Mythology Monday: Pandora’s Box

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Pandora was the box. The myths always get that part wrong. When the mortals stole fire from the God-King’s domain with the help of traitorous gods, Zeus molded the perfect woman out of clay and breathed not a soul into her small frame, but something darker: ingredients to break mankind.

“She looks like us,” Ares said in surprise when he set eyes on the first mortal woman. “Mostly.”

At the time, the human body held an entire soul: two heads, four arms, and four legs. They were complete beings, but still they felt unsatisfied. The human drive to always do more, have more, be more, left them hungry. Already humans had stolen the Fire of Knowledge from the gods, now they longed for Ichor and the secrets of immortality.

“This is the only way?” Artemis asked, glancing at the woman with unease. “Are you certain?”

“I’ve seen every possible outcome of the mortals’ current path,” Apollo replied. “Unchecked, they will destroy us all, god and man alike.”

Resolved, all the gods of Olympus contributed toward Pandora’s creation. Athena taught her wisdom, Hephaestus curiosity, Ares passion, and Artemis strength. As her lessons progressed, Pandora’s love for the gods grew. But when Zeus asked her to use her gifts to live among traitorous gods and men alike, she resisted.

“You’re asking me to infiltrate, to spy, to destroy,” she protested. “There must be another way. Please, don’t make me do this. Don’t send me to them.”

“You were made for this,” the God King decreed.

Eventually Pandora’s love for the gods prevailed. She loved Zeus’ children and knew that if men no longer had need of the gods, the gods would soon die for want of worship.
Love makes monsters of us all.

The humans regarded Pandora as a curiosity, as she did not resemble them. Little did they know they were looking upon their future. The humans were kind to Pandora. She grew to love their company, but sensing their destructive nature found she could not entirely dismiss Zeus’ plan.

She broke off pieces of her not-soul and sowed them among mankind. But all her attempts to cause division within the human soul were met with failure. They were too complete, too perfect in their formation to bend and break to the plagues, cold, and darkness. Instead of turning against each other, their resolve against the gods of Olympus grew.

The traitorous gods on the other hand were more amenable to distraction. Pandora was too much like the goddesses the brothers had left behind on Olympus to ignore. Epimetheus resisted her charms not at all, Prometheus for little longer. Soon the brothers fell to infighting, and when nine months passed and the first demigods were born, chaos swept across the land.

Because of their mother’s lack, the children only held half a soul, yet the humans could not help but love them, could not help but want them, could not wish but to be them. A single, golden step between the mortal and divine. First one soul, then another split in half and remade themselves in the semi-divine children’s image.

But instead of becoming stronger, the division caused the humans to become weak. The worst traits were amplified, their best halved. They spread across the globe, intent on consuming more and ever more. By the time they realized their mistake, they could no longer find the missing half of their souls.

Her grim mission complete, Pandora returned to her Olympian home, eager to be reunited with her gods.

Zeus did not welcome her back to Olympus.

“Where am I to go?” she demanded, heartbroken.

“Live among men or throw yourself off this mountain for all I care. You’ve outlived your usefulness.”

And so Pandora left. Ares did not take long to find her.

“Did you know what would become of us?” he asked, already wearied of his new role of war god.

“When their souls split, your role expanded to include the dark sides of your gift,” Pandora replied. “Man must always need you if you’ve any hope of surviving. There’s a price to balance.”

Ares shook his head, staring down the mountain as if his gaze could pierce the fog so he could see the battle and bloodshed below. “This is no kind of balance.”

“It will be.” Pandora drew Ares to her and whispered the last piece of her not-soul into his ear. A single word that had never before been uttered.

“Why me?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“You’ll need hope more than anyone.”

~@~

When the gods got together to create mankind, Zeus was hesitant. He’d been around for enough uprisings to know that creation didn’t always inspire loyalty. So he made sure to always cause dissent by creating some humans that were more intelligent than others, some who were stronger, ect. et. His treatment ties well into the soulmate myth, which features four-armed humans who were ripped into two so they could never become too fulfilled.

His treatment of early humans was harsh enough to lose the support of the two Titans who’d supported him during the Titanomachy: Epithemeus and Prometheus.

