.:The Inevitable:: Juliet.

A cool feeling took over the top part of my head and it clashed defiantly with the rest of my unnaturally hot body. The sudden relief caused my eyes to drift open and they clashed with a pair of familiar golden eyes, automatically causing my heart rate to pick up a bit.

"Eros?" I breathed, a smile forming on my face. The god's eyes furrowed and as I blinked, the face became clearer and the smile dropped from my face.

"Eros is not here, Juliet," Amora gently informed me. She reached up to pat the cool washcloth that she placed on my forehead before she continued to speak. "He was twizzled to Tartarus as soon as he was sentenced…do you remember any of that?" she asked.

Her question was a stupid one -of course I remembered. I remembered the anger that filled my heart and the fury that fueled my nasty thoughts towards the IC. I remembered the terrified looks on Eros's parent's faces when he was sentenced and the irritated look that Atropos wore when she had to supply my life string. But most of all, I remembered the ripping sensation that clutched at my heart when Eros and I were permanently separated. It was…I felt like I was short of breath, like water was filling my lungs and I was drowning.

In fact, I still did kind of feel that way, only now the discomfort I was feeling dulled the pain of losing Eros.

"Why are you here?" I managed to ask Amora. I glanced around from where I lay. "And where am I?"

"We are at the villa in Italy. You have been out for two days. Your family knows your sick and they believe that Eros and you came back here to figure to figure out what happened to you."

"They think I'm sick?" I questioned, my eyelids slowly closing up. They felt heavy but I was too uncomfortable to sleep.

I turned into my pillow and felt an immediate sense of relief fill my system…the pillow still smelt like Eros. I felt tears push at the back of my eyes and I was too tired to fight them.

God, when had I turned into that girl? That girl that completely breaks down without her man?

"Well…it is not a total lie," Amora breathed solemnly, thankfully ignoring my tears. "You are dying, Juliet," she informed me.

"It's your doing!" I quietly argued as I opened my wet eyes. Amora swallowed and looked away.

"I must feed you what the IC has ordered me to…" she whispered, avoiding my eyes.

"But you don't want to do it," I observed and she swallowed again and turned to look at me. I was a little startled to see that her golden eyes were scattered with a few tears of her own.

"Of course I do not want to! But I have no choice, Juliet. I…it is very different for gods and goddesses then it is for humans and you must understand that. I have no choice but to feed you the deathly concoction but I am trying to quench my conscience by making you as comfortable as possible," she explained helplessly.

"Don't do this, Amora," I whispered, my voice hard as stone.

Amora shook her head.

"I really have no choice, Juliet. I am so sorry. I truly am." There was a silence as I watched Amora drag the washcloth along my body, trying to cool me. I wouldn't admit it, but her touch was helping a bit because my body was cooling significantly although the coolness only lingered for a moment or two.

"Amora," I spoke after a moment or two.

"Yes?"

I gulped and glanced around the room, not strong enough to look into her eyes as I asked the following question.

"Is there…does Eros have a chance of being set free from his punishment?" I desperately wanted the answer to be yes but I had a feeling that would not be the case.

Amora was quiet for a moment before speaking.

"The law states that if a punished immortal being escapes Tartarus with his or her sanity still in tact, then the escapee is released from his or her punishment." My eyes widened at Amora's words and I struggled to turn my head back to face her; however, her solemn look surprised me and my eyes begged for her to continue. "Juliet, you must understand…only the cruelest, evilest, loveless souls are sent down there. It is enough to drive anyone -even immortals- mad. There is no way Eros would make it out with his sanity in tact; furthermore, Tartarus is impossible to escape. When an immortal is permanently sent down there, regardless of whether it is for punishment or because he or she chooses to work there, the immortal's twizzling powers are taken away. There is no way out for Eros, Juliet. There never has been and there never will be."

I let out a shaky breath and hit the mattress below me with a weak fury.

