Heph: Modern Descendants 3, page 14
I could have set him on fire. I could have killed him. A sob crept from my throat and smoldering hands covered my lips. My head rest against the glass panel as tears streamed faster than the shower spray at my back. My gift was a curse, and it ruined everything.
heph
I sat with my head in my hands as my elbows rested on my knees. I heard her silent movements as the shower shut off and the door creaked open. She stalled near the bed, and I knew what she’d see. Scorched sheets, a burned pillow, and a blanket used to smother the flames. Her hands clenched so hard into the material I thought I wouldn’t get her free. The sound of crackling still rang in my ears where her hands had been placed on either side of my head. The image of her over me, taking her pleasure, melted under heat into a girl who no longer recognized me, a woman who didn’t need me as more than a vessel to bring her to completion. I’d lost Phyre in the process, and she set one instead.
Her white knees rested level with my face and I slowly looked up at her dressed in one of my flannel shirts. Hanging too long, the arms rolled and rolled and rolled to expose hands still raw and red from what happened.
“What happened?” I mumbled, staring upward like a troubled child. What had I done?
“It isn’t you, Heph. It’s me.” The words struck me. How often I’d heard them used in excuse. Lovie said them after getting caught with another man attached to her. Adara said it while I nested inside her. Callie hinted at it, until I was claimed by another. Nameless, faceless many over the years, over the too many years, said the same words to me.
I sat back with a huff and I sensed her hesitation. She wanted to straddle over me and yet she held herself back. Sitting forward again, my thick hands circled behind her knees and she fell into my lap.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Her head came to rest on my shoulder. “I ruined everything.” The sadness in her tone rang as deep as the confusion in my heart. Didn’t she want me? She came to my room. She leapt to my arms. She pressed me to the bed.
“I would never hurt you.” The words tumbled out as if they needed to be said. Did she try to hurt me because she thought I was taking advantage of her? Her head shook wiping away my thoughts.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” I lied, the crack of fire still ringing in my ears. “But can you tell me what happened? What did I do?”
Hands rose and then fell, knowing she couldn’t touch my scratchy beard with sensitive skin.
“It wasn’t you. I lost control.” Her face pinked and her eyes lowered. “I lost control,” she said softer. “I wanted it so much. I wanted you so much, that my mind took over. No, my body did.”
I didn’t know whether to smile at the thought or whither in defeat.
“Did you come?” The crassness of my question surprised even me.
“I don’t think so. It was more a matter of getting there. It’s been so long since I’ve been with someone.” She closed her eyes with the thought before continuing. “I just let go…too much.” Her head hung. I couldn’t help touching her, and I brushed back her wild hair to see her face, kissing her cheek without conscience.
“Was there something I could have done? I lost you there.” Thoughts riddled my mind. Not what had I done, but was it me? Was she repulsed by my figure? My face? The many scars on my body from accidents with fire and the fall from grace off the mountain. The one that caused injury to my leg. She hadn’t even seen my leg without the prosthetic yet. How much more would that repulse her?
“I…I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Her brows pinched. “I was in control the other times, but tonight I got carried away. Maybe it was the dance and the ritual.” Her shoulder shrugged, and my too-large shirt slipped, revealing a pale white shoulder. My lips reached for her now-cool skin. Lazy eyes looked seductively at me, longingly, but I didn’t wish to tempt fate a second time tonight. Sensing my decision, her legs squirmed over mine.
“I should go,” she muttered, but I tightened my hold on her back and clamped a hand over her bare thigh.
“Just stay with me.” I tipped us sideways, knowing we couldn’t last the night on my cramped couch, but not willing to release her yet. “Let me just hold you.”
She nodded in response, pressing a kiss to my chest. Her sore hands rested on my skin, and I longed to take her pain. Her forehead settled over my heart and I wrapped my arm tighter around her as our legs tangled together to keep us on the cushions. With my lips on her hair, I breathed in her scent; smoke lingered with the fruity fragrance of her, and I sighed, feeling any potential to fill her dissolve into flames.
