His head swivelled towards her and his growl cut off as his crimson gaze collided with hers.
Before she could tell him that she only wanted him, he released Thanatos and pulled her into his arms, kissed her hard right in front of everyone. A blush scalded her cheeks and spread, until she felt sure every inch of her was red.
When Keras released her, his eyes were green again, sought hers and danced between them.
She stroked his cheeks, framed them with her palms and kissed him softly, showing him that she was fine and his outburst hadn’t angered her or made her think less of him.
“I recommend you watch your words, young Thanatos,” Hades drawled, his voice calm and even.
Thanatos tensed.
Swallowed.
Keras was slow to release Enyo, kept one arm around her as he turned away from her, coming to face Thanatos. All the fires of the Underworld shone in his eyes as he glared at the god.
“My apologies.” Thanatos dipped his head. “I overstepped.”
Keras looked as if he wanted to growl, but then forced a nod instead.
She kept an eye on him as he slowly relaxed, monitoring him with her senses as the darkness Thanatos had provoked in him gradually faded. When he felt as he had before Thanatos had spoken about her and upset him, she looked at the group to her right.
A blush climbed her cheeks again as the women all stared at her, including Persephone.
Several of the women had donned dresses too. Megan looked radiant in a dark purple dress that showed off her bump, and Caterina had chosen a rich blue summer dress that highlighted her tanned skin and the spun caramel colour of her hair. Marinda wore a pale green dress that reached her ankles and revealed nothing, something Cassandra had complained about when she had seen her.
According to the sorceress, Marinda needed to learn to make the most of her assets.
Evangelina had chosen to wear black leather trousers and a violet halter top that had caused Thanatos to stare until Valen had put the god of death in his place, and Hades had backed him up.
Aiko wore interesting mortal fashion—a ruffled black skirt, striped violet and black knee-highs, and a white and black short-sleeved shirt that had a little black ribbon at the collar. Enyo found her shoes fascinating too. She had never seen shiny white shoes with three-inch-thick black soles before.
Her unique style of dress had also drawn a few comments from Thanatos.
Esher had threatened to burst every blood vessel in his body.
Aiko had lured her god outside for some air.
Enyo had taken to watching them for a while, enjoying the innocent way they would touch hands, or steal a glance at each other, and grow awkward when the other noticed them looking. Keras had told her that they had been together for months now, but they were still sweet around each other, and he had the feeling they would always be this way.
She found it adorable.
Most of the brothers had dressed for the occasion in the same manner as Keras, picking mortal clothing rather than the style they had worn centuries ago. Ares had paired black jeans with a dress shirt, and Marek wore something similar. Esher had gone with a blue-grey shirt, while Daimon had opted to wear a thin, long-sleeved navy turtleneck.
Both Calistos and Valen had shown up in jeans and tight T-shirts.
Hades had made a few remarks about that, but both gods had been unrepentant.
Valen laughed at something Marek said, drawing her focus off to her left, where they stood talking to Cal. Esher broke away from them, striding past Enyo, heading for Daimon where he lingered with Cass in the opposite corner, speaking to her in hushed tones.
Just beyond Valen and his brothers, Eris flagged down one of the serving staff and snatched a goblet of ambrosia from the male’s tray. Moros helped himself too, but Apate and Oizys waved the servant away. Unlike their older brother, Thanatos, the four siblings had changed out of their armour and wore fine black robes like their mother.
It was nice of Hades to invite them too. The god-king had a habit of overlooking the lesser gods and goddesses of all the realms, focusing instead on those gods and goddesses who occupied the higher echelons, such as Thanatos and Nyx.
Thanatos leaned his hip on the long dark wooden table laden with food and jugs of wine and ambrosia, and swept his gold goblet towards Hades where he sat on a throne on the other side of the table.
“You raised your sons well.” Thanatos’s silver eyes gleamed as he smiled and toasted Hades and Persephone.
Persephone dragged her focus away from Megan who sat beside her, her emerald eyes bright as she lifted them to Thanatos. “I am not sure there is a mother more pleased than I right now. All of my sons married.”
The room suddenly hushed.
Keras cleared his throat. “Mother. Not all of us are married.”
She waved him away. “Of course you all are. The heart wants what the heart wants, and I can see in all of you that it has found the one it will remain constant to for the rest of your days.”
Hades placed his left hand over hers and patted it.
A frown wrinkled her button nose. “Do not condescend, my love. You were married to me long before our wedding night.”
Hades didn’t bother arguing with that, and Enyo smiled at the two of them.
“I have not heard the tale of how you met. Not from your lips anyway.” Enyo moved around Keras, approaching Persephone rather than Hades, joining the group of women that the queen of the Underworld had gathered around her.
It felt strangely good as she settled among them, picking a spot between Cassandra and Aiko.
The heat of Keras’s gaze on her back had her glancing over her shoulder at him.
Their eyes locked and her smile widened, the embers that constantly burned in her veins reigniting as she stared at him, filling her with need, a desire to lure him away from the banquet now the meal was done. Perhaps she could pretend she needed some fresh air.
