“No, indeed. But you are a handsome male—”
He thinned his lips into a razor-tight line. “Friends don’t—”
“Lie, I know,” I snipped. “But I’m not lying. You are handsome. And you should find a mate. You could, you know.”
And I’d kill anyone who dared to touch him. I curled my hands into fists and almost stopped breathing when I realized what I’d just thought.
Oh my, that had been different. Since when did I get jealous? I wasn’t even jealous with Ares, and I loved him.
Right? I blinked, feeling as though I were having some sort of life-altering epiphany. But I didn’t want to have a life-altering epiphany. So I locked down that thought and shook my head. I was just being ridiculous.
Of course I loved Ares. Of course I did.
He snorted. “Yeah, right. Not in a million years.”
I rolled my eyes and, unable to help myself any longer, marched over to him and thumped him on his hard, ridged abdominals and swallowed the sigh back down. Gods, he was beautiful.
“I’d mate you,” I said without thought and then felt my entire body blaze with heat. That had not been what I’d meant to say. I’d meant to tell him that he was ridiculous, that any woman would be fortunate to call him mate. It was so hot in here. I felt dizzy all of a sudden. “What… what I meant to say was that I… I’m…”
“With my brother,” he finished, voice a bassy rumble.
I nodded miserably. “Yes, I am.”
My heart ached most desperately. What was going on with me? Wasn’t I just telling myself how much I loved Ares? Because I did. Completely. We were perfect for one another.
He wet his lips, and I could not have looked away, even if my life had depended upon it. My mouth tingled as I remembered the one and only time I’d dared to be so bold with him. And I forgot everything I’d just been thinking because I was snared by a pair of lightning-filled eyes.
As though he were remembering that moment too, his eyes landed upon my lips, and I felt now as if they were swollen. The air between us grew charged, and the bolts of Zeus’s lightning all began to glow.
My lust rose high, my powers begging for release. But friends did not bed friends. Not friends that mattered so much. Not friends that were starting to mean so much more than just friends.
I could not lose him. He liked me. Hephaestus liked me and not because I looked as I did. He liked me for me, and for some bloody reason, that was starting to mean a whole lot more to me than it ever had before.
“You may groom me, little ass,” he said softly.
I sniffed, turning my face to the side to hide the heat that now swam in my eyes. I did not understand myself. I did not understand this.
I closed my eyes and promised myself that I would be calm. That I would not be silly with him. He was just Hephaestus. My dearest friend. My best friend.
“Good,” I said with a too bright smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes, which he instantly detected because he turned his face to the side and gave me a quizzical frown.
But I grabbed his hand, his precious, big, meaty hand, and dragged him behind me toward my throne and sat his big frame down upon it.
“Gods, you’re a goat of a man. Hera really ought to be ashamed of letting you go out in public like this. You’ll frighten all the children away, I am sure.”
He snorted, and finally, the tension between us was gone, and we were back to being just good friends.
But as I clipped and groomed him and ran my fingers through his silky locks, I felt my limbs growing weak and tingly. Felt my body crave and yearn and need.
And when I shaved him down, I had to keep reminding myself not to lose focus and accidentally nick his lovely neck with my sharpened blade. The scratch of the razor upon his flesh was hypnotic. Enchanting.
I swallowed hard, eyes hungrily roving over his face. His eyes were closed, and he wore a contented smile upon his lovely, full lips.
It would take nothing to lean over and kiss him. And not as I had before. Not a mere peck, but a lingering, soft, and exploratory touch of my mouth to his. To feel the wetness of his tongue glide along my own, to taste of the wine that he always drank. His favorite dark red that would be full of tart, bitter notes.
I paused in my grooming of him, arms trembling so badly I did not trust myself to continue on even though I’d only done half his face.
The honest to primordial gods truth was, I didn’t care if Hephy were groomed or not. Or even whether he were covered from head to toe in his forge’s soot.
