Chapter 10

Hades

I’d been to Zeus’s temple, the palace in the clouds, the crown jewel of all of Olympus. A shining, majestic place crafted of the finest white marble, nestled upon a fluffy bank of clouds thicker than a marshmallow topping, where sunlight never faded and wine flowed freely.

My own Elysian fields were another wonder, a verdant Eden of blooms and greenery, where the faithful frolicked and reveled throughout all eternity.

Demeter’s vast fields of wheat.

Dite’s love temple dripping with the sensuous fragrances of myrrh and nubile, ripe women who lived only to worship their mistress.

All of them beautiful, but none of them quite as enchanting to me as the sea garden Nimue—King Consort— and Calypso took me too.

It was an underwater oasis, rolling green hills surrounded by jeweled strands of blue and green kelp that grew up from the ocean floor, where tiny and colorful fish swam through. A waterfall cascaded from the cliff face of a massive mountain range several yards before us.

Bird fish flew through the azure, tropical waters, singing as they dived for their own meals.

I rested my weight against an alabaster rock poking up from the ground, simply watching them.

Nimue was pale with dark hair and eyes. She was ripe with child, her figure lush and enticing. But she paled in comparison to the maiden fussing beside her.

My enchantress was yet again in Janita form, though today she’d broadened her hips just slightly, making an already delectable rear positively mouthwatering. Her breasts had likewise grown in mass, so that if I palmed them, I could not cup them entirely.

Calypso had failed to introduce me to Nimue, so the Consort had had to do it on her own. But I could tell many things from studying them now.

The first was that Nimue was of far greater significance to Calypso than she’d initially let on. The second was that though Calypso disguised herself, Nimue knew who she really was, though the goddess herself seemed completely unaware of that fact.

“Tut tut, ye sit here, now, out of the burning sun,” Caly murmured tenderly, pointing at a spot on the blanket she’d tucked beneath a large overhang of rock so that, indeed, Nimue would be out of the noonday sun that wasn’t really sun at all.

“Janita, honestly, I’m fin—”

“Sit.” Calypso brooked no argument, pushing the Consort down with a firm shove.

The consort dropped, casting me a grumpy frown that soon turned into an exasperated sort of forbearance.

“As you wish, Janita. Though I really do wish you’d stop fussing over me. I’m a woman.”

“Ye’re naught but a child.” Janita fluffed up the consort’s skirts. Then, with a final gentle pat to her knee, she turned and headed toward the basket of foods she’d left packed in the carriage some yards back.

“Come here,” Nimue commanded to me when Janita had moved off.

Grinning at being commanded so, I decided to oblige her. The woman was precious to Calypso, so I could do no less.

Taking a seat on the opposite corner, I nocked a knee and inclined my head. “Consort, how may I serve?”

Her eyes were wise, intelligent. This was a woman who missed nothing. Tapping her temple, she shot out a brief thought.

You can hear me, can’t you?

My lips curled at the edges. Yes.

Good. Then tell me, who are you really? I know you are her sex partner, but you are no mere legger.

Lifting a brow, I debated whether to answer. I had no need to answer her. She was no authority to me. But I rather liked the pretty little human. I hardly knew her, but she intrigued me nonetheless, so I decided to be honest with her.

I am Hades.

She blinked twice, swallowed, and then patted her chest. As in the—

Yes.

Shock flitted through her gaze as she glanced back at the carriage and then darted her eyes back to me. Goddess, Calypso sure knows how to pick ’em.

My lips twitched, and I dipped my head, taking it as a compliment, whether it was intended to be or not.

Well, I was going to threaten to cut your balls off if you hurt her, but I rather think that would be impossible with you.

Chuckling beneath my breath, I could see where Calypso had adopted her strange idioms. There is no need to worry about me, Consort. I leave in a matter of days.

Where are you going? Her fingers toyed with the petals of a baby sea bell, causing gold dust to scatter through the waters.

Hell, more likely.

Bow-shaped lips pursed. Hades, are you to bring war to my mate’s kingdom? Tell me now.

Touching a fist to my heart, I shook my head. I vow to do no such. I am here only temporarily and only on the queen’s mercy.

Do you like her?

It seemed to me there was a wealth of meaning hidden behind the simple words.

