I gagged.
“Do not fight, Hephaestus.” Themis’s voice was solemn. “They will be here soon, and then you will be unshackled.”
I looked into her pale-white eyes and shook my head. “What is this? What has been done?”
I tried to kick out my legs and realized two things at once. All of me was chained down, and my mechanized legs were gone. Shame built in my bones and flared through my blood, and I roared, straining mightily against the cursed chains, ready to rip myself free of them. They all looked upon my twisted body, mocking me, no doubt. Judging me. And I hated it. Fury pounded through me like a hammer on an anvil, my body flooded with adrenaline, and I pulled and pulled.
The chains groaned under the pressure, and the molten heat from the dragon’s blood permeated deeper into my shredded flesh. But I didn’t care. I had to get these off of me.
“Hephaestus, stop!” Mother yelled at me, chastising me. Criticizing me. Mocking me. I heard the derision, even in those two words. She’d always despised the very sight of me, but if all was revealed in this trial, as I suspected it could be, Mother would be having a reckoning with Zeus very soon, and I had to admit that thought brought me nothing but pleasure.
Even so, I pulled harder, feeling the steel cut deep, tear through my flesh and sinew. I did not care if I snapped off my hands in the process. They’d regrow.
“Hephaestus, please stop.”
But this time it was not a mocking voice of derision that penetrated through my panic.
It was a soft voice. A gentle voice. One that I’d thought I’d never hear again.
Breathing like a bellows, I opened my eyes only to be snared by the prettiest ones I’d ever seen or known in the entirety of my existence.
“Like a rabid animal, that one,” I heard the mutterings begin to roll through the crowd. “Wildling. Freak.”
But Aphrodite didn’t flinch. She merely looked at me with her luminous blue eyes so full of beauty and life that I wanted to weep. Even now, even after all she’d done to me, I still loved her.
The terrible truth was as undeniable to me as a sunrise. Her hands were soft, gentle, as she brushed her fingers over my torn flesh and pushed her power into me, healing me, creating new flesh, sinew, and blood. Making me like new again.
“How could she ever let him touch her?” someone else whispered above us.
I saw her spine stiffen, saw her pretty jaw set, but she did not flinch away from me as she used to do whenever I’d reach for her before. Instead, she patiently and gently unlocked each and every lock that held the chains fast on me.
Only once she was done did she step back.
Her face as she stared upon me was unreadable. She was a mask of no emotion. But my gods, she was breathtaking.
She wore the winds upon her body today, revealing to all the graceful lines and swells of her now more voluptuous body. Her breasts were twice as big as they’d ever been, her thighs tight and toned. Her arms were burnished in gold. Her face was kissed by the divine. Blond hair like Apollo’s bright rays spilled down her back, gleaming like my heated metals.
And my suspicions were confirmed when I finally glanced down at her usually flat stomach. She was full there too. Round yet no less beautiful. With child that was not my own.
She and I had not lain together for many decades. And my heart broke all over again. I felt the rain fall in my eyes when I looked back at her.
She was utter perfection, and here I stood before her, a twisted and deformed half of a man. The entire pantheon must know I’d not been the one to fill her belly with life.
“Heph—” Her dulcet voice caught, as though she meant to say something else, but her lips thinned, and she shook her head before taking a shuddery breath and giving me a wimpy smile. “This is not how I wished things could have ended for us. Truly. But every man deserves his dignity.”
I did not know what she meant until she clapped her hands and my mechanized legs, which hadn’t been anywhere in the vicinity, were suddenly on me again. I looked down at her head, completely dumbfounded and speechless.
I heard the small inhalations above us. Who was this Aphrodite? What games did she play with me now?
She’d have been taunting me as surely as those above us now mere months ago. But now she seemed to take no delight in their cruelty. Instead, there was kindness in her. Kindness that radiated through every inch of her, and I couldn’t understand this new game she played with me.
I hated how weak it made me. How dizzy with hope and fear I now felt. I looked at her stomach. She wrapped her arm around it and shook her head, causing her glistening golden curls to wrap around her gorgeous frame like a shining beacon.
My hands clenched. They tingled. Burned. I wanted to craft. Wanted to create beauty, the same kind of beauty that I now saw standing before me. But whatever I created would just be a pale imitation by comparison.
There had never been anyone quite like Aphrodite, and there never would be again. This I knew with every fiber of my being.
But I was no longer the same, either. Aphrodite had wounded me. Nearly broken me. And that wasn’t a sin I was just willing to forgive and forget. Not this time.
Without saying another word, she turned on her heel and walked over toward where Calyssa and Hades waited for her. They wrapped her in their arms, hiding her from my view.
Calyssa tossed me a dirty sneer. Hate burned in her eyes, and I did not know what to think.
I looked at my side of the chamber; there was none there waiting for me, no one to stand by my side and offer succor, but then again, that wasn’t entirely surprising. I was a hermit god. I didn’t make many friends.
I took the long, miserable walk with my head held high, wishing things had been different between us, wishing so, so many things that I could never have again.
I did not want this.
Did not want Aphrodite exposed to the vultures to be picked apart and mocked and ridiculed as I was. She’d made her choice, and now I had the proof of that choice staring me in the face.
