Hades

by Crystal Dawn

  “What makes you think that?” Sierra asked.

  “The way the numbers keep shifting and the reports that we have gotten from various sources about them moving individuals instead of groups.”

  “It will make things much harder and it will also allow those with sadistic tendencies to abuse their prisoners more,” Zeus observed. Only all of them being killed could be a worse possibility. Tracking hundreds of gods and demons sent to individual scientist would be a nightmare.

  The meeting broke up but Zeus, Sierra, and a couple of other gods stayed to discuss more personal things with Hades. “Sierra wants to come there,” Zeus said as Sierra nodded her head.

  “There’s nothing she can do and it’s too dangerous in her condition,” Hades said.

  “She knows that but she’s torn. Doc is not only her sister, but her friend,” Zeus said.

  “She’s sitting right here and can speak for herself!” Sierra said glaring at Zeus who looked properly chastised except for the slight gleam of humor in his eyes. He loved that woman and the children, both his daughter and the son that Doc had told them Sierra carried more than he had ever imagined he could.

  Hermes started to laugh but it changed to an odd choking noise as Cherish’s hand slipped under the table and Sierra turned her glare on him. Zeus would have felt sorry for Hermes if he didn’t feel so relieved to have the females on a target other than him. He turned his attention to Hades who he had always felt protective of. He was the black sheep of the team through no fault of his own. He had a dark side he had never asked for and had trouble controlling. Sometimes, Hades even scared himself and others always found him intimidating.

  They ended the call once they ran out of information to share. Doc’s situation required one of the hardest things of all, patience. Hades, probably the least patient of them all, would be in his own personal hell until his mate woke. The meeting had been a late one, it was now time for most of them to go to bed and hope for sleep. He knew it would be difficult to find but he worried more for Sierra who wasn’t sleeping well anyway and now had the added burden of a worry she could do nothing about.

  He pulled her into his arms carrying her to their room. She turned red as the gods they walked by responded with cat calls and whistles. She didn’t protest which worried him a little, it showed how tired she was. He hadn’t realized how much carrying Athena had taken out of her because they hadn’t been together for much of it. Of course being pregnant with a baby while nursing another was even harder. He planned to talk to Doc, they would wait, giving her more time to recover before the next baby.

  Zeus couldn’t sleep, he was worried about Hades. He had always been a concern since they were around the age of five. The team, that was what Origin was teaching them to be, sat around the table eating. Their diet was regulated, it was high protein, some fat and complex carbs. They weren’t allowed processed foods, drinks were only juice, milk, or water. They said it was healthy, it would grow warriors and it had. The scientists were fighting again and that cold bastard Humpreys was talking about deleting one of their team. The others argued that the team was set and all members needed.

  “He’s just a child,” Doctor Shelly argued. She was the nicest of the group and she found it difficult to work with such cruel people. She had developed a permanent tic near her right eye. She was maybe forty, a rather plain female with mousy brown hair and plain brown eyes. She was quite nondescript until she smiled, that transformed her entire face making her glow. Lately, she’d had little reason to smile and no reasons to laugh. Zeus often wondered if she didn’t like it here, why didn’t she leave? He was glad she didn’t because she was one of the few that made it bearable for them.

  “He’s death just like his name implies. He needs to be removed from the team before it’s too late. Don’t let him cause us the trouble I can see in his future.”

  “Murdered you mean. Say it like it is, Humpreys. You want to kill the child for no real reason at all,” Giles screeched. It was obvious he was upset and doing what he could to stop an injustice. He was the other one that had some kindness in him. He thought of them as children and tried to do what he could. It had eventually caught up with him and he had been terminated from his job. Origin’s terminations were permanent and he was never seen or heard from again.

  Zeus looked at Hades who was shaking but trying to control it. None of them said a thing because here, what you said, could cost you your life. The discussion was over but it wasn’t the first nor the last time it came up. Humpreys hated Hades and Zeus never discovered why, but maybe Humpreys didn’t need a reason. He had black hair, cold bottomless black eyes, and a face that was always frozen in a hard look that discouraged anyone from approaching him. Humpreys died on a mission a few years later and no one but Hades knew what had really happened. Origin hadn’t cared since Humpreys had become ill, cancer someone had hinted. He was a liability and then he was gone, end of story.

  If there was ever a way to win when you were owned right down to your soul, Zeus supposed Hades had accomplished it by outliving his worst enemy. Maybe Humpreys had seen the future and thought Hades would kill him, maybe Hades had done just that. It was just one of the many sad stories he could tell from his life at Origin. So many had died, so many had suffered and only a few had made it to enjoy the freedom they all had dreamed about.

  Sierra turned to him opening her arms for him to burrow into her warmth. “You’re thinking too much, Babe.” She seemed to sense the dark past he had been sinking into and she pulled him from it.

  “You could help me with that,” he said as he stroked her back with his hands and moved his lips over hers. She moved her hand to trace the outline of his hard on. “That’s helping,” he moaned.

  By the time they were through, he couldn’t think about anything but his lovely mate and how good she felt. He could no longer imagine his life without her or the children they had and would have. He felt soft hands running lightly over his body, relaxing him as he drifted off to sleep.

