You are. You’re hurting me, Hades, tearing up my insides with that same barbed wire and twisting it around my heart. But it’s not your fault because when you would have let go, I demanded you twist it again for good measure.
As if she’d ever tell him anything of the sort. “Nothing. I’m hungry.”
“You’re not breeding are you?” He sounded scandalized—something out of a Georgette Heyer novel.
“I’m not a horse, Hades. I don’t breed.”
“That’s not an answer.” He looked stricken.
“No, of course not,” she reassured him. “But Nyx is. Maybe I’m having sympathy cravings.” She wanted to ask him if it would be so bad if she was. Hera realized the futility of her thoughts. Hades wouldn’t be a good father without his heart.
“You guys are that close? Is she going to slap me for making you both walk funny?”
“Sorry, sugar. Apollo is the one who made her walk funny. Waddle, to be specific, the poor dear.”
“Isn’t she a little old to be having godlings?”
“Aren’t you a little shitty to be asking?” Hera rushed to Nyx’s defense.
“Probably.” His gaze drifted down to her lips.
“Oh, no! Don’t even start that. At least not until later,” she said as she pulled away from him. “You offered me dinner and you’re not getting out of it.”
“Fine.” Hades sighed as if she’d taken away a favorite sweet.
She rather liked that comparison. Hera could be happy being his favorite indulgence. Contrary to the earlier path of her thoughts that made her scowl as if she’d been forced to lick between a centaur’s hooves.
“You can’t go out like that.”
“Like what?” he looked down at himself. “Oh. Right. 1800’s gentleman wouldn’t go over well at old Red, would it?”
He blinked out of the room and Hera released a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She shook her head sharply—like that would rattle out whatever was loose and her brain could go back to working in a way that wouldn’t break her heart.
Hera thought of hearts then, but not of her own—of Hades’ heart sitting alone on the mantle. Her gaze was drawn to the box unwillingly. She didn’t want to look—she wanted to leave things alone and let them be.
Although, this goddess was female to the core, she couldn’t leave well enough alone, not when she knew she could ease the pain of the one she loved. Even if it meant she’d lose him.
She took a few halting steps, afraid he was going to catch her peeking. Hera didn’t know how she’d explain it, but then decided she wouldn’t. If he cared so little about the thing he’d shoved it in a box to rot, then why would he care if she wanted to poke at it? He couldn’t feel it.
Hera drew the box down to her and cradled it against her chest before she peaked inside. She blew warm breath on it again as she had before and more of the soot and ash blew away from the gray mass. In one place, she saw something pink and it had spread.
“Give yourself to my keeping,” she whispered.
It shuddered against the confines of its tomb.
“I swear I’ll treat you tenderly. I know there’s darkness in him and I know Persephone was afraid, but I’m not. The only thing I fear is eternity without him.”
With the next shudder, all of the ash and the gray fell away to reveal something smooth and pink. When it shuddered again, Hera realized it wasn’t a shudder at all, but a beat so loud and strong it echoed through the room.
“Oh, you can’t do that just yet. Hades is going to kill me.” Hera looked around for a panicked moment and wondered where she’d hide her lover’s newly animated heart. She’d have to worry about that when they got back. There was no time.
At her distress, the movement stopped and Hera almost let out a wail of abject despair. It was almost as if it could sense all of her feelings. When it felt warmth from her, it knew it was safe to breathe, to be. When it felt her fear it played dead.
Who knew a man’s heart could be so complicated?
“I love him, you’re safe,” she cooed before she snapped the lid shut.
“What are you doing?” Hades demanded as he appeared.
Fuck.
Well, she wasn’t going to lie, but that didn’t mean she had to give up the ghost either.
“Talking to your heart.”
He cocked his head and looked at her as if she were some strange new kind of beetle he’d found mashed under his boot, with that same clinical detachment. For one horrible moment, she thought he would ask her why.
“Take the damn thing if it amuses you. I’ve got no use for it.”
Hera was torn between soaring on wings of elation that he would give his heart into her keeping and feeling the darkest depth of despair that he had such little care for a part of himself.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
It would be easier to hide the fact it now beat; it didn’t have a regular rhythm, but contrary to his desires, it lived.
Hera would make good on her promise, she’d never let anything cruel touch that tender flesh, she’d hold it dear for all of her days. She vowed it on her goddesshood.
“Can you quit playing with it so we can go?” he grumbled.
She smiled and stepped into his arms to teleport.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay in?” Hades asked in a suggestive tone and traced his fingertips up the base of her spine.
“Hades, what part of you broke it wasn’t clear?”
He laughed and rather than being a calculated sound to seduce or mock, there was genuine mirth in his tone. “Did I really? You know I’ll have to brag about this one.”
“There’s no one to brag to, oh Prince of Darkness. Every being in Tartarus heard me screaming that last time. I’m actually rather embarrassed.”
“Your pleasure should never embarrass you, sweetheart. Especially when it’s me doing the pleasuring.”
