The King of Hearts (The Dark Kings Book 9)

by Jovee Winters

  I frowned.

  “You’re tense again,” Hephy rumbled in that gravelly tone of his, and I quickly shook my head, assuring him that it wasn’t what he thought. I patted his chest, looking up at his beloved face once again.

  “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  He lifted a brow. “Then what is it?”

  I shrugged. “I was just thinking that so few people know how much I need to feel love to feel whole. It’s imprinted in my chemical make-up; I need to know that I am not only wanted but that I am loved beyond all sense and reason.”

  His full lips thinned. “And you’re wondering if Eros is the same?”

  Again, I shrugged, but nodded. “It would make sense, right? Of all my children he and I are the most similar.”

  Hephy nodded, but didn’t say anything for a moment, just simply mulled on my words. Finally, he blinked, and looked at me. “It does make sense, love. But I’m not sure if trying to set him up with anyone right now is the right thing to—”

  I shook my head. “No, and I don’t even think he’d accept my help right now. He can barely stand to be in my presence.”

  I thought of my last disastrous meeting with him. I’d invited him over for tea and cakes with Caly to mediate between us. At first, I’d had such hope, he’d been calm and seemed like he was trying. But then Caly had mentioned an issue with a recently deceased maiden in Elysia who was crying every night of a broken heart because she couldn’t bear to be separated from her mortal and living lover and something in Eros had just snapped. I’d never seen him so angry, growling at Caly and calling her and Hades heartless bastards for not restoring her soul to the land of the living. Which was obviously not possible. The dead stayed dead. That’s how life worked. We were not in charge of the strings of fate anyway, the fates were. He’d known that. But he’d been almost animalistic in his fury and not knowing what to do or so I’d simply stared at him in shock. Fully expecting my friend to go ape on him and maybe turn him into a pretzel for his daring to speak to her in such a manner, but she hadn’t. She’d simply let him speak his peace. I’d never seen her so calm in the face of such obvious fury.

  Then Eros had simply vanished and neither of us knowing what to say had independently decided there was nothing to say. We’d not talked about that afternoon and no matter how much I reached out to my son to see him; he’d refused all my calls.

  He thinned his eyes. “I’ve been mated to you long enough to know that look in your eyes, little dove. What have you got planned?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know that I’ve got anything planned, Hephy. Honest. More like the first inkling of an idea. That is all.”

  He stared at me for a long moment, before finally sighing heavily, leaning in and tenderly kissing my forehead. Pressing his lips firmly to my flesh, as though he could hang onto me forever by doing so.

  I understood what this was, what he was doing. I’d not been home in so long, he’d missed me. As I’d missed him. He was also worried for me, as was often his way where I was concerned. This Hephy was slightly different than the version of my timeline had been. That one had understood my reckless and sometimes wildly independent streak, he’d seen my growth and maturity through the ages. But the Hephy of this time didn’t have the benefit of time behind him. He’d only known me, truly known me, for a year. He was learning me, just as that Hephy had, but I understood that it would take time before we got back into the same comfortable rhythm we’d shared once before.

  His look was studious, but also patient and understanding. “I don’t claim to understand the way your brilliant mind works, my dear, but I trust in you. And daily that trust grows. If you believe that there is naught to be done where Eros is concerned, I believe you.”

  Heart feeling as though it overflowed with love and warmth, I grabbed his hands and brought them close to my breasts, clutching tightly to them. “I love that you have such belief in me, Hephy, I do. But I fear that in this I don’t quite share in your convictions. I don’t know what I’m doing where Eros is concerned.”

  He squeezed my hands once before gently easing out from my grip and he once again wrapped his strong arms around my waist. Holding me loosely. I clung to his wide shoulders.

