Goddess of Love (Goddess Summoning #5)(83)

"Shit!" he cried, and took two quick steps away from her.

"I'm sorry," she said hastily, walking toward him. "Pea hates it when I zap things, too. But I needed to show you that I'm not insane."

"I think I might be," Griffin said, taking two more steps away from her. Feeling foolish and a little worried, she stopped chasing him. "No, no. Don't worry, you're not. This is all true. See, you can touch the robes, they're real." She held out her silk-clad arm, but he made no motion to touch her. She sighed. "Pea made the chicken you were eating, but the cheese and bread were zapped from Olympus. You don't have to be worried about touching things from there; they won't hurt you."

"I need to sit down." Griffin walked around her and sat on the picnic table bench. He was still staring at Venus and shaking his head.

"I suppose this might take a little getting used to," Venus said. She walked back to the table, too, but was careful not to get too close to Griffin. She really didn't want him to move away from her again.

"A little?" he said incredulously.

"Well, it's not like it's changed who I am. I've always been Venus - from the first moment you spoke to me at the party until now. I'm no different. It doesn't really change anything."

"Yes. It does."

Venus felt a shiver of worry clench through her body, making her feel lightheaded. His voice had changed completely. He spoke in a cold, emotionless tone. His expressive eyes had flattened to those of a stranger.

"But it doesn't have to. I still love you. You still love me - me."

"No, Goddess. This changes everything," he said quietly.

She noticed he didn't comment at all on her declaration of love or on the reminder that he was supposed to love her in return. And all at once the worry that had been fluttering through her began to change to anger. Hadn't he meant what he said?

"Why?" Venus asked, her newly emotionless tone mirroring his. "Why does who I am change things? Or were you lying about loving me?"

"You're calling me a liar!" He stood up. "What about all that crap you gave me about not having love in your life until now? Christ! You are love! So what was I, just a mortal toy for you to play with? Some kind of rat in a maze experiment?"

"How dare you!" Her righteous anger caused the trees that ringed their bench to quiver as if the hand of a giant - or a goddess - had suddenly shaken them. Griffin glanced at the whipping branches, his eyes widening. "When I spoke those words to you I was showing you my heart. I have been alone, for far longer than your mortal brain could even begin to comprehend."

"The Goddess of Love? Alone? Because I'm a mortal man do you think that also makes me a f**king idiot?"

"Until this moment I didn't." In some part of her mind, Venus knew that his harsh words were more a reflection of his shock and hurt at thinking that she had deceived him, than a reflection of his true feelings for her. But once the wrath of a goddess is roused, it is a force that is hard to quell...and Griffin had definitely aroused her wrath.

"The Venus I loved was like me. She'd avoided love until we met. Now she was willing to finally commit, to figure out a way to make a future together."

"I am still that Venus!" Her shout caused the ground around them to shudder.

"How! How do you propose we make a future together? I may not know much about mythology, but I think I have the part right about you being immortal, don't I? Hell! Are we even the same damn species? Can we make children together? And what happens in ten, twenty, thirty years when I'm an old man and you're still young and beautiful and unchanged? Did you think about any of those things when you decided to play at loving a man?"

Venus stepped back. She felt as if he had slapped her. She drew around her the dignity and power of a great goddess. She felt the shimmer of her divinity caress her skin and the silverblond mass of her hair begin to lift and crackle with a life of its own. She knew her violet eyes were glowing with an unearthly light, just as she knew that the brilliance of her immortality unbridled would be difficult for any mortal to gaze upon. Venus didn't care. She wanted Griffin to see her magnificence. She wanted him to see what he had lost forever. When she spoke, her voice was magnified by the magic that was her birthright.

"No. I did not think of those things when I allowed myself to love you. I thought only of how our souls called to one another. I see now I must have been mistaken. Your soul is too tainted by mortal fear and selfishness. It is not courageous enough to love mine. I leave you now, Griffin DeAngelo, son of man, and return to Olympus where I belong. I could wipe your memory clean of me, as easily as I would wipe chalk from a slate, but I will not. I want you to remember always that you denied Love herself." Then Venus, Goddess of Sensual Love and Beauty, lifted her arms and in a cascade of shooting sparks, disappeared.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

W hen Venus rematerialized inside Pea's kitchen, her anger was already beginning to drain. Barking wildly, Chloe barreled into the room, but when she recognized Venus her snarls changed to welcome yips, and then worried whines when the goddess sat on the floor, scooped the Scottie up in her arms, and burst into tears.

"Venus! Ohmygod! What's wrong?" Pea rushed into the room and crouched beside her.

"He - hates - me!" she sobbed.