I lifted a brow, taking my time to look my fill.
She stomped her foot. “Look me in the eye, you filthy miscreant and tell me why you are here and not back in wonderland.”
I frowned. Why was she bringing up wonderland? Aphrodite worked on Olympus and Earth, not Kingdom. “Why do you care?” I growled, knocking back the rest of the dragon brew and then smashing my empty tankard onto the bar to let the keep know I was in need of another.
The goblinish fellow (truly, he was a goblin. He had green skin with reptilian scales gleaming iridescently around his throat and jaw, black beady eyes and coarse inky-colored hair that ran in a razor-sharp line from the crown of his head down his back to the base of his spine) sauntered over, gave me a snarl of disgust that showed off his two front gold-colored teeth, before quickly refilling my now chipped tankard with the bloodred brew.
Tapping a long, black-clawed finger on the bar top, he said in a sibilant hiss, “Ten drachmas, sssnake.”
I briefly considered severing his spinal chord for the insult. He knew I was no snake, but I found the idea of bloodying my hands at the moment less than appealing.
I did however let my dragon flame burn through my eyes for just a moment, long enough to blind him. Though not permanently.
“Call me snake again, and I’ll eat you, meal worm.”
Then fishing into my coin purse, I tossed much more than ten drachmas at him. I planned to drink here for several hours tonight, possibly even several days. I hadn’t quite decided yet—
“Grr!” Aphrodite growled, then latching her pretty little hands into my vest, yanked me up off my seat, lifting me above her head.
“You’re stronger than I’d suspected.” I grinned, fairly certain I was far more drunk than I’d first imagined myself to be.
Her pretty blue eyes sparkling with bands of pink, and her long blond hair, those luscious lips, and her heart-pounding beauty should have made it impossible for me to focus on anything else. Except she was shaking me back and forth like a rag doll.
“Stay married to Hephy for a couple millennia, and believe me, you’ll develop muscles in places you never thought were possible.” She smirked, but it wasn’t a sexy smirk. It was an angry smirk.
I snorted. She was still impossibly cute, even if she was deceptively strong.
“Are you mocking me, dragonborne?”
There was a note to her voice that should have made me not say what I did next, but I was far too drunk to think things through clearly.
“You know, you suddenly remind me of a yapping chihuahua. So cute, but far too—”
I did not get to finish that thought.
I was suddenly tossed to the cold stone floor, and her bare foot had somehow lodged itself against my trachea so that all I could do was wheeze. The fire pouch in my throat felt like it would suddenly burst into my lungs. And that flash of pain was as good as getting an ice-cold bucket of water flung into my face. Instant sobriety consumed me.
“Dite,” I gasped, “can’t breathe.” I clutched at her delicate ankle.
She really was so dainty to be so mighty. But this time, I kept that thought very much to myself.
Her dazzling features were full of fire and fury. Bending over me, she snarled, “I don’t even know what that chit sees in you. And were it not for the fact that your people guard my father’s orchards, I’d not even bother with you, pissant!”
Hmm. I’d never been on the receiving end of a goddess rage. I found I wasn’t quite fond of the position. Feeling humbled and suddenly stupid, I wisely kept my mouth shut.
But... “What chit? Zelena.” I shook my head. “She loathes the very sight of me.”
I hadn’t intended for that statement to sound quite so desperate or pitiful, and yet it had. I cringed.
That confession, however, was enough to get Aphrodite to take her foot off me and help me to stand. Gods, I’d had far too much to drink.
I dusted off my pants, glaring at the few patrons inside now staring at me like I was a lab specimen, until they finally turned back to their drink.
Mouth pulled down into a tight frown, Dite took a seat at the bar and patted the stool beside her. “Sit,” she commanded.
I sat.
“You wish to know why I’m here?” she asked me after a moment’s pause.
