Goddess Undone Read online

  My mother stopped reacting. She gave me a long look, like she was trying to suss out the credibility of my ignorance. “Pandora,” she said, dropping her shoulders and tinkering with a bracelet. “You can’t be serious. I thought you knew.”

  “You think a lot of things, Mother,” I said, trying to control the level of my voice. I started to fail, however. If she didn’t tell me soon, I was going to lose it. “Should I remind you about assumptions and what an ass they make of you?”

  My mother glared. “I apologize,” she snipped, but the words were as empty as a rotted tree trunk. “I just thought all women who attempted to join the Watchers knew that earning a position amongst the others has nothing to do with your skill or your intelligence and everything to do with following orders.”

  “Orders?” I asked. Obviously, we would have to follow orders.

  “You really don’t get it, do you?” My mother looked away, huffing, like she was annoyed to have to explain something that she felt was common knowledge. She looked back at me and a flicker of sympathy embedded its way into her eyes. “Oh, my sweet, summer child. The women that belong to the Watchers are used at two things: bait, to reel in the threat or pleasure, to be used by Watchers at their discretion. Certainly you learned that at that little academy you went to?”

  I clenched my teeth together. “No,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what I was trying to reject. Was it the claim that I was supposed to have been taught such things during my time at the Academy of the Divine? Was it that I did not believe her claim at all? I didn’t know.

  “Yes.” She swallowed. “It brings me no joy to tell you these things but I thought you knew the truth. Why do you think it’s so important for me to ensure your sister’s wedding? Because it would ensure your future just as it would ensure my own. Do you think I want those things for you?”

  “You don’t want me to be a Watcher at all,” I snapped. I clenched my teeth, trying to remind myself that this wasn’t about me, this was about Seph, about finding her and then the Box. This wasn’t about my mother or me.

  “I don’t,” she said. “But I also realize I can’t stop you. If you’re going to put yourself in a compromising position, if you are going to knowingly ruin yourself at the behest of this inner desire to prove your strength? Your worthiness? Then do it, by all means. But don’t come crying to me when you're beaten and broken and a mere shell of who you used to be. Don’t come to me and ask me to pick up the pieces when I’ve been trying to prevent you from breaking at all. No, if you make this choice, you make it alone. And the consequences, you’ll suffer alone just as well. I’ve seen you, what you’ve turned into. I gave you too much freedom as a child. I vowed I would never do that again. And I listened to myself, and Seph will marry Zeus and she will bring honor to our family once again. You will stay away from Zeus. You nearly ruined me once; you will not do it again.”

  I didn’t even know where to start. It was like she was confessing a tragedy and lashing out like a petulant child. I had no defense. I could take out a Divine, kill a human with my hands. I could strangle a nymph and drown a Demi-Divine. But I did not know how to respond to my mother’s viciousness.

  “You will go back to the party.” My mother’s voice shook slightly, almost as though she was surprised by herself, by herself outburst. She ran her fingers over the material of the dress, trying to seek comfort from it. “You will act as though nothing is wrong. Do you understand me?”

  I clenched my teeth together. I almost agreed with her. There was that duty that locked me to a prison I wanted to spring from but couldn’t, even though I should. Even though I knew with every bone in my body, that she was wrong and selfish and hate flared through me because she was putting me in this position that forced me to pick this insurmountable duty or my sister, my favorite person in the world.

  And I realized I didn’t have to.

  I didn’t have to listen to her anymore. I could make my own choices.

  “I will find Seph, Mother,” I said, my teeth still gnarled together like ivy crawling up the trunk of a tree. “I will do it in whatever way I can.”

  “Pandora -“

  But I was through listening to her.

  I might not have reacted to her vile words, the choices she made for me, for Seph, because of what happened to her, but I did not have to listen to this anymore. I did not have to live under her ship any longer.

  And I wouldn’t.

  I was going to find Seph. And I was going to talk to Zeus regardless of what that might mean for my family.