Prometheus was mankind’s biggest supporter. He helped create man and argued for their continued safety. When Zeus demanded sacrifices, Prometheus convinced him all the parts of animals that couldn’t be eaten were the bee’s knees, leaving humanity a vital thing called food.

But it wasn’t until he stole fire that he really invoked Zeus’ ire. Depending on the myth, fire is fire, or fire is knowledge. Either way, the damage was done once the fire was stolen and Zeus wanted revenge. So he asked Hephaestus to create the first woman: Pandora.

All the gods chipped in for her creation and sent her to live with Epithemeus. In some versions she was sent with the jar (it’s a translation error it was ever referred to as a box), in others the box was with the Titans all along. Either way, she opened the box, releasing the woes of mankind, and instantly realized her mistake and slammed the box closed, trapping one last spirit inside (or in some versions releasing it as well).

Hope.

 

Writing on Wednesday: Endings

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I’ve got a few books under my belt, so when it was time to write the end of Blood and Other Matter, I was surprised to find I didn’t know how to write an ending.

I’d never ended a book before. Not really. Persephone kind of ended, but mostly it led into the next book. Daughter of the Earth and Sky practically ended mid-scene. The Iron Queen certainly was an ending of an arc for Persephone, but it was a beginning for Aphrodite and what kind of felt like a midpoint (the place where everything changes) for Hades.

And those endings were fine for those books. Persephone needed to lead into Daughter of the Earth and Sky. Daughter of the Earth and Sky did end on a cliffhanger but every threat from the book resolved in that ending scene, any other line I wrote was the beginning of a new story line. Persephone herself got an ending I’m fairly proud of in Iron Queen, but for Aphrodite it had to be a beginning.

But that kind of ending wouldn’t work for Blood and Other Matter. It’s not a series, it’s a single book. It’s okay to end a book without everything wrapped up in a neat bow, but the story needs to conclude, darn it. And I had no idea how to do that.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew how the book would end, it was the little things. The resolution, the wrap up. So…I just didn’t write it. I went back and revised from beginning to climax four times before I finally sat down and realized I couldn’t wait anymore. I had other books to write.

I sat down and wrote over 10,000 words to get my ending. Maybe 3k of that represents the actual falling action and resolution of the book. I had to write every possibility out before I figured out what I was doing. It was a major milestone for me. Not only did I write my first real ending, it was also the first time I’d written over ten thousand words in a day. I’m not entirely sure I moved from my chair all day. My brain actually felt like it was buzzing when I finished and my child had somehow finished the entire show, Dragons: Riders of Berk and raided the fridge for meals (I swear I’m not normally a horrible parent. She actually gets limited screen time most days and her fridge has a snack drawer divided into food groups so she’s used to putting together her own meals, one from each category).

I love the ending to Blood and Other Matter. I think it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. I was crying as I wrote it. My writers group also reported tears (but they may have been tears of agony over the sheer number of typos that occurs when you write straight through an entire day and then hit send without proofreading). And I learned a lot about writing endings.

Struggling to write your own? Here’s some tips that worked for me.

  1. Endings should evoke an emotion. Pick a song or a book or a movie scene that makes you feel the way you want your reader to feel and watch/listen/read before you write. Don’t borrow it, but get yourself in that mood. It helps. I don’t typically listen to music when I write, but there was one song that just made me feel the ending of Blood and Other Matter. Having it playing in my head as I wrote really helped me set the tone of the ending.
  2. Get all the possibilities out of the way. That other 7 thousand words I wrote weren’t wasted. Each scene brought me closer to the resolution and feeling I wanted. Something stuck from every version and acted as a building block.
  3. Go through and find your threads. The major plot conflict is easy to resolve, but sometimes it’s easy to forget promises you made to the readers along the way. On my last pass of Blood and Other Matter, I had a running list of questions that needed to be addressed at resolution. It’s okay not to answer all of them. Life doesn’t get wrapped up in a neat bow. But as the writer you have to be aware of what you’re not resolving. There has to be intention.

There’s a great podcast on endings in Writing Excuses and there’s tons of great books and essays on the subject that get a bit more technical on the subject. But for me, those three tips made all the difference in building an ending I’m super proud of….

4. ….For the moment. Give me a few months and I’ll look back on it and wince. Always, always, always give your drafts time to breathe. I’m all emotionally invested in my super amazing ending right now. That makes me completely blind to flaws. I don’t normally take this many months between drafts, but I have a deadline for another book looming and pre-publication work on another. By the time I return to Blood and Other Matter for my final pass pre-query, I should have pretty fresh eyes.

