Stone Romance (Stone Passion #2) (39 page)

“You cannot second guess yourself, dear.” The gentle reprimand made Jenna jump, bringing her back to the present, to this life. Medusa’s lightly smoothed a strand of hair from Jenna’s face, pushing it behind her ear, the caress tender and… motherly. It was such a great contrast to her very youthful appearance. “The Fates are vindictive bitches; they only like to show the highlights of a possible life. There are no guarantees that you would have been any happier in that life than in this one.”

“But my children,” Jenna stammered, her eyes once again filling with tears over th
e life she rejected. “Jeremy….”

“Hush,” Medusa whispered, pulling Jenna into a comforting hug, stroking her hair and gently rocking her. Resting her head against Jenna’s, she murmured, “I’m very proud of you, you know. Most take the rosy path without even considering the ramifications. What made you decide to keep
this
life?”

Jenna didn’t know how to answer that question. Rhys was definitely a part of her decision but it wasn’t just him, her attraction to him. It was Ferris and Melanie and Vaughn and Armand. As real as the other reality felt it hadn’t been her reality and as difficult as the struggles had been in this life they were her struggles. In the end they hadn’t killed her; she just wasn’t sure they made her any stronger either. The only thing she knew was that she had depth that the other Jenna understandably lacked; it came from surviving devastation.

“It was everything,” she managed to rasp. Tilting her head back with great effort, she met Medusa’s dark eyes, seeing a wealth of wisdom in the black depths. “I mean, if you had it to do all over would you?”

Medusa pressed her lips together in a thin line as she glanced at her son who still lay sleeping. “I have two sisters whom I never see; a lover that comes to my bed every five hundred years and gives me three beautiful sons before he is taken from me: my sons are always taken from me before their tenth birthdays; I have to fuck lifeless bodies as they dream about their new lives, all because I had the audacity to fall in love with a god, with Apollo.

“I don’t know if I
w
ould do it all over,” she admitted, reaching out and drawing her fingers through Rhys’s hair, lingering on his cheek. Absolute love and affection shone from her eyes as well as a terrible sa
dness that was at her very core. S
he gathered Jenna up in her arms and leaned against the headboard
, slowly shaking her head.
“I don’t know if I
c
ould.”

They sat in companionable silence for a long time, Jenna too
stiff and
sore to move. Memories from the other life were still there, still flaying her soul
. S
he had to pray that there was another Jenna that was living that life, that there was another universe where Jeremy lived and they had two beautiful children. And if there was that other life, with another Jenna and another Melanie, she could only hope that her sister didn’t make the same choice, knowing the lives it would destroy.

“Do you think there is such a thing as soul mates?” Jenna asked, awkwardly raising her hand and resting it on Rhys’s side just so she could feel him breathe. “I mean, I loved Jeremy so much and yet I am… whole with Rhys; I was drawn to Rhys even in that other life.”

Medusa’s nostrils flared slightly as she inhaled and studied Jenna with her dark eyes. She caught her full, lower lip between her teeth and made a little sound as she considered her words. “In the human world there may be a strong connection between two individuals, a connection of souls that travel together,” Medusa murmured, absently stroking Jenna’s hair, her words weighed before being spoken. “But no matter how powerful or overwhelming the connection, a love match between two humans still requires work to remain strong.

“With us, those of the supernatural world, the bond is powerful, almost at a cellular level as well as spiritual. For instance, my attraction to Apollo led me to turn my back on my sacred vows, to give him my heart and my body within hours of meeting him.” She chuckled softly to herself, “Of course, it could have had something to do with the sheer magnetism of having a gorgeous god showering me with fl
owery words and adoring passion but I like to believe that it was more than that. It had felt like destiny.”

When Medusa’s gaze drifted away, Jenna asked, “Are supernatural beings fated to be with one person?”

“
Perhaps.
There
are
creatures whose instinct for their mate is so strong that it over rides all thought, all reason,” she laughed lightly, her fingers rhythmically brushing through Jenna’s short locks. “Shifters are notorious for their single-minded obsession for their mates; they crash through all acceptable behaviors of propriety to claim what is theirs. It’s really quite fascinating.” She let out a long sigh and Jenna could sense Medusa’s smile, “I have always felt sorry for the human that was marked for a shifter, or really, any of the supernatural beasties out there
. T
he rules are so different between the two worlds and humans are so fragile; they don’t stand a chance
of resisting, even when the attraction goes against everything they believe
.”

Jenna couldn’t help but smile a little at that herself as her han
d slowly moved over Rhys’s side, needing to touch
him, to make sure he didn’t vanish if she removed her hand. “Wer
e you human? I mean, before the curse?”

Her tinkling laughter filled the air, “Not at all. My sisters and I
are
the product of the unholy union between Aphrodite and Hephaestus. We were shipped off to this island, hidden away from the world and our origins wiped from the records”

“But I thought the Gorgons came before the Greek gods?” Jenna murmured.

Medusa waved her hand through the air, “
Dita
preferred not to be reminded of her time with
Heph
so she kind of influenced the story tellers to write the myths her way. It’s easy to pass off the lie as truth when you write the story and
Dita
can be very convincing in the story telling
. The
historians
altered the time line a little and we were effectively disowned.

“All of the tales of my sisters and I being the product of primordial sea gods are balderdash,” she continued. “A simple lie to hide the truth and after so many ye
ars the lie has become reality.”

“Wow.” Jenna knew how inadequate her response was but she couldn’t come up with anything better to say to such an incredible revelation
s
.
It all made perfectly horrible sense and her heart ached for tragically beautiful Medusa.