  “Then why don’t we table this conversation for now. We revisit things in a year’s time? Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s just your fears talking and has nothing to do with Eros at all. You haven’t been a mother to him in this life but a year. Just as I’ve had to learn you, you’re having to learn him. Be gentle with yourself, my dove. Trust and love take time to build. Eros is a smart boy. He surely sees that you are not that same woman of before. Someday he will learn to trust in you. As I do.”

  I swallowed hard, knowing that Hephy was making so much sense. But a sense of deep failure gripped me tight. “I know you’re right, husband.” I sighed. “I know. I can’t fix that woman’s mistakes in a year, maybe not even ten. Gods, is it horrible of me to say that I hate her? Though she was me, I hate—”

  He shook his head, and gazing deep into my eyes said with all the conviction of his heart, “You and she might have shared looks, but you are not the same woman. I love you, Aphrodite. I never liked her. She was everything that was wrong in this world. You are her complete antithesis. Understand that.”

  Leaning in, I kissed him. Gently, just a whisper of mouth upon mouth. But soon I was stroking his beloved lips with my own, sliding my tongue along the seam of his and silently urging him to let me in. Which he did. Without question.

  We made love; it was slow. And tender. Full of unspoken emotions and passion. I cried at one point, recognizing how very blessed I was that he’d finally seen me. I’d been in a very dark place when I’d imagined my life without him. He simply held me and allowed me to feel the moment. The joy of our union.

  When it was done, I felt my world at ease once again. He was right. He always was. Eros would eventually come around. He had to. He had to see that I was a different woman, one who desperately wanted to be his mother. His true mother. One that he could depend on. Count on. One who would hold back the gates of Tartarus itself to ensure his safety above all else. Hephy had eventually seen I’d changed. My son would have to acknowledge that change soon.

  I closed my eyes, cuddling into my gentle giant’s side and smiled my first real smile of the night. This nightmare would soon be over. I’d have my family restored back to me. We would be one big happy family.

  No doubt in my mind.

  Hephaestus

  She slept.

  Finally.

  Her sleep had been fleeting at best the past several nights. My female hardly ate. All she did was worry. About me. About her children. Our newborn. She wanted to be seen as the woman she was today, not the nightmare her other self had been.

  Recognizing the fact that this woman in my arms and the one I’d once known were two completely opposite individuals with different souls hadn’t come easily to me. In fact, I’d almost lost the single best thing I’d ever know in my life. If not for that damned divorce proceedings I would never have recognized the truth. I’d had the benefit of seeing my female’s true motives and heart, but Eros hadn’t gone to the trial. Not that I blamed him. Her son hadn’t had an easy road when it had come to the other Aphrodite.

  That female had been petty. Vindictive. And just downright evil. I didn’t think she’d honestly known how to show love, or affection. Even for the one thing I think in her twisted mind she did actually care for. Her children with Ares. Of which there were many. But her bond with Eros had been stronger than with the other children. They’d still been young enough to have forgotten much of what she’d done and forgiven her for the rest.

  Eros, though, had been her firstborn. She’d leaned heavily on him. Using him often as her gopher. Their relationship had been a twisted and complicated affair. She would kill anyone who dared tried to harm him, and yet she’d probably hurt him more than anyone else alive.

  She’d kept him to herself, rarely
letting him off the dog leash, or allowing him to get out of her sight unless she ordered him to kill one of her many countless enemies. He hadn’t had friends. And I highly doubted he’d had lovers, considering how tightly she’d kept him under lock and key.

  Once, I thought the boy devoted to her in a way only someone suffering from Stockholm syndrome could be. But since the old Aphrodite had been supplanted by the infinitely superior and better alternate version of herself, I had noticed the boy had pulled away completely.

  Which had made sense to me, I’d pulled away too. As much to protect myself as to hurt her. I’d not believed in Aphrodite’s changes. It had been something that’d taken me time and a lot of hope and faith to finally accept. At first, I’d thought Eros would follow a similar path to mine, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  And that worried me.

