happy?” I asked tearfully.

“Wouldn’t you be, if you were with your soul mate?”

Was Sy my soul mate? I couldn’t even think of him right now. He wasn’t who I thought he was—not even the murderer of my husband. I cringed when I realized he still would have been if Athena hadn’t stepped in. Either way, I had lost my life. It hadn’t felt like I was really back to normal until Sy came around.

“Can we go?” I asked, frustrated. “I can’t think straight down here.”

“Of course,” she said, turning and walking back to our boat.

I made sure to follow her closely to avoid more grabbing, my head reeling from the events of the day.

“You’re the Goddess of Wisdom,” I said, turning to her as we began to move away from shore. “What do you think of all this?”

“I think that love is a tricky business.”

“Of course you do,” I sighed, turning to face the front.

“I also think that I have never seen anyone so matched for Poseidon, or he them.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

The rest of our boating trip was made in silence, as I relived our conversation over and over again. My heart hurt. My own husband had cast me off. To say I hadn’t been expecting him to do that was an understatement.

We reached land again and I got out of the boat without saying a word, heading for the opening in the wall.

“Wait!” A panicked voice called out behind me.

I turned and saw Hades running along the shore after us, something obviously wrong.

“What is it?” Athena asked, shock on her own face.

“Poseidon is dying,” he said breathlessly.

Chapter Seventeen

“I don’t understand,” I
panted as I rushed through the tunnels of the cave behind the two Gods. “You can die?”

“Only if stabbed by a blade dipped in the River Styx,” Hades said. “I’ve been keeping a close eye on it since our nice family reunion last year.”

“Huh?”

“Are all of the Titans accounted for?” Athena asked, ignoring me.

“Yes!” Hades growled.

“Wait!” I said, stopping in my tracks. “No they’re not!”

“What are you talking about?” Hades huffed, turning to face me.

“I just spoke to one today. Her name was
. . . um . . .”

“Spit it out already,” he ordered, obviously not wanting to waste any more time.

“Mnemosyne!”

“If one has escaped Tartarus, all of them could be loose,” Athena warned.

“Shut up,” Hades said, turning on her. “I do my job just fine. Besides, you know as well as I do that Mnemosyne sticks to herself.”

“She said she was there to punish Sy,” I
interrupted them quietly, afraid of how he would take it.

Hades rolled his eyes before turning and punching the wall, bits of stone breaking off from the impact.

“It could be any one of them,” he growled. “If we stand around much longer though, it won’t matter. He’ll be gone.”

I felt a pang in my heart and my eyes prickled with tears as I realized how bad this really was.

“Will he end up here, if that happens?” I asked with a shaky voice.

“No,” Hades said quickly.

“When a God dies, they are gone forever,” Athena sadly informed me. “We are not like mortals. What we have now is everything.”

A heavy silence fell on us as we continued on, following the twists and turns of the rocks around us. Frustration boiled inside me—we were going in circles! All I could think of was how I was losing Sy, just like I’d lost John.

I was angry with him, more than he probably deserved. He had done things I couldn’t—wouldn’t—condone. On top of everything, he was mostly responsible for the destruction of my family. The only thing he hadn’t done was the actual deed I’d hated him so much for.

I was afraid of losing him
in spite of all those things. It was one thing to know he was out there somewhere and another to think of him gone forever, no chance to reconcile.

Do I want that? To make up and go on like nothing ever went wrong?
I bit my lip and looked up from the ground I’d been intently staring at, making sure not to trip.

Panic seized me as I looked at the empty space around me. Hades and Athena had
disappeared without even saying anything.

“Hello?” I called out nervously, feeling like a thousand eyes were watching me. “Where did you go?”

I ran back the way I’d come, my heart rate picking up at an alarming speed.

“Hello?” I called again. Was I imagining the faces peering around corners at me?

My breath was coming in short gasps as I turned every which way, unsure of where to go and what lay in wait for me.

“
Audrey,” a voice gasped behind me.

I yelped, turning around to see a soaking wet Hades, coughing up water on the ground.

“What happened?” I asked, my heart still in my throat.

“You need to get out there,” he said, straightening and reaching out for my hand.

“Out where?!”

“Trust me,” he said gruffly, grabbing my arm and yanking me forward.

“Don’t freak out,” he said, shoving me towards the very solid wall next to him.

“Wait,” I yelled, trying to hold onto him.

“No time.”

He shoved me forward and I snapped my eyes shut, preparing to ram right into the rocks. A scream ripped from my throat and suddenly I was standing knee deep in water, wind
whipping my hair all over the place.

I squinted, trying to see through my tresses as they attacked my face. Dark skies greeted me from up above, a tropical beach in front me. There was no other person in sight—I wasn’t even sure if anyone lived here.

The water around me was shrinking away quickly, heading out to sea. I whipped around, holding my hair back, and froze in terror at the wall of water growing at an alarming rate behind me. Instinct picked my feet up and pointed me towards shore, eyes searching for any higher ground I could find.

I sunk into the dry sand, slowing
my progress much more than I would have liked while the water continued to rise behind me. There was nothing I saw that was high enough to escape what was about to happen.

I ran into the tree line, palm fronds slapping me as the foliage was whipped around in the air. Some palms had
already fallen, leaving me with hardly any path to run on.

The roar of water filled my ears as I jumped over a fallen trunk, looking for a tree I could climb and hold onto—praying it would hold its ground once I did.

I looked back again to gauge the wave. It was about to break, moving further up the shore than I’d thought possible.

Returning my attention to the task at hand, I started running again, getting around any obstacles
in my path. As my feet hit the ground once more after climbing over a tree, they caught on something, and I fell to the ground hard.

“Ouch,” I grunted, rolling onto my back.

“Audrey?”

I snapped my attention to the right and sudden, gasping tears overtook me.

Sy’s lower half was partially under the tree I’d just jumped, his leg obviously crushed. There were cuts all over his chest, his shirt lying in tatters on top of them. Blood puddled beneath him, most of it coming from a gash right over his heart.

“What do I do?” I said, scrambling to his side and placing my hands over the worst wound.

“It’s fine,” he said, lifting a gory hand and placing it on the side of my head. “What are you doing here?”

“Athena,” I fumbled.

“I see,” he said coldly. “I told you to get out of here, Hades. I can’t believe you’d stoop so low as to take her form in an effort to trick me.”

“What?” I said, confused. “It’s me, Sy. I promise.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said, looking away. “Audrey made it very clear—she doesn’t want to see me ever again. I couldn’t blame her. I did destroy her life. I don’t deserve to live through this.”

“Would you stop it!” I said, slapping him hard across the face.

He looked at me in shock, some fury written on his face.

I bent down and kissed his lips softly
, but quickly, sliding my hands from his chest to under his arms.

“We need to go now,” I said, breaking away.

“Audrey,” he said with wonder.

I adjusted my position so I was behind him and started trying to pull him from under the tree that trapped him.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s a huge wave,” I rushed. “A
tsunami, heading for us right here.”