  Chapter Eight

  I burst into the ballroom with so much fervor, I was surprised so few people noticed my entrance.

  Honestly, I didn’t care.

  This worked in my favor anyway.

  I needed to find Zeus, but before I did that, I had to get hold of my emotions and not let them dictate my actions.

  “Whoa, there,” a familiar drawl said from behind me. “Why do you look like Cerberus, ready to hunt down some poor unsuspecting though admittedly deserving bastard?”

  “I’m not in the mood,” I said to Apollo as I made my way around the room. “Kindly take a long walk off a short cliff.”

  As much as I wanted to shorten my journey and cut through the dance floor, I couldn’t help but hear my mother’s voice in my head, telling me about my future with the Watchers and how I was being judged simply because I was a woman. Maybe if I proved myself to them, they wouldn’t see me as some waif or some tool they could seek pleasure from. Maybe they would see me as something else.

  Unfortunately, heavy footsteps to my side indicated Apollo hadn’t done as I requested. In fact, his shoulder brushed mine as we walked together, keeping close to the vacant walls.

  “What?” I instantly stopped and crossed my arms over my chest, looking up at him through strands of hair.

  “What’s going on?” Any hint of smugness and sarcasm vanished from his face.

  “I don’t…I need to find Zeus,” I said, dropping my arms. I resumed my power walk, weaving around a couple pressed against the wall.

  “Why?”

  I looked at him from my peripheral and banged my hip bone into the corner of a table. I clenched my teeth together to keep myself from gasping out loud or making any indication of pain. I didn’t want Apollo to criticize me for it or ask me if I was okay.

  He arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment. I wanted nothing more than to hop funny for the rest of the way simply because of the biting pain but I was positive he definitely would have commented on that and I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. There would definitely be a bruise there, though. I would have to be careful sleeping on my side tonight.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t remember asking you to tag along,” I said. I turned again so I faced the room and tried to pick Zeus out. The guy was tall, with long blond hair and a face so angled, it could sharpen ice skates.

  “That’s where you’re lucky, sweetheart, because you don’t have to.” He gave me a smirk and leaned into me, too close for my preference. I could smell him. Besides a hint of alcohol, he smelled like the ocean in a rainstorm. It was heady, alluring.

  My head felt light and I immediately pulled away, concerned I might actually get drunk on his scent alone. What was going on with me? This was Apollo.

  Apollo.

  He was a disgrace to the Watchers. Even Artemis, his twin sister and the first female Watcher, wanted nothing to do with him. In fact, rumor had it that she was the deciding factor on whether or not to withdraw him from being a Watcher in the first place. The council of Five had five members who made decisions on whether to grant someone like me the title and responsibilities of being a Watcher - and they had the same rights to take it away.

  Apollo had been stripped of his right six months ago. In fact, no one had seen him since that disgraceful trial. I was surprised he actually showed up here, to a betrothal announcement. Unless he was looking for free booze, he didn’t seem the type that would even want to be here in the first place.

  I shook my head, trying to focus. This wasn’t about Apollo. I could care less about what happened to him. He made his decision and that decision got his partner killed. He couldn’t be trusted.

  When I scanned the crowd again, I was hit with the realization that Zeus wasn’t actually here.

  My heart started to jump in pace. I reached up to wipe my forehead and placed my other hand on my hip.

  Where could he be?

  I chewed my bottom lip. There were a few rooms he might have disappeared to. The question was, did he know my sister was gone? Did he know the Box had disappeared?

  He had a notorious temper, much like Ares, and there was no dramatic reaction to anything coming from him as of it. I didn’t think he knew anything.

  I almost smirked at that. Had the situation not been this dire, I would have.

  I decided to look in the grand foyer, a hosting room with a fireplace and some lounge chairs that was too small to be a living room and too close to the entrance to be a den or a study. This was where Seph kept the Box because Zeus insisted it be on display for everyone who entered our home to look at and be regaled with stories of his heroism.

