Goddess Interrupted by Aimée Carter Read Free Book Online

nice if he did.”
    “Give him time,” she said. “He’s probably just nervous with all that’s happening.”
    “What is happening?” I said, trying to pull away enough to look at her, but while she was being gentle, her grip was unbreakable. “What’s going on with Calliope?”
    Ava tensed. “Didn’t Henry tell you?” she said in a timid voice.
    “No, and if you don’t either, I’m going to rub my lipstick all over my face. And yours.”
    She jumped away from me and held out her hands, as if to ward me off. “Don’t you dare. I’ll delay the ceremony if I have to.”
    “I think Henry and James are already doing it for you.” I crossed my arms. “Tell me what’s going on. I have a right to know.”
    She sighed. “You do, but Henry will kill me if he finds out I’ve told you.”
    “Then I won’t tell him it was you.”
    Ava glanced around nervously and tugged on one of her blond curls. “I’m only telling you this because Henry isn’t here to do it for me, because you really should hear it from him,” she said in a lowered voice, but I was positive she was telling me because she knew Henry wouldn’t. “Calliope escaped. Henry and Daddy and Phillip aren’t saying much about what’s going on, but—well, you saw the condition Henry was in. Obviously something bad is happening.”
    Something bad enough to scar a god. “How did Henry get injured—have they said anything?”
    “Said anything about what?”
    I whirled around. James headed toward us, his hair a mess and his jacket torn in the shoulder, but at least there didn’t seem to be any blood this time.
    “James!” I flew toward him, hair and makeup be damned. He gathered me in his arms and hugged me tightly, and I heard Ava’s strangled cry of protest. For her sake, I didn’t kiss him on the cheek. “Are you all right? What happened?”
    “It was nothing,” he said. “A minor mishap. Everything’s fine.”
    “You mean it didn’t have anything to do with Calliope?” I said, and James opened his mouth to answer when a second voice interrupted.
    “It did.”
    James winced, and he immediately let me go and stepped to the side. Henry crossed the hall toward me, and unlike James, he looked impeccable.
    “Are you bleeding to death again?” I said, unable to keep the frostiness out of my voice. Henry either pretended not to notice or was too distracted to care.
    “I am fine.” He nodded toward the double doors behind me. “I will escort you in. We should not keep the rest of the council waiting.”
    That was the last thing I was concerned about, but when Henry offered me his arm, I took it. At this rate, it was the most contact I’d have with him all winter.
    Ava and James ducked through the doors, and Henry stared straight ahead as we waited. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, looking for any signs that he’d been attacked again, but he was as composed as ever. As if having his new wife devote her life to helping him rule the Underworld was an everyday occurrence.
    My chest tightened. I couldn’t make that kind of commitment if things weren’t going to change. If he wasn’t going to trust me, if he didn’t want me as his queen, then I didn’t want to do this. “Whatever’s going on with Calliope, I have a right to know.”
    “You do,” he said. “I assure you, as soon as we get a moment, I will tell you everything.”
    “We have a moment now,” I said. I didn’t want to fight, not on the cusp of the moment my life was going to change irrevocably forever. But that was exactly why I had to do this. “It doesn’t feel like you trust me or—or want me here, and I need to know that you do. And if you don’t, then we don’t have to do this.”
    Henry hesitated. I watched him for any signs of what he was thinking, but his expression gave nothing away. “If you don’t want to—”
    “I do,” I said, desperation clawing inside of me. “I want to stay. I want to do this. I want to be with you. I don’t