  “Hey, Babe, it’s morning!” Sierra said. He woke as heat shot through him and his cock hardened ready to be put to use

  “Mm.” He opened his eyes looking at his mate. He grabbed her and rolled them over landing on top of her. He took her arms in his, sliding them up above her head where he held them by her wrists. He kissed her hard with all the passion he felt then he moved down to take one perfect nipple in his mouth and suck it in. He moved to the other one as his hand continued to squeeze the nipple he had just let go.

  “Hurry, I want you inside me fucking now!”

  He knew better than to ignore what he called a desperate request rather than a direct command. He used one hand to line them up and the other to hold his weight off her. He slammed in, she was slick and ready so he was fully immersed with no trouble. The feeling of being inside her was so incredible he groaned low and deep. She mewled and whimpered with need so he pulled back and slammed home again and again. She arched unexpectedly and they hit hard. He moved side to side searching for the best spots and finding them. He hammered into her fully out of control but she loved it. She screamed for more as she demanded he slam in harder, deeper, and faster.

  Sweat soaked his brow as he moved in a blur so close to exploding he needed her to get off now. He slid his hand between them. Extra stimulation wasn’t always needed but he was so near the end of his endurance he had to please her first. He pinched her little button and she shot off like a rocket. He yelled her name as she literally squeezed the cum right out of him. After the vigorous work out he had just had, he wouldn’t need to exercise for a week.

  He noticed Sierra hurried getting showered and dressed quickly. Maybe she was hungry, but probably she was up to something. “Where are you going to in such a hurry, Sweetheart?”

  “I’m just hungry, eating for two and all that.”

  “Wait up and I’ll go with you.” He noticed the frown on her face. Maybe she just felt like some alone time. They were together much of the day
and all of the night but he enjoyed his time with her. He would hate to think she was growing tired of him. It was probably a hormonal thing.

  She waited, so he hurried to get ready before they headed to the cafeteria. They sat with Hermes, Cherish, and all the top leading gods that were eating at the time. Eres tended to sit with them too when he was around but that was more because of his friendship with Sierra. They were more like siblings and Zeus found that he wasn’t jealous even though they were close. It was a surprise, to him and the other gods, that he felt that way, because Eres was attractive and females tended to like him but he knew that to his mate, he was just like a younger brother.

  Cherish sat and ate, jumping up occasionally when an oven alarm went off. Hermes got up to pull the tray out of the oven making her stay in her seat. She was like a jumping bean hopping around constantly. Her pregnancy hadn’t slowed her down one bit, yet anyway, but she wasn’t far along yet. Hermes had matured since he had mated but he still had that care free air about him. He had been lucky at Origin since he didn’t look threatening like Zeus or Hades had.

  Nioma came into the cafeteria, Zeus noticed because of the complete silence. Nioma always ate in the lab where she was a virtual hermit, even worse than Doc. She came over, sitting across from Zeus and Sierra, a seat just vacated by Hermes as he went to remove a tray of cookies from the oven. It didn’t matter because it looked like Nioma had just come to impart information.

  “Can you two come to the lab after breakfast?” she asked looking around as if she expected someone to listen in.

  “Sure,” Sierra said. “We’ll hurry.”

  Zeus groaned to himself. He was enjoying his breakfast with his mate. The food and the company was good but now he had to hurry. They rushed through breakfast meeting Nioma at the lab about ten minutes later.

  She looked up from her microscope. “I have some information for you. First let’s discuss this drug Hades was given. I think it was intended to interfere with the mating hormone. I suspect the intention is to see if they can breed gods who have been given this drug with women of their choosing. It’s suppose to cancel any natural hormone and give the subject a new ‘mate’ for lack of a better word. They hope to cause the mating attraction develop with whoever they put a god with. I might be wrong, but I believe Hades was used as a test and the trouble it caused with his mate was just the cherry on top. They don’t want any gods mating because they want to choose their mates and harvest their children.”

  “That’s just sick,” Sierra said.

  “How likely is it that they’ll refine this drug enough to make it work?” Zeus asked.

  “It made Hades pass out, so that’s not good. They now have a tranquilizer they know will work with few side effects later. You told me Doc was a target, maybe they need her to finish the work because they lost a lot of researchers when they lost this facility and a few fled going into hiding. This drug starts by attacking the mating chemicals, but it loses the battle. It put so much strain on Hades’s body that it knocked him out.”

  “This could be a big problem. Our mates are the most important thing in the world to us. It’s already hard to understand the process but if they can mess with it, what hope do any of the unmated have of being sure they’ve found their soul mates?”

  “Why do you think they faked the sex tape?” Sierra asked.

  “I think that bitch thought she could get Hades if Doc was out of the picture. She probably did that on her own,” Nioma guessed.

  “Hades never showed any interest in that female, ever,” Zeus declared.

  “Some women just don’t care. They do all kinds of things to try to get a man hooked even if it’s wrong,” Nioma said.

