Even if I was, I still didn’t know who he wanted to kill, or which weapon he was trying to find. I had no leads. Just because I’d used this weapon once before didn’t actually help me. I’d used dozens, hundreds, of weapons—and the ones I valued the most were within my grasp. Either my satchel or the Armory, and Zeus was willing to wait for the Armory. The weapon he sought was elsewhere.
I was certain he couldn’t get inside the Armory without me—even if he looked like me. A Beast, Falco, ran my mansion. Two actually protected it, now that Ruin lived in the treehouse outside. Zeus couldn’t get close without me. Pandora was safe, for the time being.
What kind of fall-out would there be once Zeus assassinated his target while looking like me? Because if I got out of here, it was going to become a big problem for me since everyone would believe I had done the crime in the first place.
Unless I teamed up with Zeus, hoping his ultimate intentions were good—that the end justified the means. Whether they were or not, he might be my only ticket to freedom. I leaned back, sighing in frustration. I stared out the small window high above, watching the clouds pass by. We were so high up that I couldn’t even hear birds.
I took a calming breath, shifting my focus away from Zeus’ current trip. There were too many potential options to discern his target. I needed to break him from within.
I needed to destroy his already crumbling family. As much as he scorned them, he needed them. For now. And as much as they wanted his affection, I’d seen enough dark looks to know they could be turned—if I played my cards right. I pulled out one of the golden coins and kissed it for good luck.
My bloody lip print stained the surface, and I smiled.
11
I woke up to Carl shaking me determinedly. Noticing I was awake, Carl turned to face the door, sniffing at the air warily. “Aphrodite is coming.”
I narrowed my eyes, checking the window of our cell. It was dark outside, so I must have slept for hours. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” I growled. Then I frowned, running my choice of phrasing back through my head. Damn it. At least Carl hadn’t picked up on it—
Carl nodded his agreement. “Do not let her climax. This is a good strategy, Master Temple.”
I sighed. “Technically, both are true,” I admitted. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t going to have a little slap and tickle under Aphrodite’s sheets, no matter what she believed. I firmed my resolve. One thing I knew for certain—we were going to talk about our comings and goings.
She was attempting to direct me towards our comings, but the only thing I cared about was my goings—which, in all honesty, pretty much summed up my love life in recent years.
I glanced down at my Titan Thorns. The only way to break free of them was by Zeus’ permission, or if I was well and truly in love with someone. Unconditionally.
He’d implied that I was broken and heartless. Irrevocably so. That I had chosen to become a monster instead of finding true love. That Zeus saw me as a kindred spirit, encouraging me to embrace promiscuity, love be damned.
And thoughts of my relationship with Callie Penrose had done nothing to change my current situation, leaving a gaping, hollow hole in my soul. I had consciously known that something had come between us—mutually, not just for me—but I hadn’t relegated it to a certainty. I had considered it something that we needed to address and get past.
But according to Zeus’ claim, that must have been considered a condition.
And unconditional love didn’t work like that.
It was, perhaps, the worst sort of irony that my lack of romance and sexual activity had led me to a prison cell where the Goddess of Sex was now determined to seduce me into being her lackey. Many, if not all, men would have committed the worst crime they could think of if the punishment was suffering Aphrodite’s amorous advances.
But I just saw it as a curse. Karma, even.
The Minotaur would be rolling over with laughter if he could see me now. He’d once warned me that Karma would be gunning for me.
Apparently, Karma would be stripping for me, too.
I smelled Aphrodite before I saw or heard her: fresh cut flowers, hot savory sweat, warm scented oil, a primal, mouth-watering bouquet of desire—
“The sea beast is here,” Carl said, covering his nostrils with a sickly demeanor.
Well. To each his own, I guess. It was no secret that the connection between Carl’s nose and his brain was a dark, twisted tangle, causing him to find pleasure from the creepiest scents and nausea from the floral perfume of a sex goddess. Carl’s nose was figuratively broken.