She slapped his arm. “No, Hades. Stop saying pleasure. Or anything coitus related. It hurts.”
His eyes darkened. “Isn’t that what I promised when you came, sweet Hera? That it would hurt? You said you’d take everything I had to give you.”
They’d gone from splashing in the wading pool to the drowning water in an instant. Rather than struggle to stay above the murky depths, Hera let go. Any momentary discomfort she felt would be worth proving to him she was wholly his and more than that, he could trust her promises.
“Yes, I did promise. And I always keep my promises, Hades.” She drew herself up on her tiptoes to close the distance between their lips. “Always,” she repeated before kissing him hard.
“Good,” he said as he relented. “I didn’t want you to get any little girl ideas simply because I gave you a box with a piece of rotten meat inside.”
“Hades, you have such a way with words. I don’t know how any goddess could resist you.” She rolled her eyes.
A loud thump echoed through the room and Hera’s eyes went wide. His heart must not have cared for her sarcasm, or the comment cut him deeper than she’d intended. They were going to have to come to an understanding when she got back. No way was she going to spend eternity mincing words while he got to call the pot and the kettle whatever he wished.
“What was that?”
“Who cares? I’m hungry. Let’s go.” His eyes scanned the room again. “Listen here; if we don’t teleport right now, I’m going to have a full-blown goddess style temper tantrum. Smiting will ensue.”
Hades laughed again. “You’re so cute. Would you hit me with one of your little mini lightning bolts?”
“My lightning bolts are bigger than Zeus’, just so you know.”
“I’m sure they are, my Queen.”
“I like the sound of that. So, later, when I tell you to get on your knees and lick my boot…”
“You don’t have to be Queen of the Gods for that. You want me to lick anything all you have to do is ask.”
Why did she get into these word game
s with him? He always won. Everything he said or did oozed sex and power. He could wield both sharp as any blade.
“Right now, I want to go somewhere to lick bacon grease off my fingers.” Hera hoped the visual was too icky to encourage any sort of innuendo, but she should have known better.
“Kinky.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“You like my dick.”
“Not right now I don’t.” Hera winced in pain as her battered body protested her arousal.
He laughed again. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll behave—,”
She snorted.
“I promise, I will. But you have to eat your dinner from my hand. I want you taking those scallops from my fingers. Bacon grease and all,” he said with a smug grin.
The thought of taking her food from his hand caused a tremor to go through her. She was convinced Hades was going to be the death of her before the night was over.
21
ABSTINENCE
A bstinence peered into the dark room at the lump on the bed. It hadn’t budged in a week and it was starting to stink. There wasn’t enough AXE in the world to get a female near him in this state.
She was worried about him starving, but only on the psychic level. Physically, he needed to go on NutriSytem or something because all of his years of overindulgence had hit him like a ton of bricks.
Zeus was fat.
And if he didn’t get up and move around, Abstinence was worried he was going to end up like Jabba the Hut, a big slug who couldn’t move far enough to catch his own food. Cruel or not, he’d never be able to get a woman to want to feed him her sexual energy when he looked like the Michelin Man.
Abstinence was sure there were women out there who didn’t care about looks, but if he wanted a hit it and quit it, he needed to be packing the goods to score that kind of thing. He was so pitiful, she almost felt sorry for what she’d done.
Almost.
It was time he learned some basic object lessons about rewards and punishment—that he didn’t automatically get what he wanted simply because he wanted it.
“Zeus?”
“Let me die.”
“You’re so dramatic. Come on, you need to sit up.”
“I can’t,” he grumbled from beneath the sheets.
“You stink like the back end of a dead skunk.” Abstinence turned the light on.
“Turn the light off, I’m hideous!”
Abstinence sighed and rolled her eyes. This was going to be a colossal pain in her ass. “There are only two things hideous about you. Your little temper tantrum and the stench coming from underneath that cover. I’m going to tell you once more to get up and haul your carcass into the shower or I’m going to curse you.”
“You already did.”
“Oh no, sweets. What I gave you was a gift. This, this will be a curse.”
He burrowed deeper into the bed.
“Don’t test me,” she warned.
Zeus tugged the covers down and Abstinence did her best not to show a reaction. It wasn’t that he’d gained weight, because wow, he looked like he’d just opened his mouth under a spigot of sausage gravy and drank until he couldn’t move—every day for a hundred years. It was the hollow emptiness in his eyes.
He was starving.
Abstinence found that to be quite the paradox, not to mention ironic.
“Behave and I’ll feed you.”
“Does this look like it needs to be fed?” He slapped the pile of Jell-O that jiggled in place of his perfect abs.
“Not that, idgit. The other. But not until you get in the shower.”
“I don’t wanna. I hate this body. I’m not washing it.”
“Then you’ll never get fed because you stink. Then you’ll be fat and old.”
“How are you going to feed me? No woman will look at me.”
“I will feed you. Now, don’t be contrary. I’m already losing my patience with your petulance. You’re a god grown, not a baby to be coddled. Take responsibility for yourself.” Abstinence put her hands on her narrow hips.
“You couldn’t possibly want this body and if you did, you couldn’t have it. You’d die.”
“Because you’d crush me? Nah, I’d be fine.”
“Won’t sex kill you?” He was incredulous.
“We don’t have to have sex to have sexual energy to feed you, Zeus.” She laughed. For being such an experienced god, he was sure slow to catch on.
“Yeah, but you’d have to want me,” Zeus replied in a pitiful tone.
“I do want you, dumbass.” Why did he think it was only about how he looked? She didn’t know why she wanted the rest of it, self-centered as he was, but she did.
“All you do is insult me.”
“Can’t seem to help myself,” she said merrily.
“You should abstain,” he grumbled.
“Looks like you haven’t lost your sense of humor with all that whining.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I don’t know, honestly. We’ll talk about it later, when I can stand to breathe in your presence.”
“Good, if you can’t stand breathing, maybe that means you won’t talk anymore.”
“No, I’m going to take your suggestion and abstain.” She ripped the covers off the bed and flung them to the floor. “Get in that shower right now, Zeus or so help me I’ll call Demeter to make it rain in here. You know she’ll do it too.”
He rose in all of his naked glory to pad to the shower and Abstinence found she wanted to pat his round belly as he went. She kind of liked that he wasn’t physical perfection any longer. He was real.
Of course they’d have to get some of the weight off, if only because she’d made him sense himself like a mortal and lugging all that baggage around would make him feel like shit. But if the perfect abs and sculpted ass never came back, she’d be okay with that.
Abstinence had been hit with inspiration several days ago in relation to the whole sex issue. She was pretty sure she could have sex. Mortals who were pro-abstinence on that front usually waited until marriage or a committed relationship.
All she had to do was be in love with the god she had sex with. That wasn’t so bad a gig after all. Now, she didn’t know if she loved Zeus, wasn’t sure she even wanted to, but it felt good to know her eternity wouldn’t be spent in misery.
Abstinence was pleased to notice she was thinking about this job long term as opposed to how long she could hold out. That first real taste of her power and more than that, her purpose, it had been like a drug, but it wasn’t an addiction. It fit like a good pair of boots that had already been broken in.
“Do you have anything besides Avalon Organics? Maybe a nice Dead Sea Salt scrub?” he called from the shower.
“Nope, that’s it.”
“Are you going to join me?”
“I thought you were all unhappy and shy with your new body?”
“You said you’d feed me. I’m hungry.”
“I’ll feed you after we work out,” she called back. Positive reinforcement was her plan of attack.
There was dead silence and then a thud.
She ran into the bathroom. “Oh my gods, what happened? Working out won’t kill you, I promise.”
“I just dropped the soap.”
“Another lesson to be learned.” She nodded sagely, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “Never, ever drop the soap.”
“Why not?”
A million different scenarios of Zeus dropping the soap skittered through her mind and she debated telling him about it, but decided not to.
“Never mind. Just hurry up.”
“So, why would I want to take a shower before I work out? That makes no sense.”
“Be quiet and scrub.”
“One time I let you have the upper hand and now you’re all Bossy McBrat. I’m not going to put up with much more of this.”
“Whether you like it or not, you don’t have much of a choice. If you want to manage this on
your own, you go ahead.”
“How about you just take your little gift back and we’ll call it good.”
Abstinence thought on it for a moment. She knew from her time as a psychiatrist that people didn’t learn the lessons others wanted them to, they had to be ready to learn them. And maybe Zeus wasn’t ready.
“Okay, on one condition.”
“Anything.”
“Don’t go making promises you aren’t going to keep, Zeus. Because if you don’t keep your promise to me, I’ll curse you and you’ll suffer such as you never have before.”
He pushed back the shower curtain. It was odd seeing the King of the Gods with a duck pattern clutched in his mighty hands. She would have snickered had the situation not been so serious.
“I guess that’s fair. What do you want to take this damn thing back?”
“I want you to leave Hera and Hades alone.”
“Hell no.”
“There’s your answer then.” The writing was on the wall, why wasn’t he reading it? This was a simpler lesson than what she’d hoped her gift would teach him.
“How am I supposed to hold on to my crown if every god of every pantheon knows my wife and brother cuckolded me and I did nothing about it?”
“The same way Hera has since eternity was young.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Oh really?” Abstinence’s voice dropped an octave.
“Abi, don’t get your feathers ruffled. It is different. You know Bran has been eying my crown for centuries.”
“And what would he do with it besides have a bunch of fancy titles after his name and a shiny hat to wear? Hera? Hades would kick his ass into his next incarnation.”
“I know, that’s the thing. Hades is stronger than me, Abi.”
“So what? His dick is probably bigger too. Why do you worry? You didn’t want Hera.”
“But she was mine.”
“Back to that again, are we? You’ll never learn.” She sighed. “Nevertheless, I want your word you’ll leave them alone.”
“No.”
“Then I guess you’re stuck.”
“Damn it.”
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