Page 102 of Blood of Olympus

Lightning crashed in the distance — much to Aros’ eternal delight — and my jaw dropped. I glanced at Caelus, then looked down at myself, certain something about us would be different if she could tell just by looking.

But nothing was amiss.

“How did you⁠—”

“Oh, please,” she groaned. “It’s so obvious with how you can’t keep your hands off each other⁠—”

It was true. We couldn’t.

“And Caelus’ skin is electrified⁠—”

It was.

“And yours has stolen some of his glow. You look remarkably less pale.”

With widened eyes, I inspected my hands. I couldn’t see what she meant.

Was it a little more golden? Did I really leech some of his power? His vitality?

Her stomach-clenching guffaw broke the palpable tension.

“I’m kidding! You should see your faces!”

Aros and Aph cackled alongside her.

“No, Aros roared loud enough earlier that I’m certain no one is unwise to your little sojourn last night.”

Fuck.

A little bubble of untameable amusement bloomed in my chest. Not mine, though — Caelus’.

When I turned to him, horrified, he took one look at the expression on my face and burst out laughing. That little bubble tickled so badly I had no choice but to join him. And it was to the sounds of our merriment that gods who had been pretending not to — but absolutely were — listening in, fractured.

In the face of war, of tentative alliances, and anguish-laden battlefields, we laughed.

Kronos may yet shatter the realms as we knew them. He may defeat every last one of us. But he would not break us before that moment.

If all we had was now, then we would live each moment to its fullest, in spite of him and everything he represented.

Giving him our metaphorical middle finger.

Just like Charon would have.

CHAPTER 28

Nyssa

Twelve gods, one demi-god, a cyclops, a satyr, two mortals, a dragon, a wolf, a manticore, a serpent, and several birds passed through the temple portal in Athenos only to exit from an identical one on the Isle of Gods — which sounded suspiciously like a really long-winded way to start a bad joke.

Pity Poseidon was otherwise occupied; it’s always so much fun to make him the punchline.

Immediately after passing through the gate, my eyes were assaulted with a larger-than-life statue of two gods twined around each other. They were so precisely carved that it spoke leagues about the depth of devotion their creator felt — the hours, days, and weeks someone spent chiselling their forms out of marble. Curiously, it was the exact same shade of stone that the Parthenon and Aetherion Palace were hewn from — which was a rarity in the mortal lands.

The female figure had one long leg draped around the male’s hip, and one dainty hand pressed against his bare, hairy chest. The other arm roped around his torso, her nails digging into the skin of his back, visibly dimpling the stone, dragging him in as close as she were able. She looked up at him, her longing captured perfectly in the immovable material. Even her marble skirts were so lifelike it looked as though a gentle breeze passing through the open temple would stir them. They draped across her body keeping her dignity intact, though two peaked nipples still managed to push through the illusion of wispy fabric.

The male figure was enormous — even larger than his real-life counterpart. Long, white hair hung down his chiseled back, half of the carved strands tangling around the woman’s arm, the other half hanging over his muscular left shoulder. One hand gripped her ass to better wedge his thigh between her legs, almost like it would hurt, but then I remembered that they were, in fact, made of stone, and not living beings.

While she endeavoured to drag him closer, his face was turned to the sky and his upper half leaned backwards — like even as figures of stone, the only value she held for him was that which lay between her legs.