His assessment was neither polite nor accurate. A man comparing any woman’s bodily scent to aquatic life was on the fast track to getting killed so hard that it rewrote history—removing his original birth from ever happening. Even the poor man’s mother would unquestionably accept the consequence of losing a son’s entire lifetime as fair justice for the slight.
Because women were all in cahoots. I was certain of it. Magical cahoots, I tell you.
These existential pre-murders obviously created time paradoxes, but it seemed that only menfolk had issues processing the ramifications.
That was why men had such difficult times remembering their carefully-crafted bullet points during arguments with their lovers—because our brains still registered the fact that the other man had once existed—as had all the things that the poor man had ever accomplished in his now-erased life.
Women, on the other hand, were hyperaware of the new status quo, that the man had never existed, and accepted it without question. They wielded that rewritten history like a guillotine to decapitate our arguments, leaving us to scratch our heads in confusion, wondering how we had lost an argument that we knew for certain we should have won. We’d had spreadsheets and flow charts.
The women were assassinating our memories—and then denying that the victims had ever existed. They were waging war while we were shooting slingshots at empty soda cans.
“Master Temple, are you all right?” Carl asked in a soft tone.
I realized that my conspiracy theory made entirely too much sense for comfort. I shook my head to focus on the fight at hand. I gave Carl a reassuring nod and climbed to my feet.
The door opened and…
Aphrodite came like a gentle, unstoppable wave on a moonlit beach at midnight…and all suddenly seemed right with the world. Her heroin of pheromones made me salivate despite my brain defiantly screaming at me to deny it.
Aphrodite was the goddess of all things that go hump in the night: not just sex, but lust, desire, love, and pretty much anything else related to silk sheets, hot flesh, whipped cream, melted chocolate, hot candle wax, throbbing…hearts, and salacious whispers and moans.
She had definitely turned up her charm from when I’d seen her outside on the pavilion hours ago, because my pants were suddenly three sizes too small.
For fuck’s sake!
So much blood instantly flooded to my meat gavel that my freaking vision began to tunnel on me. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply, reminding my body that the biggest, tallest, hardest mast in the world was worthless without a ship to ground it and a competent captain to steer it.
My instinctive arousal verged on voluntary suicide—a mutiny against the captain of my ship.
I forced myself to focus on Carl’s comment about the denizens of the sea and their aromatic perfume—preferring the risk of time paradoxes to the siren song of Aphrodite’s love box—and it helped bring me back to a somewhat rational state.
I let out a breath and opened my eyes. Aphrodite was hungrily eyeing my nether-Nate region, and I was pretty sure I heard her purring like an actual cat. She even licked her lips, making my face grow hot as I struggled to focus my thoughts back on slimy, stinking, sea creatures to kill my desire. “Moby Dick practices abstinence,” I declared with all the pride of an actor in a tenth-grade sex education clip.
She studied me up and down. “Nate—can I cal
l you Nate?” she asked.
I shrugged. “My stage name is Ishmael.”
“Nate,” she cooed in a voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up on end, “it has been so long since you’ve had an orgasm that I quite literally do not know how you haven’t destroyed the world yet.” She frowned with genuine compassion.
She wasn’t wrong. “Oh, I’m getting there,” I rasped, gritting my teeth. “Although difficult, my abstinence keeps me grounded. Situations like this do not help get my mind off it.”
“Your mind isn’t supposed to get off on it,” she said with an amused smile. “Your dick is.”
Well. I’d assumed we would dance around the topic a bit longer, but Aphrodite was a real go-getter, and she didn’t seem to have a parental guidance sticker on her toga. Carl was a terrible chaperone, for what it was worth. He just watched.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t feel so grounded if you released a little…a lot of pent up frustration,” she said, struggling not to laugh at our ridiculous argument.
I folded my arms stubbornly. Because I’m a man, and that’s what we do when we’re right.
She studied me up and down. “Sex is not a sin. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Neither is it something to be so picky about.”
