cupid's curse

11 | THE STYGIAN EYE

LUKAS RYE MERELY STARES at her with somnolent eyes, they had been a different kind of blue the other night. But under sparse clouds and a lustrous sun, they are softened and crowned with speckles in differing shades of ivory and gold. The flaxen strands of his brows knit, but he does not say anything more.

Hedone realizes she had said the wrong thing—again.

"I mean," The goddess relents, "I watched you on the ring last night. You are an excellent boxer." She smothers the excuse with a smile but her lips twitch, the telltale sign of one trying to keep her heart from rushing ahead of her tongue.

"I don't date." He says cooly and as a matter of fact.

"Oh," Hedone pauses, not really sure if what he just said correlates with the conversation she is desperately trying to save, "I see."

Lukas Rye's jaw clenches but his voice remains unruffled, "So now would be the best time for you to try your chances somewhere else."

Then it clicks, he thought she'd been scheming to trifle him all along, and the goddess flushes in fifty rosy shades, "No! I'm not trying to be flirtatious. . .really. I just–"

To her, the situation is ironic in every sense. Her heart is nearly about to combust when an arm clad in faux leather snakes its way around the wideness of Hedone's shoulders, "I'm sorry, what my friend means is that she is huge fan of yours." Angelos speaks this time, each word easily cascading from a smooth tongue.

"That match last night was beyond thrilling." The demigod continues, Hedone does not remember if he was even there for any of it. He thrusts one slender hand—just like Hedone had done a few minutes before—in front of Lukas Rye who is still ensconcing himself on the driver's seat, an elbow perching atop the rolled down window.

Angelos performs the gesture so naturally, like he has done it many times before, most probably because unlike Hedone—who had spent most of her early years within the walls of her father's manor—Angelos soaked under the sun on scorched asphalt streets making friends with all the neighborhood kids because, unlike Hedone—who is wholly goddess and nothing more—almost all demigods grow up as perfectly human children do.

"Angelos Decesare," He introduces himself, "You know my father."

The flaxen strands of Lukas Rye brows unknit, and this time, it's Hedone who wears an utterly bemused expression on her face for all to see. Only then does she realize Kharis has been flocking her from her left the whole time, Stygian eyes fixated on the silver-headed boy.

She wears a crinkle on her brow too, like she is scouring every silken strand of hair and every plane of muscle for anything amiss other than his lack of  wrinkled maturity.

Lukas Rye does not ask any questions, nor does he shake Angelos' hand, he does not even seem to be mentally present at all. With sleep seducing his eyes, the clench of his jaw unwinding, and his hair tossing from the humid breeze of an Italian summer, he looks too delicate—like he'd evaporate into both nothing and everything if Hedone ever closes her eyes too long. So the goddess makes sure she blinks quickly enough, just to be sure.

But Lukas Rye rolls up the shattered driver's seat window, knocking twice on the definite crack on its center.

"No worries, man. I'll pay for it." Angelos assures him just before the windows seal the silver-headed boy in the car.

The vehicle pulls away.

Hedone does not doubt that she had not blinked too slowly, yet the boy had still managed to disappear into the street corner.

She watches him crane his neck, eyes finding hers through the back window. The goddess stills, but it is too swift of a moment and Hedone wonders if he even looked back at all.

"How does he know Hermes?" Hedone asks when Lukas Rye has gone in that perpetual way of his. Failure gnaws at her with a full set of honed fangs, her heart is sinking in its perpetual way too. The goddess is angry, but she knows it's more at herself than anyone else. Her own obliviousness makes her skin crawl—more so than it has for days now.

"Lukas fights for my dad." Angelos supplies and they all walk back to the car. Hedone casts a glance behind her shoulder just in case the vehicle is parked there again.

It startles the demigod when Kharis finally asks out of nowhere: "Why does a god like Hermes need someone to fight for him?"

"It's not like that," Angelos explains as they pack into newly-fueled Chrysler. "My dad owns Pandora's Box."

Hedone's brows raise. That green-dappled scene oozing of liquor and paper bills comes to mind.

Angelos continues just as he turns the ignition and the Chrysler rumbles back to life, "Lukas Rye just recently came back to his fight club. That's what dad had us come over to tell me last night. He had already found him."

"Were you there to watch his fight?" Hedone asks just to know if he had lied to Lukas earlier.

"Some of it. It was more towards the end though." Angelos chuckles, "The guy almost bled to death—did you see how busted his face was? That must have swollen up bad—and he still won. That's something."

Kharis chimes in this time, she's slowly starting to speak more these days, "I don't know, he doesn't look like he had any cuts or bruises on his face earlier."