The King of Hearts (The Dark Kings Book 9)

by Jovee Winters

  I looked at my uncle and he blinked. “Who sent the note? Are you sure you can trust—”

  I sniffed, brushing a tear violently away with the sleeve of my arm. “I thought it was a terrible prank too, but I used father’s looking glass and I…I saw her. She’s here, Uncle. She’s been here, on Olympus all these years. She’s not aged, she looks exactly the same.”

  I shuddered, rubbing at my chest. Feeling as though I might shatter all over again. I’d gone unhinged after I’d lost her. I’d tried so damned hard to go back to life as usual, but my moods had grown sullen, even at times violent. I’d stopped doing as mother wanted, and now I knew that Psyche had felt the wrath of her displeasure for it. In the end, I’d become exactly the monster her sisters had warned her I’d be.

  Psyche had been right all along.

  She should have just killed me that night. Her life would have been better for it.

  “Then let’s go get her,” he said gruffly. “Now.”

  I shook my head. “You don’t understand, no one can safely step foot on that isle. No one save…”

  “Aphrodite,” he finished for me. “And that cold hearted bitch never would have before.”

  “I’ve tried so many times to rescue her and nearly had my head ripped off for it. I cannot reach her and each time I try the isle sinks just a little bit farther. The dark waters of Acheron are now up to her neck. They’ve so poisoned her that even if she’s rescued now, she will never come back. I…I don’t know what to do. I…I’ve killed her, uncle.”

  I hung my head, as tears of shame ran steadily down my cheeks.

  “My Dite will save her.”

  “You say that,” I muttered, “but you don’t know her like I do.”

  “No son, I rather fear it’s the other way around. Now, come.” He held out his hand to me. “We’ve no time to waste.”

  Hephaestus refused to release my hand the entire trip to mother’s. And with each second that ticked by I felt an ungodly urge to run.

  “Relax,” he said.

  “Easy for you to say. Or maybe not. I still don’t fucking understand how you could move on so easily. Even, if what you say, they aren’t the same woman they still look identical. How can you bear it?”

  Finally, he released me. And turned toward me. I saw a fire in his eyes that revealed the depth of how deeply he felt about her. “Hear me this time, boy. Really hear me. Not with your rational mind, but with that heart that led you toward your female in the first place. Your mother has done all she could to prove to you that she wants to fix things. Fix things she never even caused in the first place. It’s been many months now since she and I have reunited and not one harsh word has ever been spoken from her toward me. There are moments where I can’t bite my tongue, where the demons of the past come bubbling up and she takes it with grace. Understanding me in a way I even can’t. If you want to save your bride, she is our only choice. Period.”

  He crossed his big, burly arms over his equally massive chest and stared down his long nose at me.

  I fidgeted under the weight of his heavy stare.

  And for the first time in a long time I began to open myself to the possibility that maybe, just maybe he was right. I knew the curse had happened. I’d seen the changes wrought. For so long I’d battled my need to cling to the “truth” as I knew it. That Aphrodite hadn’t changed at all, that she was still the same bitter bitch who’d raised me. That this was all a sham, a game she played to toy with us because to believe she wasn’t the same woman would give me hope. Hope that she could easily exploit again. Hope that would have exposed me and made me vulnerable to her games again. I’d been so scared of being hurt by her that I’d pushed her aside and now I wondered if I’d made the worst decision possible.

  What if she didn’t know anything about Psyche?

  What if she truly wasn’t the one who’d hidden her so well from me that I’d believed my very mortal bride returned back to the dust from whence she’d came? What if maybe accepting that this Aphrodite was truly a completely different version of herself would have led me to Psyche sooner?

  I squeezed my eyes shut, scrubbing my forearm across my eyes and moaning from deep inside of me. “I’ve messed up everything up, Uncle.”

  I felt the movement of the travel tunnel cease and knew we’d arrived at mother’s palace.

  “Not yet, you haven’t,” he said. “Now come. Quickly.”