 

 

Transformation

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It’s important to note that the hero’s journey has other potential steps. There are seventeen identified stages in the hero’s journey, and some stories have every single one of them. Others only have the major touch stones. And most stories shuffle the order.

Disney and most YA novels have shortened and combined many of the stages. For example, the road of trials and the temptation are often merged and the belly of the whale is often moved around to serve the plot.

To get a much more comprehensive picture of the hero’s journey, check out Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces.

In most simplified hero’s journeys, Transformation occurs right on the heels of the Belly of the Whale. This is when the newly humbled hero embraces their flaws and transforms them into strengths. It’s the moment when Goku turns super-duper seyan. When Sailor Moon unlocks her latest, greatest power, when Joy embraces Sadness and returns to her quest with a renewed sense of vigor, when Hercules literally turns into a god. Simba returns to pride rock transformed into an adult lion that embraces his responsibilities.

My favorite example of this is in Wreck it Ralph when it circles right back to his affirmation. He went through the Belly of the Beast when he wrecked Vanelope’s car. He’s given his medal and finds it to be meaningless. It’s an impressive low point. He starts the road back when he realizes King Candy has deceived him, but he lacks what it would truly take to defeat the big bad until this heart breaking scene, when he comes to terms with who he is and fully accepts himself. Only then, once he’s transformed, can his character arc and the big bad be defeated.

Aphrodite is LIVE!

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Aphrodite

 

Download it now at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, KOBO, or anywhere else eBooks are sold. Print and audio versions to follow soon 😀

 

Writing on Wednesday: First Look

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Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!

Aphrodite

“YOUR KIND ISN’T welcome here,” the dark-haired man growled, pushing his thick glasses up his nose with his index finger. The kid with shaggy hair and the balding man stepped around him, Olympian Steele gripped tight in their hands. I couldn’t take my eyes off the glittering stakes.

Poseidon let out a string of curses that would shock any sailor. “Get behind me.” He held out a hand, ready to push me back if I didn’t comply. His trident appeared in his other hand with a flash of gold so bright in the darkness, I found myself blinking away sparkling dots. “And get ready to run.”

“Run?” I demanded. “Why can’t we teleport?” Poseidon could grant me authorization in a second.

“And leave your demigod as collateral? My vows prohibit that, thanks to you.”

I laced my voice with as much sarcasm as I could. “We could always go get him.”

Pink Dress attacked first, with all the grace of a zombie. She leapt forward, hacking and slashing at the air with the Olympian Steele before she even got within a foot of Poseidon. She was trying to miss. The flashing lights illuminated a wild struggle in her dark eyes. She was resisting the charm the best she could, but what hope could a mere mortal have over a divine force of will?

“And risk ’porting straight into a trap?”

Poseidon had a point. You couldn’t shield yourself while teleporting. We might be able to throw up a shield the second we arrived, but we’d be vulnerable for that second.

“We’re dealing with this now,” Poseidon declared.

I summoned my charm, gritting my teeth against the pain ripping through my stomach. Gah! What was this? The charm slid off the passengers like water. Swallowing hard, I stepped back, bumping into a barstool. Run? From humans?

Poseidon dodged an attack from Baldy, then seemed to remember me and threw himself between the two of us, trident whirling to block his Steele. “We’re going to talk about the bargain we just made later.”

“Talk all you want. Your promises are still binding.” I threw up a shield, power flaring to life within me. Gods, that hurt. Gritting my teeth, I ignored the gut-wrenching pain and pushed the shield at the charmed passengers just as Shaggy joined the fray, Steele shattering my shield in a second.

I froze. Fighting wasn’t in my skill set. Unlike Persephone, I’d never seen the point in spending my spare time learning self-defense or honing my powers so I’d be ready for a combat situation. My charm could quell gods. Why would I ever need anything more than that?

Poseidon shoved me to the side, intercepting the Steele with his trident. Baldy leapt to Shaggy’s aid, slashing at Poseidon, but Poseidon sent him flying into the bar, crashing into a wall of bottles with enough force to shatter them. Baldy hit the ground with a thud, alcohol and glass raining around him. The bartender, unperturbed, kept pouring drinks. What the hell? Everyone else danced or stood around in unconcerned clusters. Was the whole club charmed? Holy Hades, what kind of power were we dealing with?