“Oh, I am far more interested in knowing when you will be gifting me with another grandchild.” Persephone’s light tone teased her ears, but her words fell hard on Enyo.
And Keras too, judging by how his eyes shot wide and he looked close to choking.
“Do not tease him,” Enyo said with a smile aimed at Persephone. “He has been through much today.”
Persephone’s smile was wicked. “But it is a mother’s work to make her sons uncomfortable around their loves. For instance, I should ask why Valen took so very long to tell the beautiful Evangelina that he loved her.”
She cast a pointed look across the room at him where he stood talking to Calistos and Marek near one set of windows.
Valen stiffened, going perfectly still.
As if that would make him invisible and stop his mother.
“You know we knew before you did.” Persephone’s green gaze drifted to the black-haired assassin who sat on the table to her left, picking seeds from a pomegranate.
Eva’s blue eyes widened. “You did?”
Persephone nodded and swept a rogue wave of her scarlet hair back when it fell down across her face. “If they speak the language of the Underworld in the mortal one, we know what they say.”
Enyo glanced at Valen again, catching the blush that stained his cheeks.
He muttered, “I didn’t know that. Did you know that? The shit I’ve said in the mortal world.”
The colour on his cheeks deepened as his eyes grew larger.
“Oh gods… the shit I’ve said to Eva.”
Cal chuckled and slapped him on his shoulder. “And you complained about knowing when your brothers are getting some. Our parents know your deepest, most twisted crap now.”
Valen shuddered.
Hades shuddered at the same time. “Believe me. I would rather I did not hear what is said in the mortal world.”
He cast a look at all of his sons.
“It is not as if there is one among you who has not spoken of things I do not wish to know.”
Keras
went to raise his hand.
Hades spoke before he could fully lift it.
“Well, perhaps you. You gave your father blessed relief from knowing things he should not know… but I feel Valen more than made up for your silence.”
“I need some air. I need to get out of here.” Valen looked at Eva, a pleading edge to his expression.
She shrugged. “I’m staying right here. I haven’t heard any embarrassing stories about you yet. I know about the time Daimon sneezed and froze half the palace, and I know about the fights he and Esher used to get into, and the brawl that Ares had with him. None of them embarrassing enough to satisfy me… and none of them about you.”
Valen looked as if he had been betrayed.
Persephone looked excited.
She shifted on her throne so she was facing her eager audience. “Well, let me see.”
Enyo tuned her out as she grew aware of Keras looking at her again, and could feel his turbulent emotions as they ran unchecked.
She turned away from the group of women and went back to him, because she didn’t want him to worry that his mother would tell her things that would embarrass him. He was struggling enough as it was. He needed her on his side tonight, supporting him and not mocking him.
Besides, it wasn’t as if she was going anywhere. Once Keras was stronger again, his emotions levelled out and back under control, she would have plenty of time for Persephone to spill all the juicy tales of his youth.
The ones she hadn’t witnessed for herself anyway.
“Discussing business at a time like this seems inappropriate, but I have a task for you, Thanatos.” Hades’s deep voice rolled over the room, quietening Persephone.
She issued a curious look to Hades.
“A task?” Thanatos planted his left hand on the top of the table as he leaned towards Hades, his silver eyes bright with interest. “What would my god-king ask of me?”
Hades hesitated.
It lasted barely a second, but everyone noticed it.
The room hushed again.
Hades stared deep into Thanatos’s eyes, his handsome face placid and unreadable.
“I task you with finding my daughter.”
Keras tensed beside Enyo, and that tension rippled through the room, affecting all of the brothers and Persephone too. Tears lined her lashes and Megan was quick to place her hand on the goddess’s shoulder.
Thanatos’s black eyebrows met hard above glittering silver eyes that gained a blue sheen. “You have a lead on the location of her soul?”
Hades nodded and looked at Keras. “My son can tell you what he told me. Any detail you need, he will give to you. He has witnessed her in the memory of another.”
Keras nodded. “Whatever you need to help you find her, you’ll have it.”
Enyo knew he was talking about more than just a description of what he had seen now. All of the brothers looked ready to join Thanatos on this new mission.
“I take it her soul is being held in an unknown realm?” Thanatos looked at Keras too, his great black feathered wings shifting to drape across the table behind him as he twisted to face Keras.
Keras nodded. “I am not familiar with it.”
Thanatos looked over his shoulder at Hades. “A challenge. I admit, it has been too long since I have felt challenged. Perhaps I will ask for the realm in which she resides as my reward.”
The god of death grinned.
Hades scowled.
“I have no more realms to give.” The god-king lifted his gold goblet and swirled the contents, amusement flickering in his blue eyes as he regarded Nyx where she sat beside him and then Thanatos. “It is unfortunate that you desired such large realms to rule that I could only afford to give three all those centuries ago.”
Why was it unfortunate?
Being asked to fight was reward enough in Enyo’s opinion, but she was a goddess of war. Being gifted a realm should have been payment enough for a god or goddess of the Underworld.
“I have not heard you speak of this before.” Keras stepped forwards, curiosity glimmering in his green eyes, and she could feel it running through him too, drawing his focus away from his struggle to control his emotions. He looked from Hades to Thanatos and then Nyx. “Hypnos was there, was he not? He received the third realm.”