  What would happen to Dite if she lost hope that her son would see her for who she really was? She was a creature of love, one that gave and took. It was a symbiotic relationship for her, she needed to give it as much as she needed to receive it. I was desperately in love with my wife and all I wanted was to see her not only happy, but healthy. And part of the mental balance was knowing that she had the love of those she treasured most.

  Looking down at her sleeping form I felt a warmth stir though my soul. She hadn’t slept well in days. She needed this rest. I would not wake her.

  But I could not sleep now.

  Gently, I eased out from under her. Holding my breath as I disentangled our forms, hoping against hope she would not wake. She must have been truly exhausted because she only stirred once and that was to mumble a sweet, “luv you, beast.”

  I grinned, stroking my chest above the spot of my powerfully beating heart. Gods, I loved this woman. I would do anything for her. I would lie. Steal. Cheat. I would even kill for her. If the other Aphrodite had ever bothered learning that fact about me, she could have literally ruled Olympus with my might by her side, but she’d done the only thing that ensured she’d never have my loyalty, she’d treated me like trash beneath her heels. I’d had enough pride not to want to take anymore from her. I could only imagine the destruction I could have caused if she’d ever bothered to show me even a crumb of kindness.

  But I didn’t have to worry about that with my Dite. This female loved me as much as I did her. And that made me feel humbled. Grateful. It also made me want to give her the world.

  Sitting up, I grabbed my prosthetic legs and put them on. Leaning forward until I heard the click of the locking pins set.

  Then I stood and quickly grabbed a black kilt I had folded over the back of a chair and wrapped it on. Grabbing the first shirt I saw, I hastily tucked it in. With one final look at my sleeping bride, I travelled through a tunnel between dimensions. Homing in on the familiar love signature that was Eros. He and his mother were basically carbon copies of one another, so similar were they.

  It was easy enough to find him. He was standing by the waters of a tributary that led directly from the Underworld. The waters of this channel came from Lethe and were as potent to us as they were to mortals who drank of it.

  He was kneeling by the river’s edge, staring straight ahead with a mile long glance, seeing nothing and everything all at once.

  “Come to stop me, Uncle?” he finally asked into the deep quiet and stillness between us. I should have known he’d sense my presence. He had an uncanny ability to recognize anyone within his circumference.

  Crossing my arms, I wondered what could have the boy so low that he’d seriously consider erasing everyone and everything he’d ever known from his head permanently. I’d thought Dite had been fearful because she was his mother, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe her love for him recognized that he was not well at all.

  I shook my head, deciding to play this honestly. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to. You’ve too much of your mother in you.”

  He snorted. “Well, she’s a psychotic bitch, so thanks for that ass backwards compliment.”

  He was trying to add levity to his tone, but I heard the raw pain beneath it. I was starting to really worry I might be out of my element here. I really wished I could bring Aphrodite here, and yet I wasn’t sure she would be able to calm him as she did me. He had to want that from her and right now, I was having serious doubts that he did or ever even would.

  “Talk to me, boy,” I rumbled in a bassy baritone, hoping somehow, someway I’d be able to get through to her boy. If Eros drank from Lethe, he’d forget Aphrodite entirely. That reality might just break her.

  He sighed heavily, before finally turning to stare at me with eyes so broken it was like looking in a mirror. I’d had eyes just like that a year ago. It was a hopeless, helpless feeling that nothing would ever get better, that life would always be empty and meaningless and futile. It was the eyes of someone who didn’t care about anything or anyone.

  “About what, Uncle?” He asked with a harsh sniff. “What is it that I should say to make any of this make sense to you or me, huh?”

  Eros and I had always had a strange bond between us. We’d both understood what it was to love a monster like the other Aphrodite, and how that love slowly eroded at our souls, chipping away at us until all that remained was an exposed nerve that screamed out in agony both day and night. But I wondered if he resented me for no longer feeling that way about her.