I knew what was happening to me, but I wasn’t sure I was prepared to accept this. Not yet.
I was with Ares.
I shuddered.
He cracked open one eye. “Dite?” he rumbled in that lovely, gravelly voice of his, and my body broke out in a wash of goose flesh.
Oh dear gods in the above and below, I was in so, so much trouble.
I smiled, but really I knew it looked more like a wince. “I’m… I’m sorry, Hephy, I think I might have nicked you.”
He frowned, touching the clean side of his jaw. “I don’t feel pain.”
“It’s a little bloody,” I lied. “Let me clean it. Just close your eyes now. Don’t look at me, or you’ll make me nervous, you big beast.”
He smiled, so trustingly, and did as I asked, and my jaw quivered as I dipped the hem of my gown into the bowl of clean water. I trembled as I ran my fingers along the tapered smoothness of his jaw. Gods, he was strong.
Ares never forbade me from anybody, not on Earth or even Olympus. But it was my rule never to get between family. It made things too messy, too complicated for all involved.
More than that, though, I knew that what I was feeling for Hephy was more than a fling. More than even an itch that could last a good five or ten years.
“So much more,” I whispered brokenly, low enough that he should not have heard.
“Hm? What did you say?” he cracked open an eye.
I patted his cheek, my cold fingertips lingering far longer upon his flesh than I knew they should.
“Nothing, Hephy. Almost done now,” I smiled with my heart in my eyes and hastily looked away, but he’d already closed his eyes.
And I was not sure when he’d done it, but his head now rested upon my breast, exposing the half of his face that still needed to be shaved, and I wanted to cry.
The tears burned up my throat as I forced myself to get through it. The feel of him upon me, the contented and sated look upon his face… I would never, ever forget this day.
By the time I’d finished, I was a mess of nerves and desperate to get away from him.
“How do I look?” he asked with a crooked smile as he ran his blunt fingers through his now cropped hair, which was still long enough to pull into one of those stupidly sexy man buns he wore if he should have a mind.
And I said the only thing I could, because I’d been tortured by him and my heart was a raw and aching open wound right now. “Beautiful, Hephaestus. You look so damn beautiful.”
Then I fled because I was a coward and that was what cowards did.
When I got back to my mansion, I found Ares, and I screwed him. Fucked him. All night long. I had dozens of orgasms, and he’d rocked his big, powerful body into mine, making me feel none of what I really wanted to feel. And I screamed but not with pleasure. Though he did not know it.
I screamed because I knew this wasn’t right, and I didn’t know what to do about it.
I stopped going to see Hephaestus after that. For many years. Because I’d needed time to breathe away from him. To break free of the pull he had on me. He was right. I was with Ares, and I loved Ares, and in his own way, he loved me too.
I took countless lovers after that, rolling through them, trying to find that spark, that missing piece of the puzzle, but I never could.
I never, ever could.
And then came the reckoning. I was in bed with Ares. His darkness covering my lightness. We’d just had sex for the fifth time, and there
was a frenzy in him unlike any I’d ever felt with him before. As if he knew, as if he could sense my slowly pulling away, though I’d tried so hard not to, it was obvious to me now that I could no longer even pretend this away. And I hated myself for the pain I knew I’d cause him.
Finally, he growled, rolling off of me and sitting up, giving me his back, and I knew that he knew. Not the what, but definitely the rest.
“Who is it?” he asked into the heavy stillness that’d formed between us.
I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands. I could lie, I could deny the truth, but it had been two years, and I was so damn tired of pretending.
So I sat up, and I held the black pillow in front of my body like a shield. Ares was partial to the color black, which one would think should be a somber and foreboding color, but not for the gods. There was beauty in the darkness, and once upon a time, I’d seen it. But lately I’d begun to feel as if I were in a prison of my own making.
Because, though I still loved Ares, I was not sure I loved him enough to keep up this pretense.
