Nymphs of the air, water, earth, and fire. Father was not picky. He loved them all, much to my mother’s chagrin, though nymphs had always been a personal favorite of his. Likely because they were as vacuous as they were pretty. They were here for the sex, nothing more. And the truth was, Zeus had nothing more to offer than that. I fully acknowledged he was a pig. But I was not cut from the same cloth as he was. I’d only ever had my eye for one. Faithless and unworthy though she’d been, it had only ever been Aphrodite who’d called to me. Father had reviled me my choice of only one. He thought me weak, always had. A man, he’d said, must sow his seed in fertile soil so as to reap a worthy harvest.
I cringed when I thought of how truly loathsome he was when it came to his attitude pertaining to the opposite sex. There were times I wasn’t sure why I cared so much for him. He and I were really nothing at all alike. But then he’d show me an ounce of kindness, and for some damn reason, it made me crave more.
I fought so damn hard to make my father recognize me as worthy, but deep down, I wondered whether he ever truly would. And I was no fool. I knew the rumors—that he wasn’t my father at all—but he was a hell of a bloody lot nicer to me than my bitch of a mother had ever been. So there was that.
I sighed heavily and instantly regretted it the moment a blue-haired sea nymph turned my way. Her aquamarine eyes grew wide in her elfin face, and then I saw it start, the same as it always did.
The quiet gasps. The pointing fingers. The murmurings as they watched me, an abomination of both man and machine, stride—with head held high and nose high in the air, feigning that I didn’t care about their taunts and their hateful, hurtful words, when that couldn’t be further from the truth—toward a man who still called me bastard.
I clenched my molars so hard I heard them grind as the titters grew louder, bolder.
“Here again,” one said. “When will he learn? The poor bastard.”
“Glutton for punishment, that one.”
“Gods, he got none of their looks, did he? What a freakish thing he is.”
Nothing new, and yet each time I heard the insults, they speared my soul like fiery barbs, making me hate the vain pettiness of my father’s harem. And for the millionth time, I questioned my devotion to a man who didn’t give two shits about me.
“Look what the cat’s dragged in, ladies!” Zeus’s lightning-filled voice cracked through the vast chamber, echoing with power and mocking humor.
Finally forced to stop looking at the gold-hammered crown molding of my father’s cloud ceiling, I turned my reluctant gaze upon him.
Zeus could become any size or even anything he desired. Sexual trysts of him in animal form were legendary stories upon Olympus—a way for him to escape the obsessive detection of my mother’s cow-shaped eyes upon him so that he could be free to bed an entire village of women at his choosing.
But when on Olympus, his form was always the same: golden of skin, with hair that fell in long salt-and-pepper waves to his shoulders. A golden crown rested upon his head, fashioned from golden lightning crafted by my very own hands. The crown flashed and roiled brilliantly, casting his severe features in a sort of halo of golden light, giving him an almost angelic appearance.
Though he was anything but.
His blue eyes twinkled with laughter as one woman, a satyress, I judged by the hoven feet sticking out from beneath the white sheet she had tied around her waist, bobbed up and down before his spread thighs.
I thinned my lips as another one of his consorts sat upon the edge of his golden throne, as naked as the day was long and fondling her enormous breasts as causally as could be as she stared at me with a haughty smirk, as if to taunt me that I could never have what she was selling. That she was too good for me, too beautiful, and I was unworthy to even lick the soles of her dirty boots. But the irony was, I’d had the best the gods had had to offer. So for me, her body was nothing at all. I’d liken it to the reek of ten-day-old offal sitting out in the sun—that was how much her flesh excited me.
“Really?” I sneered, staring at the bodies all around me, finding it all so gauche and classless. “You knew I was coming, I sent you a message earlier.”
His grin only grew wider, and the bobbing satyr’s movements grew faster and more energetic. He moaned, shifting to accommodate her chaotic actions.
“Don’t tell me the sight of firm titty doesn’t arouse you, boy,” Zeus said, pupils dilated, and I could smell the reek of his musk in my nostrils.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, showing nothing, giving him nothing. But inside, I felt nothing but quiet disdain for the man.
