The King of Hearts (The Dark Kings Book 9)

by Jovee Winters

  “Dionysus! I need your help. Come. Please.”

  Gods were proud sorts, and they hated to be ordered about. I doubted he would show. I also doubted Dionysus wasn’t planning something himself. No one upon Olympus was truly altruistic. Whatever they did, good or bad, was always done with an end game in mind. The question was, did Dionysus’ end game align more with mine or with mother’s?

  “Nephew,” I heard his lazy drawl a moment later, “yell any louder and you’ll wake Thanos’ dead.” Then he snorted and chuckled. “Oh, the irony of such a joke is lost on you, I suppose.”

  I frowned.

  “Anyway,” he batted the moment aside. “You called. I came. What do you need, my boy?”

  He was solicitous. Maybe too much? Should I trust him? Dare I?

  But what other choice did I have?

  I had to learn what mother was planning against Psyche.

  My front teeth ground together with my indecision.

  “Let me make this easy for you, my boy. You wonder whether you should trust me.” He snorted. “Of course, you should not. You should know better than any of us that you cannot afford to trust anyone upon on Olympus. Unless, of course, it’s that blowhard do-gooder Hades. Though all the world imagines that he and not the King of the Gods is actually the true evil. Zeus has an excellent rep man, I swear. The whole word believes him to be the good one and Hades the devil himself.” He guffawed. “You see, trust no one. You are right to be wary of me, but I can offer you consolation. What I want, does not involve you or even your bloody mother, in anyway.”

  Curiosity bloomed within me. I sensed immediately that what he wanted had something to do with pleasing a female. I cocked my head. It wasn’t love… or maybe, it was, but it wasn’t quite true yet.

  He narrowed his eyes. “You are reading my heart. I feel it. You’re searching for the truth, but you will not find it. I won’t allow it. Still, you know I do not lie to you now. I do want something, but what I want will not harm you or your precious human in anyway.”

  “You are a difficult man to read, Uncle. Does anyone on Olympus know just how formidable of a foe you could be?”

  In answer he merely lifted one brow.

  My respect for how well he’d hidden his truths rose just a little. To all the worlds Dionysus was considered frivolous and silly. Much like Apollo. But where Apollo truly was frivolous and silly, Dionysus was proving himself to be anything but.

  I wet my lips. “Okay, Uncle. I will not expose you. But I want your assurance that what we do now remains between us two, only. Have we a deal?”

  He nodded. “Deal.”

  The air trembled with the awareness of our sacred pact.

  “So, you’ve called me here, tell me why.”

  Taking a deep breath, I allowed myself, maybe for the first time to actively double cross my own mother.

  “I need to learn what it is she’s got planned at the festival in three days’ time. I know that whatever it is, it is meant to bring great shame and possibly even harm to Psyche.”

  “And you wish to stop her, of course.”

  I shook my head. “I have to make her believe I am still on her side. I cannot stop this, not without exposing my true motives to my mother and placing Psyche in great peril. I ask for your discretion in this matter, Dionysus. If there is a measure of goodness in you at all, help me keep that innocent woman safe.”

  He pursed his lips, stroking his chin, as he eyed me studiously. Several heartbeats passed before he finally spoke.

  “Fine. I will do it. I will become your eyes and ears upon Olympus, and when this is done, I will come to you for my own favor.”

  He held out his hand.

  We’d already sealed the deal in words, but I couldn’t contain my nerves as I stared at his hand. I was mother’s right hand. I’d never betrayed her. Ever. Even when I’d felt sick at my stomach by the many sins she’d already committed.

  But then I thought of Psyche. Of her sad, beautiful eyes. She’d never seen me as I really was, and yet her touch had been true. Her intentions pure. I’d read it in her heart. She’d recognized something in me that resonated within herself too.

  I felt a connection to her that made no sense. It defied reason. Comprehension. Or even sanity.

  I took his hand and shook it with conviction.

  He gave me a lopsided smirk. “She must have gotten beneath your skin to make you betray your mother. I doubt anything else could have.”