Hades nodded and sipped his drink. He lowered the goblet to rest on the table.
“But Hypnos must be punished this time because he did not show up.” Nyx smiled over the rim of her own goblet, mischief crossing her fine features.
Thanatos chuckled at that. “I think perhaps I forgot to tell him.”
“The Underworld was smaller back then, with less uncharted territory to spare beyond the borders of my kingdom.” Hades pursed his lips, leaned back into his throne and then looked at Keras. “After the rebellion ended in our victory, I gifted Thanatos, Nyx and Hypnos with a realm as promised, since they were the strongest and led the other gods and goddesses.”
Gods and goddesses who Enyo suspected were in the room right now judging by how Eris paused halfway through saying something to her brother, Moros, and shot a black look in her family’s direction.
Enyo frowned at her and she went back to speaking with her siblings in the far corner of the room, near an open window that allowed cooler air to flow in and entice Enyo with thoughts of stepping outside, where she could be alone with Keras.
Eris had caught her attention in the battle, her bloodthirstiness and skill with her daggers impressing Enyo as it always did whenever the goddess and her siblings rode into battle with her and her brother Ares.
Had Eris, Apate, Moros and Oizys expected to receive a realm from Hades as payment for the participation in the battle to crush the first rebellion?
Maybe she would ask Eris about it and hear her side of the story too.
She wanted to speak with her before the banquet was over, to talk about old times and catch up with her anyway since it had been decades since Eris and her siblings had fought beside Enyo and Ares.
But first she wanted to learn more about Hades’s history with Nyx’s family, and then she wanted to lure Keras outside for some air.
“The second rebellion was far more exciting though. Who among us expected the fiends to attack when Keras was newly born?” Thanatos boxed Keras on his left arm and grinned at him. “You were a squalling, whining little thing when you were born. Never a day’s peace for your parents. Your mother thought you ill. Your father wanted rid of you.”
“I did not.” Hades’s words were lost as Thanatos continued, speaking over him.
“You are grown into a powerful male now though. The Nereids will sing of your victory in this battle.”
Keras’s brother Ares, who had been diligently standing guard over his wife, protecting her as a hydra would defend its hoard, huffed. “His victory?”
Thanatos arched an eyebrow at him. “I did not see you there.”
Enyo wasn’t sure whether the god of death was bringing up the fact that Ares had been absent, or whether he was trying to rile him by saying that he hadn’t noticed Ares looming over Megan, the only male in a throng of females.
Ares scowled at him, fire flickering in his dark eyes. “Someone needs to cut you off.”
Nyx leaned across the table, snatched the cup of ambrosia from her son’s hand and drank the contents in one go. She sighed and smacked her lips together, and slammed the goblet down. “There. Now there is no excuse to argue. Thanatos is just moody. You must excuse him.”
“I am not moody,” he grumbled, his expression souring as he glanced at his mother.
“Is this because your father summoned me?”
He shuddered, his feathered wings quivering as disgust rolled across his features. “I do not even want to think about that, let alone speak of it.”
Nyx leaned back in her onyx chair and smiled wistfully. “Ah, it was like old times. Remember how I missed the second rebellion because of him? Hades has never forgiven me, even though it was not my faul
t that I was busy and could not attend.”
Thanatos curled his lip and grunted, “Busy being disgusting with Erebus.”
Nyx waggled a blue-painted fingertip at him. “Your father gives me little choice and invokes his contract at his own will.”
Thanatos looked even more disgusted.
Nyx looked deeply satisfied with the arrangement rather than irritated by it.
She sighed softly and twined a ribbon of her black hair around her finger, causing the silver strands in it to spiral around the onyx. “I paid my dues for being absent during that rebellion. A century banished to the mortal world. You must know how that feels.”
She tilted her cup towards Keras.
He nodded. “I do.”
“I was so relieved when I could return to my realm to resume rule of it.” She lifted the goblet to her lips.
Thanatos jerked his head towards the far corner. “Eris wasn’t so relieved. She wanted your head there for a time.”
Nyx glanced at her daughter.
Enyo did too.
Eris was deep in conversation with her siblings, but Enyo had the feeling she was aware of her mother and brother talking about her, had tuned into them when her name had been mentioned.
Having lived under her brother’s rule for centuries, Enyo could sympathise. For a moment, a brief time given the lifespan of a goddess, Eris had been in control of her own life and ruling her own kingdom. Enyo could well imagine how she must have felt when her mother had returned and taken that control and realm away from her.
Now that Enyo was free of her brother, she never wanted to go back.
The heat of Keras’s gaze on her had a shiver traipsing down her spine, had warmth curling through her together with a sense of anticipation.
He slipped his arm around her waist, the brush of his body against hers almost too much to bear as he leaned in close.
He murmured into her ear. “Walk with me?”
She was quick to nod, barely waited for him to make their excuses to his father and Thanatos and Nyx before she was striding across the mosaic floor, heading for the twin doors that led out into the garden.
Eager to be alone with him.
Chapter 29
Keras: Guardians of Hades Series Book 7 Page 32