  I followed him. Sick to my gut with each step I took down the familiar star lit pathway. As if on cue, as if she’d known we’d be coming she was there at the entrance of the doorway, dressed in starlight, with her long flowing blond hair hanging like a curtain down around her ankles.

  And then she smiled at me. With tears burning in her eyes and the old hate began to rise in me. The fear that she would use me ill again to do her dirty work came rushing up and I almost, almost left. There had to be another way to get to Psyche.

  But then Aphrodite did the most astonishing thing.

  She dropped to her knees and held her arms out toward me. “My son,” she whispered in a broken tremor that tugged at my heartstrings like nothing else could have. Her gaze never wavered from mine.

  Crystal tears spilled in a steady stream down her cheeks, gathering at her knees and the moment they landed on the marble steps they burst with life. A field of white, glittering water lilies began to gather round her.

  Tiny crystal bees pinged and buzzed from stamen to stamen. She looked like the most beautiful water nymph I’d ever seen. But more than that, I saw nothing of the haughty arrogant female I’d once known.

  Mother would never have debased herself in front of me in such a manner. She’d always made sure to tower above me when handing out punishment. Letting me know my place quite forcefully.

  And that’s the moment that something inside of me snapped. And a truth I’d hidden from the world and even myself became suddenly crystal clear.

  I’d never stopped loving her.

  I’d never stopped wanting her love in return.

  My wings erupted and I flew the last few steps to her side. Then we were wrapped in each other’s arms and a glowing light of radiant magenta enveloped us. I saw her in her god form and I couldn’t help but join in my own. We burned as bright as Apollo’s sun.

  Her hand landed on my chest and her eyes were closed and I felt her sip inside my soul. Felt her reading me, learning me. And I allowed it. Allowed her to see how I felt. What her terrible commands of me had done to my self-confidence and worth over time. I also allowed her to see my vulnerabilities. That deep, deep down I was still that little boy who wanted his mother to love him. To see him. Then I showed her the one thing I loved most.

  I showed her my love.

  My queen.

  Auburn hair. Creamy, perfect skin. Her glowing smile. I showed my mother how I saw Psyche.

  “She is truly the most beautiful creature in the world,” she said, and I heard none of the jealousy or hatred the other Aphrodite would have had. The way this one had said it, it’d burned with truth and sincerity.

  Frowning, I looked at her. Into her eyes and this time, I jumped into her soul. I was my mother’s son after all. She and I had a bond, a connection that she did not have even with any of my other siblings. Of all of us, I was most like mother.

  She did not bar my entrance, in fact, she let me in without compunction.

  And what I had begun to feel when I’d finally allowed myself to give her a fair chance I now saw with my own eyes.

  I saw this Aphrodite in another time, one in which she was well loved by the pantheon. I saw her with my father, even, but in that world, they had never had children. In fact, they’d barely even been dating before she’d fallen in love with my Uncle. It was Hephaestus that’d stolen her heart in that place.

  I saw a world so radically different from my own. And a woman who I wished I could have served instead.

  “I’d have been honored to have been your right hand there,” I whispered and m
eant it.

  Her lips twitched and she smiled widely. “I would never have used you so, Eros. I am only glad you have decided to give me another chance. And as much as I would love to stay right where we are, I also have seen what your mother did to your bride. This is why you hate me. Why you never gave me a chance, isn’t it?”

  I had no words.

  She squeezed my hands. “If you will let me be a part of your world, I promise to you that I will never be like she was. Ever. But if you won’t, I understand. However, I also see that we’ve no time to waste. We must find your bride. Now.”

  A burst of light exploded from us, and then we were standing, garbed in flesh again.

  “Hephy,” she said sweetly, “will you go find Dionysus and Zeus? We will have need of them very soon. We won’t be gone long, my darling.”

  Hephaestus was now at her side and he gently leaned over, placing a tender kiss on her cheek. She smiled warmly. Then she in turn kissed him full on the mouth.

  I’d seen her truths when I’d slipped into her soul, but to witness her kiss my deformed Uncle, who all of Olympus openly mocked, with such enthusiasm and honesty of affection was mind-blowing to me.

