I shook my head, mouth opening and shutting, desperate to make the words Themis’s power had prevented me from making.
Calyssa and Hades went to Dite and gathered her up into their arms, and the first sound of her sob broke my soul in two. I clenched my armrests so hard that they cracked at the center. Like a bolt of lightning, it forked cracks all down the throne. There was a loud groan, and I had just enough time to stand before it shuddered once and collapsed to the marble floor.
Dite. Dite. I cried out her name in my mind, with all my heart, hoping somehow that she would hear me, that she would know I was finally ready to listen. That now I needed to know more. Feeling stupid and dumb for refusing to let her show me before, I felt panic clawing at me. But the story had seemed so incredulous. Impossible. How could a god not feel such a change in time? How could I not know if the woman I’d once loved more than life itself but who’d been poison, venom, had so completely altered that she was an entirely different soul? A different being completely?
How could I have not known that?
But she didn’t look back at me as she walked into the travel tunnel that would lead her away from me for the rest of the day. We would reconvene on the morrow. And then it would be my turn, my memories on display, and I didn’t want to do that to her. Didn’t want her to see a version of herself that now I wasn’t sure had ever been her at all.
Only once she’d left did Ares go too.
I shook my head.
And because the words were there but unable to be formed, all I could do was roar. Scream out to the heavens. I could not stop this now. It had to be played out.
What had I done?
I was up all night, unable to sleep. To stop thinking about her, so tiny and fragile and fucking beautiful, sitting on that throne like a proud queen. Until the end, when she’d cried those tears that had felt like salt rubbed onto an open wound.
I sat at my workbench, staring at the tiny pewter rose I’d crafted. The stem so delicate. The thorns sharp enough to tear through flesh, and the petals utter perfection.
I wouldn’t be able to speak a word until the trial ended, but I could tell her I was sorry. I could at least show her how much I regretted my actions.
Closing my eyes, I shuddered as I thought about what she’d be forced to endure today.
And though my heart broke for her, I would be a lying bastard if I said that seeing how she’d first seen me through her own eyes hadn’t made my heart quicken. My pulse pound.
And now that day in my forge where she’d touched me with such tender devotion made so much more sense. Because it hadn’t been an act at all. It had been so real. So real.
Staring through bleary eyes back at the polished rose, I brought it to my lips and very gently kissed the center of the bud. She would never know, but if I saw her press that rose to her mouth, then I would know that just once more I’d gotten to kiss my most beloved’s lips.
Heart shattered in my chest, I got to my weary feet and turned back for Themis’s hall of justice.
I arrived long before the rest of them and placed that silly rose, which could never begin to compare to her beauty or hope to make up for the pain I’d caused her, onto her seat.
Then I turned back for my side. I had no throne to sit on anymore. And that was no one’s fault but my own.
I stood there, and I waited. Hours later, it was as though none of us had ever left.
Dite was back. Dressed in midnight silks, with Hades’s dark flowers braided through her golden hair. I’d thought he’d been her lover, imagined that when she’d chosen not to take me into her bed anymore, it was because she’d chosen him and everyone else to fill it.
I swallowed hard. My fears hadn’t been silly or even arisen from mere jealousy. The foundation had been laid by another, but I was starting to believe that maybe that other was no longer a part of my world.
Which would be delightful, except that now she’d have to witness that other goddess. And I didn’t want her to. I wanted to protect her from all of that. If this was the Aphrodite I’d really witnessed yesterday, and everything told me it was, I wanted to protect her beautiful heart at all costs.
She leaned over, peering down at her throne, and I knew she’d seen my gift. She reached for it, twirled, and stared at me. A question burning in her eyes. And slowly, ever so slowly, I saw her lift the rose to her nose.
I’d not thought to add scent, but I could. She sniffed. I was angry with myself for forgetting to add her favorite scent to my gift. I was just about to look away when I saw her gently, almost reverently kiss the centermost part of the rose.
My heart hammered painfully in my chest, and I suddenly felt hot all over, as if I couldn’t breathe right. Her eyes found mine, and she tipped her head, and I thought that maybe, incredibly, she’d known exactly what I’d done.
“Dite,” I mouthed her beloved name.
But she wasn’t looking at me. She was sitting. And Themis was there. And the colors were shifting. And I closed my eyes, because I couldn’t bear to watch.
Aphrodite
* * *
It was me, but it was not me.
I was lying in a bed of mink furs. Covered in bodies of all sorts. I’d always found beauty in even the ugliest. I guessed it was part of my own god-imbued abilities. But I was the goddess of romanticism, love, lust and desire.
Her laughter was cruel. Sharp. Cutting. And it made me cringe just to hear it.
“That male could never please me as you do, Hippolyta,” she said with a cruel sneer to her lips as she grabbed hold of the female’s breasts and tenderly massaged them.
The pretty human moaned, arching off the bed as the woman who was not me made passionate, drunken love to her.
An orgy of at least fifty was what met my eyes. And that didn’t bother me—I’d indulged in orgies aplenty even in the other time. Sexuality was nothing to fear or ridicule or mock, but what did bother me was her cruelty.