I pursed my lips stubbornly so they matched my arms. I needed to change the topic. Now. Because this was not the same Aphrodite I had encountered outside at the pavilion. She was just as dangerous now as she was then, but her motives seemed oddly more…genuine and determined. “Let’s talk about—”
“Sex is instinctual,” she cut in. “Mandatory for a well-balanced life. Imagine treating any other area of your life with such scrutiny.” She clapped her hand over her mouth in a theatric gesture. “Oh, no! I had a steak for dinner! Does that mean I love my steak more than my potatoes? What if I want potatoes some day? It will hurt my steak’s feelings! Then there’s the grapes! They’ll never come to my plate again if they learn about my steak. I must keep this a secret. It was an accident. A moment of weakness. That steak took advantage of me! I will never be weak again. I will find my perfect meal someday. Until then, to prove my dedication, I vow to starve myself.” Her words seemed to echo in the small confines of the prison cell.
My face was beet red—both in embarrassment and anger. Carl, the asshole, was nodding matter-of-factly, not even aware he was doing so. I was on my own. “Love is not as simple as steak or grapes or potatoes, Aphrodite—”
“You are quite right. And you are quite wrong. Sex is a simpler decision,” she argued in a gentle yet insistent tone, as if truly trying to convince me that she wanted the best for me. “I spend more time considering my meals than my mates.”
I blinked at her, wondering how I could bring the topic back to what truly mattered. Getting out of my manacles or finding out why she was really here. Why she seemed so different.
“Do you know what happens to a person who denies themself for too long?” she asked in a soothing, calming tone. “They grow manic, angry, and violent. Irrational. Like a rope supporting too much weight, the braid starts to fray and snap. The safest thing to do is lighten the load and try again later.”
I held up a triumphant finger. “Or get a stronger rope.”
She rolled her eyes. “You are the rope in the analogy,” she said, dryly. My triumphant finger went flaccid. She studied me for a few moments, and the look of frustration and compassion in her eyes let me know that she really was concerned about my stance on this issue. It was pretty much her sole purpose as a goddess, and she was not going to let it go. She looked like a negotiator on a roof trying to convince me not to jump. She wasn’t trying to justify her own actions for her sake—she was trying to prescribe me what she believed was the proper medication to heal my self-inflicted wounds. In her opinion, she was trying to save my life.
That didn’t mean she was right, it just made the already difficult situation even more difficult to argue. “Aphrodite—”
She lifted a finger, cutting me off. “Continuing down this path will destroy the world. You will make a terrible mistake. You need release more than any man I have ever met. Even Prometheus wasn’t in as much danger as your aura suggests you are. He was too focused on his unending punishment to give it any thought. You, on the other hand, have come close to the edge of release on repeated occasions, only to have it taken from you moments too soon. That is far, far worse.” And I could tell by the sympathetic look in her eyes that she was no longer only talking about sex. She was talking about love.
Indie had been my last physical release, and that had been years ago, before she had gone crazy with power. Ironically, Indie had unintentionally set me up to square off against Athena—
I blinked as Aphrodite’s warnings suddenly took on a whole new meaning. “Athena…” I whispered aloud. I’d killed Athena by introducing her to lust. Being a virgin goddess, she hadn’t known how to handle the alien emotion, and it had utterly destroyed her. Wasn’t that a conflicting argument, though?
Aphrodite’s lips thinned and she nodded. “Yes. See what abstinence gets you? A person begins seeking out other means of self-fulfillment. In her case, anger and power.” She studied me sadly. “Everyone seeks the sensation of a lasting embrace, anything to fill the empty vacuum of existence—either via a grave of black soil hugging their body close for eternity or the silky-smooth embrace of flesh on flesh. Those who disregard sex find themselves with a manic desire to fill that void of depthless anger with overwhelming ambition. Violence. War. Death.”
I considered her grim analogy. She made a fair point. We all wanted a hug, but I had never likened a coffin to a hug before. “War…like your lover, Ares?”