  I wanted to puke every time I thought of it. But, if he was anywhere, it would be there, though how he wouldn’t have noticed the Box gone from its perch, I didn’t know.

  I moved from the ballroom and past a doorway guarded by two Watchers I didn’t know. I almost scowled at them. It wasn’t their fault my mother was a hypocrite - hiring Watchers for security was acceptable but her daughter joining the League wasn’t.

  Whatever.

  I nodded at them with as much respect as I could. Neither of them responded, but the man on my right wrinkled his nose when his eyes rested on Apollo.
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  My face pinched. I wished I could tell them that I didn’t want anything to do with him, that he was following me for some reason and it wasn’t because I wanted it, but I couldn’t talk to them. I didn’t want to distract them from their duty.

  Whoa, judgy mcjudgerson. Where did that come from? You sound more like Mom with that.

  I balked defensively until it dawned on me that the voice in my head wasn’t wrong. My mother would be embarrassed by Apollo. In truth, she probably only invited him because she felt she had to, because slighting Apollo meant slighting Artemis, and Apollo might have been an alcohol-soaked dumpster fire, but Artemis certainly wasn’t. And regardless of whether my mom agreed with Watchers or females being on the Watchers, she had to respect Artemis for what she accomplished.

  I turned to Apollo, ready to apologize to him, when I realized I hadn’t actually done anything. I hadn’t said my thoughts out loud. He didn’t know what I was thinking.

  All the same, guilt still drenched my insides until I was washed in it.

  I cleared my throat as we stepped into the foyer. The fire crackled at our presence, sparks shooting upwards in the fireplace. The mantle looked surprisingly empty with the intricately designed onyx box resting upon it even though Zeus had just brought it over tonight.

  “So,” Apollo said, sliding his hands in the pockets of his long overcoat. “This is where the Box was.” His eyes narrowed on the mantle. “Before.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, glancing over my shoulder at him. I didn’t think that he had been here before.

  “It’s all anyone here can talk about,” he explained. “Annoying, really.. Especially Zeus himself.”

  I snorted. Strange, how easy that was even when it felt like my world was crumbling around on me.

  “My sister didn’t do this,” I said. “She didn’t…” I bit my tongue, only realizing now that he hadn’t overheard my conversation with my mother. Gods, how could I have been so stupid? My head was full. I couldn’t even figure out how to act, what to say, what to keep to myself.

  “I know,” Apollo said. He cocked his head to the side and gave me a long look. “Is that why your mother has her panties in such a twist – no offense?”

  “Seph is gone,” I said, tugging my fingers through my hair. “So is the Box. I wanted to talk to Zeus, to see if he knew where she went.”

  “We’ll figure this out, you know,” he said.

  Even more guilt at my earlier thoughts piled on my shoulders. I refused to cry, though. Not right now.

  I cleared my throat, curling hair behind my ear. I wanted to correct him. There was no “we” about this. This was about my sister, which meant I was the one responsible for her.

  Me.

  No one else.

  I didn’t need him to help. I could do this on my own. I had to. Especially since Mother was losing herself to whatever fantasy world was currently occupying her mind.

  She worried Seph did this.

  I worried she didn’t and was taken along with the Box.

  But who would do such a thing?

  Who would have the wherewithal to take Seph and the Box. Both were so intrinsically linked to Zeus that by doing something so blatantly disrespectful would no doubt draw the ire of Zeus himself. Everyone loved Zeus. They fell at their feet in worship.

  So…who would want to challenge him?

  Hades.

  The name jumped into my head like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts.

  I stopped, swallowed.

  “Pandora,” Apollo said slowly, eyes sharp. He didn’t know me well, but he must have been able to read the look on my face with ease. “What? What is it?”

  “What do you know about Hades?” I asked slowly. I didn’t want to scare him and I didn’t want to come across like I was crazy. Because this sounded crazy. It was more likely a faction of human rebels trying to challenge Zeus’s Divinity.