Don’t just stand there. Do something. Taking a deep breath, I tuned out the pulsing music and concentrated. With effort, I picked out several more charmed passengers as well as a shield enveloping the entire bar. “Poseidon, break the shield!”

A wave of power swelled from Poseidon. The shield shattered. My stomach wrenched as I blanketed the room with charm in a desperate bid to gain control of the passengers before they panicked and fled. They could come in handy.

Gods! The effort of channeling my powers sent me doubling over in agony.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed past the pain, concentration breaking when another passenger lunged at me, knocking me to the floor. Rolling out of the way, I slid across shattered glass. The broken bottles sliced my skin. I leapt to my feet. The uncharmed passengers became aware of the fight in their midst, and rushed toward the door screaming. “Crap!” Pushing past the pain, I refocused my power on the crowd as the music shut off and fluorescent lights flickered on.

“Are you cut?” Poseidon spared me a glance, throwing up a shield to gain the half-second to determine whether or not I was all right.

“Not by Steele.” Taking a deep breath, I forced my charm to take hold of the other passengers. “Help me!”

The bar came to life as passengers threw themselves in between me and the Steele-wielding zombies.

“Go,” Poseidon shouted, trident swinging in a wild arc. Pink Dress ducked around the blow, slashing at Poseidon, but got intercepted by a crew member acting under the influence of my charm. I ran, Poseidon on my heels. The crowd split in front of me, forming a narrow hallway that closed in behind us. A living shield.

Scattered within the crowd, I could pick out the passengers who weren’t under my control waiting for us to get close enough to strike. “Red dress! Glasses! Waitress behind the table!” I shouted warnings to Poseidon as soon as I picked out the passengers who would attack, glancing back to gauge his success.

Poseidon’s trident flashed. Now I understood why Demeter and Hades had been so determined to get him on their side against Zeus. Poseidon wasn’t just powerful. He fought in a way most gods were too complacent to even consider. I couldn’t tell where his powers stopped and his physical prowess began. Green lightning erupted from the trident, followed by a punch, a kick, a shield inverted around a passenger to restrain them. He seemed to be everywhere at once until they tried to strike back, and then he was nowhere.

“You’re incredible!” I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, and, by rights, I shouldn’t be audible over the fight, but somehow, Poseidon still heard and shot me a grin.

“You sound surprised. I thought that was common knowledge.” His grin faded. “Watch out!”

I ducked as another charmed passenger broke through the crowd, slashing at the place where I’d been with the shimmering stake. Poseidon was there in a flash. The passenger went flying into the wall as limp as a rag doll.

We broke free of the bar and dashed through a hallway decorated to resemble the night sky. If anyone thought it odd we ran like our lives depended on it, I didn’t notice. “Where are we going?” I cried.

“Water.”

Right. I veered toward the atrium as the hall opened up into a lobby full of gift shops, tables, and photographers posing random passengers in front of pretty backdrops. The charmed passengers followed right on our heels. “This way!” I rushed across the atrium and up the curved, golden staircase.

I screamed as a hand closed around my ankle and yanked me down the steps. For a second, all I could focus on was the stake centimeters from my face. The weapon didn’t move. My gaze shifted up the arm of the passenger carrying the Steele. His face contorted in a grimace of agony. With a violent jerk, he was flung off of me, and slammed into the wall propelled by an invisible force.

“What?” Leaping to my feet, I found Poseidon. He had one arm up as he cast and recast a shield to keep the passengers at bay almost as fast as they slashed through it, and the other, stretched toward the man, trident extended. “How did you do that?” Telekinesis was not in our skill set.

“Salt water.” Poseidon panted, the strain from casting a new shield every time Steele broke through evident on his face. “Run!”

I scrambled up the steps, my mind reeling. There were whispers, rumors, that the original six were capable of manipulating the human body via built-in fail-safes. A control for each god. Water for Poseidon, trace minerals from the earth for Demeter, and the four aspects of the soul for the rest. But I’d only heard rumors. Precious little information about human creation passed down the bloodlines.