“You are a male, after all.” And so saying, he reached toward the fondler, slapped her hand away, and squeezed her breast hard.
So hard that her flesh turned a shade of bone white. She gasped, sitting forward and coming up on the balls of her feet, a small curve upon her lips. And I couldn’t tell whether that was pain etched onto her pretty features or true enjoyment, but I would go out on a limb and say she loved every moment of it.
Father had a way of turning even the smartest women dumb.
I wanted to gnash my teeth, wanted to call him a fucking bastard, a brute, a louse. But I would never give that man any more of me. I felt the fire and a strange emotion I’d never felt for him before begin to churn up in me, and I swallowed it all down. Curling my fingers into fists, I counted slowly to three in my head before I trusted myself to speak.
“I am your son, right?” I said, unable to keep the hint of an angry growl from threading through my words.
His face went hard, as it always did whenever I dared to prod him on the matter, but the expression just as quickly vanished as he wet his lip and thrust his hips forward with an exultant cry.
I knew what came next and turned my back. He might be my father—that didn’t mean I had to watch him come. It offended me that he always chose to have his orgies whenever I’d request a visit, and yet I was almost entirely certain that it was never by accident, either.
It was over quickly, as it always was. I heard him mumbling nonsense to the woman, no doubt telling her she was the best he’d ever had and that he’d be seeing her again. The silly female giggled, whispering nonsense right back.
Sometimes he did. Most times he didn’t.
There was a world full of fresh fish—why settle for just one, he’d always said. Of course, he’d never speak such to my mother. She was his only queen and had been as far back as anyone could remember. But that was in title only. And we all knew it; they’d stopped lying together eons ago.
It would almost be a relief to know I wasn’t his. Sometimes I wished he would tell me, just so that I could let go of this ridiculous and foolish notion that someday he might actually learn to… if not love me, at least like me back.
He clapped his hands and a tidal wave of his power rolled through the room like a great, whistling wind. I leaned into the gale, keeping my footing. And when next I blinked, the entire harem had been vanished.
“What did I ever do to deserve such a selfish child,” Zeus grunted, and I knew that was my cue to turn.
I fixed a blank look on my face as I turned and watched him pull on a golden-furred bathrobe tailored by the three Fates just for him from the pelt of the only golden chimera that had ever been in existence. I thought the beginning of my bitterness toward my father had been birthed that very day, the day he’d decided killing it was better than guarding and protecting it. I’d been a mere child of five then, but I still remembered how his lightning-streaked eyes had sparkled with terrible glee as he’d awaited my reaction.
I’d been so enchanted by that chimera, which would come and visit me at teatime every afternoon. He’d been my friend, and I his. I’d not had many friends because I couldn’t walk. I was lame. Short. Squat-framed even then. The other children and gods would mock me for my twisted body, but Chimera had been good to me.
Then one day he’d not come back, and I’d never known why or what had happen
ed to him until one day I’d seen his pelt on Father’s back and the whole terrible truth had come crashing down around me. He’d killed the beast because I’d dared to befriend it. I’d never given him a reaction then, and I refused to give him one now.
After several seconds of staring down on me, he finally sat and glowered at me like a pouting teenager who’d finally been told no. “Why are you here, boy? Have you got more lightning for me?”
My nostrils flared as I cast my eyes to the ground. In truth, I didn’t even know why I’d come. Only that I was restless of late. And his seemed as good a place as any to go to.
I wasn’t feeling good today. In fact, I hadn’t been feeling good for months now. And deep down I knew why, which only made me angrier.
Zeus was right. I was a failure. At everything. Especially at hating her. She’d done the one thing she knew I could never, would never forgive her for. The one and only act that I couldn’t overlook in a whole host of other things she’d done to me through the years. All I’d ever asked of Aphrodite was to honor my one and only wish, just one damn bloody wish, and she’d been as fickle and faithless as the rest of them, laughing in my face, unrepentant, though I’d stood there at her feet completely shattered and more broken than I’d ever been physically when I’d found her. I felt the heat spread through me as I remembered that day as though it were just yesterday—the ice that had flowed through my veins, the feeling of complete and utter betrayal by the one person I’d dared to ever let in, to lower my guard with.
