Chapter Fifteen
Goddess

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my toes.  Mostly because there wasn’t really anything more interesting to focus my attention on at the moment.  It was warm enough now that wearing sandals was actually the better option, and my toes were currently painted a pretty pastel purple.  It had been Phoebe’s idea to do so, going so far as to even off to do them for me so I wouldn’t mess them up.  I was a little weirded out by someone else touching my feet – I always had been, which is why I never really had a pedicure in my life – but she was so insistent upon it, as well as excited, that I felt like I’d be a terrible sister if I refuse.  And besides, it was sandal weather, and it would be nice to have toes that I could be proud of for once.  It hadn’t been too bad an experience; just extremely odd, since this was the first time in my life that I had a good relationship with one of my sisters.  They’ve always wanted to give me make-overs, sure, but generally for their own purposes, not to actually make me look better.  Phoebe, I could tell, was trying extremely hard to make up for all the years she, and Penny, had been horrible to me.  So all this bonding sisterly crap she was trying to throw upon me was just going to take some getting used to.

I found myself staring at my toes more often than I normally did, especially when I didn’t have anything to preoccupy my mind.  It gave me something to focus on, or else my mind would be all over the place, and that, I learned very quickly, wasn’t a very good thing to do.  In the past, when my thoughts were all over the place, it just meant that I had trouble focusing on one subject.  Now, however, it tended to give me headaches, if I was lucky enough to just get those.  Luckily, they were a pretty enough shade that I could get away with staring at me feet, and no one really questioned it.  It just looked like I was awed by my feet, it seemed. 

I wasn’t exactly sure where Eros had gotten to.  Normally, he was punctual to the point where he was generally way too early, although I think that’s what part of the problem was.  I was used to him being there already rather than making me wait.  Okay, I was used to him being here pretty much all the time, and thus not making me wait, but there were a few occasions where he had to step out and, you know, actually do his job.  It wasn’t all that demanding, mind, since there wasn’t really any need for some god to go around shooting people to make them fall in love.  That pretty much became obsolete the moment he fell in love, since at that point, his powers pretty much expanded to the point where they were self-sufficient.  That’s how he was able to have a love life, and not ignore Psyche, like, all the time.  But there were still a few cases that the gods ruled over, and his services were needed. 

I wasn’t sure if that was the case at the moment.  It probably was.  His mother was always sending him messages that she needed this mortal to be forced to love this other mortal, because her own suggestive love just wasn’t working.  And he’d go off and be the dutiful son, and set the couple straight.  Aphrodite was very serious about her job; she insisted she wasn’t really forcing the two of them to fall in love, but rather setting things in motion.  Eros’ arrows had changed in the past centuries, it turns out, such that, if there wasn’t any sort of spark between two people, it wouldn’t work at all. 

But like I said; Aphrodite was very serious about her job.  The people she had trouble with still managed to be effected the traditional way by Eros’ arrow, such that it was clear that the two were meant to be together.  They just needed more of a nudge than the goddess of love could actually offer.  Eros was the brute force, after all, and he always had been.  He never decided who was to be hit by one of his arrows; that always told to him somehow.  He could never explain it to me, but it was very clearly an outside source, he told me.

I was sort of starting to understand what he meant.  There were so many times when I just knew somebody wanted me to do something, except I was pretty sure I had never talked to anyone about the issue before.  It was just a feeling that came to me, but it wasn’t really an instinctual or natural feeling.  It was sort of one of those things that I had to get used to fairly quickly, although it still unnerved me every time I felt it.  But it was also a very similar feeling to when I’d feel Eros watching me, so I tried to take comforting in the feeling rather than be creeped out.

But to be honest, it was really hard not to feel creeped out by simply knowing that someone wanted you to do something.