And no one could say for certain whether those same controls were built into us. Forget that for now. How have you not been cut? I’d been knocked over, pushed, and outright missed a statistically improbable number of times not to have sustained a single injury from the Olympian Daggers.

This fight didn’t make sense. I’d been on this ship surrounded by these people for the last day and a half. Why hadn’t someone taken me out then?

Maybe I’m not the target.

What if I was just in the way? Had they addressed both of us, or just Poseidon at the beginning of the fight? He’d stayed behind a shield almost the entire time he’d been on board. Maybe they’d attacked like this because taking down his shield would be noticeable no matter what they did. If you can’t go for surprise, go for strength?

I burst through the exterior door and slammed into the railing, gasping for breath.

“Stay against the rail.” Poseidon slid to halt in front of me.

“Here?” I took a nervous look around. The bit of deck we occupied reminded me of a sidewalk. The narrow strip of white wooden planks and painted metal rails ran parallel to the main lobby, separated by windows and glass doors. The charmed passengers stood in the open doorway, hacking at Poseidon’s shield. Soft Caribbean music and laughter came from the pool farther down the deck. I glanced at the exterior steps, wondering if we should run up one more deck.

“Here.” Poseidon’s shield broke and I felt the power ricochet back to him. “Can you break the charm?”

I hesitated. I’d never succeeded in freeing Persephone from Zeus’s charm, no matter how hard I’d tried. And I’d tried hard. “I have some theories.”

Poseidon nodded. “Try then. I’d rather not have to kill anyone.”

“Really?” It wasn’t as if I thought Poseidon enjoyed death and violence. Much. But I didn’t expect him to care one way or another whether the people attacking us lived or died.

Poseidon shrugged. “I don’t want to give Hades any excuse to come to my realm.”

Right. Gods had to respond to divine causes of death. It figured that’s what Poseidon would worry about right now. The sea god turned to the door. “I’ll buy you as much time as I can. You may want to duck.”

I dropped to my knees, my hands going over my head as a wall of water rushed above me, whipping around the deck as the charmed passengers poured through the doorway.

Go inside, nothing to see here. My stomach twisted as I let the command blanket the ship, fueling the order with every bit of power I could manage. Get to your room and stay there until morning.

The effort of maintaining hold of so many passengers twisted my stomach into painful knots. Oh, gods, this hurts. Water roared around me, disrupting my concentration. Squeezing my eyes shut, I waited until I sensed the passengers under my control begin to retreat across the ship. I imagined doors closing, and gave them a few seconds to get settled, making sure to imprint a strong desire in their minds to stay put until sunup before releasing them from my charm. Even out of my control, they would most likely obey the subconscious command.

I narrowed my focus to the passengers under foreign control heading toward this deck.

How many were there in total? I gave up counting at thirty and shifted my attention to the eight fighting Poseidon.

I could sense the charm holding them, but something about the power signature seemed off. Charm was like a thread of power extending from god to man. A thread. But the charm holding the humans hostage wasn’t a solitary thread but many, woven together like a rope.

“There’s more than one controller,” I blurted, realization hitting me like a tidal wave.

“What?” Poseidon shouted.

My answer got swallowed in the roar of the water. Baldy lunged at Poseidon, but got whipped away by the current. The water animated and whirled around Poseidon, suspended in the air like the arms of an octopus, lashing out every time one of the passengers got too close. But he wouldn’t be able to keep up the fight forever. I gritted my teeth and focused on gathering more power.

We weren’t dealing with another deity like me or a super-charged Titan. This was something else entirely. What did Zeus say? “You think you saved the world by killing me, but you’ve doomed it. What’s coming is worse. And Hades, they’re armed.”

They’re armed. Plural. We were dealing with a group. An army, even.

I kept my eyes closed, tuning out the screams, grunts, and occasional flashes of green lightning to separate each power signature I found connected to one of the charmed passengers. The threads of power were braided together in an intricate chain of charm.

But the woman in the pink dress did fight the foreign control. Maybe she wasn’t the only one. I opened my eyes for a second. The jerky movements of the passengers confirmed my theory. Gritting my teeth against the gut-wrenching pain that came with using my powers so close to Poseidon, I focused on a single thread of charm, ignoring the rest of the rope for now.

The individual threads were weak.

“Aphrodite,” Poseidon snapped. “Any time now!”