I liked fire. Loved flame. I lived in the very mouth of hell itself, but right now, I did not crave this fire. This fire burned. It consumed. And it was killing me.
I took a deep breath and fought to remain impassive, though deep inside, I wanted to rage and tear this damn gilded cage down, watch it burn in the heart of my forge, and become nothing more than soot and forgotten forever by all.
Zeus’s lips twitched, as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. He couldn’t read my mind, but everyone on Olympus knew practically everything about everyone’s personal lives. That was just how things went up here.
I’d reached beyond my station with her. She was the crowning glory of Olympus itself, the most beautiful rose amongst us. I wasn’t even a flower. I’d only ever been a weed in their garden, but for a time, I’d thought she might have cared for me despite my lack of beauty. And not even because she’d ever told me so—mostly because for some unexplained reason, Aphrodite had briefly consented to being mine.
Except until the day I’d handed Hermes the decree of divorcement to give to her. I hadn’t thought she’d care. Quite frankly, she’d stopped pretending long ago that she actually gave a damn about me. I’d assumed she’d be relieved to be free of the burden of me. She’d so much as said so on that fateful day when I’d finally realized I’d been clinging to a dream.
But then she’d come to my forge. So damn beautiful, dressed in the sweeping flames of that dress that I’d fashioned just for her with my overly large, meaty, and ugly fingers years ago. A gown she’d never once worn for me before, though it’d taken me many hours to build.
I was a big man used to making big and powerful and deadly weapons, not delicate, lovely, and soft things, such as dresses. But I’d been besotted by her, as all of us on Olympus were, and I’d done silly, nonsensical things for her just in the hopes of gaining a smile in return—like build a dress of fire.
And there she’d stood. Haughty. Vain. Proud. And so damn beautiful I’d felt rain falling in my eyes and heat lodged in my throat. And for the first time in nearly two decades, she’d touched me again.
A gentle scrap of her tiny palm to my whiskered cheek, and I’d felt so fucking weak and full of fear that I’d called her a bitch. Wanting, needing her to leave me be. Confused by her cruelty, because it hadn’t actually felt cruel at all, which was probably the cruelest thing she could have ever done to me. And those luminous blue eyes of hers that had always reminded me of placid waves had filled with a sheen all their own, as though my insult had actually pricked her cold, dead heart.
And the way she’d looked at me… I shuddered, having a hell of a time reconciling the woman who’d been in that forge with me that day versus the one who’d lived to torment me for years on end.
“Why are you here!” Zeus thundered, pounding his fist on his throne and causing me to jerk so hard my knees almost buckled.
How could I have forgotten where I was? And yet that was nothing new. In the month since she’d left Olympus, I’d found myself growing ever more confused and preoccupied by thoughts of her.
The day that’d finally forced my hand into writing up the divorcement decree was seared into my memory. The hate in her glittering eyes as she’d stared at me in her long hallway would be a memory I’d never forget. But that final touch of hers, when she’d come to me at my forge… that final touch had been an ember, a spark of something for which I dared not believe, to hope for. Because if I ever let her in again, I knew she would destroy me forever.
I looked at the man I was no longer sure had sired me and shrugged. “I…” I gazed at the glittering ball of semen that had gathered at the steps of his throne. “I… I came to gather power,” I said lamely, curling my lip.
His bolts of lightning were fashioned from his seed—little-known fact. Disgusting fact, Aphrodite had always sneered, and she’d been right.
He flicked his wrist with a dismissive roll. “Then take it.”
Hating who I’d become, I stared at that glittering mess and shook my head. Where was she now? And was she okay?
I swallowed hard.