  I waited for the flair of guilt to worm through my gut, but it never came. All I felt was a desire to save her. To make sure she didn’t become just another one of my mother’s cruel casualties.

  Eros

  I spent the whole of the next day planning mother’s ceremony. I’d not caught a single glimpse of Psyche. But every time I stepped foot into the expansive royal gardens, I could swear I felt her hot gaze upon me.

  The back of my neck had felt tight and tingly. Yet every time I turned around to look, no one was there. Mother had told me not to shame her with the ceremony and I had to say I’d outdone myself in every way.

  There was a frozen lake with glass swans resting upon it that glistened like a diamond in the sun. Elementals skated upon the lake, looking like mortal women, but moving in a manner that proved they could not be of this world. They moved like the winds, enchanting all who watched them.

  I had a glass aviary erected with exotic birds from the farthest lands lazily flying inside. Their plumes of scarlet and jeweled blue a beautiful contrast against the emerald green topiaries of prancing elephants and mares.

  There were empty stadiums erected on either side of the gardens. Banners had been released in all the major cities and ports, ensuring that anyone who was anyone would come.

  Food prepared by master artisans was well under way. Wine would flow for days thanks to Uncle’s kind generosity.

  But none of this had been done for mother. Though she would believe so. I do believe I’d had Psyche’s beautiful face in my mind the entire time I’d designed the grounds. Imagining what I could do that would bring a smile to her gorgeous lips, even in the midst of the public humiliation she would no doubt be forced to endure.

  Though I’d made everything as beautiful as I could, I understood what all of this really was. Mother’s way of flexing her power over all of them. She would stand in the center of the raised dais and condemn Psyche for an imagined crime to the jeers and laughter of all the nobility in this part of the world.

  I clenched my jaw. What if Dionysus didn’t come through? What if, even now, he was celebrating his own victory over my foolish trust of him? Or, worse… what if he was actually in cahoots with my mother all along?

  My heart clenched and a fire raged through my bones. I rubbed at the aching spot, softly shaking my head as the horrors of just how this could all go horribly wrong played out.

  What if by betraying mother to Dionysus, I’d actually condemned myself in the process too? If mother knew I’d betrayed her, she might take me back home. She might lock me up. She might make it so that I could not help Psyche any longer even if I wanted to.

  Beginning to feel myself sinking into the clutches of a full on panic attack, I leaned against the stone wall behind me. My breathing growing wild and more erratic by the second.

  The sun was already set. Faint pinpricks of starlight winked in the navy blue canvas. I should never have trusted any of them. I should have done this work on my own. I should have—

  “Psst. Boy.” The sibilant hiss broke through my tormented thoughts.

  Frowning, I turned toward the voice and spotted Dionysus. But not really. He was merely his ghost. A spectrum of ephemeral blue floated just beside a topiary of a bumblebee in flight.

  Glancing around me, I gathered what meager curls of shadow to me as I still could. I would not be shielded from mother’s prying eye if she should be looking at me, but at least none of the mortals would spot the ghost of my very much living Uncle.

  “What are you doin
g here?” I hissed, heart racing like thundering hooves in my chest. “Mother could be watching even now.”

  The specter of my Uncle smirked. “Not likely. I gave her my very best wines and most beautiful wenches to play with this night. I assure you; she is quite out of her mind with giddiness at the moment.”

  I curled my nose. “You forced your servants to bed my mother, that is cruel. And unjust.”

  He snorted. “Those females were as willing to jump into your mother’s bed as she was to have them, believe me. Nymphs have an appetite for the carnal that could even rival your mother’s. No one was harmed, I can assure you, my boy.”

  Dionysus did have a very strong bond with the usually skittish nymphs and satyrs of Olympus, it was true. And he was also right about their carnal appetites. Nymphs didn’t have much in their heads, but when it came to bed sport, it was said they were nearly as good at it as my mother was. Not that I ever really wanted to know that, but gossip was rife on Olympus.