More passengers joined the battle. I hadn’t opened my eyes to check, but I could sense them. How many? Ten? Twelve? “I’m trying!” I focused on channeling my power through the gaps between threads of charm. Sweat bathed my face. Using my powers shouldn’t hurt this much.

Almost. I pushed at the gaps, pouring more and more power into the effort. The charm snapped and my eyes flew open. “Got it!” I called triumphantly. “I’ve—” I broke off with a gasp. The passengers hung suspended in a wall of water before Poseidon. Their mouths open, faces frozen in contorted expressions of pain as they’d desperately tried to drag air into their lungs but failed, finding only water. Their dead eyes burned with accusation.

“No.” Poseidon stepped backward and the water crashed to the deck, bringing the bodies to the ground with a sick sounding thunk, Olympian Steele still clutched tight in their dead fingers. “You didn’t.”

The Belly of the Whale

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This is without a doubt the most powerful moment in the hero cycle. Also called the dark night of the soul or “the sad part,” this is where the hero, previous victorious over the trials and at a peak in confidence gets slammed down into reality, most often by a combination of a show of strength from the big bad and a crippling character flaw that can no longer be ignored. They sink into the darkness, confront it, and emerge stronger. It is the moment a hero becomes a hero. See, the bad guys go through a hero cycle to, somewhere in their backstory. And their belly of the whale moment is one they never overcame. They sank and kept on sinking. Example: The ending of Episode 3 of Star Wars was Anakin’s belly of the whale. Had he confronted his flaws, embraced them as strengths, and emerged, humble, but stronger, it would have been an entirely different universe.

The most powerful example of this for heroes I’ve seen in a long time is in Inside Out when Joy ends up in the memory dump.

I’ve already talked about how amazing this scene was at length, so I’ll shut up about it now. But there are a lot of other great examples. In Lilo and Stitch it’s the “I’m Lost” moment, in The Croods it’s the Cave Scene, In Finding Nemo, the Belly of the Whale moment happens in a whale.

Actually, let’s talk about Pixar in general. Remember how I said the villain is a would be hero who failed their darkest night of the soul? Pixar often plays with this idea by making, not deeply empathetic villains, but delayed heroes. Marlin goes through a belly of the whale moment when he loses his wife and all the other eggs. Arguably the entire movie from the end of the opening montage on is him crawling out of the abyss and becoming stronger for it. Ditto for Carl in Up. They still get a full hero’s journey once they receive their second call to adventure, but what we witness in the first few minutes of those movies is where their first journey ended abruptly in a pit of despair, leaving them unfinished as characters. It’s a brilliant writing trick that Pixar executed flawlessly.

Blog Changes

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Once Aphrodite is live for a week or so and I don’t have to worry quite as much about spoilers, Mythology Monday can return to the blog. But I’ve had a lot of fun with the Movie Mondays, so I’m thinking of morphing those into writing on Wednesdays (they are all about writing and plot elements), and while I’m at it, I’d like to change For Real Friday. It’s kind of a mine field of me venting about stuff.

So knowing that mythology and writing will continue to be covered on my blog, what kind of post would you like to see more of on this blog?

Writing on Wednesday: First Look

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Every Wednesday from now until release date, I’ll be posting an exclusive scene from Aphrodite! Like what you read? Preorder today!
Aphrodite

An hour later, the storm raged on but our energy waned. Adonis dragged the two lounge chairs as close to the suite door as possible to protect them from any stray droplets, then tossed a couple of towels onto them.

I took the opportunity to flip on the light switch.

“That’s better,” Adonis cried as light illuminated the drenched balcony. He glanced toward the hot tub built into the corner. “Shall we?” he yelled, over a thunderclap.

“Maybe after the lightning stops.” I laughed. I could survive a lightning strike, but Adonis might get crispy.

“Oh yeah. Good point.” He collapsed into a lounge chair. “Okay then, your turn. You say ‘Never have I ever’ and—”

“And then say something I’ve never done.” I’d gotten the gist of the game the first ten rounds, but Adonis still seemed flabbergasted I hadn’t heard of this game before tonight, so he kept going over the rules.

“Yeah. And if I’ve done it—”

“You have to take a shot. Got it.” I swiped a puddle off the watertight surface and maneuvered a towel beneath me before perching on the edge of my seat. “Never have I ever . . . lied.”