+ + +
I heard voices later in the night and extradited myself from Phyre. My heart ached once I uncurled from her. Sound rose up the stairs, echoing off the vaulted ceiling below, yet Phyre remained heavy in sleep, and I imagined the loss of fire tired her. I slipped on a shirt and crossed back through the living room. For some reason, I took a second look at Phyre, tucked in the couch, wrapped in my flannel shirt. Her hand smoothed the leather as if searching for something, reaching for someone, and my heart flipped with hope that someone would be me. The voices outside my door severed the pull to Phyre and I exited quietly.
“You’re stealing my sons.” A subtle laugh with a hint of seriousness travelled up the boards to my loft. I stepped quietly down the stairs to find Zeke with Veva in the large studio. Veva and Persephone were not allowed out here any more than Hestia’s girls, but like Phyre, and Adara before her, the rules were obviously not followed.
“I’m not stealing anyone,” Veva bit back, a little sharper than I’d heard her use before with Zeke.
“Solis is marrying you and moving off the estate.” He placed one finger over the large digit of his other hand, ticking off the offenses. “And now Heph is falling in love with a girl he can’t have.”
I stood taller, pressed into the shadows of the partially hidden stairwell.
“How does that make me stealing him?” Veva chuckled without humor. “He’s a grown man, and he can love who he wishes.”
“No, he can’t. He can fuck who he wishes, but love remains on my estate. Lovie awaits his return. Their relationship has been a longstanding agreement. Heph thinks he can have other things as he watched you and Solis come together, but he can’t. By default, it’s your fault.”
I bristled at the thought.
“Heph can have whatever he wants of life. Lovie doesn’t deserve him.”
“Neither does this girl. And no, he can’t.” His hand waved dismissively toward the barn door, indicating outside. My fists clenched at my sides. How dare he speak of Phyre like that? How dare he speak of me?
“What makes you God?” The thought stopped her. “You can’t make him, can you?” Her voice faltered. New to the discovery of me as her brother and the history of our family, Veva was still learning our ways. Zeke’s power was infinite, if he wished to enforce it.
“I can make anyone do what I please. I can be very persuasive.” His hand raised and he brushed back a hair, curling it behind her ear and lingering on her neck. “And you’re going to help me return him to the estate.” To some, it may have seemed fatherly. To me, it appeared seductive. Veva’s shiver hinted at the same thought. My body sprang to action. I jumped the remainder of the steps, landing with a hard clank of my metal foot on the cement floor of the barn. Zeke’s eyes looked over at me. Surprise filled his older face. He spun Veva to stand before him, holding her as a human shield.
“What are you doing here?” I barked. Zeke’s hands rested on Veva’s shoulders.
“I’m only talking with my future daughter-in-law.” His booming tone warned me to step back. My eyes shifted to Veva’s, which opened widely.
“It didn’t sound like a discussion. More like demands.”
“We were just discussing you, and how Veva wants you to return to the estate.”
Vee’s eyes opened wider, and she tried to shake her head, but Zeke’s hand on her shoulders tightened.
“She misses her big brother.”
Veva took the hint and dipped her head to agree. While newly introduced to one another, Veva had been consumed with Solis from the moment she set foot on our estate. Zeke’s words were false. I’d heard his reasons for bringing me home, but I didn’t understand why, why he couldn’t let the relationship with Lovie go.
“Plus, Lovie wants to speak with you. She’d like to apologize.”
“There’s nothing she could say to me to change my mind. I’m not going back.”
Zeke pursed his lips. “Hephaestus, you’ve always been a good man, but you aren’t the smartest. When a beautiful woman wants to talk to you, you listen to her.”
“Zeke!” Veva shrieked, struggling under his hold.
“A beautiful woman who wants to reconcile with you cannot be kept waiting while you dip your wick in a candle that can only burn you.” I hated the metaphor. If only he knew I hadn’t entered Phyre, and didn’t foresee it ever happening. I shook my head. It wouldn’t matter to me. There was something about her that drew me to her. An ignorant, ugly moth attracted to the brilliant, burning flame could not be prevented.