  “She’s not the same person, you know. She’s—”

  He held up a hand. “Spare me your sanctimonious platitudes, I really don’t care. She’s fooled you. She’s fooled all of you, but I know better. You’re just one petty vendetta away from her breaking you all over again. You really think that evil bitch could change, just like that.”

  Spittle flew from his lips with the vehemence of his words.

  “You’re right, nephew. She couldn’t change. She was incapable of being a better person.”

  He blinked, seeming surprised by my words considering he now believed I’d shacked up with the beast.

  “So why are you with—”

  “Because that’s not the same woman,” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder in the direction of my home, “and if you would have bothered to come to our trial you would have seen it. Just like everyone else did.”

  “Alternate dimension Aphrodite. Right.” He snorted. “I’ve heard it before. It’s just another one of her games.”

  “You really think she could have fooled Themis? Your father? Me?” I frowned, studying his eyes, seeing the flash of uncertainty in them I knew he had wondered that same thing many times before. I took a step toward him, holding my hands palms forward to show him I meant him no harm. “Think about it, kid. Me, who had every cause to hate her, I was through with her, Eros. I was putting your mother aside. Even knowing what a move like that would do to my reputation in the pantheon. Because I’d had enough of her games and her hate. But that woman,” I pointed in the direction of my palace, “that woman isn’t the same person. She is everything. She is my heart. My soul. And she desperately wants to fix this rift between you and her. Just give her a chance.”

  He laughed, the sound was shrill and high pitched, full of anguish and the agony of despair. “You’re going with that then, huh? You’re really going to tell me she doesn’t know what she did. That this other version of her that existed did that, not her. It’s the same woman! Wake up!” He snapped his fingers, looking at me like I was a love struck fool too stupid to see the truth right in front of his eyes. “I can’t believe you fell for her lies. You and dad, and everyone else. People I admired, looked up to, how could you fall for her games again! And this time when she burns you, I won’t be here for you.” He pointed a long finger at me. “Or for dad. You guys might not have learned from the first disastrous go round, but I have. Fool me once, shame on you. But fool me twice…” He shook his head.

  There was a wildness in his face, in his stance, and how he spoke. This wasn’t just rage that he was feeling, it was a depth of sadness that I’d once known myself. Long
ago. Though the alternate Aphrodite had hated my very guts, ironically Eros and I had always had a good relationship. Hidden, and deep in shadow (he’d had to be careful around her too) but maybe because of all that secrecy we’d forged something stronger. He was like a son to me. A true son. My adopted child. And I did care for him, as a true father would.

  “Riddle me this, boy, how long was your mother able to feign innocence? How long could she pretend to be the docile, sweet natured goddess of love before that house of cards came tumbling down? Be honest now.”

  He clamped his lips shut, and I knew that I’d struck a nerve, but I was relentless because I believed in this new version of Aphrodite. I held her in my arms, sank deep into her willing and loving warmth, I looked into her soulful eyes each and every night. I saw her. Really saw her. It’d taken an unbelievable iron will on my part to be willing to admit that maybe I’d been wrong about her all along, but I was better for that act of faith. I couldn’t imagine my life without that woman.

  “You know,” I said deeply, “as well as I do that she could never pretend for long. It’s been a year, Eros, a year that she has shown me to be the best and most wonderful person I’ve ever known in the entirety of my existence. She is working to fix everyone else’s problems both day and night, with no rest, and no breaks in between until just now. Tell me, would your mother have done so? Would she have sacrificed her own happiness for that of anyone else’s? Even yours or mine? I think if you’re honest, you and I both know the answer to that question.”

  He stood, looking at me in a way I’d never seen him looking before. And then he began to shake. And soon those muscle spasms turned more violent, harder, into full blown trembles. That started first at his shoulders, before moving down his arms, into his torso and finally into his legs. And then he dropped to his knees, heaving with a sorrow I’d never heard before or since.

  “She’s dying. She’s dying and there’s nothing…” he stuttered, “nothing I can do to stop it.”