The other gods sort of thought I was a little crazy, mostly because this was something they were born with, and something they were just used to.  To them, it was just a natural feeling.  To me, it was completely new, but at least Eros was accepting of that fact.  He tended to smack Zephyrus upside the head whenever he’d start to bust out laughing when I made a remarking, pointing out that he was going to have to be sympathetic soon enough.  I had something of experience with all the changes I was going through; Maddie did not.  She was mortal through and through, whereas I had at least been a goddess at one point.

But still, that generally shut him up quickly enough.

I wasn’t exactly sure what Eros was planning, either.  He had just asked me if I had anything important to do after class today.  The semester was basically over, and the few projects that I did have had already been turned in, or were basically finished.  I didn’t have much homework at this point in the game, when classes were wearing down, and everyone was so focused on final projects and the finals themselves.  Now that I knew what to expect, I found these finals not to be nearly as terrifying.  Besides, after dealing with as much as I had these past few months, college seemed like a piece of cake.

And really, if you think about it, I had all the time in the world now in order to actually get my degree.  I didn’t have to be in a rush anymore.

I didn’t think it was anything big.  Eros didn’t have any reason to be planning anything other than wanting to spend time with me.  It was a common question he had to ask nowadays, especially with the projects I had to focus on more and more.  He didn’t want to disturb me, after all, which I thought was sweet of him.  Some days he’d ask that question, and I’d find him chilling in my car once classes were finished for the day, whereas others I wouldn’t see him at all until after dinner, where he’d make his appearance and explain he had a job to do.  He had more jobs now than he did when we first met each other, but I think that was mostly because he felt more comfortable about leaving me for a period of time.

I did have to wonder what all this was like for him.  Centuries he had spent chasing me, only to have me reject him without even batting an eye.  And now here we were, destined to spend the rest of eternity together.  I didn’t regret my decision at all, although Mom claims it seemed a little hasty in her eyes.  Pledging to spend eternity with him, despite not even knowing him six months?  After all, I was still extremely young at eighteen, and I wasn’t exactly experienced.  It did seem like I was pledging myself to the first boy who showed any sort of interest in me.  And maybe she was right.  Only time could really tell, but for the moment, it really did feel like Eros and I had something a little deeper than love going for us.

And I know that’s something every teenage girl says when she’s in love, which is sort of why I was a little wary to actually say anything like that.

Papa was supportive of the idea, although he didn’t like the idea of having competition.  He was no longer the only important male in my life, and I could tell he was still getting used to the idea.  Which was strange, considering he should be used to his daughters dating at this point.  But I suppose it was different in my case.  And I think the only reason he was okay with this whole situation was knowing that Eros had waiting fifteen hundred years for him, which meant that he was, if anything, loyal.  Any issues in the relationship would pretty much be caused by me.

Not like I was planning on causing any.  I was more than willing to work out any problems that I was going to have with this whole mess, unlike my first life.  I wasn’t going to cause drama for anyone else just because I didn’t want to bring up any issues with my boyfriend.  Psyche was a fool for not trusting Eros enough, and I was determined to learn from his mistake.

I do have to admit that my life since being released from Psyche’s plan had been rather interesting.  For once, this wasn’t a bad thing, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it.  I had always had to fight to have things actually turn out the way I wanted them to, what with my sisters being spoiled and greedy, and living the life of a socialite while not actually wanting that life.  I was forced to be someone I didn’t want to be so often that I just came to terms with it.  There were a number of things that did seem to go right – Maddie, getting into college, my relationship with my father – but I spent so much of my life avoiding my sisters antics, and then the gods on top of that that good things seemed like something that I just couldn’t gain.  So actually having good things – and knowing that it would remain that was – was certainly a welcome change.

Of course, I expected a change in me, but what was remarkable was the change in my outside life as well.  It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the change in me, but it was just enough to impress me greatly.  It was really one thing to have Phoebe shift her attitude and strive to become a better person, even if it was going to be a slow process.  That was just her releasing herself from Megeara’s influence, and settling back into her original personality, Eros explained.  It turned out that Phoebe was always supposed to be superficial, but she was also supposed to be the sort of rich, popular girl that everyone’s actually supposed to like.  It seemed like almost overnight, since she got back from her honeymoon, her overall approval ratings sky rocketed.  She was suddenly likable, and she realized she liked people liking her.  So she wanted to keep things that way.