  I blinked.

  She wasn’t the same, was she…

  Hephaestus was suddenly gone and that was when she finally looked at me with a wistful smile. “Take my hand, my boy. We must hurry.”

  Eros

  I stared at Psyche’s very still form. Acheron had enveloped her, but somehow, she had not sunk. Her skin was pale as milk in moonlight, there was no pulse in her neck and I knew my love was gone to the Underworld, but strangely she did not look dead. Only sleeping.

  And she was surrounded by a cloud of butterflies. Radiant electric blue ones. Delicate almost glass-like clear ones and everything else in between.

  “She looks peaceful,” Aphrodite said softly. I looked at her, surprised to note melancholy staring back at me. “When I first came here to this time, I had none of the memories of your mother,” she said slowly. I could not understand why your pantheon hated me so, I was well loved in mine. For the most part. Hera never really cared for me much then or now.”

  She laughed lightly, but quickly turned serious.

  “But weirdly as time has progressed, as I’ve made a home with your uncle, I’ve begun getting glimpses. Now and then. I can’t control them, but moments of intense stress bring them on, I’m not sure.”

  “What are you getting at?” I asked her quietly.

  The butterfly alter that Psyche rested on was rising slowly into the air and that’s when I realized that Aphrodite was directing them to bring her to us.

  Mother had told me that Psyche had fled Olympus, that she’d decided to live a life amongst her mortals. She’d even come to me on the day that Psyche had passed away, ‘to celebrate her rebirth’ she’d said.

  I’d tried to see Hades, tried to explain to him that I would not interfere, that I wished merely to ensure she was well, that she was happy in Elysia. She’d been too pure to have been sent to Tartarus.

  But he’d refused me and I had to wonder if that had all been mother’s doing too. If somehow, she’d paid off Hades to keep the knowledge from me, that Psyche had not died, but that instead she’d been hidden in plain sight right under my nose all those years.

  The pain of that knowledge was almost unbearable.

  “I’ve had a flash,” she said slowly.

  The butterflies alighted on the beach, even we gods were not exempt from the dark powers of the rivers’ waters.

  A giant gust rolled through, drying Psyche’s wet body almost instantly. I looked at Aphrodite and she dipped her head and I knew she was telling me it was now safe to touch her.

  I ran the few steps between us to her, and gently cradled her to my body. It’d been many centuries since I’d held Psyche, but I’d never forgotten how to. Psyche had always been the other half of me.

  I’d been dead without her. A ghost really. Breathing but not living.

  I brushed strands of hair from her eyes and mouth, my heart clenching as I stared at the most beautiful face I’d ever known in my life. But it wasn’t merely the aesthetics of Psyche that drew me. I’d never been happier than when she’d smile at me. Because even when she’d been cross with me, I’d always seen love’s light reflected back at me in the depths of her dark brown eyes.

  I’d been cold, numb so long. But I felt heat stirring within me. Felt its burn in my eyes, in the back of my throat.

  I looked up just as I sensed Aphrodite’s presence kneel beside me.

  I stared into the eyes of kindness and compassion. These were not the same eyes I’d looked into all my life. This was not my mother. She only wore my mother’s face.

  “Aphrodite did great wrong to you both. She placed Psyche through a trial. Mindless sport meant only to entertain herself with. Hoping that the young girl would be killed along the way. But your Psyche was far more resourceful than your mother bargained for.”

  “What trials?” I asked, voice cracking, fighting the tears as I felt the ice around my heart beginning to thaw for the first time in a long time. How could I live without her now? I had her back. Even if she was dead, I could still be with her spirit. I could make a home in Elysia.

  Hades might not like it, he had never been fond of the living mixing amongst his dead, but if I explained to him, surely, he would understand. After all, he was desperately in love with his own bride, Calyssa. Of all the gods, Hades and I were the most alike. We’d never enjoyed the frivolity of the gods, we had both truly lost our hearts to another and neither of us wished to go back a time without them in it.