  I was relieved at least that Dionysus hadn’t forced them into it. I didn’t keep with rape of any sort. No one should have their will and autonomy stripped of them.

  I nodded, lowering my eyes and letting him know without words that I believed him. “Please tell me you’ve learned something, Uncle? I’ve been going half out of my mind with worry tonight. I need to know what she’s got planned. I need to help Psyche.”

  Dionysus lifted his brows, gone was the usual smug arrogance, replaced by a studious expression that I couldn’t quite read.

  “You look just like her, but you are nothing like her, are you, whelp?”

  I knew whom he meant.

  But I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing at all.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Well, no matter. I promised you my aid, and I delivered. Your mother does indeed have a plan to humiliate your princess. It is said that there is another minotaur trapped somewhere upon this isle. She intends to enlist him. He will become your princesses’ intended.”

  I clenched my molars, understanding that this was a lot more than mere humiliation she wished to heap upon Psyche’s head. This was more. It was torture. A minotaur might have the upper body of a hairy male, but his lower half was all bull. For him to mate with Psyche, even nonviolently, would literally tear her apart inside.

  “She can’t do that.” I looked at my Uncle.

  He had his lips pressed tight. “She can and she will, boy. She’s already sent her scouts out to locate this beast. As you know minotaur’s are cursed half breeds, who have never known the lustful touch of another. To be given such a rare chance, I have no doubt that the minotaur—even a kind hearted one—would utterly destroy her in his haste to finally mate. I believe your mother’s ultimate goal is to kill the princess without sullying her own lily white hands in the process.”

  Tremors took hold of the muscles in my thighs. I had to lean my full weight against the column behind me. “She’s gone completely mad with power. This can’t happen, Dionysus.”

  He shrugged. “Then I suppose the ball is in your court now, my boy. I’ve done all I can do. And now I must return to the revelry before I am missed and she discovers the traitor in her midst.”

  “How am I to stop this? What can I possibly do? I am just a god of silly arrows and potions.”

  “And she is one of love, yet that has not stopped her from blazing a path of violence and destruction. Find the will, boy. If you love this mortal—”

  “I never said this was love. I—”

  “I am an old god. You are not the only one who understands the heart, my boy. You and I, we do not lie to one another. I would have truth from you and I vow that you will only ever get that from me as well. If you love her,” he pressed, “you will figure it out. But you haven’t much time. A day at most before her scouts retrieve him to prepare him for the marriage ceremony.”

  “I don’t even know where to start looking for him.”

  Dionysus grinned and his blue image began to slowly fade. “All the best adventures begin that way, my boy.”

  And then he was gone.

  I stared with sightless eyes at the world around me in a daze.

  “What has you so heavy, my lord?” Startled, I twitched, hoping she hadn’t heard what Dionysus and I had been talking about. I knew the voice anywhere. It was Psyche. She’d been watching me, just as I’d thought. I turned and my heart felt like a brick in my chest all of a sudden. A gentle breeze stirred the perfume on her flesh, and I breathed it in deep into my lungs. Flowers. She always smelled of flowers.

  “You call me ‘my lord’, but I am merely a humble serv—”

  “Do not lie to me. Not to me,” she said it softly and with a thread of hurt behind it.

  I could read her heart so clearly, as though it were my own. So many others around her hurt her. They lied to her on a near daily basis. But she was nobody’s fool and refused to be treated as such. Either I confessed, or she would walk away. I could see it in the tension lines of her body. Her hands were fisted by her side and her look was one of expectation mingled with disappointment that I had even tried to deceive her.

  I swallowed hard. No other mortal had ever been so quick to identify my godhood. But she had. Because she was different. As I was different.

  I sighed and lowered my eyes, rubbing the side of my bald head. “You play a dangerous game with me, Psyche. You should not be so close to me. You should not be standing here.”

  She smelled so bloody good though. Like dewdrop roses and honeysuckle.

  I inhaled deeply, squeezing my eyes shut as I allowed my head to be filled with her.