Most of all, though, she wanted me to like her, and while our opinions certainly did clash – we were always going to have different opinions on matters – she didn’t make fun of me for it.  Instead, she took my ideas and thoughts seriously, and tried adapting herself to those thoughts and ideas whenever she was around me.

And, of course, her relationship with Nate had never been stronger.  He had been the only one who had been able to draw out her true personality, so to have her change so drastically wasn’t actually a surprise to him.  This was how she was with him all the time; he had been baffled about how she could be so nasty to everyone else.  So he was happy to see her being a decent human being, especially to her baby sister.  They were currently talking about having a baby together, but nothing had come of that just yet for them.

Penny, on the other hand – and you could call her Penny now without her flipping her shit on you – was the one that actually scared me a little.  None of us were expecting an overnight change in her, but that’s exactly what we got.  She woke up from the exorcism-induced sleep, and she was a completely different person.  It was so bizarre, let me tell you.  There was really no explanation for it, really.  Megeara should have overshadowed her personality so much so that she should have seem been showing signs of possession despite having the Erinyes removed.  It was supposed to be a gradual change, and that made sense.

She didn’t really remember much, but she woke up, came downstairs, and literally asked why the hell she’s been so nasty to everyone these past few years.  It baffled us all, including Hades.  He had come up to check on her progress, and when he heard of her personality shift, he couldn’t believe it.  We had to sit her in front of him several times just to get him to understand we weren’t putting her up to it.

I always thought it was strange that a child of Nikodemus Karalis would turn out so nasty, and apparently I was right.  And apparently his kindness gene was strong enough to kill the Erinyes influence the moment it was out of her body.  At least that’s what I wanted to believe.

Don’t get me wrong; she was nothing like me.  She wasn’t the sort of girl who suddenly shunned the socialite scene or anything like that.  But she, like Phoebe, proved to have turned out to be exactly like Mom – superficial yet kind.  Penny was exactly like Mom, actually, much like I was exactly like Papa.  Poor Phoebe was the one who wasn’t born with much brain power, but she made up for it by being sweet.

Well, Penny wasn’t exactly like Mom, although her personality was closer to it than any of us.  But she didn’t quite want to give up the socialite life like Mom had been all too eager to.  Sure, Mom liked the occasional dinner party and entertaining a guest, because that’s how she was brought up, but she didn’t have to be up on the latest gossip or be at every party.  Penny, unfortunately, did.

But now that Penny was who she was meant to be, she took the fact that she was pregnant more seriously.  It was no longer a cute accessory for her to have – it was a living being that she was going to nurture and care for for the rest of her life.  She had been displaying maternal instincts from the start – cradling and protecting her belly – although I had just though that to be her showing off.  Now she actually had a glow to her, and she was getting advice from Mom, Nona, and Nana, and attending as many pregnancy classes as she could.  I went from pitying my unborn niece or nephew (she refused to know what it was until it was born) to actually being happy for my sister.

Even Donald started to change thanks to Penny.  He became less of a creeper now that Penny was turning her attention back to him.  Don’t get me wrong – he was still really creepy for marrying someone half his age, and both Phoebe and I agreed that we didn’t think Penny and Donald were going to actually last very long.  But he wasn’t as  creepy, since now he got to stare at his wife’s breast, and didn’t have to resort of ours.

But still, Phoebe being nice to me was something I could get used to extremely quickly, even if it was weird when she started.  Penny, on the other hand, was just weird.  She spent so much of her life trying to tear me down – we now know that this was just because Megeara was terrified of me gaining my full awareness and figuring her out – that I was never sure if she was being nice, or just setting me up for a very nasty fall. I knew that wasn’t the case; without an Erinyes fueling her, Penny would never be that vengeful.  But I couldn’t help but think that, since that’s what I had trained my mind to automatically think.