“I had wondered,” I slowly admitted with a voice grown hoarse. I’d be surprised if I could blow fire tonight. I cleared my throat, but it didn’t ease the dull ache of an almost crushed windpipe.
Aphrodite pursed her lips, and I thought Aphrodite meant not to speak to me again after her silence stretched into several long minutes, but finally she sighed. “I had a visit from the three Fates tonight. I have a dear friend in the Underworld with a situation.” She shrugged, and I was completely confused what this had to do with me. “Thing of it is, dragon, your success with this queen directly impacts a future success for a different queen. As the goddess of love it is my duty to see like hearts joined, but the truth of it is, I care not what you do with your wonderlandian queen. I find I do not much care for you anymore.”
That blunt, harsh statement was so far from what I’d expected that my jaw dropped. “You do not care? Were we not friends once?”
She shrugged. “Once, when you were younger and sweeter. When you were what a good dragon should be. But you’ve grown cold and callous. I see into your heart, and I do not like what is there anymore.”
I rubbed at my chest. Her softly spoken condemnation felt far worse than the foot in my throat had. Of all the gods, I’d always liked Aphrodite best. She’d been good to my family, but especially to me. She’d come and visit a lonely pitiful hatchling when the nights felt too long and my heart ached so hard from losing my greatest treasure.
It hadn’t dawned on me until just now that her visits had stopped the moment Zelena had married. That was the moment my sanity had snapped.
I thinned my lips, not liking the turn of my thoughts. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, I shifted on my stool.
“What is it that the fates showed you?”
“No.” She flicked her wrist. “Those revelations are not meant for you. Only that you should now return to wonderland, fight for your queen, and in the process, perhaps become the dragonborne I’d always believed you would be.”
Scrubbing a hand across my bristled jaw, I inhaled deeply. I’d come to this bar after releasing Zelena back to her people. I’d gone to her angry, taking all my rage of our situation out on her. And the truth of it was, when she’d slapped me, though I’d gotten angry in my heart, I knew she’d been right to do it. None of what’d happened to us had been her fault.
But I was at a loss now on how to fix this mess between us. My actions today had only deepened the chasm.
“She doesn’t want me.” My voice sounded hollow even to my own ears.
Dite rolled her eyes. “You ridiculous fool. Would I be here now if she didn’t? You acted badly today, as you have for these last thirteen years. But you can fix this. You can make this right. The only question is, will you?” She shrugged. “It’s really as simple as that.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start. Maybe what we had as children is no more. Maybe I was merely clinging to an illusion—”
Grabbing my flailing fingers, she clenched them tight. “Maybe. But you’ll never know until you confront things head on. However, take this kernel of verity as you will: I only know the hearts of those truly in love.”
Brows lifting high onto her forehead, she gave me a knowing look, and I could hardly breathe. Could hardly dare to hope that what she was saying was true. Was it possible that even after a decade where Lena and I had grown far apart from one another, somehow, someway our bond was still there? Was it possible that what we’d felt as children had been real? So real? That even thirteen years later we still burned one for the other?
I sighed. “But what would it matter anyway? She’s only just lost her king; I doubt she is looking for another mate just yet and—”<
br />
Aphrodite’s face transformed into one of shimmering radiance that knocked the very breath from my lungs. I did not love Dite, but she was very easy on the eyes.
“The queen of wonderland is set to release banners on the morrow. A tourney to find the worthiest of mates. She is a queen without her king.”
My heart thundered, and I could hardly breathe. I despised the thought of being king of anything; it was partly why I’d been such a disreputable scoundrel, so that my parents would never even consider me as my brother’s successor should aught happen to him.
“I’m a wastrel—”
She squeezed my fingers tight enough to snap me out of the thoughts jumbled up in my head. “You don’t have to be, dragonborne. The choice is yours. That choice has always been yours.”
I swallowed hard, pulse thundering so loudly in my ears that I felt deafened by it.
“I am not of Kingdom.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I am a dragon.”
“She is a morphling.”