Because Hephaestus was in the room too. And her words, those nasty terrible words, were said right in front of him.
“See, this, Hephy,” she said in a long, sultry drawl, “is how you draw pleasure from a female body. You’re a brute. An oaf. Females are soft and lovely, and if you do this”—she reached down and pinched the female’s clitoris, making her moan long and hard—“you’ll draw out the excitement. How long have you lived that you still do not know this yet? You’re hopeless, my dear one.”
He clenched his jaw, looking at her with misery and disgust burning bright in his lightning-streaked eyes. “I will not be mocked by you any longer, Aphrodite. If you do not wish me in your bed, then just say so.”
She laughed. And my heart bled raw to hear that terrible sound pour out of the lips that were my own. Because I would never have treated Hephy so in the other time, not even when we weren’t together.
He’d always been my treasure, long before I’d ever even realized it fully.
“Don’t be a fool, Hephaestus. Of course I want you. I will always want you, but you really should know your way around a female. I’m only doing you a favor. You know this, right?” she said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes, as if he were ten times a fool and she could no longer be bothered by his nonsense. Then she dove between the woman’s thighs and finished her off.
And I heard those words, but I felt them like a blade to my soul, because she’d not meant a single one of them. And he wasn’t foolish enough to believe it, yet he sat there, shaking his head, looking at her, and I knew him well enough to know he was lost. That he was thinking. About their future. About his. About hers. What I saw reflected in his stormy gaze was pain, unimaginable pain, as he watched her pleasure another. And then many more after that one.
And I wanted to hold him. Hug him. Protect him from her. From me.
I’d been hurt by Hephaestus for putting me away. Unable to understand why he wouldn’t listen to me, and yet now that I’d seen this cruel and twisted version of myself, it all made so much sense now.
I closed my eyes and listened to the laughter rumbling off in the distance. The gods witnessing what she’d done to him were absolutely loving this. It was titillating and tickled their fancy.
But it wasn’t her that they saw. They saw me. They believed I could stand this. That I enjoyed this. In their hearts, they thought I felt as they did. That when I looked upon Hephaestus, I only saw a brute, a beast of burden, something less than human. That he was little more than an animal created to service their every need.
But I did not.
So I did not look, because that was not me. She might have worn my face, spoken in my tongue, and loved Ares in the only way the pettiness of her small, little heart had allowed. But that woman… that woman was not me.
Behind me, I felt the terrible whipping of Ares’s winds. I could not understand him, this different version of him. Two days now I’d sat in this seat, and two days he’d picked a spot just behind me. I could see from the fury that burned bright in his dark eyes that he did not love me. That was not why Ares stood so stoic behind me. And I wished I knew why. Wished I could understand why he’d agreed to this sham, this debacle, because though I sensed his anger, I did not sense hate.
So what was this for him? A reckoning? An accounting of my deeds?
I felt the children dance within me, and suddenly, I thought I knew. At least his motivation as to why. The rest, I still didn’t know. And I wasn’t sure I cared. I just wanted this to be done. Over with. I wished I hadn’t agreed to this.
Especially with the shocked gasps and murmurings as her misdeeds continued to be broadcast to one and all. I did not like that woman, hated her, even, but there were parts of her that were also me.
The virgins of the pantheon could never understand my obsession with touch. But it had been so much more than sexual desire that had driven me. Few had ever truly known that about me. It had been connection. Spiritual. A way to have someone look beyond my beauty for just a moment and see the real me beneath. It was one of the few times I’d been absolutely and completely myself around all the others. Except, of course, for the very rare few who I’d let in all the way. Completely and totally.
The moans of sexual delights being played out in Hephaestus’s memories and the grunts from the males and females behind me were parts scorn and larger parts desire—though many of them would rather die than admit it aloud where the rest of the pantheon could hear.
And then I realized I was hanging my head. Acting as if they were hurting me. But they couldn’t hurt me. Because I was a wolf, and wolves didn’t care about the opinion of sheep. Wolves ate sheep.
So I opened my eyes, and I watched that damn memory, and I held my head up high and decided once and for all that once I was done with this trial, I wasn’t coming back here. Ever again.
There was nothing for me here on Olympus anymore. So let them mock and jeer and deride me all they wanted. I just sat there wearing my haughtiest smile, knowing every last one of them would sell their souls to have a taste of me, whether they admitted it to themselves or not.
But I had friends. I had family who truly loved me now. I did not need the false affection of those who’d never cared. I only needed the few who honestly did.
Hephaestus
* * *
She blazed so brightly that even Apollo had to squint. I’d watched her carefully from the moment the visions had begun. Waiting, maybe even expecting, her to wither from the shame and embarrassment of what she’d see.
And for a moment, she’d seemed to. She’d looked down at her feet, just as she had the day previous. Those dainty, precious little feet that I’d witnessed her kicking back and forth so idyllically in her own memory from yesterday. Then suddenly, she’d transformed like a burning phoenix.
Her gown of glittering midnight had roiled like heated smoke, and she’d blazed hotter than my furnace. A golden goddess of fire had stared up at that memory, haughty, aloof, and cold.
