He sniffed. “You’re lucky you’re Zeus’s favorite bastard, or I’d have smitten you for daring to utter such blasphemous lies. Do not do it again, boy.”
My pulse sped up, and all I could think about was that he’d said I was Zeus’s favorite son. Was it true? But it must be true, otherwise why would such a great and mighty god as Poseidon bother to show himself to me?
I tried to hide my smile, but it was impossible.
“Now. Who is this devil woman who’s got you all atwitter, my boy?” he asked kindly, just like a loving uncle should.
“Medusa, they call her. She is winged. And beautiful to behold. But she’s got the soul of Hades running through her veins.”
His brows twitched. “Oh my. Why, that is quite dark, isn’t it? And what sort of vengeance do you want for her? Or more to the point, why? Even winged mortals are allowed their—”
“She’s soiled herself by lying with Ares even while she vowed a vow of chastity to Athena. She makes fools of you all.”
His face went deadly serious, and he had a look in his eyes that, for just a moment, gave me pause. I thought of Medusa and me as children. How she’d been the only female ever to befriend me with no ulterior motive other than to be my very best and truest friend. I’d loved her instantly.
I hardened my jaw and steeled my nerve. My fists clenched into tight balls that caused my knuckles to turn bone white. But then she’d gone and become like all the rest of them. Calculating. Cruel. A liar.
I snarled. “I seek to avenge my father’s honor.”
“Surely it is not Zeus’s honor that needs avenging, my boy, but rather my poor niece’s. The crimes of which you accuse this Medusa are very grave. Very grave indeed. I will need to see this girl for myself so that I might weigh her sins and determine justice.”
Suddenly I did not feel well. I clutched at my stomach. “What will you do to her?”
He lifted a brow. Standing there as he was, with the wind riffling through his golden locks and his blazing blue eyes staring down upon me like heated suns, he looked so foreign and terrifying. How could Medusa stand to be touched by one of them? How could she endure those freakish eyes caressing her body? Did she moan for it? Beg for it? Promise him her heart, her soul, her world?
Fire spread through my bones at the notion that she would so easily sell herself that way. I could have given her the world. Instead, she’d settled for nothing more than a dick who would tire of her just as quickly as Zeus tired of his lovers. And I should know. I was a product of that lust.
My upper lip curled back like a dog’s, and I glared at the thing that could be my salvation but that was also the one thing I’d come to despise most. I hated the lordly gods and goddesses, the vain and petty beings who toyed and played with our lives as though we were naught more than their personal playthings.
“What would you have me do, Perseus?” he asked, his voice deep and full of cultured grit.
“Give her to me. Make her love me again. Make her mine. Make her forget all about Ares and his enormous… ego.”
Poseidon snorted. “Ego, eh? Well, I do like you, my boy. Tell you what… I’ll grant you that wish. You are Zeus’s child, after all. Simply show her to me, and then, all that you’ve ever wanted will be yours.”
All thoughts of hating the gods vanished in an instant, and a flood of joy and happiness raged through my body. I didn’t realize what I was about until I was suddenly spilling into his arms and hugging him hard, choking back the lump in my throat even as hot tears spilled down my cheeks.
She would be mine. She would want me again. And then I would make her pay for all her transgressions. All the humiliations she’d heaped upon me. For making me the butt of countless jokes amongst the boys in town. But once the punishments were through, then I would love her. Then I would treat her as the queen she was, as my queen. But a queen must respect her king, and I was that. I was king.
“She will return to temple in the morning,” I hastily instructed Poseidon.
He pursed his lips. “Good. Then I will await you here. Until then, Nephew. Dream of your glorious future.”
Then the god of all seas was gone, and all I could do was laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh until I had no voice left.
Soon I would have her. Soon she would be mine.
