Midnight Medusa by Stephanie Draven Page A

and when she does, she has my card. Let’s go.”
    But Renata didn’t think she would change her mind.
    Besides, she had a different, more important call to make. This time, she dialed a lawyer in the Netherlands.
     
    Renata stepped out of the International Court of Justice into the afternoon sun. It had been painful to relive those memories, to tell her story to the court, but now she felt as if she were taller, lighter and freer than she had ever been. Underneath the Peace Palace’s cathedral-like spires, she felt reverent, and somehow it didn’t surprise her to see Deimos waiting for her on the verdant lawn.
    It had been more than a year since she’d seen him last, but his face was exactly the same. For he was ageless. As was her love for him. She knew in the moment he folded a newspaper under his arm and smiled at her. Renata wondered if it was the first time she had ever seen him smile.
    “How did you find me?” Renata asked.
    “Sometimes people call upon the oldest immortals and we answer,” Deimos said, and then showed her the newspaper. “The headlines also helped.”
    “I was afraid to testify,” Renata said.
    “But you did it anyway,” he said, taking her hands. “You helped to convict him, and all his crimes are exposed in the light of day. No one is going to take up his cause as an excuse to make war. I’m so proud of you.”
    Maybe it was that she was so happy to see Deimos again, or maybe it was that he was proud of her, or maybe it was the worshipful way he held her sculptress’s fingers, but somehow she found herself blinking back tears. “I found a way to sculpt without hurting anyone,” she said.
    He reached up and brushed away her tears. “I’m not accustomed to dealing with people’s better instincts, young lady, but I should have realized you’d find a better way. Anyway, I won’t keep you. I just wanted to see you one last time.”
    “Take me with you,” Renata said, the words bursting out of her. “Wherever you’re going, I want to go with you.”
    “Renata, I’ve already told you. Everything bad that ever happened to you is my fault.”
    “You’re wrong,” she insisted. “It was mortal men who made war, not you. They called you and if you hadn’t come, others would have. What happened to me would have happened with or without you.”
    “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Deimos told her.
    “Even if I weren’t sure, it doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because I love you and I forgive you.”
    “No,” he said stubbornly. “You can’t.”
    “I can,” Renata said, feeling her gorgon’s power strongly now. “You changed and that’s what matters. You shaped yourself into something else. And that’s what we all have to do. We all have to change before things will ever get better in the world.”
    “I don’t know that things will ever get better,” he told her sadly. “There will always be other wars—and other gorgons.”
    “And we’ll stop them,” she said. “Together.”
    “Together for how long?” he asked, his eyes off somewhere in the distance. “I left the decanter of ambrosia on the plane for you, but you didn’t drink it. I think you mean to leave your options open, to escape my love with old age. You’re always trying to run away from me.”
    “What if I’m done trying to escape you?” Renata wanted to know. “What if I drank the ambrosia now?”
    His expression became fiercely possessive. “I’d keep you with me, forever.”
    “Then take me with you,” she said. “We’ll toast with ambrosia.”
    Deimos pulled Renata into his arms and devoured her in a kiss, the lushness of his lips eliciting a whimper from her. He kissed her, right there on the street, where anyone could see them, and Renata wasn’t the least bit afraid.
    “Let’s go then,” he said. “The plane is fueled up and ready.”
    “Where are we going?” Renata asked.
    He arched a dark brow. “First? On our honeymoon.”
    “Then?” she asked, smiling.
    He held her