He turned on his tight ass and looked at me with his dark and stormy eyes. “I know you, Aphrodite. Have known you a very long time. You know I have never minded you your little peccadillos. Your appeal for me is in knowing that you are not obsessed with having me and only me in your bed. You are a strong and independent woman, and I admire that. But I’m not a fool, and I will not be played as one.”
I frowned and placed a hand upon his shoulder. “That was never my intention. I do love you, Ares. You know I do. I always have. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you were my first true love.”
He snorted and shook his head. “Were.”
I closed my eyes, wincing but knowing I could not take the words back because they were true.
“So who is it?” he asked deeply, voice a lovely rumble. But it was not his voice I wanted to hear day in and day out. Not anymore.
I tried, dammit. I’d tried like hell to make this relationship work. But I was done pretending. I physically couldn’t anymore.
I swallowed hard. “It is—Hephaestus.”
For the longest time, he merely sat there, unmoving and unblinking, heated magma burning inside his eyes, making him gleam a reddish-orange color, and I held my head high.
“Hephaestus, the lame one?”
I gasped. “I would have expected that from anyone else but you. How dare you, Ares? How could you?”
He growled and stood, stalking off toward his black silk robe he’d casually strewn over his chaise lounge earlier. A powerful, beautiful man who should have been enough for me. I couldn’t help but wonder if I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life. Hephy had never declared himself to me. And though I was the goddess of the heart, his was one that completely eluded me.
I simply didn’t know where I stood with him. About almost anything. All I knew was, I couldn’t hide or lie about this anymore, not even to myself.
His fiery eyes turned to me. “Are you really doing this?”
I sat up on my knees, wanting to tell him I wasn’t sure. That I was terrified. That it all seemed so stupid. After two years, Hephaestus must surely hate me by now. But no matter how hard I’d tried, I’d never been able to excise him from my heart, my soul.
“Yes, Ares. I’m going to him.”
His nostrils flared. “You’ll tire of him, as you have so many others. And when you come back to me, I won’t take you.”
I swallowed hard, feeling his words like a scourge upon my flesh. Because he wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true. I’d tired of them all, even, apparently, my beloved Ares.
Getting up, I nodded, and I quickly dressed. “You are right, Ares. I do tire of them all. That’s just who I am.”
He clenched his jaw, and I could see that my words pricked at his iron-clad heart. He had loved me. But even so, it hadn’t been enough.
“If you hurt him, I will hunt you down, and I will utterly destroy you.” He whispered the threat so softly, and I felt a lump work its way up my throat.
“I know, War,” I whispered. “I would expect no less.”
I shuddered. What was I doing? Why was I even contemplating doing this to Hephy? He didn’t deserve this. Not him. He didn’t deserve to be saddled with a heartless, cruel bitch like me.
He didn’t deserve this. I would hurt him, just as I’d hurt all the others that had come before him. Because that was just who I was. I was fickle. I was faithless.
I dressed and vanished to my realm. My home. And I cried. Cried for days. Telling myself I could not do to him as I’d done to Ares and so many others before him. Begging and pleading with myself not to be so damn selfish, to leave him alone. To understand that eventually this desire, this need, would burn its way out of me, and then I’d be freed of this terrible burden. Then he and I could be friends again, nothing but friends, and I could wish him well in all things.
But when another month had passed and I still could not sever Hephy from my soul, I knew I was a terrible and monumentally awful person because I could no longer stay away.
I could no longer deny my need of him. All I could hope now was that he was infinitely stronger than I was and that instead of love, I’d be met with hate. Instead of kindness, his fury. That he would be smart enough to push me away so that I could never, ever do to him as I’d done to all the rest.
So I went back to the forge, dressed in silks and pearls, with roses threaded through my hair, and a broken and shattered heart that beat so very fragilely within me.
I blinked when I spied Hera standing just outside. She held a basket of fresh lightning in her arms and looked stunned at first to see me. But then her cow eyes narrowed, and a sharp and cruel glare cut across her harsh yet pretty features.