  I felt the heat of her body mingle with my own as she leaned in. “Tell me who you are? Who you really are?”

  I opened my eyes. Staring at her miserably. Giving my head the slightest shake.

  Disappointment flashed through her eyes, before she too sighed wearily.

  “Fine. Then just tell me one thing. You can’t? Or you won’t?”

  I knew the distinction and I knew why she was asking.

  I shouldn’t even tell her this. But I couldn’t keep hurting her.

  “Can’t.”

  She nodded, but to me it appeared a weight had suddenly lifted off her shoulders.

  “Why are you here, my lord?” she repeated and I wanted to correct her, I hated the sound of such a pompous title upon her sweet lips. But I knew she would ask more questions I could not answer.

  Though there was one question for her that I thought perhaps only she could answer.

  “A beast?”

  She blinked, and confusion shaded her eyes. “What?”

  “I seek the beast of the isle. Where is he? Who keeps him?”

  I saw the recognition suddenly flare in her eyes and she glanced over her shoulder.

  “The minotaur?” she hissed it as a question at me, seeming nervous and anxious.

  I nodded, wondering why she should seem so scared.

  Wetting her lips, she appeared suddenly fidgety where she hadn’t been before. “Fa…father keeps him. In the dungeons. And that’s all I know.”

  Then she turned on her heel and was swiftly gone, the stench of her fear a lingering odor in my nostrils.

  I had to stop mother’s vile plan. I had to save Psyche. No matter the cost.

  Eros

  * * *

  Every footstep sounded thunderous in my ears.

  The dungeons, for it was that, was dank and dark as any good dungeon should be. And though I was a god and had nothing to fear from a wild creature like the half bull man, I still tasted the adrenaline tang of nerves on the back of my tongue.

  The minotaur couldn’t kill me, but he could hurt her. Creatures built of curses could be divided into two camps. Those less creature and more man, and those less man and more creature.

  A creature with more of his humanity intact could be reasoned with. But a monster with nothing but the driving force of his bestial nature moving through him could not be. If I bumped into the bull hea
ded male and he spoke as a man I was reasonably certain I could do something.

  But what?

  I still didn’t have a clue. I had no plan here. But that’s the only way it could be. Mother was less likely of discovering my duplicity if I winged it. My own pinned wings shivered in response.

  My palms were sweaty. I rubbed them down the front of my shirt, gods, why was this so stupidly hard for me? It shouldn’t be. I was a damned man. Fully grown. I had a right to my own opinions, didn’t I?

  But it seemed my brain and my heart were in direct conflict, because I felt a little as though I’d just swallowed a greasy ball of wax and my stomach was rioting in response. Not for me though, that was the wildest part about all of this. I was the one taking on all the responsibility but not once had I worried about what would be done to me should mother discover my perfidy.

  “Who are you? And why are you here?”

  Sucking in a sharp breath, I twirled. Realizing I’d been so lost to the thoughts in my head that I’d not noticed the looming presence standing just in the shadow before me. A drop of water plopped down at my feet, running through the crevices of this ancient, twisted labyrinth.

  Peering through the shadows, I was easily able to make the creature out. I lived in shadow. Shadow could not hide anything from my gaze.

  The creature was massive, the crown of his head rested against the ceiling, which was easily twelve foot high. I was a man of six in a half foot, the monster was nearly twice my height and far broader than I was. He looked to be at least twenty one stone, if not slightly more, whereas I was twelve. The differences between us was sobering.

  “Who are you?” he asked again, voice deep and animalistic as one might imagine a bull man would be. But it was resonate and surprisingly clearly. There was a slight accent to it, he was not originally of these parts. Crete, maybe?

  “My name is Eros,” I said honestly.

  The creature said nothing for a moment, but then he stepped out into a swath of light. It was a myth that there was only one minotaur in existence, in truth there were several. The most famous being the son of King Minos, but that creature was more animal than man. He was mad with animal aggression and resembled a man but very little.