Page 100 of This Divine Revelry

They turn back to him and take a further step forward, tentative – but nowhere near as reluctant as moments before.

‘Fuck,’ Dionysus says, shaking his hand like the magic might be stuck within.

I duck out of the path of the man coming for me, try to reach for anything to use as a weapon but there’s nothing. I pull a torch out of a bracket and wave it menacingly but he knocks it from my arm, grabs my wrist and throws me against the mast. I hit it hard, turn before the next blow can come but there’s Dionysus, sword in hand, which he brings down in a wicked arc towards the man who’d attacked me.

Metal sings. I scramble back. The man disarms Dionysus in one fell swoop but it’s almost like Dionysus expected it because he drops the sword himself, curls his hands, and before the man knows what is happening his fist is flying into his face.

Dionysus whirls. ‘New girl, I thought I made it quite clear you belonged with the thiasus.’

‘You think I chose to be here?’ I scoff – and before I can berate him further, he grabs me by the waist and hauls us up to the very edge of the ship.

‘You need to stop punching people for me,’ I protest.

‘It worked so well for me last time.’

And then, even though it’s incredibly stupid, I kiss him like we have the time for it. He’s here. That power within me led me right to him – saw him as my escape and hurried me along. I breathe him in, every part – and whatever hope flared when I summoned him blazes. His kiss contains its every flickering flame. He pulls away to reach a hand out in warning to the men closing in on us again.

It buys us a second.

My eyes dart across him like the fact of his presence might register if I just look at him long enough. The sea breeze tosses each copper curl back, tugs on the edge of his chiton so he is windswept to the point of dishevelment. His arm still encircles me, but I place my hand on his chest, half expecting it to go straight through.

‘You’re here,’ I say stupidly.

He regards me levelly, for once serious. ‘I have all but wrenched the oceans apart in search of you.’

His lips close back on mine, one hand holding my waist not only firm but … vice-like. Oh. I grasp his shoulders, realizing what is about to happen just as his eyes shoot open and he looks down at his feet. Hermes’s sandals. He stamps them like the force might stretch those wings out and fly us to safety.

The men close in around us, their blades seconds away from slashing our throats.

‘Sorry about this,’ Dionysus says – and my stomach plummets.

‘No, don’t you dare –’ I do not even know what I am refuting, only that he has that look in his eye like he is about to do something incredibly reckless, a gamble only he could pull off.

He brings his other arm around me too, pulling my whole body close. Then he jumps, taking me with him.

Together, we plunge into the ocean below.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

WE PLUMMET TO WHERE THE water chills, and all thoughts of sensibly holding my breath and slowly rising to the surface vanish when the salt hits my scraped-raw wrists and the still-healing wound Theseus left at my throat. I scream into the currents.

Dionysus snags his arm on something and suddenly we are being hauled to the surface.

We break it, both of us gasping as the waves try to smother us once more.

We’re being dragged along and when I turn … of course.

Dolphins.

I groan, letting my head fall back on to Dionysus’s shoulder.

He presses a kiss into my hair.

‘It’s alright,’ he says. ‘You’re safe.’

But I don’t feel safe. I feel tired and hurt and like the next so-called hero could come at any minute.

It is not enough to be married to a god – I need my own power, own strength. Something I can do to keep myself safe.