I was rather grateful that Zeus did wipe my possession from history, more than I liked to admit.  I really didn’t want to general public to know about what had happened.  Phoebe tended to fill in the gaps for me as to what happened, since I really had no clue now, since she was still gushing about how wonderful her wedding had been.  That was the main reason I was grateful, though, seeing my sister that happy.  She deserved to be over the moon about her wedding, I think.  Apparently the only dark spot was Penny trying to drink while pregnant and raising a fuss about it when their friends tried to stop her, but that was to be expected at the time, really.

They even decided to throw out all the footage they had of their reality show, exempting anything to do with the wedding, and start over fresh with their reality show.  They kept the name – Life with the Karalis Sisters – mostly because they were planning on filming primarily at their own houses and at clubs and social events they attended.  Filming at our house would be rare and planned, so I agreed to allow myself to be filmed.  I figured why not?  This wouldn’t be a trashy reality show anymore, and it would really just be another show about socialite antics.  The thing that’ll set them apart from all the others, though, is that it’d be a little less trashy, and a little less drama.  Will that kill the show?  Only time could tell that.

The only issue that I had was that Penny decided that they were going to have a baby special, with the film crew following her around whenever she did anything baby related.  And she wanted this special to be more about the name than the rest of the series, so she would drag both of us to any appointments she had, as well as anytime she’d go out specifically to go baby shopping.  Naturally, if I had classes, I didn’t have to go, and I refused to go to any of her pregnancy classes, which I was surprised she let me get away with.  But I was there for the important matters, and that’s all that mattered to her, apparently.

Even poor Eros was involved in the craziness, but to the general public, he was fashion designer Aphrodite Acidalia’s younger brother, so it was like a socialite dating a socialite.  The media and the general public ate it up, and we were so liked that it didn’t seem like any of the tabloids predicted us breaking up any time soon.

But then again, that might be because of divine intervention.

Eros didn’t seem to mind, though, which amazed me.  This was the guy who pretty much hid since the gods fell out of favor, and I could tell you from experience that being in the media’s eye is pretty much the polar opposite of being a hermit.  So I expected him to be a little more shell shocked then he actually was, but I think that had more to do with the fact that he was a god, and easily able to adapt to situations quickly, unlike most mortals.

I hadn’t quite mastered that yet.  I was a goddess now, certainly, but my mindset was still that of a mortal.  Eros and everyone else told me that it’s something that’ll go away in time, but I don’t really know what I expected when I agreed to this.  But Eros also told me that Psyche took awhile to adapt to being immortal as well, which made me feel a lot better about it.  All the mortal born gods actually did have a mortal mindset – that was the main reason so many of them opted for the reincarnation idea, since their minds weren’t meant to live forever.  That’s sort of what separated them, as well as made them more relatable to actual mortals.  ‘Such and so god used to be just like me, so he’ll know exactly what I was going through!’

That was one reason Psyche was actually do popular, although her temples were modest and didn’t actually survive as well as the ones for the higher gods.  Not only was she completely relatable to the mortals, but she also had the wisdom to help them in some manner.  I hadn’t quite mastered that power yet, unfortunately, although I was also told that it might be something I never developed to begin with.  After all, I wasn’t really the original Psyche.  My powers were completely different.

Of course, the funny thing was that my goddess powers weren’t all that much different from what I was experiencing before.  It was just…amplified, I suppose was the best way to put it.  I had a better understanding of what I was feeling when I met people, but it was something I did normally that it didn’t bother me all that much.  And Eros explained to me that’s typically what happened.  Becoming immortal really just amplifies natural abilities, which is why when mortals become gods, their realm ends up being whatever the hell they were famous for.  Psyche was, somehow, known for her cleverness (despite the fact that it was other people completing the tasks for her, or giving her advise on them), and so, she became the goddess of the mind.