  “Even if he belongs to someone else and she knows he will never truly be hers,” Sierra added.

  “Some humans are crazy!” Zeus summed up.

  “Let’s hope the gods and demons are all well adjusted because I need a break from that human kind of crazy,” Nioma said. “Is Hades having the lab techs send us any biological material? I heard the place was overloaded with it.”

  Zeus looked thoughtful. “We have the head doctor from the site. She’s a mate to one of the gods and Hades thinks she’s alright. He said he would discuss her unusual situation in person. According to what he’s seen and been told, the material is in various degrees of decomposition. The doctor said she has slides of material from each embryo and fetus, they were horribly mutated and those that didn’t die on their own were destroyed. Only a small group of slides were kept in a cooler locked. They were trying to grow more gods using harvested materials but for some reason we have a failsafe against that kind of breeding that Cronos didn’t have. Speaking of Cronos, what’s up with him?”

  “He’s been having movement and his brainwaves seem to be increasing but so slowly it’s barely noticeable. Doc said that he’s been asleep for possibly thousands of years and he’s kinda like a computer booting up after being shut down a long time. He’ll wake up when he’s ready and forcing it could have a detrimental effect on him. I’ve checked out all the information we have and I agree with Doc. It’s sort of like what’s happening with her right now, ironic in a way.”

  “Thank you, Nioma. I don’t know what we’d do without you right now,” Sierra said sniffling a little.

  “I see the pregnancy hormones are kicking in.”

  “Boy are they ever,” Zeus said earning himself a dirty look from his mate.

  They left Nioma in her lab as Zeus and Sierra headed to his office. Buzz wanted to talk to them and he was there waiting. “I caught a message that was sent out and I believe it was sent to Origin.” He handed Zeus a print off of the message sent. “We missed it when it was sent right before hades and his team left. I was double checking the everything because of the concern that we have a spy and came across it.”

  Gods left for a mission. Doc went with them. I have fulfilled my end of bargain and am ready to leave. I wish to see my grandmother right away.

  “Do you know who sent it?” Zeus asked.

  “It was sent from the kitchen computer.”

  “The kitchen has a computer?”

  “They need it to track supplies and order things before they run out of them. If food and supplies aren’t kept stocked, when a storm comes in we’re screwed.”

  “So any idea who?”

  “I’m leaning toward Lizzie but there were two others in the kitchen at that time. Martha is new and we had spies here before she joined us. I know that doesn’t mean she might not be one, but I don’t think she is.”

  “Who’s the other one?”

  “Nancy.”

  “Wasn’t she under suspicion before?”

  “Yes, but she just isn’t cool enough under pressure to pull it off. Lizzie is tough, she could do it and spit in your face if you caught her.”

  “Whoever is doing this is being pressured with a threat to a family member or at least one of them is,” Sierra pointed out. “They’re not necessarily the spy type, but I think it’s both of them. I’m going to run a background on not just them, but all the close relatives. I’m tired of this spy shit. They almost killed my sister and I won’t give them another chance.”

  “Okay, you check them out. Didn’t we put a camera in there to see when people were in there so we would know who sent messages?” Zeus asked.

  “The computer got pushed into a corner and all I see are shadows. Those two are the only ones I can’t account for. They are both out of sight of the camera. Maybe Cher can help us since she was baking away the whole time.”

  “Let’s have Hermes and Cher meet us in our quarters. She can bring us some cookies, cake, or whatever the hell she just cooked,” Sierra suggested.

  Zeus liked the sound of that, Cher’s baked goods were wonderful and Sierra would calm down once she ate a few of them. “Hermes, see if you can get Cherish to bring some baked goods for Sierra. She’s having some terrible cravings. You come too, I don’t want to be outnumbered by pregnant wo
men,” Zeus said into the com. He could have sent a mental message but this way everyone thought it was a social meeting of expectant mothers who needed some sweets. He was pretty smart and very proud of it.

  Sierra sat next to Zeus waiting for her treats. She couldn’t deny they were as important to her as finding spies. She felt some sympathy for any one that had their grandmother threatened, she also wondered what kind of low down scumbag would threaten a senior citizen. She was having a bad attack of cravings when Cher and Hermes carried in cookies and part of a chocolate cake. Zeus and Hermes both had developed a liking for coffee, but she and Cher had milk which went well with the sweets anyway.

  “So what’s really going on?” Cher asked. “You would come to the kitchen if you were desperate for a snack.”

  “Well, I am desperate for a snack, but I also need your help. There was a message sent to Origin from the kitchen computer,” Sierra said as she handed the message to Cher.

  “We need to run background checks on Lizzie and Nancy that include their families. I want to try to find that grandma.”

  “That should be fairly straight forward, but if Origin has taken her, we may never find her,” Cher said. The word alive remained unspoken. Origin had some sadistic bastards working for them but they weren’t all like that. Some had just gotten caught up with the pursuit of knowledge, others had been threatened and caved in to fear.

  “So little mama, how is the pregnancy going?” Sierra asked. Cher was shorter than the rest of them even if not by much and this was her first baby. She was also the youngest mate, so far, at any rate.