Chapter 84

I awoke to Poseidon yelling and didn’t wait but jumped out of bed. My head spun as I used the walls to help me stay upright and follow the hallway maze until I found him in a kitchen. Water dripped from a hole in the ceiling and all the cabinets and what might have been a table and chairs were in a pile looking more like wet kindling than furniture. Broken dishes littered the floor like a waiting minefield.

“What happened?” I asked, not moving further into the kitchen as I needed to get some shoes. As a god, the broken glass wouldn’t hurt me, but I smelled the taint of magic. Any weapon or even a splinter endued with magic would cut me and make a painful experience. One which I was happy to pass on unless I needed to rush to Poseidon’s aid.

But the god of the sea looked more pissed than in distress.

“Paige.” He shook his head.

My stomach shot into my feet. “Where is she?” If Zeus harmed a hair on her head, I was going to slam a mountain on top of him.

“Wha—” Poseidon looked up at me like he just realized I was there. “Oh, she’s with Hermes. Though I only wanted him to take her to shelter until we got the storm she conjured under control, but they’ve been gone for over an hour.”

“Her magic did this?” I glanced around, then smiled. “So she’s gotten all four elements.” Zeus would be in for a surprise the next time he tried to attack her. I felt relief that she’d have a way to defend herself, but I still wasn’t ready to leave her to her fate. I wanted her with me or one of the other three and cherished, loved and protected at all times.

Poseidon shook his head, picking up a fragment of something and tossing it onto the growing pile. “Does this look like she has control?”

“But she conjured water.” I waved a hand and summoned socks and boots on my feet. Picking up a metal bowl that had escaped the damage, I placed it in the sink.

“Except that air came with the water and the whole thing did this.” He kicked aside a chair’s leg. “Damn near ripped her apart along with all of this. It was only because of my help that it wasn’t worse.” He swallowed. “That she wasn’t hurt.”

“Fuck.” I clenched my fist, resisting the urge to punch him. “Why the hell did you allow her to do this?” Zeus’ mind control spell was screwing with his judgment and maybe I should refuse to allow him to train Paige at all if stuff like this was going to happen.

Poseidon snapped a glower at me. “I didn’t ask her to craft a hurricane in the middle of my kitchen.” Then he raked a hand through his white-blond hair. “It was only to be a small glass of water. Something easy. Something that shouldn’t have been that difficult since she already had mastered three other elements. Or so I thought.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” But a sinking sensation hit my middle. I picked up several pieces of wood and chucked them onto the pile.

His silence had me pausing and looking over to him. He held a broken piece of a shell in his hands, staring at it like it was a crystal ball, and could give him whatever answers he was searching for. “I don’t know. Paige didn’t call air, but it came anyway. And once it did, she couldn’t control it.”

If there was anything to sit on, I would have fallen into it. “Shit.”

“Exactly.” Poseidon nodded and carried the piece in his hand over to the kitchen’s row of shelves over the skin and placed the shell there. “I’m hoping that it was a fluke. That because of me and Hermes being tied together in a plot to trap her, the elements clashed inside her.”

“Then the only way to work through this is for her to develop her control in a safe setting.” I glanced around at the growing pile on the floor. “How much more can your place take?”

“We’ll have safeguards.” Poseidon rolled his shoulders back. “But unless you have any better ideas, this is the safest place for her. Where Zeus doesn’t know where she is and would buy us some time.”

But would it be enough? I cleared my throat. “All right, let’s clean this up before she and Hermes get back.” I had a feeling if Paige saw the damage her magic had caused here, she’d be hesitant to use it again. And as well-hidden as Poseidon’s home may be, it wasn’t going to stay hidden forever. Zeus would find us sooner rather than later.

Poseidon and I finished cleaning the kitchen including replacing the furniture with magic. It was a mix of woods from mine and coral and shells from Poseidon. We repaired the hole in the roof.

Once we were finished, I washed my hands in the kitchen sink and dried them with a towel. “All right, we need to get Paige and Hermes back here pronto so we can start working out how to help her.” I snapped my fingers, remembering. “And we need Hephaestus—”

“No.” Poseidon pushed one of the new chairs under the table. “She only needs the three of us.”

Wow, sounded like I had hit a sore spot. “She needs all four elements, Poseidon, you and I both know that.” Never mind that Hephaestus had burned a hole in my boat.

“You think I don’t know that?” Poseidon opened the fridge and pulled out two beers, handing me one. “It’s not your wine, but it’s all I’ve got.”

“Thanks.” I took the bottle from him, opened it, and took a swig, letting him figure himself out for a moment before I spoke again. “Look, I know how you feel.”

“Do you?” He shook his head. “You weren’t given an order to kill her that you couldn’t disobey. You didn’t see yourself hurt her while you couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop it. How all you wanted to do was turn back one fucked up decision and realize that your brother is a lunatic.”

“Took you this long to figure that out?” I chuckled.

He gulped down his beer before breathing out a heavy breath. “Yeah, I guess it did and Paige paid the price. I almost lost her.”

I placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “Then don’t lose her now. She needs all of us—all four of us—if there is any hope of her surviving this. We need to pull together. Put our differences aside.” I let go of him and took another swig of my beer. “And believe me, I know what a hothead Hephaestus can be. Bring him here, Poseidon. This is the best safe place we can give her to practice your element.”

“How? By pissing me off?” He arched a blond eyebrow, then stared down into his half-empty beer bottle. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Not even my wife.”

“I know, man, I know.”

Poseidon glanced up at me. “Is it wrong that I want her all to myself? That I’m envious that you, Hermes, and Hephaestus got to spend all this time with her?”

“Hey, I was stuck in Tartarus most of the time, remember?” I shuddered. “If Paige hadn’t worked to get me out, I don’t know how long I would’ve lasted in there.”

“Guess none of us have had it easy, have we?” Poseidon finished his beer, and I did the same.

A thump sounded against the front door followed by another. The hair on my arms stood up, but I set my beer down on the counter and followed Poseidon.

The noise came again, followed by a giggle.

Poseidon threw open the door and there stood Hermes and Paige looking guilty. “What?”

“Sorry.” Hermes beamed. “We were trying to see if she could make an air key and get in since you didn’t take my advice and have a skylight. Or hell, even a hatch for me to fly in and out of. Do I smell beer?” Hermes threw his arm around Paige who blushed and led her to the kitchen.

I practically could see steam rising from Poseidon’s ears.

“Let’s get them something to drink,” I offered. “Better to start working together now in small things rather than on the battlefield.”

Poseidon nodded and we walked back to the kitchen. Hermes had helped himself to a beer and Paige was drinking water.

“I’m sorry about earlier.” She turned the glass in her hands. “For tearing your kitchen up and not staying around to clean up the mess I made.”

“It’s okay, Paige.” Poseidon’s shoulders relax. “You were able to summon a ton of water and if it hadn’t gotten tangled up in the air,” he shot Hermes a glance, “then we could’ve controlled it faster.”

She shrugged a shoulder. “I guess. All of this is just hard to do, you know? I went from being a high school graduate to bam, having to fight for my life, to having to figure out how to control elements. I mean I never even had a magic kit when I was growing up. I couldn’t even do card tricks and now I’m meant to juggle four elements.”

And four gods too, I added silently.

“But look how far you’ve come.” Poseidon took her hand in his. “You’ve mastered three already. No one has done that before. Not even Zeus.”

She sniffed. “What if I can’t control water?”

“Practice.” Poseidon smiled. “And with us here, we can help guide you if the magic goes astray again.”

“Are you sure you want me to?” She looked from Poseidon to Hermes to me. “What if I screw it up? What if I make something horrible like a nuclear bomb and kill us all?”

“You won’t,” I said, coming forward and taking her other hand. “You have us. Lean on us, let us help you.”

After a long moment, she nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s start with the water already in your glass,” Poseidon said and let go of her hand.

I squeezed her fingers lightly before withdrawing as well. Hermes finished his beer and floated in the air with his legs crossed like some guru genie.

“Focus on the water. Make it move or shake or whatever you like,” Poseidon stepped back, “Nothing exists but you and the water.”

Her brow furrowed as she stared down at the glass, but the water didn’t budge, didn’t change.

For several minutes, I felt like all of us were holding our breath as Paige concentrated on the water again. I willed my strength into her. Once she mastered watered, I would be more relaxed about her safety, and even enjoy making love to her more instead of fighting for our lives.

“This isn’t working.”

“Keep trying,” I said, encouragingly. “We believe in you, Paige. You can do this.”

Hermes gave her two thumbs up and Poseidon nodded.

She let out a breath and rolled her shoulders back a few times before looking down at her water again. A couple of heartbeats later, she shook her head, running a hand over her face.

“We’ll try again tomorrow.” Poseidon came around behind her, massaging her shoulders and neck.

She moaned, leaning into his touch. As much as I wanted to comfort her, to draw her into my arms and kiss her, this was Poseidon’s time. He needed to spend time with her more than the rest of us to help her connect to his element.

“Poseidon’s right.” I leaned down and kissed her. Damn if I was going to go to bed without telling her goodnight. “Get some rest and we’ll work through this tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” She smiled up at me but yawned. “Today has been one hell of a day.”

“True.” Hermes bobbed up and down before standing up and crossing the kitchen to tuck his fingers under Paige’s chin. “But the part with you has been fantastic.” He kissed her before straightening and bowing his head. “Goodnight, Paige.”

“Night.” She frowned. “Wait. Where’s Heph? He should be here too.”

If she could see Poseidon’s face, she’d know he was guilty of why the fire god wasn’t with us.

His fingers paused in massaging her and she looked over her shoulder at him. “Poseidon?”

“I-I...he was injured, and I sent him to Hera for healing.”

“What?” Paige stood up so fast that Poseidon jerked backward to keep her head from smashing into his chin. “Why would you do that? How bad was he injured—couldn’t you have healed him?”