"The Immortal Council is insane," I hissed and I felt a burning sensation rise within me, but I wasn't sure if it was from my being sick or from my anger.

"Yes, and that view is what is causing so much controversy now," Amora supplied. I shifted uncomfortably before responding with morbid curiosity.

"What are you talking about?" I questioned. Amora dipped the washcloth in a cool basin of water before she started to speak.

"Immortals heard about the latest punishments and your punishment in particular is receiving angry backlashes. We are used to humans being punished by turning them into hideously deadly beings, or into animals. Never have we heard of a human being punished with death -the timing of one's death is up to Atropos and her sisters. Most feel that Falcon and his council have overstepped their boundaries and they are demanding that Falcon's position, as well as numerous Immortal Coucil members, have their positions revaluated. As we speak, Falcon and his council are trying to keep order over the god and goddesses, they are trying to keep the inevitable from happening."

"The inevitable? Amora, what's going to happen? How bad is it?" I asked, desperately clutching at whatever information I could gather. Amora looked down for a moment before she looked my straight in the eye, melted gold staring into smoky grey.

"A civil war, Juliet. Tension has been building for a long while and your punishment was the tip of the iceberg. Unless Falcon steps down, there is going to be a full out war among the gods and goddesses, and we are going to be stuck in the middle of it."

Her voice rang clear and beautiful but it held such a sense of dread…

I opened my mouth to respond but was cut off by a coughing fit. I felt like there was a whole glob of something stuck in my throat that I couldn’t, for the life of me, get out. Amora was at my side, lightly hitting my back and holding a paper towel up to my mouth for me to cough into. Finally, I stopped coughing and Amora pulled the paper towel away. However, there was a bit of coloring on the cloth that made me grab Amora's arm.

She froze and allowed me to take the paper towel from her hands. I stared at it for a moment before I gulped and looked at Amora who was staring at it, helplessly.

There was blood on the paper towel. I had coughed up blood.

With a shaky hand, I handed the towel to Amora and then, a haunting thought came to me.

I might not make it to see the outcome of the war. I may not even make it to see the war because the bottom line was that I was dying and I wasn't about to get any better.

::Erastos::

My head was spinning as I tried to keep my composure. I tried to block out the souls that would be my company for the rest of eternity but it was hard to do. I'd never been in a place filled with so much hate…and disloyalty…and just plain terrible souls.

What kind of people are Earth breeding?

"Makes you feel like your dying, doesn't it?" I looked over to my right and saw a man who looked to be maybe a year or two older then Amora. His hair was dark brown…so dark, one could consider it black. However, any suspicions of it being black would be shot to hell as soon as one saw his eyes and compared the two. His eyes were a smoldering black color but if one was to look closely, they would see the way the black swirled around like liquid lava. His eyes were unusual, even for gods, but I was able to hide my surprise.

"Gods can't die. You know that better then anyone, Thanatos," I responded gravely. He smiled plainly at me and ran his left hand through his messy hair, putting his obvious arm muscles on display as he did so.

"You do understand that you're not allowed to address me so plainly, don't you?" I rolled my eyes at his question. Above the Underworld, there is no royalty - the IC members and their family are as close to royalty as it gets. However, in the Underworld there actually is royalty.

"Would you rather me call you Prince Thanatos? Or maybe, Your Majesty?" I sneered. Thanatos was the God of Death. He was not the son of Thantus and Persephone, but seeing as how the couple had no children, Thanatos was named Thantus's -the King of the Underworld's- successor.

Thanatos was also the older brother of Nemesis.

"Maybe if you addressed me with more respect, I would give you the information you've been craving…such as what is happening to Juliet," he snapped, crossing his arms.

At Juliet's name, I felt my breathing hitch for a second. Juliet. Juliet DeVillece. I had forgotten all about it.