  We knew what it was to love.

  He would have to understand my plight.

  Aphrodite shrugged. “Your mother sent her on an impossible quest. She created a mountain of multiple grains and told the girl she had twelve hours to separate them into individual piles or she would be fed to the harpies. And somehow, the girl did it, with the aid of spelled ants.”

  “Ants?” I asked with a frown.

  She nodded. “Whoever sent them to aid her never spoke up, but someone obviously had.”

  I smirked, imagining the rage mother must have felt when she’d seen her game thwarted. “She bested you.”

  She snorted. “Not just once.” Aphrodite stroked the girl’s cheek, a far off look in her eyes. “But three other times.” Glittering blue eyes locked with mine. “Each trial worse than the one before it. The second was to take a snippet from each golden fleece of the herd of sheep who lived across the river Styx.”

  “Charon’s herd?” I blinked in disbelief. “He loves those damned things. He’s killed for less.”

  She snorted, laughing softly. “I know. And yet your girl beguiled him with those pretty doe eyes of hers and he himself told her how to safely sheer them.”

  I chuckled. “Sounds like her. What else did you make her do? Or…erm,” I stuttered, clearing my throat.

  She didn’t correct me, merely smiled. “Third was even more absurd, if you can imagine. She had her grab water from the summit of Styx at the very highest point of the cliff, knowing yet again it to be impossible. But an eagle swooped in and carried her to the apex and once more she won.”

  I laughed, feeling more than mere sorrow roil through me now. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “It was a glorious victory,” she laughed, voice sounding like resonate crystal and I felt drawn to it just as I always had.

  Together we laughed, sharing a moment of bonding I’d always yearned for.

  “You should have seen her face when she’d realized the girl had thwarted her every maneuver.”

  I laughed. “I can only imagine the war path she’d gone on.”

  “Oh yes, the gods she punished for helping the girl out. I think Hermes still piddles himself when he thinks of it.”

  “Mother!” I said, the name coming out so naturally and easily. Because in this moment I’d forgotten that this woman wasn’t that. She a
nd I were having a true moment of bonding, of joy even amidst my heartache.

  The laughter died instantly between us. Her wide blue eyes stared deeply into my own and I felt her soul as my own, I felt her yearning, her desperate desire to be just that to me. In that moment, I felt her love like never before.

  Frozen, unsure of what to do, I sat there. Clinging to my wife’s body with a bruising grip, wishing she were here right now with me in truth. But I would be with her soon. Death was not final for one such as me.

  “I…I,” she said and then shook her head, pushing a strand of lush blond hair from her face, “Hephaestus, come, my love.”

  Confused, I shook my head. Hephaestus, why was she suddenly calling out to him. But I understood the moment he returned with not just Zeus in tow, but Dionysus too.

  Then she stood and turned toward the three men, her back to us.

  “My counterpart was never clever enough to realize who it was helping our sweet Psyche out, but I realized the truth almost right away. I will not ask you what you hoped to gain from thwarting me at every turn Dionysus, some secrets are our own to keep.”

  I gasped, glancing over toward Dionysus, I’d believed he’d betrayed my trust. I’d never quite trusted him. And yet, looking back I could see that he’d always been in the thick of everything. From the very beginning.

  Dionysus looked at me, and we shared a look. One deeply heartfelt and full of raw emotion. I remembered my pledge to him, that when the day come that he needed my help I would give it.

  I nodded silently to him. I would do it.

  I would keep my pledge.

  “Zeus,” Aphrodite said in her sweet, slightly seductive voice, “I called you here because I would ask a favor of you. For my son’s sake.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath.

  I was not truly hers. And yet, I did not think that mattered one whit to her. She wanted my affection and I knew I already had hers. She’d tried for so long now to give it to me, the only impediment to our bonding was me.

  Zeus shook his head. “Nothing is given for free, Aphrodite. Surely, you know that. And you’ve got nothing to offer me. Unless, you’ve decided to open your bed to new and exciting partners once more—”