For every objection I stated, Aphrodite came back at me with a reason why it could still work. And after another couple of seconds, I could no longer even think of an objection; all I could think was how badly I needed to make things right between Lena and I.
“I’m afraid I have ruined any possible chances between us after what I did today,” I quietly admitted.
Amongst my people, it was Athena who was revered as being wise and all knowing. But right here, right now, all I knew was that Aphrodite was so much more than just a pretty face.
“My dear, silly dragonborne, you will never know if you never try. I am here; take comfort in that.”
Determined not to overthink this anymore, I grabbed her arms, kissed her soundly on both cheeks, and turned and walked out the doors. From this day forward, I was turning over a new leaf.
I wanted Lena, with every fiber of my soul and being. I’d always wanted Lena. I’d made a mockery of things, but if the goddess of love thought I could do this, then maybe I actually did stand a chance in hell of doing this.
~*~
Aphrodite
The tinkling strains of Calypso’s laughter were the first thing I heard. I twirled on my seat, wearing a large smile, and nodded regally, accepting her applause as my just due.
“A’thank you. Thank you.” I rolled my wrist in a fluttering moth-like motion.
The goddess of water was dressed in a gown composed of nothing but freshwater pearls that covered the goods but only just barely. Hades would have had a fit if he knew just how many male eyes were mentally undressing his woman even now, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Caly gave me a big squishy hug that felt cool and sensuously liquid since she was now partly in water form.
“Okay, so”—she clapped her hands—“I totes think this is going splendidly, don’t you?” She grinned broadly then smacked her hand down on the bar and yelled to the keep, “Hey greenie, two shots for me and my girl!”
The goblin, who’d been so sour with Ragoth, practically tripped over his large, skeletal feet in his haste to serve us. I loved being around water; she was always hella fun.
“Tell me again why you care so much about setting up these two?” I lifted a brow.
I mean, not that I had been lying that I could hear the hearts of Ragoth and Zelena. I could; there were traces of love between them still. But I’d possibly, maybe, totally lied about the fates getting involved in their biz-ness. So not true. More like a fiery water sprite burbling in my ear about those two day and night so relentlessly I’d been forced to intercede.
Giggling, Calypso shook her head, causing her tentacle hair to undulate gracefully around her slim shoulders. “Oh please, as if you don’t already know.”
I twitched a brow. I knew; I just happened to think her idea was addlepated was all. But, as was often the case with the queen of the seas, her brain worked in a mysteriously, beautifully twisted kind of way.
The goblin slid two glass tumblers our way full of foul-smelling green stuff that caused Caly’s mercurial eyes to light up with ecstasy. “Why, dung butt—”
And that was another thing about my friend. She had absolutely the worst time with saying proper phrases and terms of endearment. She was always twisting her words around, but I guess that was just another one of the things I loved about her too. The sea was many things, but boring had never been one of them.
“—is this goblin stew!”
But rather than snarling at the insult, the goblin barkeeper seemed to positively glow at her insult. So far as green, slimy-looking reptilian beasties could. Then again he was a goblin. Maybe she’d given him the highest form of praise after all.
“Aye, goddess, it sure is.” His sharp, vampire-looking teeth clacked as he spoke.
With a delighted chortle, Calypso downed the disgusting concoction. Her eyes widened as she huffed broadly then glanced down at my cup, and with tears rimming her eyes pointed and asked, “You drinking that or what?”
Flicking it toward her with a disgusted curl of my nose, I shook my head. “No, I’ve got more than enough lovin’ to give to my Hephy. Take and enjoy.”
Goblin brew was a mix of...well, vile, disgusting things that no person should ever drink, let alone be forced to smell. The only reason why it was so exalted and praised and consumed by the masses was for one reason and one reason only: drinking the stuff was renowned for making bedroom games much more...let’s just say...exotic and eventful and leave it at that.