"I'm well aware that you most likely haven't given Juliet more then a moment's worth of thoughts since you've been sent down here. It's what Tartarus does to you -it makes you forget everything good and anything that has ever made you happy. It forces you to succumb to the hate surrounding you…it'll drive you to insanity," he informed me with an air of nonchalance.

I felt my breathing rate pick up and rage quickly filled be. Before I had a moment to even think about what I was doing, I turned and slammed my hand up around Thanatos's neck. I felt the excitement of the surrounding souls at the act of violence and it just riled me more as I pushed Thanatos to the cold, dark ground.

"I am a God of Love," I hissed to him as I began to squeeze. "I've broken the most important rules known to immortals and I've screwed over countless lovers just to see what would happen. I have a beautiful human wife, a descendent of Hellen of Troy -Hellen the Beautiful, as we know her. I've spent the past few centuries known as the Immortal Council's worst nightmare. I'm Erastos and I can overcome anything this place throws at me. I will not let Tartarus change me," and with that, I pushed down on Thanatos's throat once more before releasing and roughly standing up.

Thanatos stared at me from his position on the ground. He smiled coolly at me and, if possible, it seemed as though his eyes darkened even more as he reached up to touch his neck.

"But, don't you see, Erastos?" he questioned, rubbing his neck. "You're already changing." And then he lifted his hands from his neck and I saw proof of his words as bruises started to form on his neck right where I had, moments ago, been choking him.

My eyes widened and my mouth opened for a moment before I closed it.

And for the first time in my life, not only was I speechless….but I was wrong.

I looked away from Thanatos and glanced down at my hands before I squeezed them into fists. I heard Thanatos walk up to me and his hand gently clamped down on my shoulder.

"Don't worry," he soothed. "It's inevitable. It's better to just willingly forget and not to resist the changes because if you resist, then you most certainly will go insane." As I looked around the dark place that I was in, I felt myself agreeing to Thanatos's words. Souls were walking by, their eyes dark and sneers upon their faces but not a single person looked out of place or uncomfortable. I've been comfortable all my life and if this is what it takes to be comfortable again, then who would I be to fight it? "Plus, I'm sure what you had going on before wasn't that great anyway."

And that’s what did it.

Thanatos's final sentence sent something shocking through my system.

What the fuck was I thinking?

A dazzling smile, grey eyes and dark black hair started the picture in my head.

The one moment I would forever refuse to forget of Juliet was one I had after the first time we slept together in Italy. After we were thoroughly worn out, I hovered over her for a second….I told her I was doing it because she didn't leave much room for me to lie down and she had to move over a bit, but I was really doing it because I wanted to take a few seconds to just look at her. Her eyes were shut and she was breathing heavily, obviously trying to steady her breathing. There were beads of sweat dripping down her face and her lips were slightly parted, giving me a small glimpse of her pearly whites. Her dark hair was scattered in every direction of the pillow and the smell of her shampoo mixed in with the smell of sweat and sex that lingered within the sheets. She eventually opened her eyes and blinked a few times before she saw me staring at her; she sent me a small smile and pulled me down on top of her again as she pressed her lips to mine…and then we did it all over again.

Would being comfortable down here mean forgetting that? Of course it would. It would mean forgetting all about Juliet and everything we've done together. When that fact made its way into my brain, I pulled my eyebrows together and shook my head.

Hell no. There wasn't a chance I'd ever be willing to give up all my memories of Juliet…there wasn't a chance I'd ever be willing to give up Juliet.

Juliet was my girl. My love. My wife.

She made the most cynical spirited god fall in love with her and was willing face whatever came her way in order to be with me.

I broke the most highly regarded laws in order to marry her and make her mine before making love to her over and over again.

I'll be damned if everything we did was for nothing.

I looked around the loveless hell I'd been damned to and I blocked everything out as the wheels in my head started turning.

I'll make it out of here and back to Juliet if its the last thing I do.

Review? I love you guys/I'm a terrible person for not updating.

On the bright side, I just finished planning out the sequel... ;o (75% chance it'll happen)