Then again, the story was basically about the marriage of mind and body, so her cleverness, and thus my own personality trait of being more serious than one would expect, developed from the power she was granted.

Actually, what really got to me was the all the extra little powers that simply came from being immortal.  Like that sense of knowing that some higher power wanted you to do something.  But it was also the way I could actually teleport myself from one location to another, how I could actually turn myself invisible to mortals, how I could just know about something without even being involved.  Not all the gods were all knowing, but they all had some sense of it to some degree.  The higher the god, the greater the sense, but even minor gods like Zephyrus and Hedone had some sense of it, although they could only see people they actually know very well.

Apparently I could also change my age if I wanted to, but that was really a power that I had to grow into.  After all, my body actually didn’t know what I looked like beyond my eighteen years, but in a few years, it would despite the fact that I stopped ageing.  It was all weird, and not something I was comfortable with. Which apparently was the main reason I was going to have trouble with it.  Most of the mortal born gods had trouble with it, but some of them figured it out over time.  Mostly after their parents and anyone who actually knew them passed away.  Which made sense; one of the reasons I found I couldn’t do it was thinking of my parents’ reaction at seeing me at five years old again.  That thought would cross my mind, and I just…couldn’t do it anymore.

Luckily, Eros told me it wasn’t exactly a power that most gods actually used nowadays.  The exception that he could think of were gods like Hedone and his brother Anteros, who chose to look permanently like they were preteens, although none of us have figured out why yet.

Eros never exactly understood why I stared at my feet all the time, actually.  As a goddess, when I allowed my mind to wander, all these thoughts start appearing in my head.  I was pretty much being the goddess of the mind didn’t exactly allow me to become a mind reader over night, but it was more like people calling out to me.  And none of them realize they were doing it.  I was told that in their hay day, the gods would be able to pick out with prayers actually needed to be answered, but since no one actually worshiped them anymore, no one actually called out to them.  Which was why I could only hear the voices when my mind was unfocused on anything.

But still, he always managed to come in when I was staring at my toes.  Not when I was reading or some other worthwhile activity that he approved of.  But rather the one thing he actually questioned.

And every time he managed to scare me.  “What are you doing?” he asked now, causing me to jump slightly.  You’d think I’d have developed that sense of him appearing, but I was still getting used to everything else.  It’ll all come in time, I was told.

“Waiting for you,” I informed him.  “I was assuming that you wanted me for something, which is why you asked me if I was doing anything after class today.  Which I didn’t, other than hang around with Maddie.”

“You could have done that,” he told me seriously, slipping to sit beside me on the bed.  “You haven’t been spending a lot of time with her, I’ve noticed.  Not like you used to.  I don’t want to get between you two, you know.”

“I know you don’t, but that’s just what happens when a friend starts a relationship.  But it’s not just you keeping me from her; it’s also Zephyr and the fact that he wants to spend time with her as well. And I can’t really blame him.  He does love her, after all.”

He chuckled.  “Its sort of funny, because you’d think with the fact that you’re best friends, and I’m friends with Zephyrus, that we’d all be spending more time together.  I never realized that he was that tired of me.”

“Wasn’t there something about his curse being broken by Maddie?  I mean, I can really understand why he’d want her all to himself with that in mind, since he’s so grateful to her and all.”

He shrugged.  That was one unexpected side effect to the relationship.  No one knew that Apollo had actually given him a way to get rid of the curse.  All he needed to do was fall in love with someone, anyone really, and have them love him in return.  It was very Beauty and the Beast, but Apollo set up that curse long before the movie or the fairy tale.  It was so funny finding out it was been broken, though, since Eros had gotten annoyed at him at some point, and threw the Frisbee to get him to go away, and he just stood there.

It took a good minute before anyone really realized what had happened.  The look on Zephyrus’ face when he realized he didn’t feel the need to chase after the disc was well worth it.  He even went to flaunt the fact in front of Apollo’s face.