“That other girl might be beautiful,” Zeke continued, and I hated the implication that he’d noticed her beauty. “But she can’t be what you need. She can’t understand who you are. You need your own kind.”
Veva shook her head again, wincing at Zeke’s hold. “I’m not like you, and Solis loves me. Don’t listen to this.” My brows pinched. Phyre was more goddess than I was god. Maybe Zeke had it wrong. Maybe I wasn’t enough for her. Sensing my insecurity, Zeke went there next.
“You could never give her what she needs, either. She’s a free spirit. She needs to burn. She can only hurt you.”
“No,” I huffed but I thought of the flames near my head. I wasn’t afraid to be burned. I bore the scars of loose fire and hot sparks all over my chest and arms, but Phyre was different. She was alive. She needed freedom. Where would we go next? I couldn’t stay at Hestia’s. She couldn’t come outside Hestia’s with her power.
“She would never hurt you, Heph,” Veva answered, defending Phyre without fully knowing her. Then she winced.
“Let her go,” I snapped, realizing Zeke still pressed Veva to him. He released her quickly and she stumbled forward, reaching out for me. I tucked her into my side as she sputtered and coughed.
“I’ll kill you for hurting her.” I spun to face my father, whose bright blue eyes blazed back. “Are you threatening me, son? After all I’ve done for you.”
Guilt struck me like a lightning bolt. My father knew where to punch. Rejected from my mother, my father took me to his home. Not in a fatherly manner, but in the way of collecting children like one would collect rocks. He filled his estate with his offspring. Being one of many, I was grateful the home remained even after I ran away. Once. The world was cruel to me, and after a stiff scolding, Zeke took me back. It was the second time my mother turned me away.
“Your mother didn’t want you, Heph. I’m the one that took you in.” Hera’s rejection set deep, but Hestia soothed the sting. Hestia’s love hid the pain, until Zeke choose to remind me of his, exerting his greater authority over me.
“How dare you?” Veva snipped, standing straighter and loosening from my hold. “Don’t speak of her to him.” Veva and I shared the same woman who birthed us, but we did not share her as a mother. As our mother, she filled that role only for Veva. “She did this to him because of you.”
Zeke’s temper flared instantly and a finger pointed at Veva reinforcing his words.
“Don’t speak of things you don’t know.” The tremble to his voice proved Veva stood correct and the rumors I’d been told were true. My mother gave me up because she couldn’t face me. She couldn’t face the reminder of his unending infidelity. He ripped out her heart and in attempts to protect her own, she sent me away. Only mine broke, too. We were a bitter triangle.
“Don’t point at her with that tone,” I hissed, pushing Veva behind me, protecting her as the brother I wanted to be. I knew that voice from Zeke. He was gearing up for things Veva should never see. Zeke stepped closer to me.
“Don’t take that voice with me.” His threat would still me in the past, but with Veva to be protected and Phyre in my room, I drew strength I didn’t know I possessed. I stood taller, taller than my father.
“I’ll speak how I wish.”
The strike surprised me. A sharp lash of his hand, full of electric energy, and my body jolted with shock. The sting instantaneous and then done. My heart stilled, but a gasp of oxygen revived me. I blinked. The slow closing and opening of my lids was the only movement my body could make before feeling returned to my extremities. My father had only hit me once before. A boy who ran away in search of love from a mother, he slapped me to remind me love lived where he was. His home. Not hers. The vibration on my face at my current age should have made me laugh. Instead, it hardened me.
“I don’t need this shit. And I don’t need you.”
“Heph!” Veva’s heartbroken voice cried behind me, but I went cold after the momentary heat of my father’s hand on me. I charged for the barn door and plowed straight ahead toward the darkened trail to the stable. My car remained parked there after replacing the tire. Temple’s home being on the edge of Hestia’s property, it was safer to leave the vehicle there than closer to her house. I stomped through the black night and the cool mountain air, barefoot, my heart laid bare as well. Hatred toward my father ripped at my chest. The pain of my mother and the reminder of her abandonment tugged at the loose cords of arteries. The final pinch came at the thought that Phyre could not control her gift, and I would never be what she needed. I didn’t feel the cold. Heat filled me with insecurity and I needed escape before I’d combust.
phyre
I woke in a chilly room, minus Heph and my dress. Taking a moment to recall the night, my hand covered my forehead. Just as quickly, I removed my palm and stared at the raw welts intermingled with tiny puffs of skin. By day’s end, they would vanish. Until then, they would be a strong reminder of what I’d almost done. I cursed myself. I didn’t deserve to want things. I didn’t deserve to want Heph.
