Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(2)

“Artemis!” I rasped, grasping for the golden bars of my cage. “Artemis! Here!”

Again my throat constricted, and I fell back against the rear wall. I sensed the air inside the palace go still. She had heard me. She would come.

But I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.

“Orion!” Artemis cried.

My legs kicked out as I struggled in vain for air. I slammed my heels against the bars, rattling them as hard as I could, even as my vision prickled, even as my life began to drain from me.

“Orion? My love! Are you here?”

I heard her footsteps. Heard the cries of the remaining guards as they were flung aside, tossed through windows, slammed against the walls. My fingers clawed at the dirt floor in sheer desperation, trying to pull me closer to the bars, closer to my savior.

Zeus let out a mighty, furious roar. There was another explosion, so close this time the bars and walls shook, raining rocks and silt throughout my cell. She was dead. I was sure of it. And if she was, then so was I. My last hope. Gone. In an instant.

Until, like a vision, Artemis appeared in the doorway, as statuesque as ever in white robes, a gold-and-leather vest adorned with an intricate pattern of roses and stars, and a shimmering bronze crown. She was as beautiful as the day we’d fallen in love, her chestnut hair tumbling in ringlets around her perfect, sharp chin. Her skin was a creamy white, with the merest blush across her cheeks. Her emerald-green eyes widened at the sight of me, and suddenly I could breathe again.

I gasped in air—gasped in life—and reached for the goddess who would save me. I no longer loved her—hadn’t in centuries—but that could be explained later. After she got me out of here.

“Artemis,” I rasped.

“Orion,” she whimpered.

She extended her trembling hand and I felt, for the briefest second, the slip of her fingertips across mine.

And then everything went black.





CHAPTER ONE


True


“I’m . . . fine,” the love of my life mumbled, searching my face. “But who the hell are you?”

I gazed into his deep blue eyes and stopped breathing. I knew every green and brown fleck within them. I knew every dream and fear and hope they disguised. And yet they were a complete blank as they stared back at me. Slowly, achingly, a cold terror settled into my veins even as my lips tingled from our kiss. He wasn’t joking.

“Orion, do—do you truly not know me?” I stammered.

He chuckled in an embarrassed way and smoothed the back of his dark wavy hair as he looked around, waiting for the punch line. I took a startled step back, catching my shoe on the curb. Automatically, instinctively, Orion reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me. His touch stopped my heart, and I stared at his tanned fingers, then into his eyes.

It’s me, Orion. Please. Please, remember me. I’m the one who saved you. I brought you back to life after eons of hanging among the stars. I nursed you back to health and we fell in love. We spent hours, days, weeks together, telling our secrets, whispering our hopes, learning everything there is to know about each other. Please, you must remember me. Please, please, please.

He released me. “Sorry, no. How do you know my name?”

I felt Hephaestus’s presence at my side, the left wheel on his chair coming to a stop right next to my leg. I stared mutely down at him, my dark-skinned, dark-eyed, leather-and-metal-and-denim-sporting friend, wishing he could snap his fingers and wake me from this nightmare. Like me, Hephaestus was a former god, and as such, was almost mind-bendingly handsome with his square jaw, flawless complexion, and perfect muscle definition, but while he had been human for generations, I had only been in this mortal body for two weeks. I was still getting used to its quirks. Like the psychotic, panicked pounding of the pulse that I was currently experiencing. I had thought that I was familiar with every working of the human heart. As Eros, the Goddess of Love, it was supposed to be my specialty. But this was something new.

Hephaestus nudged my leg with the rubber coating on the wheel of his chair, but my brain couldn’t form words. My brain could form nothing other than a silent, anguished scream.

“Lucky guess?” Hephaestus offered.

Orion laughed again. “That’d be a first. Everyone’s always surprised when I introduce myself. I think my mom was high when she named me. She never heard of Michael or David or James?”

“You have a mom?” I blurted.

His handsome brow knit. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Hephaestus laughed loudly, forcibly. “Good one.” He looked at me with wide eyes, urging me to get it together. But at the moment I didn’t even know what “it” was, let alone how I could get it together. From the corner of my eye, I saw Darla Shayne and Veronica Vine in their matching outfits—Darla’s a blue minidress, Veronica’s a pink one in the same style—checking Orion out as they sauntered by on their way into school.

Back off, I thought, angry adrenaline surging through me. Back the eff off.

Darla turned to walk backward, slipping her sunglasses to the tip of her nose for a better look. Some skateboarder guy was performing tricks nearby, and without a thought I glared at his board, sending it flying out from under him and rolling into Darla’s path. She tripped and fell right on her ass on the sidewalk with a screech.