In my mounting frustration and rage, I clapped my hands together, creating my own funnel of powerful winds that would scoop up the filth and take it back down to my shop, where it would be given a good cleaning before it became a pristine and powerful bolt of lightning. Zeus wasn’t the only one who could command the winds.
His dark raven’s-wing-colored brows rose high up on his broad forehead. “Something wrong, boy?” He didn’t ask because he cared. He was testing me, poking at me, as he liked to do.
I blinked, brain full of so many words, but my tongue felt too thick and glued to the roof of my mouth. So I grunted and shook my head.
His stare was frank, hard and assessing, but finally, he shrugged. “It’s the bitch, is it not? Pussy’s not worth all this, boy. Especially not hers. Hers might be good, but there’s a hell of a lot more agreeable pussy out there waiting to be given a good fucking. And looks or no, you are a god. Go find yourself a human girl—they love god dick.” He winked, grinning from ear to ear as if he’d actually given me fatherly advice and fucking hell.
I scrubbed at my jaw, reminding myself over and over that I was no match for my father. He was king of Olympus for a reason. But I wanted to cave his handsome face in, wanted to break him just as he’d broken me.
“What?” he teased, and I saw the lightning dance in his eyes. “Nothing to say, because you know I’m right. She was a bitch. Fuck-worthy to be sure, but a bit—”
“Stop,” I snapped, voice so harsh and grating that even the walls trembled at my displeasure. My voice was low but full of menace. “Say nothing else. Not one more word.” I held up one finger, body vibrating with fury I barely kept in check. I knew I was a fool to poke at the dragon this way, but I didn’t care. I just didn’t care anymore.
The cocky grin on his face dropped instantly, and there was now fire in his own eyes. Very few dared to talk with Zeus this way, and I never had. He looked like a cobra suddenly coiled for the strike, but rather than fear his retaliation, a twisted part of me would almost be relieved by it. Welcome it, even.
My stomach was a knot of nerves. My heart felt as though someone had taken a nest of razor blades to it, and I wanted to hurt something. Badly.
“Get out of my sight. That’s your only warning,” he said slowly, and now it was my turn to grin.
“With pleasure.”
I turned on my heel and walked with purpos
e out of there. Bad fucking idea to come here. What did I expect, though? I’d always been a godsdamn glutton for punishment, just as the nymph had said.
I was out of the gates and about to call forth a travel tunnel when I heard a deep voice speak from over my shoulder.
“Hephaestus, I’ve found you. You and I need to ta—”
That voice. I’d know that fucking voice anywhere. Silky and deadly and everything I was not.
With a roar that I’d never expected to come out of me, I whirled on Hades and slammed my forearm into his throat, shoving him into the marble wall of my father’s stupidly gaudy home. The stone shuddered, and a giant spiderweb of cracks went off in every direction, clouds of white dust encircled our heads, and Hades let out a loud grunt, looking at me as if I’d lost my fucking mind.
Maybe I had, but I just didn’t care anymore. For months before the dissolving of my marriage, all Aphrodite had talked about had been Hades. Hades fucking this and Hades fucking that, and fuck that!
“Stay away from me! You hear me? Only warning, Death.”
I saw him reach for me, saw his finger curl with blue flame, and knew he meant to touch me with death’s kiss. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would hurt like a mother, and I was done feeling like shit today.
With a snarl, I dropped my arm, tore a rift of time open so forcefully that the earth literally groaned beneath our feet, and stepped through without looking back. Only once I was safely ensconced in the tunnel did I hang my head and close my eyes, and sounds like that of a wounded and dying animal echoed hollowly all around me.
4
Calyssa
I took one look at my mate’s dejected face and knew the conversation hadn’t gone well. His large hand was rubbing up and down his strong neck distractedly, and his hair, which was poking in all directions, looked as though he’d tugged on it a time or twenty, a sure sign that he was edgy and wished to speak with me. I smirked and crossed my arms, sitting back on my seat in a casual stance. I stared at my buffed nails and nonchalantly kicked one of my legs back and forth, waiting for the inevitable moment that he broke and declared that I had been right all along.
The Forge King Page 4