Chapter 59
Ares
Reaching over, I stroked the side of her cheek. It was night, and soon we would sleep together, but tonight I wanted more. Not simply her body, which had in recent weeks become a source of immense fascination to me. No, rather I wished for her heart. I wanted to know more of the female who was coming to mean the entire world to me.
Candlelight flickered, lighting up the room in soft tones of goldenrod yellow.
Medusa turned, dressed only in her nightshift. It wasn’t transparent like Dite’s always had been. And to be sure, she did not have the body that Aphrodite had. No one did. But hers was beautiful in a way Aphrodite’s never had been.
Aphrodite had the pinnacle of female perfection. Medusa was the pinnacle of perfection to me, which was something altogether different. More slender through her hips and thighs and with more width around her chest and slightly softer arms, all of which I enjoyed cuddling at night.
I watched the roll of candlelight flicker across the contours of her face, mesmerized by the play of shadow and light and wishing I could move my fingers as freely across her smooth satin skin as the flame glow did.
She nibbled her lower lip, aware—no doubt—of my forceful look. Medusa looked young and so innocent, and my soul quivered because I knew I should not be here with her. For weeks, I’d been telling myself the same thing—it never ended well when mortals involved themselves with gods. Not that I had any intention of ever harming her, but her prophecy of doom was never far from my thoughts.
I wished I knew more about it, but she didn’t seem to know near as much as I’d have liked either. Being with her was a risk but one I couldn’t seem to care as much about as I should.
“Ares?” she asked softly. “What is the matter? I sense your heavy thoughts tonight.”
I shook my head, my heart so full that I felt I might burst from the pressure of it. So many warring emotions sailed through me, but uppermost was desperation. To know her. To know all of her.
Again I studied the unique lines of her face. The slight pointiness of her chin, the razor-sharp slashes of her high cheekbones. If I broke down the parts, she wasn’t classically beautiful. There was an almost avian quality to her features, especially in her nose. It was a strong nose for a female, with a slight bump in its bridge. But when the parts were taken together, there was something enticingly exotic about them all. No doubt it was part of her primordial heritage. She was a throwback to a different era.
“You’re beautiful,” I murmured, meaning those words with every fiber of my being.
She gasped, and the rush of blood crept up her swan’s neck and settled in her cheeks. No words escaped her lips, but her lashes fluttered like a moth’s wings upon the delicate skin of her pale cheeks. That was when I noticed that the circles beneath her eyes were darker than usual.
I frowned. “You’ve not been sleeping well. Perhaps I should not—”
She held up her hand. “No, Ares. I sleep very well in your… arms.” The last word came out a breathy whisper, and she glanced shyly down for half a second before looking back at me. “But… but that does not answer my previous question. Why are you so heavy?”
She had the right of it. I was heavy. I had been for weeks, in fact. Slumping into the edge of her bed, I slid my arms between my legs, letting them almost dangle, and shook my head. I was so tired of feeling so much. So tired of the questions, of the constant games on Olympus. How could I explain to her that when I came here, to her room, her bed, and lay in her arms that I felt whole and full again? At least for a little while.
Not even knowing how to start that conversation, I sighed heavily. “I… I wish company tonight, little bird. My
mind is restless, and yours is the voice I wish to hear. Does that… does that bother you?”
My pulse thundered like horses’ hooves in my ears. My stomach ached. If she said it did bother her, I would leave. Leave and never return. Because things were getting far deeper than they should have. When I’d first come to her, it had merely been to kill off the fascination inside of me. But rather than that, I found myself growing ever more desperate to learn all I could about her. Her likes. Her loves. What made her tick.
The rustling of her skirt caught my attention. When I looked back at her, she was nearly kneeling between my legs. Her brown eyes, so deep and dark, almost seemed to glitter like a god’s in the night.
Her mauve-tinted lips were parted, and she was breathing deeply. The room was full of tension. My palms ached, and the need to take her and make her mine was a burning, consuming thing. All I wanted to do was grab her, roll atop her, and make love to her until the sun rose.
