Chapter 42 - Eros

Since confessing to Aphrodite, Eros had spent his days in solitude. There was no one he wanted to see. Certainly no humans he wanted to help. He'd ordered everyone away, refusing to accept visitors.

Most of his days he spent curled up on the couch, trying his hardest not to look in on Psyche. Although the hopeless, painful love he'd held for her had been ripped away when Aphrodite undid the arrow, something raw still tugged at his heart. Eros convinced himself it was nothing more than leftover emotion that would be gone soon enough.

After several days passed, another visitor came to Eros's door. If it was possible, she was even more unwelcome than his mother had been.

Iris.

She was descending on him like a vulture descends on fresh meat.

"Don't say it," Eros sighed when she sashayed into the room. "You can't tell me anything I haven't told myself a thousand times."

Iris nearly pranced as she walked, with her long, overly-slender legs jutting out from under her indigo dress. When she reached Eros's side, she flipped her raven-violet hair and pouted while blinking her sunken brown eyes. "I just don't understand."

Eros rolled his eyes. "What?"

"I don't understand why you wanted that girl. She's a mortal."

Eros slapped his palm against his forehead. "Oh, that's what she is? Why didn't anyone tell me?" He knew, of course, that Psyche was actually aly part mortal, but he wasn't in the mood to correct Iris.

Iris thumped her hand down on her outthrust hip. "You don't have to be such a jerk about it."

"You don't have to act like you're telling me something I've never thought of before." Eros's head fell down into his hands, where it remained held only because he was clutching fist-fulls of his own hair.

Iris slid down next to him on the couch and wrapped her olive-tinted n around his shoulders. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't imagine being rayed like you were. And by a human." Iris paused a couple of beats before whispering in Eros's ear. "I would never do anything like that to

Eros's head flicked up and he glared at Iris as he pushed himself far enough away that her arm could no longer hold him. "Is that what this visit is about? You still think we could be together?"

"Wake up, Eros." Iris hopped to her feet. "Hera wants us together. Your other wants us together. You can't fight them."

"Yeah, except I love someone else, remember?"

"She's just a mortal. She'll die soon enough." Iris turned on her heel to surm out of Eros's palace, when Eros caught her by the elbow and spun her und. His blue eyes burned with metallic ferocity and he pressed his nose in close to Iris's.

"You will not say things like that about Psyche," he hissed through clenched teeth.

Iris easily jerked her arm free from Eros's grip and glared back, her eyes again dancing. "Fine. Then you won't hear it from me that she won't survive until nightfall."

"What are you talking about?"

Iris placed her hand on her chest in mock astonishment. "Oh, I thought you didn't want me to say things like that about Psyche." The edges of her lips curled in an involuntary smile.

Eros reached out to rattle the lithe goddess again, but she easily avoided his grasp. "Don't touch me. I'll turn you a putrid shade of green for a month if you ever lay your hands on me again." But as she spoke, her eyes lightened and she caressed her stomach, letting her touch run down to her thighs. "Unless I want you to lay your hands on me, of course."

"Tell me what you know about Psyche."

Iris took Eros's hand in hers, forcing it to trace the sultry path from belly to thigh that her own hand had just explored. "Kiss me."

"And then you'll tell me?" His brows narrowed to a point as he eyed her. He was unwilling to let his mouth mesh with Iris's thin, violet lips unless she assured him information in return.

"If you even still care afterwards," Iris said, forcing Eros's hand to her back as she pressed her mouth against his lips. She wrapped a leg around his waist and grasped thick clumps of his golden hair, drawing his body closer to hers. Eros finally forced Iris away when she flicked her tongue against his lips.

"Enough." Eros wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's going to happen to Psyche?"

Iris smoothed back her hair and straightened her disheveled gown. Then she studied her garnet manicure indifferently before finally answering. Don't blame me. Your mother found her and called in a favor with Ares." he folded her arms over her chest. "I heard he was going to have her killed, but that's all I know."

Eros staggered back a step from Iris and his eyes glazed over. "She can't be." Eros's words were barely a whisper. "She's not supposed to die."

He thought back to how Charon had said he'd be seeing Psyche soon though. Eros had been so enraged at the time that he hadn't thought it rough, but now he realized that his mom must've been planning on killing Psyche all along. Setting her up with someone hideous was just a temporary diversion. Aphrodite had always wanted her dead.

Iris ripped him out of his thoughts as she tromped out of the palace. Don't worry," she called out before stepping outside, "I'll forgive you for loving her first. I'll be much more understanding that she ever was."

Iris slammed Eros's heavy, golden door on her way out. He grabbed a copper urn, the nearest thing he could reach, and hurled it at the closed door.

Once the echoes of the clanging pot had settled, Eros slumped back down to his couch and wrestled with his thoughts. Would he go back on his promises to himself and look for Psyche? Even if he never wanted to see her
again, he didn't think he could just let her die.

Without wasting time to think it through, Eros began scanning for Psyche. He quickly located her ambling on horseback down a dry road, flanked by even drier patches of grass.

He looked closely, studying her. She was dusty and her clothes were dirty, but nothing about her seemed harmed. Either he'd found her in time or Iris had made up the story in some demented scheme to torment him. Eros didn't really care either way. His muscles relaxed and the knots of tension in his shoulders unwound as he watched her. Even disheveled, she looked amazing.

And then he saw the cloud of dust on the horizon and watched as the Spartan soldiers stormed closer. No.

His mind raced as he watched one of the men accosting Psyche, dragging her from her horse and wresting her away from the road into the tall grasses. Even if he left Olympus now, he'd never make it to her in time. When the soldier threw off his tunic and pounced on Psyche, blind outrage flooded him.

"She's mine!" Eros hurtled his powers of creation across the skies to Megara. As Psyche lay defenseless, with a knife pressed against her throat, Eros's magic reached her.

To the soldier, her whole body appeared to quiver. Her shape shifted between monster and victim. Her hair flashed to coils of snakes. Her skin crackled, revealing deathly grey flakes and her eyes burned like fiery coals.

As the soldier staggered away, Eros knew he was reaching the only conclusion his eyes allowed. Psyche looked like a gorgon whose identity, concealed by a human mask, was falling away under the stress of his attack. The man would assume that if he looked in the gorgon's eyes, he'd instantly turn to stone. And so he ran. Ran from his own attack, leaving Psyche basically unharmed.

Chapter end