“It wasn’t really worth it, though,” he admitted when he related the tale back.  “He’s apparently in Washington chasing some  high school tail.  He thinks she could be the one for him as well, but he can’t be too sure.  I can’t be like ha ha, I found love and you didn’t, because he might have.”

“Isn’t he posing as a college student?  Like, second tier college student?  That’s way more creepy than anything you’ve done recently.  I mean, you’re only posing as two years older, right?” Eros asked. 

“Yeah, he says six years isn’t all that terrible.”

“It’s not when you’re older, but when you’re seventeen, it’s a big deal,” Eros sighed.

“It’s the thrill of dating an older man,” I teased.  “I’ve seen plenty of my classmates in high school swoon over grad students, because they’re more ‘mature’ than the guys we saw every day.  That’s probably all this girl is doing.”

“I hope so,” Zephyrus sighed.  “Then I could actually rub Maddie in his face.”

They were so cute together that I couldn’t really get offending that he was trying to use my best friend in that manner.  After all, he’s had a understandable grudge against Apollo for quite a long time.

“I suppose,” Eros said now.  “So is he taking her out tonight or something?”

“Something like that,” I admitted.  “He does that, you know.  He is her boyfriend.”

“And I’m yours.  You want to do the same?”

I glanced at my toes again, causing him the frown.  All I was really doing was taking note of the fact that I was dressed for a dinner date.  I just felt like wearing one of my sundresses to school today, because it was warm enough to wear one, and I always liked dressing up on occasion.  All I was really thinking was that I wouldn’t have to actually do anything to get ready if he wanted to go out.  I was pretty much ready to go right then and there.

“Well, we could,” I said to him, grinning.  “Although its still sort of weird actually going to a restaurant with you.  Especially now.”

“What?  We can eat normal food.  In fact, the only time we actually need to eat the ambrosia is if we’re hurt or something.”

I shuttered slightly, remembering having to eat that stuff after making my declaration that I was willing to become an immortal.  I didn’t think I needed to, but I did in order to prepare my body.  The gods all acted like it was the best thing they could ever eat, but to me it felt like I was swallowing a jellyfish.  It was slimy and yet somehow, hard to swallow.  The memory of that feeling made me hesitant to eat it again, although I wanted to test to see if that was just the reaction my mortal form had to the stuff.  I still needed to experiment with that.

But it was just that I’m sure I’d be able to eat it if I needed to, but not if I were given a choice.

“I know.  It’s just weird knowing that you’re a god, and that I’m a goddess now, and we’re just sitting there, amongst the mortals, like we’re exactly one of them.”

“We are, at least in this day and age,” he said, shrugging.  “I thought that’s what you wanted.  Wasn’t that a condition, that you’d be able to live as a mortal for as long as you want, to complete your degree and possibly get a real job for a while?  That’s the beauty of all this; you can do just that, and no one’s the wiser.  You couldn’t do that back in the day, because mortals just somehow knew you were a god, unless you had reason for them not to know.”

“Being a god’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes.  For those of us born like this, it’s not really.  It’s all driven by instinct.  You have trouble with it merely because you have a different set of instincts that you need to work around.  Sometimes it works out, but most of the time, it doesn’t.”

“Do you think it will for me?” I asked him honestly.

He blinked at me.  “Well, you were born with Psyche’s sensibilities, so if you feel like its something you can do, then I trust you can do it.  The real trick, though, is making sure you trust yourself about it.  And as far as I can tell, at the moment, you do trust that you can live as an immortal.”

“It’s all just so much to take in.”

“I know.  You have time to figure it out, and you don’t really need to use all the abilities.  Just what you want to.  Not all of use chose to become invisible at all, but it used to be a part of my daily routine.  You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No, the invisibly will prove far more useful than you can imagine.  Why do you think I asked you so many times to show me how it’s done?” I teased slightly, bumping my shoulder into his.  He glanced down at me and gave me my favorite half smile of his.