I’d been a fool to ever believe the impossible had come true, that she could have actually chosen me. Where we were now was as much my fault as hers. I knew this. I’d accepted her lies, that she loved and wanted only me, at face value because I’d been so desperate to believe her. But I’d always known the truth. Deep down, I’d always known Aphrodite could never love me as I’d loved her.
When I arrived at my throne, I sat, miserable to my very core. I didn’t even care if Themis wrapped me up in dragon chain again. Dite’s kind act had taken all the fight out of me.
I was weary.
And I was done.
Aphrodite sat on the throne opposite me. And though all of Olympus loved nothing more than to taunt and mock her behind her back, we all knew she was the loveliest one of us. She was so damn beautiful that gazing upon her made you feel as if you were breaking. But I was not looking at Aphrodite. Instead, my eyes were fixed on my brother Ares, who’d managed to secure a place just yards behind her, as though already laying claim to her. His face was stoic, and he would not look at me. His eyes were only for her. He stared at the back of her head with something that looked an awful lot like bitterness and resentment. She’d hurt him, too, in the end. But I also knew that should she want him back, odds were good my perfect brother would come running. I’d been such a damn, fucking fool.
I’d never actually stood a chance. Not with her.
And it felt an awful lot like losing her all over again. I cast my eyes to the ground and refused to look back up again.
This thing was over before it’d ever even begun. I shuddered and closed my eyes.
Aphrodite
* * *
I feasted my eyes on him.
Like a woman drowning finally coming up for air, I couldn’t pull my gaze away from him.
Gods, he was incredible. Strong. Powerful. The way he’d nearly torn free of the god chains. Only someone as powerful as Hephaestus could have ever done such.<
br />
He’d crafted the steel to be completely unbreakable, even to us. The fool would have ripped his arms off trying, though. And it’d been all I could do not to throw myself into his massive chest and kiss his wounds, his face, his mouth.
His smell of metal and fire, it’d burned through me, had made me shiver, made me quake with a need so powerful I’d had to bite on my tongue until I bled in order to gather my emotions back.
I’d known seeing him again would hurt me, but I’d been unprepared for the ferocity of my need. I still tremored all over. My muscles snapped and popped. My spine hurt from sitting so rigidly straight. I’d driven my nails straight through my palms. The scent of my rose-infused blood feathered at my nose.
One thing was certain. I loved him still. I would always love him. And no amount of time or distance would take that yearning away from me.
I wiggled on my seat, feeling the heated press of all their eyes, but mostly, I felt the dark pull of Ares behind me. I’d loved him once. Not as I loved Hephy, but it had truly been love all the same.
He’d loved me too.
In his own way.
And once, Ares’ thirst for blood and violence had been my own. But eventually, that kind of hardness had grown wearisome. Over time, I’d come to learn that it hadn’t been aggression that I’d needed anymore, but kindness. Gentleness.
I closed my eyes, knowing I was not ready for this, and would probably never be ready for this.
The mood in Themis’ chamber was suddenly static and electric. It prickled upon my skin. A second later, her words carried through the vast hall.
“We are here today to witness the trial of Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Hephaestus, god of the forge.”
I bit my bottom lip, whimpering. What he and I had shared had been ours. Private. I did not want to expose him, not now or ever. But he’d done this to us. He’d handed me off without giving me a chance to speak my piece. A lone crystalline tear slid down my cheek.
“Hephaestus,” Themis continued on in her strong voice, “do you still wish to proceed with the divorcement?”
I snapped my eyes open and looked at him, hope flaring so brightly in me that for a moment, I shone as radiant as Apollo’s sun.
But he did not look at me as he said in his deep, rumbling voice, “I… I think I must.”
And then that hope shattered. I was frozen in place. Unblinking. Unmoving.
He opened his eyes, and even through the distance between us, I saw the lightning streaks in them. He was hurting. Hurting. And stupid. Stupid, because he should have known the truth. He should have always known the truth of us. Should have felt it, just as Caly had felt her love for Hades. She was a monster who’d at least remembered that there was more. Maybe forgotten in her consciousness, but Hades had been a part of her then and was a part of her now, and that love had saved them both.
And if Hephaestus had loved me at all, surely some part of him would know. Would remember.
I shuddered.
Themis turned toward me, dressed in the white robes of justice and holding up the golden scales in her hand. She wore the white sash of truth wrapped around her blinded eyes. Her pretty pale-white face looked calm and poised as she asked, “And Aphrodite, daughter of Uranus’s seed, do you still wish the unfastening?”
I swallowed, taking several deep breaths before I trusted my voice not to betray my inner turmoil. “I never wanted the divorcement decree in the first place.”
There were loud gasps. Shocked voices.
I didn’t care. Let the fools find me sick and twisted for loving my Hephy as I did. I felt no shame in my desire for him. A cold blast of confusion and anger swept over me. Ares’ touch. He would be called in as witness eventually. I knew this. He’d have to be considering the children I carried were his. And I wondered how, if he claimed to love me as he actually had, he could go through with this.
