The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,59

as I stared at the most beautiful face I’d ever known in my life. But it wasn’t merely the aesthetics of Psyche that drew me. I’d never been happier than when she’d smile at me. Because even when she’d been cross with me, I’d always seen love’s light reflected back at me in the depths of her dark brown eyes.

I’d been cold, numb so long. But I felt heat stirring within me. Felt its burn in my eyes, in the back of my throat.

I looked up just as I sensed Aphrodite’s presence kneel beside me.

I stared into the eyes of kindness and compassion. These were not the same eyes I’d looked into all my life. This was not my mother. She only wore my mother’s face.

“Aphrodite did great wrong to you both. She placed Psyche through a trial. Mindless sport meant only to entertain herself with. Hoping that the young girl would be killed along the way. But your Psyche was far more resourceful than your mother bargained for.”

“What trials?” I asked, voice cracking, fighting the tears as I felt the ice around my heart beginning to thaw for the first time in a long time. How could I live without her now? I had her back. Even if she was dead, I could still be with her spirit. I could make a home in Elysia.

Hades might not like it, he had never been fond of the living mixing amongst his dead, but if I explained to him, surely, he would understand. After all, he was desperately in love with his own bride, Calyssa. Of all the gods, Hades and I were the most alike. We’d never enjoyed the frivolity of the gods, we had both truly lost our hearts to another and neither of us wished to go back a time without them in it.

We knew what it was to love.

He would have to understand my plight.

Aphrodite shrugged. “Your mother sent her on an impossible quest. She created a mountain of multiple grains and told the girl she had twelve hours to separate them into individual piles or she would be fed to the harpies. And somehow, the girl did it, with the aid of spelled ants.”

“Ants?” I asked with a frown.

She nodded. “Whoever sent them to aid her never spoke up, but someone obviously had.”

I smirked, imagining the rage mother must have felt when she’d seen her game thwarted. “She bested you.”

She snorted. “Not just once.” Aphrodite stroked the girl’s cheek, a far off look in her eyes. “But three other times.” Glittering blue eyes locked with mine. “Each trial worse than the one before it. The second was to take a snippet from each golden fleece of the herd of sheep who lived across the river Styx.”

“Charon’s herd?” I blinked in disbelief. “He loves those damned things. He’s killed for less.”

She snorted, laughing softly. “I know. And yet your girl beguiled him with those pretty doe eyes of hers and he himself told her how to safely sheer them.”

I chuckled. “Sounds like her. What else did you make her do? Or…erm,” I stuttered, clearing my throat.

She didn’t correct me, merely smiled. “Third was even more absurd, if you can imagine. She had her grab water from the summit of Styx at the very highest point of the cliff, knowing yet again it to be impossible. But an eagle swooped in and carried her to the apex and once more she won.”

I laughed, feeling more than mere sorrow roil through me now. “I wish I could have seen it.”

“It was a glorious victory,” she laughed, voice sounding like resonate crystal and I felt drawn to it just as I always had.

Together we laughed, sharing a moment of bonding I’d always yearned for.

“You should have seen her face when she’d realized the girl had thwarted her every maneuver.”

I laughed. “I can only imagine the war path she’d gone on.”

“Oh yes, the gods she punished for helping the girl out. I think Hermes still piddles himself when he thinks of it.”

“Mother!” I said, the name coming out so naturally and easily. Because in this moment I’d forgotten that this woman wasn’t that. She and I were having a true moment of bonding, of joy even amidst my heartache.

The laughter died instantly between us. Her wide blue eyes stared deeply into my own and I felt her soul as my own, I felt her yearning, her desperate desire to be just that to me. In that moment, I felt her love