  Except, there was no way humans could have breached the gates of Olympus.

  We would know. The Watchers would stop it before anyone in Olympus would know.

  “Hades?” Apollo asked. “As in Lord of the Underworld. The eldest of the three Divine brothers? Sarcastic? Bitter?”

  I nodded once. “That’s the one.”

  “Sure.” Apollo slid his hands in his pockets and gave me a long look. “Why?”

  “I overheard a conversation between him and my mom -“

  “You were spying,” he said.

  “Not by choice,” I said quickly. “I was getting food – food I didn’t even get to finish, by the way. Again. And they were just there, talking. It’s not my fault they didn’t notice me.”

  He arched a disbelieving brow, but didn’t say anything.

  I ignored him.

  “Anyway, it’s pretty clear that he hates Zeus and he doesn’t care who knows,” I said. “He might have something to do with this.”

  Apollo nodded once. “That…actually makes sense,” he said.

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” I said.

  “Now what?” he asked. “We have a suspect. What do we do about it?”

  There was that “we” again.

  “I still think we need to talk to Zeus,” I said, hands on my hips, watching the fire. “He might know what his brother is really capable of.”

  “Let’s get to it, then,” he said. “If Hades does have the Box, we need to take care of it now before he does something and it’s too late to stop it.”

  I wanted to ask him what he meant by that, what he knew. I wanted to ask him why he even wanted to help me in the first place. What was in it for him? Instead, I swallowed. There were plenty of other rooms Zeus could be in, although I never expected him to be hiding away.

  And he wasn’t.

  Not really.

  It was the third room we checked when we finally found him. And he wasn’t alone.

  There, buried underneath his bare back and exposed pelvis, was Hera, legs wrapped around him, in probably the most compromising and disgusting positions I could find him in.

  Chapter Nine

  “What the actual fuck?”

  For a moment, I thought I uttered those words.

  But it wasn’t me.

  It was hers. Hera’s. And she did not look happy.

  However, her ire wasn’t directed towards me. Not really. In fact, she flickered her gaze over me, sussing me up and down, before glaring at Zeus. Her aqua eyes were as torrential as the ocean, high, round cheeks sucked in while her coral lips puckered.

  “Who is she?” Her fingers wrapped around his biceps, but not in any measure of affection. No, she sank her red fingernails into his skin. Zeus clenched his teeth together to keep himself from grunting out loud.

  From my peripheral, I saw Apollo smirk, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back slightly. All he was missing was the popcorn.

  “Gods, Zeus, is she another one of your whores?” She looked over at me. “No offense or anything. He just has a type.”

  “None taken.” I held up a hand, deciding to watch Zeus try and get out of this before I peppered him with my questions.

  “She’s no one,” he insisted, trying to use his charm voice to convey genuine intensity. “Just my betrothed’s older sister. No one important. I don’t even know her name.”

  I waited for Hera to react to the fact that Zeus was betrothed, but she didn’t. Why would she? Thanks to my mother’s proclivity for gossip, everyone knew about their betrothal. It wasn’t a secret even though Seph probably hoped it was. This little party was just a formality my mother insisted on indulging in to raise her own status. Still, it irked me to know Hera was well aware Zeus would be getting married soon and still found herself in bed with him.

  Not that I knew Hera personally or had any right to judge, but still. Zeus was supposed to be my sister’s husband, after all. I found myself a little protective.

  Hera shifted her eyes over to Apollo and arched a brow. The corner of her smudged lips curved up and there was something in her eyes akin to desire that caused fire, smoldering heat to attack my chest and make it hard to breathe. I pressed my lips together and sucked in what I hoped was a calm breath. I didn’t need Apollo overhearing, or, worse, looking at me and reading my face. He seemed to have a knack for it even though we only met tonight. This was probably one of his strengths as a Watcher.