Caly’s skin practically gleamed like it’d been dipped in diamond dust when she set the second glass down. Her pupils were wide and dark and would grow wider still until they overtook her irises completely.
Hades didn’t stand a chance.
Her smile was broad, and her cheeks pinkened when she said, “Hm. I grow horny. So let us make this quick. One.” She lifted her hand and ticked it off her finger. “I’m trying to figure out how best to set up my Fiera. I owe her, and I think I may have found a mate, but I’m not quite sure how I should do the cute meet. If Zelena and Ragoth go according to plan, I’ll probably do something similar. Two.” She ticked off the next finger. “I love meddling in the affairs of others.”
My lips twitched when I noticed her skin start to line with goose bumps. Goblin stew packed a punch, one not even the gods were immune to.
She was starting to talk faster and wiggling in her seat. As the goddess of love I knew when someone was about to “get it on” as it were; and my little petite chou was growing more randy by the second.
If I were a betting woman, I’d say she had about another five minutes before she dived into the Underworld and yanked Hades out by his man parts. The seas would rock this night.
She stomped her foot. “Are you paying attention to me? Gods, I’m so horny.” She clawed at her skin. “What the eff,” she hissed, clawed at her tummy, and then frowned. “Dite, can lust kill a god, because I think I may die from this need soon.”
Her pretty face dipped into a frown, and I just laughed. “Not that I know of, my darling. But there’s always a first for everything.”
I shouldn’t be enjoying her discomfort so much, but the insufferable wench (whom I adored deeply) had sort of asked for this.
I wondered if they’d be too cranky if I listened in on their Underworld lovin’. Hmm...
“And, I...I...” She frowned, shook her head, glanced at me helplessly, and started to trail her fingers down the column of her throat.
I was almost certain she had no idea she was touching herself as she was. Then again, the sea was far from shy.
“Good gods, I wonder what my man meat is up to.” She gave a pretty little mewl.
I was about to lose her for the next week or two, so I asked the one thing I’d been wondering about since the sudden death of the king.
“Did you know that the king of hearts heart practically exploded in his chest after drinking a glass of water just two days after your mentioning
how Ragoth would be perfect for the queen?”
Caly was leaving broad red scratches across her neck and breasts as she continued to claw at her now, no doubt, prickling skin. Goblin stew was nothing to mess around with, and clearly my friend hadn’t been prepared for the punch.
Nose curling as she reached her arm behind her back to scratch at another sensitive part of her, she shrugged. “He was in the way. Plus, he was mean. I figured no one would mind. Ow, damn. That’s it.” She tossed her hands wide. “I need to flog the dolphin with my blowhole. If you’ll excuse me, Dite, I’ve a master to see.”
And so saying my bubbly friend vamoosed. Lifting a brow at the dead space where she’d been just a moment ago, I said so that the bartender could hear me, “Hey greenie, why don’t you whip me up a double batch of that stuff to take home?”
Zeus and Apollo had no idea just what kind of fun I had planned for them tonight.
Chapter 9
Zelena
I didn’t want to come out of my room. I wanted to stay put, live in this place for at least the next century, and forget that the world outside actually existed.
Unfortunately, hiding wasn’t in the cards for me.
“Good morning!” Dru tossed the door wide, allowing sunlight to stream in from the hall.
She was dressed in the standard colors of the royal house of hearts. Reds, and golds, but instead of the colors looking harsh and foreboding on her as they did on me, the red complemented her fair skin tone while the golds highlighted the deep-chestnut curls of her hair.
I hissed at her, giving her a grumpy glare. “Go away.”
I tossed myself back onto the bed, pulling the quilt over my head, but my friend (who, if I didn’t like her so much, might tempt me to say ‘off with her head’ at the moment) refused to allow me to wallow. Suddenly the blanket was snatched from my hands, and her gray eyes were like heated cattle prods bearing down on me.
The Passionate Queen (Dark Queens Book 2) Page 11
