His phone buzzed from his discarded jeans near the spot the stone dais had been. Sometime during the night, it had receded into the ground, leaving no trace of it behind. The field, however, had sprouted dozens upon dozens of wildflowers in the night. Sage's doing.
"You should probably answer that," she said and sat up, looking around at the mess they made. Candles and clothes were strewn everywhere. Her red hair was sticking up and she looked like a pixie.
"Do I have to?" he groaned and reached over to try to snag his jeans.
"Maybe Hermes is finally calling you back?"
It would figure the god would call him as soon as Adonis no longer required any assistance, but somehow, he doubted Hermes was the caller. Retrieving the pants, and his phone, he quickly discerned it was not Hermes calling him, but his brother. Hermes had programmed the number into his phone in case he needed it. Adonis answered quickly, "Hello?"
"Well?" his twin asked, a hopeful note in his voice. "Did it happen?"
A grin spread over his face. "Yeah. I'm mortal again." That was so weird to say out loud. Sage beamed at him from where she was brushing the dirt off her dress. As she pulled it on over her head, he asked, "Are you still at The Aegean Inn?"
"Leaving shortly with Pan for New Jersey. Lily is there with Katerina and the baby."
Disappointment overtook him. Now that his brother was talking to him again, he wasn't ready to part ways yet. "I see."
"Katerina has decided to postpone her and Pan's wedding a bit because of all the stuff happening with the gods and all these damn monsters popping up lately. So, Lily is helping her pick out a new date and all that. But the reason why I called…"
Anxiety clawed at him. "Yeah?"
"I spoke with Lily, and we had a long talk. I forgive you, okay. She does as well. I know things between us have never been good, and there were reasons you acted the way you did that weren't entirely your choosing…"
He wasn't going to put the blame off of him for his part in it. "Ariston—"
"Let me finish," his brother said, and took a deep breath. "Now that we are both lowly mortal men again, we need family. We need to sort this out, and it may take time to fully do that."
"I agree," he said. Sage sat next to him and squeezed his thigh encouragingly. Adonis wasn't sure if she could hear any of the conversation through the phone or not or could merely read his emotion off his face. Either way, he was grateful to have her in his life.
"Right now, though, you need to focus on you and Sage. Don't break her heart, you hear me?"
This made him laugh. He had absolutely no intention of doing so. "Got it."
"One more thing," Ariston said, his tone brightening. "The syrinx worked. London is now a nymph—a water nymph—and Jacen is human again too."
"Holy shit, that's fantastic!" Pan had actually done it. This was a gamechanger for the rest of them. Except maybe Calix—which sobered his excitement a bit. They'd still have to tell him when he came home, whenever that was. He said his goodbyes to his brother and told the news to Sage, who cheered loudly.
"Looks like I won't be the only new nymph in the city." She bounced around cleaning up the area while Adonis got dressed. "Everything seems to be looking up."
"Indeed, it does," he agreed, and wrapped her in his arms. Sage dropped her bag of melted wax and the folded-up blanket and embraced him around his waist. He kissed her, smiling against her lips. Sometimes the world threw a series of bad situations at a man, but the right woman could turn the tides and make it good again.
Epilogue
One Year Later
Calix sat on the cold stone steps of the temple he'd called home for, well, he wasn't sure how long he'd been there, actually. He hadn't seen a calendar or an electronic device with his own eyes since leaving Savannah. Had months passed? Years? It didn't matter, not to him. Centuries came and went as quick as minutes in the long term. A millennium could change as swiftly as the tides if one wasn't careful.
He took a bite from the apple he'd taken from the bowl of fruit on his way outside. He was ready to leave this place, had been for a while now. His training with Ares had been painful at times, but necessary. Theron would answer for what he'd done, not just to him personally but to all the women he'd brutalized, taunted, and toyed with.
He'd waited long enough, perhaps too long. Guilt coursed through him as he thought about how many other women had suffered while he trained and healed from the physical and mental wounds he'd received during his captivity. Calix might have healed on the outside, but mentally he was still as ugly and broken as the scar tissue left behind from the mortal wounds he'd received in his imprisonment. He'd been decapitated, but that hadn't killed him so long as his heart stayed in his chest. Likewise, he'd seen his beating heart ripped out and shredded. He'd eaten it. Watched Theron eat it.
Yet he'd been forced to remain alive to suffer more. Suffer longer.
A swift breeze lifted the tendrils of his blond, wavy hair. It had grown back to shoulder length after he'd cut it some time ago, and he debated chopping it all off again. The shadow of the visitor that had disturbed the air around him fell across the top of the steps. Above dainty sandals, tiny white wings folded themselves into slender ankles, leaving an outline of what would appear to a mortal as tattoos. Calix didn't even look up as he took another bite of his fruit. When he swallowed, he asked, "What do you want, Hybris?"
The raven-haired