The Ares of my time had been a very private god, nearly as private as Hades, though not quite as brooding. With Ares, though, he’d always kept what he really felt hidden beneath the tight mask of control he always wore. So it was hard to know how he really felt, about anything, unless he actually told you.
But I’d known him then. And though I’d ultimately not chosen him, the one thing I’d known to trust in Ares would be that he’d never betray or risk my confidence.
Was he the same man now? That, I could not say. My stomach ached.
“But…” I squeezed out the word, and I saw Hephaestus sit forward on his seat, looking at nothing else but me. “If that is what you want…” I spoke directly to him and for his ears alone. “Then I will leave. I only ask that you see my side first. That you understand I never lied.”
“Aphrodite,” he croaked.
Themis’s lips thinned. “The accused may not speak to one another.”
The room rolled with Themis’s power, sealing our tongues off from one another. In the hall of justice, Themis had total control.
But though we could not speak, I saw his look, read the fierce longing. The aching and confusion. I shook my head and looked down at my feet.
His bullheadedness had brought us here. And though my heart ached most terribly, I was angry with him. Angry and very disappointed.
All of this could have been prevented if he just would have listened to me instead of seeking the council of those who didn’t know us and didn’t care for us.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, hearing the murmurings behind me, the speculations, the slurs. But I’d long since stopped caring what any of them thought of me. I was not here for them. Or even for Hephaestus, not anymore. I was only here to clear my name so that I could finally move on.
“Know this, glittering throng, I will reveal only as much as I must in order to properly execute judgment. And so, let the trial commence,” Themis said.
Moments later, Themis’s hands were upon my head, and I felt her siphoning the memories. All the memories. The good. The bad. And the ugly.
She gasped, seeing what the others, as yet, could not. When she stepped back, her hands glowed purest white, and her lips were thinned. A troubled look pinched her mouth.
Themis had been one of the ones who’d hated the very sight of me. And I didn’t know what it was she’d seen in my memories, but she seemed reluctant when she turned for Hephaestus. But then her hands were upon his head and she was siphoning off of his memories. And when she was finally done and she turned back around, her face was nothing more than a blank mask.
My shoulders dipped. There was now nothing more to do than to watch as our truths, our pains, our hopes, and fears were exposed to the censure and the ridicule of all.
And as the air around us began to waver and coalesce with colors and lights, I knew we’d begun in my memories. I shook my head.
It should never have been this way.
9
Aphrodite’s memory (B.C. before the curse)
I stepped into the amphitheater, dressed in the very finest of fashion. I was beauty personified. Passion breathed to life.
I made men, women, and animals desire me above all else. None could resist me, but I had eyes only for one.
He stood in the corner of the great outdoor amphitheater, glaring at us all, loudly declaring that he was above us without ever uttering a word. My heart quickened.
Ares was perfection.
Darkly olive toned. With piercing golden eyes. Hair as black as midnight and falling in soft waves to his shoulders. More handsome than his own father and far more severe than his mother.
I’d seen his lusts in bed with the playmates he’d deign to share it with. And I knew that I could perfectly match his intensity, his… barbarism. My heart sped up a little when his dark, soulful eyes finally locked with mine.
They narrowed to thin slits, and his nostrils flared. Scenting me like prey. My pulse sped, and my center fluttered with desire.
I smirked, and I wasn’t sure, but I rather thought that perhaps a ghost of something had passed his ow
n lips.
But then he looked past me, looking bored and unimpressed by life, and godsdammit, he drove me mad with his lack of desire. He did that on purpose. I knew why. I was, after all, the mistress of the art of seduction. There was nothing quite as seductive as the chase. I knew this, and yet… I found myself falling hard and fast and desperately, as though I were naught but an untried virgin.
I burned for him. Ached for him.
And at night when I’d touch my body, it was his name I cried out as I came. One day I would make that god want me as desperately as I wanted him.
With a hot, shivery growl, I twirled on my heel, ready to head back to my harem of amiable men and women who’d comply with my every naughty and dirty whim.
But I was stopped short when I heard the high-pitched titters of nymphs. I could not make out their words, but it was easy enough to figure out whom they mocked.
Hephaestus stood by the food table. The poor man was trying to hide from the world, to fade into the background, but it was impossible with his great big body to ever do.
Whoever had catered the food had been quite cruel when they’d chosen to set out fine China. The saucer he held in his hand looked like a child’s play thing, and there was a tiny but growing pile of broken ceramic at his feet already.
His face was red and his cheeks dusky as he glowered down at the trays of finger food as though he wished to murder its miserable existence.
He leaned forward to grab for a small bit of cake, and the plate he’d been holding tumbled from his hands to the ground, shattering to a million tiny pieces. The laughter grew, and his eyes flinched. He breathed deeply, and that was when I knew he was aware.
Aware of us all.
Laughing at him. Refusing to offer him any type of assistance. Though as proud as he was, I’d never actually thought he would accept any, anyway.
Rarely did Hephaestus leave his forge. And when he did, it was always only because of a special occasion. This was the yearly celebration of his father’s reign upon Olympus as King after his mighty banishment of the Titans. We always hosted an annual dinner commemorating the event.
The Forge King (The Dark Kings Book 6) Page 10