But she and I had never even kissed. And I knew without asking that she was a virgin. I’d sensed it that first night when we’d lain together. The tension in her body, how her breaths would quicken when my forearm would even brush against the side of her breast.
As the nights had passed, she’d grown more and more easy in my arms, even to the point now where her foot actively sought mine, and she rubbed her cold little toes against my warm ones.
I shook my head. “Can I kiss you, Medusa?”
She looked stunned. “Wha… what? You wish to kiss me? You? You wish to—”
Feeling foolish, knowing I’d pushed her too far too soon, I thinned my lips. “I am sorry. I don’t know what’s come over me toni—”
Before I could finish my thought, her lips were suddenly on mine. But her inexperience with kissing showed. She did not move her lips, she merely pressed them to my own.
It was probably the worst kiss I’d ever received, and yet it was also one of the best. My soul felt as though it’d literally just slipped free of its moorings, and I was sailing, flying as high in the sky as my little bird could.
Hunger rose up in me, and I couldn’t keep from wrapping my arms like bands around her smooth waist, pulling her even tighter between my thighs. She moaned, moving just a little and opening wide for me. I slipped into her mouth, tasting the cherry of her tongue and making a groan of gruff approval. Fire licked through my veins and screamed to burst free of my fingertips.
When I would make love to Aphrodite, I would release the flames, bathe us in them. She would release her own, and together we would create an inferno of lust and love. But my little bird was a mortal.
A precious and all-too-fragile little mortal.
I winced, pained by the need to release and knowing I could not. My body began to burn all over. I soon began to shake and tremble, and sweat broke out on my back. I needed to leave. Needed to get away from her before I burst with a flame so hot I would incinerate anyone and everyone within this cottage.
As though she knew I was not well, she pulled back and planted her forehead to mine, panting as heavily as I. I did not want to go, but I had to. I could not hang on for much longer. My skin burned. My eyes no doubt were full of raging blue flame. I opened my mouth, ready to tell her I needed to leave. Now.
But then her tiny, cool little hands were on my hot, warm cheeks, and she was singing beneath her breath a song I’d never heard before. It was a melody of such astonishing beauty that the fire soon gave way to peaceful waves of calm, and the need to release the flames fizzled out completely.
Gasping, I patted my chest, unable to believe that with just a few hummed chords, she’d calmed the raging beast in me. Blinking, I stared back at her flushed and lovely face.
“How… how did you calm me, little bird? What magick did you use?” I asked, awed and astonished by what she’d just done.
Her answer was merely a mysterious smile, then she said in a low whisper, “I am tired tonight, my sweet war god. Will you hold me?”
My soul shook. She’d never called me a pet name before. The moment felt enormous. I wanted to grab her up and swing her around, claim her lips again, and tell her… I wasn’t sure what. But instead, I nodded and lay down, she climbed on top of me, and together, we breathed a deep sigh of relief when her wings enveloped us both.
Our breaths were a precious lullaby in my ears. Her fingers played over the war plate I wore. She did not want me unclothed, and though I used my godhead to soften the metal enough that it did not bite in her precious flesh, it was still made of god steel. Her fingers were drawing lazy circles upon the armor.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, my voice so loud in the thick, comfortable silence between us that it almost sounded like a crack of thunder.
She glanced up at me from beneath her long lashes. My heart trembled at the sight. When had this little bird crawled beneath my defenses and made me love her?
The thought that I should was both terrifying and right. Because whether I should or not, it did not negate the fact that I absolutely did. In fact, I’d fallen in love with her so slowly that I’d not realized I was in love until I was in it so completely there was no getting out of it.
“Take it off tonight, Ares. Please.” She whispered the last.
I didn’t even ask her if she was sure. In a blink, I vanished the plate and could hardly breathe for the pleasure of feeling her petal-soft skin against my own. I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Does this hurt you?” she asked as she began to squirm, no doubt to move off me.