At the thought, I sat up slowly, feeling a strange loss, as if a piece of me went missing. I used the bathroom and cringed at the sight of the scorched linens and singed pillow. After using the facility, I returned to the room to remove the sheets and fold the blanket. Something didn’t feel right again, as I stood on the opposite side of the bed. The naked mattress marked as well by my capabilities, my eyes drifted over it to notice the wood floor. Scanning left to right, something was absent. It took a moment to recall tripping on a case, sprawled open and erupting with clothing. Red boxers flashed through my mind. The “something missing” became clear. Heph’s case was gone.
Quickly, I balled the sheets and carried them downstairs to the studio where the large fire pit softly smoldered. I placed the ruined sheets over the embers and watched as they burst into flame. Hugging the red blanket to my chest, I inhaled Heph’s manly scent: balsam pine. My heart ached, his loss slowly settling in but not yet registering with me. I turned for the door, not concerned at the obviousness of where I’d been or with whom. I entered the front door and took to the stairs instantly. I climbed slowly, sensing I walked to the end of something. Life as I knew it. Life as I wished it to be.
Entering my room, Adara stood facing my window. The casement cracked, but no flame lit the candles on the ledge. In my haste to get to Heph, I’d forgotten the open window and my stash of candles. Exposed, I waited for Adara to admonish me: for fire in the house and the flame I stole from her.
“He’s gone.” The words spiraled through the room, taking their time to reach me and take root. She didn’t move her eyes from the window, caught in some memory as she stared at the red barn feet from my room. Slowly, she turned to me. “I’m so sorry.”
Her words broke me and I swallowed hard. A tear trailed down my cheek.
“How do you know?”
“He left this morning. He sent Solis to get his things.”
Why didn’t he wake me? I wondered. How could he let me sleep?
I wanted to argue he’d return, but the gentle, dark haze of Adara’s eyes watching me, fought my claim. This is what Heph does. He leaves. He isn’t allowed to stay anyway, I reasoned in my head, but staring back at Adara, the truth was clear. He left without taking me with him. He didn’t want me.
I nodded as if Adara and I spoke. We hadn’t really talked since Heph arrived. Six weeks without much of a word from the girl who mothered me almost as much as Hestia. Guilt washed over me at stealing her man. She shook her head as the tears fell faster.
“I’m sorry,” I mouthed, but her sorrowful stare and her sudden embrace told me my sadness outweighed an apology.
“Me, too,” she whispered against my hair, stroking over it like a mother would. “Two broken hearts don’t make any of this right.” A sob escaped as my arms wrapped around her waist.
“What did I do?” I cried, knowing he left because of me.
“Nothing. You did nothing wrong,” she attempted to assure me, but she was wrong. I’d scared him, tough and large as he was. The threat of burning him alive in the heat of passion was certainly not attractive. He ran to escape telling me. He didn’t wish to face me, but the more I thought of this explanation, the more irritation festered. How could he walk away without telling me? I’d understand, but I wanted to hear it from his lips. I wanted him to face me like a man. Instead, I deemed him a coward.
+ + +
November led to December and the cold settled in by January. Restless and ornery, I circled the yard, perfecting my archery only to curse the target and its whispers of centering. I finished my schedule of baubles and jewels to swear at the torch flame for its reminder of first touches. My arrow wrap bracelet still choked my wrist. Torture that I inflicted on myself, as I still wore the silver band he made me and stared at the arrow, wondering when it would point me home. I loved Hestia’s Home, but the loss of Heph made me wonder if here was where I was intended to stay.