She was dressed in a gown fashioned from the ashes of Hephy’s forge. He’d told me once long ago that there was nothing uglier in all the worlds than ash. Because it was the very end of beauty, the final stage of decomposition. And that was exactly what he thought of her.
“He hates you, you know,” Hera said, and her words caused me to flinch.
Hurt.
I’d stayed away for two years. Two agonizing years. I knew he hated me now. But I couldn’t bear to hear her say it.
I clasped my hands together.
“We’re friends, he and I.”
She snorted. “You’re perverted trash. You know that. Not content to merely sup on the beauty, now you have to dig at the bottom of the barrel too. You did not deserve my son. Not even Hephaestus.”
I vibrated with fury, wanting to smack her, hating her more than I already had. “How dare you. I don’t care what you call me, but Hephaestus isn’t trash. He never was. His only misfortune was that he was born to a bitch like you. Now get out of my way, Hera. Before I make you.”
She snorted, shaking her head slowly, and stepped aside. “Go ahead. See what your cruelty has wrought. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Heart beating unbearably hard, I shoved my shoulder into hers as I swept past. The first thing I noticed was the stench. The second was the stillness. The silence. I felt the heat of the forge, but I did not hear his hammer blows.
“Beast,” I whispered as I stepped fully within.
He looked up from where he sat, shock written upon his beloved face as he stared at me in agonizing silence. He was a frightful mix of man and beast. Dressed in skinned furs and with hair that fell down his back in thick, ropey locks. His body was nearly black from all the soot, and lightning danced like a chaotic storm in his eyes. That beard was back and longer than ever, down to his stomach now.
And though he looked like a bear in truth, I feasted upon him with eyes that were sure had never seen such beauty such as his.
I smiled, realizing no amount of time or distance between us could have ever shaken him from me. No matter how hard I tried, the beast had wormed his way into my soul, into my heart.
He was so still. So unbelievably still. Not even a twitch came from
him. He merely looked at me with his impassive expression he’d always used with the rest of the world but never with me.
I curled my fingers into a fist and placed it against my chest, wanting to weep and sing all at the same time. I was home. I was finally home.
Had I ever felt this for Ares?
I knew the answer instantly. No. I had not.
“Go away,” he growled. “Go away and leave me be.” His voice was a deep, broken rumble. As though he were no longer used to speaking.
But I would not move. I could not.
I glanced down at the table he sat at. His mechanized legs sat beside him. My pulse kicked into overdrive. He was not wearing his legs. He was as he’d been created to be.
I swallowed hard, and then I noticed the trinkets. Thousands upon thousands of trinkets.
All of them crafted of steel and iron. Animals. Mostly donkeys. Some birds. A few monkeys. And many more ballerinas.
All names he’d once called me by.
I blinked. His image began wavering from the heat of my unshed tears.
“Hephy? Please, I—”
His nostrils flared, and he held up a restraining hand. “Do not call me that, Aphrodite. Do not ever call me that again.”
Then he looked back down at the half-crafted donkey in his hand, looking lost and alone. So damn alone.
And I almost did go, because I knew I should. Because I knew I would break him. Just as I had all the others. I would kill that beauty in him that I valued above all the rest. I was turning to go, I really, really was. Then I spotted my throne. Everything else in here was in ruins. Tatters. Yet my throne was pristine. Polished and gleaming. The fabric of the seat just as I’d left it but well maintained by the hand of someone who cared enough to bother. And I knew he loved me.
I knew he did. And damn my dark soul to the pits of Tartarus, but I had to hear him say it. Just once. I had to know. Because I was broken inside, and not just because he’d rejected me, but because I was in love. I loved him. With everything I had in me, I loved him.
I turned back to him. “Say it,” I whispered.
He clenched his jaw but said nothing.
I shook my head. “Say it, beast. Tell me the truth. Say it!”
The Forge King Page 15