But I tightened my grip and looked at her. “Never. Stay in my arms, little one.”
She nodded, and I rubbed a hand down the long length of her chestnut curls, over and over, soothing us both with the repetitive caress.
After several minutes of silence, I asked, “What is wrong with you tonight, Medusa? Normally, you’d have fallen asleep by now. But your thoughts are restless, and there is a darkness there I cannot quite place my finger on.”
She groaned and buried the tip of her cold nose into my chest. It was probably my imagination that she took a sniff of my skin before answering, “You know me too well. It’s very bothersome to have no secrets from you.”
I chuckled, and she finally moved, glancing up at me with a tiny smirk upon her mauve lips.
“Talk to me. What is the matter?”
She sighed. “Nothing. Well, okay”—she grimaced—“something, I guess. Someone saw you hugging me the other day by the library. There is a rumor floating about now that I’m a loose woman of no morals and that once you’ve had your way with me, you’ll leave just like you guys all do.”
Heat burned through my belly, and the fire that I knew I could not lose control of threatened to punch out of me. But I was holding something infinitely precious to me and would never knowingly harm her. So I took several deep, calming breaths before trusting myself to speak. “Don’t listen to them, Medusa. Not all us gods are like my father.”
She shook her head. “No, of course. I know.” Her smile was wimpy as she patted my chest. “Of course. You are not like that.”
But even as she laughed mockingly at herself, I knew she did not really mean it. She was full of doubt, and I heard it ringing clear as a bell.
Grabbing her hand, I looked at her until she was forced to look at me. I never let her gaze drop. “Listen to me and listen well. I do not know what this is between us. All I know is this. It is sacred. And it is pure. I am not in the habit of falling for mortals. In fact, you would be my first.”
She blinked, looking startled at my proclamation. “You… you—”
But I did not let her finish because I was not done yet. “But what this is, it is ours. Yours. And mine. No one else’s. Do you understand?”
She still looked stunned, like she was having a difficult time processing my words. “You can’t… you can’t truly mean this.”
“I do not speak words I do not mean. I do not have time for games. And I thought that you felt as I do.”
She
gasped. “I do. You must believe that. I do. I don’t understand how this has happened, and I don’t know that… that—”
My heart warmed to hear her stutter her way through the sweetest and most nervous proclamation of love ever. She was nowhere near as smooth and talented at seduction as Dite had been. But Medusa’s admission moved me far more.
“Oh, little bird,” I chuckled as I stroked her cheek. “I do like you. Very much.”
Her smile grew wide. “Do you wish to have sex, Ares? With me?”
The shift from ingénue to suddenly so blatantly talking about sex completely shocked me, and I couldn’t help laughing, which Medusa clearly did not at all like. She started to wiggle, trying to shove up off me.
“Will you stop it?” I grumped and tightened my grip just enough to hold her but not hurt her. “You’re not going anywhere. Ever. I laughed because I do not expect sex. I did not declare myself simply to gain from you. I declared myself because sometimes, it’s nice when someone you care about knows it.”
She began to slowly settle down. “I thought you mocked me.”
“Oh, little bird. If you only understood how deeply I feel for you. But when we make love for the first time, and believe me, I will be your first, it will be because the time is right for us both. Now sleep. For I am very tired, and tomorrow comes all too soon for you.”
I kissed the crown of her head, gently rubbing her wing tips, and soon my little heart fell to sleep with a soft smile upon her face.
As for me, on the other hand, a stiff cock made it almost impossible to relax at all. But I meant what I’d said. I would wait until she was ready, because she was worth it. She would always be worth any cost.
Chapter 60
Medusa
He was gone. But I was in love, and he loved me back, and this was the most glorious, wondrous day in my entire life.
I never wanted to leave my bed. I could smell him everywhere. The sharpness of his woodsy scent and even the slight burn of his fire that I’d yet to see rage in all its glory.
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 73