But not like the female I’d known. There wasn’t anything malicious or pretentious in her stance. This woman knew her worth, and she refused to be cowed into submission by the censure of all the others who judged us.
I was stunned.
Amazed.
My knees felt weak, but my feet like concrete. I couldn’t budge, couldn’t move, could only stare at her transfixed, not by her burning glory or her sparkling radiance but by her bravery.
And when it was all over, she finally turned those lambent blue eyes upon me and shook her head.
I did not know what that meant. What she was saying.
Her look was not harsh or even cruel, but I sensed disappointment in her. And that cut worse than any of her punishing words to me ever had. Because when she’d cut me down before, I had loved her, but I had not liked her at all. All I’d felt for her had been pity. Because she could have been so much more than just a pretty face. Deep down, I’d always known it.
I brought my hand to my chest, right over the spot where my heart beat steadily and burned with a deep and lasting ache I did not think I could ever fully heal from.
And this time, when it was at an end and we parted for the day, she did not hug Calyssa or Hades. Instead, she opened up the tunnel, looking regal and stoic, and disappeared once more from my sight.
I tried to move. Tried to run to her. To chase her down. Wanting so desperately to speak with her, beg her forgiveness for this. For all of this. But Themis’s power was absolute.
I could not go to her, or she come to me.
Trembling all over, I looked at my brother, the only one still remaining, and shook my head.
Until all that had transpired between Aphrodite and my, Ares and my bond had been warm, even at times affectionate. I didn’t know what I was saying or even thinking, but he shrugged slowly.
“Who is this female with us now, brother?” he asked in his deeply accented tone—the first time Ares had spoken to me in months.
I blew out a heavy breath. I had no answer. I did not move.
He closed his eyes and, without uttering another word, turned on his heel and left me too.
I was alone. As always. Something I’d rarely minded before. But now, it felt lonely in a way it had never felt before.
Feeling weary and tired to my very core, I turned and opened up a tunnel to my forge. I did not know how much more of this I could take.
11
Hephaestus
I’d dreamt of her last night.
Laughing and talking. Embracing as lovers would. Heard her sweet dulcet tone, just as she’d spoken to me the other day when she’d told me to be still. I’d felt her curves. Heard her breathy moans. Felt the dewy warmth of her feminine core take me in completely.
She’d loved me. Completely. Absolutely.
I’d awoken realizing I was covered in sweat, and that my sheets had grown tacky from an orgasm just dreaming of her had caused me to have. Holding my head in my hands, I stared at the previously white, now stained, sheet. I’d have to burn it. I was filled with shame. Shame because she’d not deserved this. And also shame because my body still burned for what I could never again have.
Not loving Aphrodite had never been my problem. My problem had always simply been learning to let her go. Realizing I hadn’t been the one for her. Knowing deep down that I hadn’t been fooled, because I’d always known she wasn’t really mine—I’d simply lived in denial, trying to force on her a situation that I’d known hadn’t been right for either of us.
What would I see in her memories today?
She’d liked me once, but had that liking eventually turned to hate, just as it had in this time? I did not know. But I could not imagine it being any different. Because to do so hurt too much. To believe that I’d lost the love of my existence because of my pride and arrogance was almost more than I could bear.
I growled, stalking from the bed on my twisted, lame feet, wincing with every step I took. It always hurt in the mornings. I yanked off the sheets I still had wrapped around myself, immediately tossed them i
nto the forge, and watched as the flames ate away at the evidence of my truth.
I still loved her.
And I knew now that I always would. Divorcing her, setting her aside, it hadn’t helped me. Hadn’t helped me at all.
I stared at myself in the mirror—covered in grime from the heat of an everlasting flame, hair far too long and unkempt. Thick black beard that was in desperate need of a trim. Body huge and ungainly. I could not fathom what that female had once seen in me.
I brushed at my cheeks with my large, oafish fingers and growled again. The least I could do was look presentable. She was everything, and right now, I looked like nothing at all.
I showered and chopped off my hair, which had gone unbrushed for far too long. It was short but a little longer in the front. I wasn’t much for cutting hair, but I’d done what I could. Next, I clipped my whiskers until I no longer had a thick bush but now something more manicured and groomed.
A hard, chiseled jawline stared back at me. I looked as though I’d been carved from stone. I was so hard. Everywhere. There was nothing graceful about me or my large, oafish frame. I shook my head. There was no beauty whatsoever in this body or face. But at least I no longer looked like a dirty troll.
I didn’t have much time, but I used what time I did have to fashion decent-looking clothing. Aphrodite always looked her best. The very least I could do was not shame her any further in front of the glittering throng.
So I crafted a suit. And not from metal, but cloth. Steel gray, with a paisley navy tie. Then I put on my legs and quickly dressed. When I was done, I stared once more at the man who hardly looked like me at all, and yet looked no different, either. I still had the slightly crooked nose. The cleft in my jaw.
I was a polished turd. I blew out a heavy breath and was just about to travel back to Themis’ hall when I saw the mechanized swan I’d created last night from some spare parts I’d had lying around my shop.
The Forge King (The Dark Kings Book 6) Page 13