She nodded without hesitation or shame, even though I had seen how he treated her—the blatant disrespect and possessiveness. “Why do you think we are so attracted to each other? He fills me—rather snugly—with his fire, and I send it back out, safely dispersing it back into the universe.” She met my eyes. “A proper climax is your charitable donation to the world of man. A climax a day keeps the carnage away.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. Then I burst out laughing at the mental image. “You have got to be kidding me,” I gasped, bending at the waist to support my weight on my knees.
Aphrodite was not laughing. Oddly, she didn’t look offended either. In fact, she looked deeply concerned. Scared, even. My reaction terrified her. “Sometimes, a soul is so broken that it no longer sees clearly. Sometimes, it is up to the maid to clean the filthy window to prove her claim that the glass beneath is cracked—even when her master mocks her for it.” And then she began sauntering towards me, swaying her hips determinedly.
I squeaked, backing up a step. “No, Aphrodite.” Was she intending to freaking force me into this? “What about love?” I demanded, taking another panicked step back. Carl watched the two of us thoughtfully, seeming to consider her arguments rather than protect me.
Aphrodite gave me a sad smile, not slowing her advance. “Love is more complicated, true. But it should never be used as a weapon, and it should always be reciprocated. Oftentimes, love is misunderstood, causing more harm than good—thinking that you are supposed to love a specific someone when, in fact, you do not. Love is not destined. Love is a choice, and it is intended to make both parties stronger. All else invites the carnage.”
Her enunciation was clear and concise, and it was the second time she’d used the obscure word. “The carnage?” I asked, grasping for anything that might halt her advance.
She flicked her fingers and my arms suddenly shot above my head like she’d hoisted me up by the manacles. I danced up on my tiptoes, no longer able to move backwards. Aphrodite eyed me like a butcher eyeing a slab of beef. “Don’t you fret about that, Catalyst. I will suck the carnage right out of you to save you from yourself. I will protect this world.”
Carl finally remembered his job of keeping me safe and lunged forward to protect me. Aphrodite did the same flicking motion with a thin, smooth, manicured
finger, and he was suddenly dancing up on his clawed toes as his arms were hoisted upwards. She hadn’t even looked at him.
The goddess sauntered closer, licking her lips. She dropped her silk gown to the ground, revealing a tanned expanse of mouth-watering curves. Goosebumps pebbled her flesh, and her nipples stood erect. She lowered her hand with the speed of dripping honey, and my surroundings slowly dimmed to darkness—as did all sensation of Carl’s struggles against his chains.
Instead, I heard the crackling of fire, the aromatic whiff of enticing incense and fresh flowers, and the atmosphere changed to warm and humid with a pleasantly sweet taste to the air.
As the lighting slowly returned, I realized that I was no longer in my prison cell.
Carl was on his own. I’d been abducted by the seductress.
12
I quickly noticed that I was in a rather swanky bedroom. I was no longer standing either. I was sprawled out on an extremely plushy collection of furs, pillows, silk sheets, and thick blankets that filled a wide concave bowl cut into the very floor—much like the seating areas inside my Sanctorum at Chateau Falco. The lip of my recessed bowl was even with the room’s floor, and was large enough to fill with water to transform into an in-ground hot tub of sin.
The chains of my manacles were affixed to a thick metal ring hammered into the floor above my head since our little love nest sat at a lower elevation. I had enough slack so that I could move them to my sides but not block my goods.
Aphrodite stood within the bowl near my feet, towering over me. Her dark hair hung down over her shoulders, and she had oiled her skin so that her body glistened, reflecting the firelight of the room’s several braziers. I couldn’t help but stare in profound awe.
“Um. Your toga fell off,” I mumbled. “Yet you fund underwear.” She now wore only purple silk panties and matching garters. I absently realized that purple went really well with all that tanned sexiness. My lips were tingling for some strange reason and my cheeks felt flushed. I was beginning to sweat in the relaxing humidity.
Carnage: Nate Temple Series Book 14 Page 8