“Aw, come on.” Adonis was forced to take another drink straight from the bottle. We’d long since forgone the shot glasses in this game. “Well, I’ve never charmed my way out of a speeding ticket.”

I swallowed a mouthful of rum as I tried to think of something else I’d never done before but was pretty sure he had.

Adonis smirked. “Come on, Aphrodite, you’ve only been alive two years. This shouldn’t be hard.”

“Three.” But the man had a point. “I . . . never heard this song before today.”

Adonis took a drink. “This is a great song. I’ve never stolen a car.”

I scowled at him. I’d taken a shot almost every turn. “I’ve never hit a girl.”

Adonis swore and took another drink. “I never apologized for that.”

“I’ll never ask you to.” I laughed.

“I never . . .” His lips twisted in a knowing grin. “Shoplifted.”

Okay, seriously? “You are cheating,” I said, giving his shoulder a playful smack with the back of my hand. “You can’t get all of your ‘I nevers’ from stuff you already know I’ve done thanks to Melissa’s big mouth.”

Adonis snickered. “Oh please, Miss ‘I’ve never hit a girl?’ Knowledge is ammunition, no matter the source.” He tapped my bottle with his. “Drink up.”

“Okay, okay.” I took another shot and made a face. “Geeze, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s my endgame. You caught me.” He dismissed my accusation with a snort. “Can you even get drunk?”

“Not with this.” I swished the rum around in the bottle. “Gods can get drunk off divine drinks, but run-of-the-mill human stuff won’t do the job.”

“Oh, run of the mill, huh?” He shook his head. “Gods, talking to you is mind-bending. I’ve known my entire life that I’m a demigod. I mean, finding out I’m one of Zeus’s crazy science experiments was news to me. But my day-to-day stuff is grounded in the normal. You don’t even know where normal lives.”

“Oh, I do,” I joked. “Far beneath me.”

“No, I’m serious. We’ve got to like . . . educate you or something. Everyone alive knows this song. Who knows what else you’ve missed? We could—” He broke off. “What are you doing?”

I bounced up and down, brimming with impatience. “I have a good one!”

“Go on then.” He laughed.

“I never . . . “My voice sounded thick with self-satisfaction. “Kissed a demi-deity.”

Adonis grinned. “I can fix that.”

I waited a beat for him to remember his ex-girlfriend, whom he’d surely at least kissed. “Elise,” I prodded when he leaned toward me.

“Holy—” Adonis exclaimed, lurching forward as if the memory had slugged him. “How did I—Augh. Fine,” he groaned, taking a shot.

I laughed. “Maybe we should call it a night.”

“Uh-uh, my turn.” Adonis stood, taking the liquor with him. “Never have I ever”—he frowned as though articulating his thought took effort—“been arrested.” His frown deepened. “I think.”

“Okay, you’ve had enough.” I rose to my feet, reaching for his bottle, but finding only air when Adonis held the tequila over his head.

Thunder rumbled, shaking the balcony. Adonis and I hollered back at it as the boat skipped over the choppy water. He lowered the bottle for a fraction of a second when he yelled, and I snatched the tequila from him, giggling at the startled look on his face.

“Give it back.” Adonis reached for the bottle, but I danced backward, out of his reach, laughing.

“Make me.”

He snickered and started to reply, then stopped, his mouth going slack as the ship emerged from the storm clouds, revealing a clear night sky. I turned to see what could possibly render the demigod speechless and gasped.

Quicksilver lined the midnight blue sea, shimmering like magic. The moon rose from the waves in a slow ascent, sending light scattering through the water in a way that could only be described as ethereal. We watched in utter silence as the light gathered into a ball of white-hot, molten silver and rose above the tide, casting a gleaming path in the water leading straight to us.

The ocean went dark as the ship plunged into another set of clouds. Spell broken, Adonis cleared his throat. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I wouldn’t have either, if not for you.” Swallowing hard, I set the tequila down on the deck and studied the way the moonlight hit his skin and the rain dripped off the contours of his face, committing every feature of the man who’d saved me to memory.

“What?” He shifted under the intensity of my gaze.

“I never thanked you,” I realized.

Adonis looked down at me, his golden eyes darkening with an emotion I didn’t recognize. “I’ll never ask you to.”