“
Dita
is jealous of any female whose beauty rivals her own; my sisters and I are exceptionally beautiful in our human forms.”
Medusa chuckled softly, “
And yet she is also very vain and
couldn’t have daughters that change into such
hideous beasts, now, could she?
She created this temple and deposited the three of us here so very long ago;

“That’s horrible,” Jenna whispered, hearing the
barely there
bitterness
that laced
Medusa’s voice even after so many, many years. She tried to move but her body was still so very lethargic; she wondered how long it was going to take before she was fully recovered, when she could return home and embrace her daughter, her sister. Softly, she asked, “What happened to your sisters?”

“After my… indiscretion they got to move to Mt. Olympus, the home
of the gods and their offspring. The curse of transformation was lifted from them and they became the beloved granddaughters of Zeus,
” she paused, swallowing thickly. “It was part of my punishment to remain behind. They stripped me of my ability to shift at will and they took my children. And since I gave myself to the golden Apollo, perhaps my greatest sin in the eyes of the other gods, I was punished with a near insatiable sex drive. The gods can be quite cruel.”

“It sounds lonely.”

She let out a miserable laugh, “After thousands of years one gets used to
it. Plus, I have my imps and my companions
and I can see everything that is happening in the world, so there is that. All of my needs are provided for and I have found a measure of contentment.”

“Do the imps really provide that much company?”

“They can be naughty but they make me laugh,” Medusa chuckled
sadly
. “And they don’t judge me when I have sex with what basically amounts to a living corpse. Because they are fully grown within a few days of their birth they are fully aware of my needs and they do not judge.”

“I don’t think your sons judge you….”

“Of course, they shouldn’t laugh about that since they are the product of those unions,” Medusa said, ignoring Jenna’s assertion. Jenna’s eyes dipped to Medusa’s flat stomach, unmarred by stretch marks and she wondered briefly about her pregnancies and births. Medusa’s fingers smoothed over her stomach and laughed, obviously aware of Jenna’s thoughts, “It is part of being me: mystical pregnancies. I experience everything but my body remains unmarked; within two weeks of birthing an imp the urge to fuck begins anew.

“
I always
resist the need to fuck when a man becomes ensnared,” Medusa murmured, confessing her pain. “But my skin begins to crawl and I burn up from the inside out. And still I resist
even as
my sex swells until it cracks and bleeds, until my breasts harden and pulse with boiling lava, until my thighs run with blood and I crave the relief of
taking a man into my body, even a man that is no longer a part of this world, whose body slowly turns to stone as he lives in another reality.

“Now, then, the sun will be up soon,” Medusa said cheerfully, the abrupt change in subject and tone disconcerting. Carefully, she lay Jenna down next to Rhys on the bed and stood up, smiling down at the pair of them, unable to hide the wistfulness in her dark eyes. “I don’t believe this bed will hold two gargoyles.”

Slowly, painfully, Jenna reached out her hand towards the tragic woman, grateful when Medusa took the offered hand in her own, “Thank you for telling me all of this.”

Medusa stared down at Jenna with a lost look in her eyes and when she spoke her voice was low, filled with sorrow and resignation, “I want someone to know I was here, that I existed. Now, get some rest.”

Bending down, she placed a soft kiss on Jenna’s forehead, turning away but not before Jenna saw the tears in her eyes. “I’ll see you when the sun goes down.”

“Wait!” Jenna cried out. When Medusa stilled but didn’t turn around, she said, “Couldn’t we talk some more after you change?”

“I don’t want you to see me as I am when I am a stone beast; it’s not pretty,” Medusa said softly. Turning her head to the side, letting Jenna see that the change was already taking place as the color leeched from Medusa’s face, the woman blew out a sad laugh, “Even after all of this time it seems that I still have some vanity left.”

Jenna glanced down at Rhys and found his eyes open and watching her. The color was already draining from his face and when he
spoke his voice was rough, “
Mother likes you.”

With a smile, she laid down in his arms, feeling his body shifting and growing around her. Resting her hand on his chest as it expanded and hardened to stone, she whispered, “She’s amazing.”

He wrapped his large stone body around her as his eyes slid close, his wings enfolding their bodies until they were cocooned together. “It’s good to have you back in my arms. Have your muscles relaxed any?”

“A little,” she admitted, tilting her head back to see his face, loving the stone monkey. Her emotions were still too close to the surface; between her experiences in the other reality and Medusa’s heart wrenching confessions, Jenna felt ready to break. As long as she had Rhys to hold on to until she could get her world back in order she would be all right. As lon
g as she didn’t think about it
until
after
she could take a few days to process it, she would get through. Reaching up, she cupped his rocky jaw, “I’m a little scared of what’s going to happen when I’m recovered. I can envision such horrible things.”

Rhys chuckled, squeezing her tighter until her human body was flushed against his stone body and letting out a contented sigh and yawning until his jaw cracked, “I’m just grateful you’re back.”

Despite her body’s inability to move very far or very fast, and despite her effort to shut it up, her brain was racing with a million thoughts, a million memories of two lifetimes. It was going to take time to sort through her feelings and the only person she could talk to about them was ashamed of her gargoyle form. How was she going to get through the day with so much weighing so heavily on her soul
and
no outlet? It was too much to keep bottled in.

“Rhys,” she whispered, pushing weakly against his stone chest. He mumbled something but remained steadfastly asleep. “Rhys, I need to make a phone call.”

A scraggly, gray-green arm reached between one of the spaces that
wasn’t
covered by Rhys’s body or wings. In its long, skeletal fingers was a phone, “Here; call.”