Goddess Interrupted by Aimée Carter Read Free Book Online Page B

warm. A warm yellow light glowed between ours, and I bit the inside of my cheek, barely able to stop myself from pulling away. It would take me more than a few hours to get used to that sort of casual show of power.
    “Do you accept the role of Queen of the Underworld, and do you agree to uphold the responsibilities and expectations of such?” said Henry.
    I hesitated. This wasn’t for a year or five or even ten; this was forever. I hadn’t even decided what I wanted to major in during college, let alone what I’d wanted to do with the rest of my life, but here Henry was, giving me a choice. And for a fraction of a second, his gaze met mine, and I saw my Henry underneath the distant god in front of me. His moonlight eyes sparkled, the corners of his lips twitched upward into the faintest of smiles and he seemed to glow with warmth from the inside out. He was looking at me like he had back in Eden, like I was the only person in the world, and in that moment, I would’ve torn apart heaven and hell to make sure I never lost him.
    But then he disappeared back into himself, behind the mask he wore to protect the side of him that Persephone had ripped to shreds, and reality crashed down around me. It wasn’t a real choice, was it? Everything I’d done since moving to Eden had been leading up to this moment. Henry hadn’t married me out of love, and I’d known that from the beginning. He’d married me because I had passed the tests no one else had passed, and because the council had granted me immortality. I was the only girl who had lived long enough to become his queen. What if he stayed like this for the rest of eternity? What if all I ever was to him was a friend and a partner? The way he’d been in Eden, how he’d talked to me until the small hours of the morning, how he’d seen me in a way no one else had, how he’d risked his own existence to save mine—what if I never saw that side of him again?
    Then again, what if this was the proof he needed that I wasn’t going to leave him? What if this was the final push to show him that it was safe to fall in love with me completely?
    I swallowed. I’d already made my decision the moment I’d married him. I loved him, and walking away and letting him fade wasn’t an option, no matter what it cost me.
    I could do this. I had to do this. For Henry’s sake—for my mother’s sake. For my sake. Because in the end, without Henry, I didn’t know who I was anymore, and every night during my summer in Greece, I’d gone to sleep dreaming about what it would be like to spend the rest of my existence loving him and being loved in return. As long as I gave him a chance, this could be everything I hoped it would be. Henry was worth the risk.
    As I opened my mouth to say yes, a crash shattered the silence, and the tall windows exploded, sending shards of glass hurtling straight toward us.

Chapter Four
The Titans
    As glass flew through the air, I covered my head instinctively, but the jagged edges glanced off my skin as if I were made of Kevlar.
    Right. Immortal. I kept forgetting that part.
    “What the—” I twisted around to survey the damage, but before I could get a good look, Henry pushed me behind him. I fell to the ground amidst the shards of glass, and while I scrambled to my feet, Henry and his brothers advanced toward the broken windows.
    Ava appeared beside me and took my elbow. “Come on,” she said in a trembling voice as her face turned ashen. “We have to get out of here.”
    “Why?” I said, but a sick sense of dread filled me as I stumbled along beside her. The others parted to let us through, each poised as if ready to strike. No matter how reluctant they were to talk about her, I knew this had to do with Calliope and the fresh scar running down Henry’s chest.
    Ava didn’t answer me. She all but dragged me along the aisle, my heels skidding against the floor as I tried to regain my balance, but it wasn’t working.
    I fell a second time, pulling