He stood and offered me his hand.  “Shall we then?  It’s getting sort of late, isn’t it?”

I glanced at my clock.  It didn’t appear to be too late, but considering there was probably a line at this point, on top of actually waiting for the food, it’d be well past the time I normally ate before we would get our meals.  Not like that really mattered to me anymore.  A lot of the things that made me human – like eating and sleeping – weren’t exactly necessary for me anymore.  I mostly just did it to keep some of humanity, because I was still too used to the idea of being mortal.  Besides, I didn’t exactly want to give up eating my favorite foods, after all.

It just meant I could eat whenever, and not have to worry about anything.

Normally, we would just transport ourselves either to the car or just directly to where we were going, mostly as practice for me.  That was another trait I was highly interested in, mostly so I could figure out how to travel to the Underworld to visit Persephone and Hades, and possibly my other half.  There was no rule against me meeting her now.  But on days like that day, we actually went downstairs to inform my parents about where we were going.

Mom just sort of glanced at me before smiling.  “Going out, are we?  What’s the occasion?”

“Come now, Helen, does a man really need an occasion to show the rest of the world up with his lady?” Papa asked, sliding in behind Mom to put an arm around her waist, grinning stupidly at her.  

She shook her head, smiling just as stupidly.  “I suppose not.  Have fun, and don’t stay out too late.  I still worry about you, you know.  You might be a goddess now, but I’m still your mother.”

“Let them be, Helen,” Nona said.  “They’re young, they’re in love, and they need to make mistakes.  I remember you made plenty when you were her age.”

“I made one mistake when I was her age, and that was returning home rather than immediately chasing after your son,” Mom insisted.  “Psyche doesn’t need to worry about that, but I still worry about her.  It’s my duty as a mother.”

“A mortal worrying about a goddess.  That’s certainly new, Helen.  It should be the other way around.”

She batted at Papa.  “You need to start studying for your finals, anyway.  You may be a goddess, and as far as I can tell, you’re not all knowing.”

“Mom, relax.  We’re not planning to stay out that late.  Its just dinner.”  Man, if she ever found out that I’ve been sleeping with Eros for months, she’d have kittens.  Although I suspected she already knew…

Eros waited until we were outside, away from prying ears since they all expected us to just leave, before stopping me, which surprised me.  “Actually, there’s sort of one thing I did want to ask before we went to dinner.”

“Oh?  Would this be the reason that you want us to go out?”

“Possibly.  It would depend on your answer.”

“And that would depend on the question.”

“Well, I sort of wanted to make it official,” he admitted before sliding down to kneel on one knee before me.  I just blinked at him, not expecting that.  Wasn’t it too early for that question?  “Psyche Lynn Karalis, would you do me the honor of agreeing to becoming my bride?”

He had pulled out the velvet black ring box almost out of thin air, and nestled inside was the oversized diamond that my sisters had received, or that you’d expect from a god.  It was a simple gold band with a solitary small diamond at the top.  It was gorgeous.

The thing was, I wasn’t expecting him to ask me to marry him anytime soon.  I was only eighteen, and I still had a ways to go before I was nineteen.  I wasn’t sure how long of an engagement he was thinking, and besides which, it wasn’t like we didn’t have eternity or anything like that. 

But the other thing was that he had been waiting fifteen hundred years to marry me again.  A few more years might pale in comparison, but really, he waited long enough.  So while I did hesitate for a brief second, it was mostly just in awe of the situation, as well as the ring he was presenting me.

I laughed slightly.  “Well, of course,” I told him, which was the most natural answer I could give. 

He grinned at me, like he never doubted for a second that was going to be my answer.  He carefully slipping the ring upon my finger – it naturally fit perfectly – before leaning down, cupping my face, and giving me a very satisfying and happy kiss.

Chapter Fourteen

Cupid and Psyche Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen