“I didn’t sleep with her, but she’s here.” Poseidon watched him carefully.
“I’m not going to freak out or anything. You know she does these every couple hundred years. Whatever.” His gut twisted. Ares knew something about this time was different. He was afraid this was really the end.
He didn’t know how to deal with that, but he knew his usual posturing and knuckle-dragging bullshit wasn’t going to work. She hadn’t thought it was cute to threaten and inter-pantheon incident for her honor. Usually, she thought that was romantic. Or she’d laugh, exasperated with him and tumble into bed and it was all fine.
Poseidon arched a green brow. “Are you sure about that?”
“Well, it sucks a minotaur apple, but what can I do about it that’s not going to piss her off further?”
“I don’t know, man. But I will tell you she’s not here with Aeron.”
“Wait, what?” She’d had some mad affair with him on Avalon. That was why he’d threatened the inter-pantheon violence.
She’d come to Atlantis.
Alone.
He knew it wasn’t to see him. So who was she there to see? Was it to punish him? He had to talk to her.
Morri was unusually silent.
“Can we have the room?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I don’t know if she wants to talk to you. You’re my brother, Ares, but all of my guests are entitled to a harassment free party environment.” Poseidon eyed him.
“I’m not going to start any wars or anything on the dance floor. I need to make sure she’s okay.”
“She’s a goddess, Ares. You don’t have to play rescuing knight,” his brother warned.
“Yes, I do. After millennia together, I do.”
“Fine, I’ll ask her if she’ll speak with you. But I mean it. Don’t make me smite you.”
Ares rolled his eyes. “Whatever, big brother.”
“Morrigan, may I offer you more ambrosia?” Poseidon asked.
Morri smiled at him. “Yes, yes you can. And a tour of the pearl gardens?”
Poseidon gave her a lopsided grin, that she obviously found endearing. “If you like. You may choose a bauble, if it suits you.”
“I do so enjoy being bribed. I tried to get pink pearls out of your brother before we came, but he wasn’t up to the task.”
“Morri,” Ares thundered.
She laughed. “Can you believe it? Asked him for a pearl necklace and I got nothing.”
“I can most definitely help you with that.” Poseidon offered her his arm and Morri, for her part, offered Ares a smug smirk.
The saddest part of this was that his brother was such a gentleman, he was really going to give her a pearl. It wasn’t even a euphemism. He sighed as a cold prickle crawled up his spin. He didn’t like the idea of Morri going off with him.
Euphemism or not.
“So, no banging my best friend, brother dearest.”
Poseidon turned on his heel and wrinkled his nose. “I haven’t even taken her to dinner yet. You’re so uncouth.”
“No, I mean it.” Ares found that he did. His brother and Morri? Not okay.
“So, I can’t have Aphrodite or Morrigan and you’re not with either one of them? Anyone else on your list?” Poseidon taunted.
Ares snapped his mouth shut and gritted his teeth. The sound that came out was more a growl than anything else. “I’ll let you know.”
Morri put her hand on his brother’s gold and abalone gauntlet. “You were showing me the garden?”
She turned and looked back over her shoulder, winking at Ares and making a blowjob motion with her tongue pushing on the inside of her cheek.
That was not the imagery he wanted.
Why was she screwing with him now when he was about to talk to Aphrodite?
The door closed behind them and he waited for what seemed like forever before Aphrodite entered the room. Of course, he knew he was lucky she came at all.
But she did come and she was like a ray of sunshine when she opened the door, a golden nimbus around her blond hair. Her cheeks pink from ambrosia, and her eyes surprisingly sad.
“Don’t make a scene. Please, Ares.”
He was going to ask her why she thought he’d make a scene and then he remembered that time he carried her out of her biggest temple in Greece. That time in Moscow when he’d… Yeah, okay. So maybe that was valid.
“I wanted to check on you. Poseidon says you’re here alone.” He pursed his lips. “You don’t look so great.” Shit. Not the right thing to say. Her eyes narrowed. “No, you’re always beautiful, but you look… sad.”
There. He was paying attention to her emotions. That should make her happy.
“I am sad.” She nodded.
Okay… now what the fuck was he supposed to do about it? Ares was a fixer. Present a problem. Present the desired solution. Ares could implement that. He could do the thing, accomplish the goal, happiness returned.
What was he supposed to do with, “I am sad.”? He didn’t know.
So he asked. “How can I fix it?”
“You can’t.”
“That’s not an acceptable answer. Try another.”
That earned him a small, fragile smile. “I can’t do this right now.”
“I’m not asking to do anything right now except make you happy. I didn’t ask you to come back to me. I didn’t even suggest it as a way to fix your problem. Tell me your solution to what’s making you sad.” He approached it like he would a battle campaign. Isolate the problem, eliminate it. Should be easy enough.
“I wanted to come out tonight and have some fun with my friends, but I can’t seem to find the fun. Everything’s part of this dark cloud.” Her shoulders slumped.
In the past, this was when he’d kiss her. Kisses always made her feel better, but he knew the time for that had passed. That wouldn’t soothe her. It would just make her angry. After all, he’d come here to find some stranger to take home and go to bed with to ease his hurts.
But Aphrodite was hurting too.
“You want to hang out with me and Morri?”
She laughed. “No. Not really.” Aphrodite looked down at her hands. “It’s okay, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“You. Her.” Aphrodite pursed her lips. “It’s my own fault.”
“Still not following.”
She smacked her palm into her forehead. “Of course you’re not. You and Morri are meant to be. You belong together. So when you do figure that out for yourself, I want you to know I understand. I accept it. I’ll be happy for you.”
“Have you lost your mind?” He peered at her, then pressed his hand to her cheek, checking her for fever. “Are you ill?”
“I did it. When we were young. I commanded you to love each other.”
“And so we do. We’re the best of friends.”
“You are the stubbornest male ever to walk on two feet. Do you know that?” She turned into his palm, but only for a moment before she pushed his hand away.
“Let’s not worry about me, right now. Talk to me, Aphrodite. You say I don’t listen, but I’m really trying.”
“I know you are.” She nodded. “But you still don’t hear me.” Aphrodite sighed. “You’ll figure it out. But for tonight, I think I’m just going to go home. I really don’t want you starting some kind of—”
He interrupted her. “I won’t do that. I swear.”
“This is like picking at an open wound for me. If we could just let it scab over, maybe we’d both heal.” She reached out and cupped his cheek, her power flowing through her hand and over him.
It was all that was Aphrodite. It was gentle and loving, but strong too. He wanted so much to hold her, to go back in time and give her everything that she needed. He’d had her love, her devotion, and he’d…
He’d taken it for granted. There was a dark, empty place inside of him now, the place that had always been lit by her.
“I love you, Aphrodite.”
; “I know, and I love you.” She dropped her hand, her eyes full of sorrow. “But we’re not in love and we’re toxic for each other. For the longest time, I couldn’t see it. How stupid is that? I’m the Goddess of Love. I should know these things.” Aphrodite shook her head. “No, I did know. I just didn’t want to.”
“We’ve had eons together. That’s not something you just throw away.”
“We’re not throwing it away. We’re burying the dead.”
“You’re serious.” All the times they’d split up before… he exhaled heavily. Ares had suspected she really meant it this time. (Which was different than all the other times she’d assured him she meant it, but he’d been able to win her back.)
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say.”
“Why did you come to Atlantis? You know this is my hangout.”
“Maybe I hoped I’d see you. Maybe I thought if I saw you with someone else, it would strengthen my resolve. It would hurt me enough to be strong.”
Ares had never regretted much, but in this moment, he hated himself. He hated that anything he’d ever done had made her feel this way.
He realized that she was right. Not that they were toxic to each other, but he was toxic to her. He’d dimmed her shine and dulled her sparkle. If any other creature in this universe or the next had done that to her, he’d have ended them ugly.
This was something he couldn’t fix.
He could only let go.
Aphrodite was always how he’d defined his world. He was War, she was Love, they fit together. She was always there. No matter how they fought, they always came back together. She was always his.
Now, she wasn’t and if he ever cared at all for her, he’d just have to let it be.
“Let me take you home.”
“Ares—”
“No.” He shook his head. “Let me see you to your door. You don’t want to be here.” He took a deep breath. His next words were like jumping into a pit of broken glass. “If this is it, we don’t need to see each other grieving. The way I deal with things, it’ll just hurt you more, and you’ll want to pay me back and then we’ll be caught up in the same cycle.”
She actually looked relieved. That was when he knew he’d said the right thing, was doing the right thing.
It still sucked.
“Okay. Take me home, Ares.”
He knew that was the last time she’d ever say that to him. It was the kind of knowing that came with being a god. There were certain irrefutable truths that once they became solid and tangible, they were branded on his brain.
This truth burned, scalded his bones.
He’d never felt this before, this agony. Ares had to say that he didn’t approve. A god of war wasn’t supposed to have these emotions.
Aphrodite leaned into him and his drew her close carefully, teleporting them to her temple on Ambrosia Lane.
He didn’t walk up the temple steps. Instead, he stood at the bottom of those pink marble stairs like proper gentleman and watched her close the door on him, and their life together, without a sound.
4
MORRI
She rather enjoyed walking with Poseidon in the Pearl Gardens. The enclosure was a bubble dome with a view of the vast ocean and colorful sea life. Curious creatures swam by the dome, and strange beings unknown to man pressed themselves against the surface. The room itself smelled like ambrosia, and seed pearls poured in waterfalls from giant bivalves into a river of pink, black, and iridescent pearls. Seated up on plush beds, other bivalves were open, displaying their basketball-sized blue, gold, and silver pearls when their lord and master Poseidon walked by.
“These are so lovely.” She dipped her fingers into the river of flowing seed pearls.
Poseidon smiled. “If I were a different sort of god, I might say they’re not as lovely as you.”
Morrigan flushed. “Now, you’re being silly.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But you are lovely. Hasn’t my idiot brother told you that?”
“We’re not… it’s not like that.” She shoved her hands in her pockets, suddenly uncomfortable, and chastised him. “You know that.”
“You can be friends and still notice that a goddess is beautiful.”
Morrigan was uncomfortable with those kinds of compliments because the gods she dated were more earthy, to put it kindly. “War gods don’t talk like that.”
“Then you should date other gods.” He smiled at her.
She narrowed her eyes, squinting at him. “Are you flirting with me just because Ares told you not to?”
He laughed. “It’s not flirting. Just an honest observation.”
She liked the sound of his laugh. It was deep and masculine, but there was real mirth in the sound. Actually, she liked a lot about Poseidon. He was laid back, easy going. Until he wasn’t. He could unleash the motherfucking Kraken when it had to be done. He was a badass without being a dick. Basically, almost the opposite of his little brother.
“Well, thank you. That’s what I’m supposed to say to that, right?”
“Perfectly acceptable.”
They wandered over to a wading pool that was a passage to the strange underwater world outside. A pink, glowing jellyfish blorped to the surface. It had to be ten feet across, which she supposed wasn’t huge by godly standards.
“You can touch it.” He took her hand and reached out so that her fingers barely brushed the gelatinous cap.
It shivered, using its tentacles to splash her and she laughed.
“She likes you.” He said, helping her to pet the jellyfish again. “She won’t sting you. Not that it would bother you if she did.”
“She?”
He shrugged. “I call them all she, and they don’t seem to mind. This one is almost as old as we are.”
The jellyfish shuddered, spraying water everywhere, almost like a dog shaking its fur dry.
Morrigan laughed again and wiggled her fingers as if to tickle the blorping mass, and indeed, it blorped and wiggled, tentacles coming out of the water to give her the same.
“Looks like you’ve made a new friend. We could go swim with her, if you like. Be merfolk for the evening?”
The idea enthralled her. “I bet you take all the girls swimming.”
Poseidon flashed her a look that was so Ares it stabbed her, just a little. Of course they’d have expressions in common, since they were brothers.
“Of course, I do. Mermaids go topless.” The corner of his mouth turned up in a smirk.
She snorted and slapped his arm, the jellyfish slapping at his other arm, as if to accentuate whatever Morri said. “You sound like your brother.”
“Where do you think he got it? I’m the oldest. I set a terrible example.”
“As if. You’ve been divorced for…” She tried to count on her fingers, but got lost in the sands of time. “Seemingly forever, I guess. You don’t hook up with just any goddesses. In fact, when was the last time someone released your Kraken?”
He shrugged. “Not sure. It’s been awhile. I had my wild phase right after the divorce. Now, I’m just the chill sea god who is like everyone’s benevolent grandpa.”
“You’re not like that at all.” She shook her head. “I mean, look at Nyx. She’s older than you, and she and Apollo just got married.”
He arched a brow. “No one’s talking marriage. I thought we were just talking about the Kraken?”
She slapped his arm again.
“You’re a bad influence on her, Morri. Look, she’s getting saucy.” The jellyfish wound all of her tentacles around his arms and he sighed. “Go on, now. Miss Morri will come see you later.”
The dog-like jelly blorped under the water and Morri watched her disappear. She’d never touched something like that before, not in all of her long years. Poseidon was definitely a new experience.
“Why don’t we hang out more?” She cocked her head to the side.
“Probably because you hate coming to my club.” She opened her mouth to defend her
self, but he held up his hand. “It’s okay. I get it. I wouldn’t want to come back here if I’d hooked up with Hercules, either. And Ares—” Poseidon shrugged with a heavy sigh “—he’s always cruising for the next notch on his bedpost. It’s not fun being the wingman. Especially when he shoots down all the gods who want to ask you out.”
“He what?”
“Oh, you know. Like the last time you were here, there was that god from the Incan pantheon… or was he Mayan? I can never remember. But your ravens got along, so he wanted to ask you out. Like a double date.”
“And what did Ares do?” She crossed her arms over her chest.
“You know, what does Ares always do? He had a chat with the guy. There are still men who pray to Ares, but not what’s-his-face, so you know how that went. Needless to say, the guy hasn’t been back to the club since.”
She clenched her fists and growled in frustration. “That’s it. The next time he’s trying to close a deal, no—the next ten times he’s trying to close a deal, I’m going to make sure he crashes and burns. Then maybe he can mind his own business.”
“Morrigan,” he said kindly. “Have you ever thought that if they can’t stand up to Ares, how would they ever be strong enough to be a match with you? You guys are a boxed set.”
She growled again. “He could let me figure that out for myself. What if I just wanted to get laid? He does it. So why can’t I?”
“Because he feels guilty about letting you go home with Hercules.” Poseidon cringed. “So do I, actually.”
“Letting me? In case it’s escaped your attention, I’m a goddess. Not just a goddess, but I have dominion over some of the most terrifying aspects of life. Hearth and war, life and death.”
“That’s why Ares doesn’t want to share you with anyone. You’re the perfect goddess. All things womanly, but just as strong as he is. Yin to his yang.”
“No, that’s Aphrodite.”
“If you say so.” He drew her further into the gardens toward chest upon chest of gold and jewels. “Come, to cheer you, choose a gift.”
The array of golden coins, diamonds, lost treasure and every kind of pearl she could imagine was almost too much to take in. “You already gave me a gift. I’ve seen gold and treasure. There’s plenty in my part of the world. But you gave me an experience I never had before with the jelly. That’s the best kind of gift.”
Ambrosia Lane 1-3: Saranna DeWylde Page 50