I shrugged. We hardly know one another.

She shook her head and then cleared her throat.

The next moment, I spied Calypso, with an armful of goods, bending over, giving me a tantalizing glimpse of her round posterior, and I couldn’t help but snort. The woman was maddening even when she didn’t try to be.

Humming softly beneath her breath, she set her baskets down, lifted the lid, and began pulling out bottles of wine, roasts of fowl, bowls of creamy cheeses, nuts, olives, loaves of bread, and on and on and on it went, food for as far as the eye could see.

“Oh damn,” she frowned, “I forgot the caviar, and I know how fond of that ye are, Consort.”

“Janita, please, this spread would feed an army. There is no need—”

“Pft!” Janita raspberried cutely, shushing Nimue with a heavy shake of her head, causing the delicate pearls around her breasts to bob and sway, forcing my eyes (as though by magic; fancy that) to gravitate to her pointed, coral-colored nipples. “None of that, now. I promised ye a feast, and a feast I’ll deliver. One moment.”

With a happy grin, she swam off.

This was a side of the goddess I’d never seen. Nurturing mother.

And that’s when it hit me: Nimue was none other than the wife of Calypso’s son, Sircco.

Something decidedly warm spread through my chest. In all my days, I’d never once seen Persephone so doting. Not to me, not to another male, not even to an animal. The self-centered whelp had only cared for herself.

I felt Nimue’s eyes on me. Turning to her, I noticed a shrewd, calculating look.

You do like her, whether you wish to acknowledge it or not.

I shrugged. No sense in denying it. No sense in adding to it, either.

If there is one thing I know about my mother-in-law, Hades, it is this: When she falls, she falls hard, and her love, while exceedingly rare, is a gift to be handled with the greatest reverence. She is a treasure worth savoring. Treat her well, and there is nothing that should be impossible to you.

I pondered her words. I was a god. There was nothing impossible to me. And yet I could not change my fate. I’d had a hand in Persephone’s disappearance. My destiny was sealed and in the hands of a blind justice.

Janita laughed. “I’ve got it!” She held up a tin of Beluga caviar the size of her head. “I knew I’d packed this beast away somewheres. Now,” she swam to our side, dropping to the other side of me and setting the tin down. “Let’s get our chow on.”

~*~

Calypso

“Ladies, I need to use the necessaries.” Hades’ thick voice—like sun-warmed molasses—rolled over me and made me shiver.

I didn’t look at him when he got up, bowed to Nim, and sauntered off into the brush. I’d told him to act human, and taking a piss was about as human as it came, I supposed.

“I like him,” Nimue said without preamble once he was out of hearing range. “What’s his name, Janita? You never have said.”

Thinking on the fly, I latched onto the first name I thought of. “Harvey.”

“Harvey. Odd name.” She delicately nibbled on a cracker that held a heaping dollop of caviar.

“Mmhmm.” I pretended to fluff at a loose sliver of hair, which did not in fact exist, as I was perfectly coifed today.

“Such manners he has. That voice,” she smirked, “and that body.”

A fierce heat rose to my cheeks. “Yes,” I sighed, “he does have a banging one. His stomach is shredded and his thighs like redwoods and his arms...Oh, goddess,” I fluttered my lashes, remembering the way he’d held all that glorious weight up on his arms as he’d tasted and suckled at my breasts. “He is lovely. He is also covered in scars.”

“Scars,” she said, frowning softly.

I smoothed out the line between her brows by reflex.

“Oh, yes,” I continued, “from here,” I pointed to the hollow of my throat, “to here,” I trailed my finger down to my pubis.

“Why?” she asked as she swallowed her last bite of cracker and then reclined with a heavy sigh. “Gods, Janita, I feel like a whale, but it was wonderful.”

Accepting her adulation with a nod, I shrugged. “I do not ken, but I wish I did. I find it exceedingly odd for a man like him to be covered as he is. It smacks of deliberation. Though, I do find the marks to be rather fetching. I oftentimes want to lick my way across each one of ’em.”

“You don’t say.”

“Mmhm. Yes.” I popped a sweet sea grape into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

Hades was giving us time to talk. I could tell because he was gone far longer than a man should piss.

My realm was beautiful, and it wasn’t often I granted my peers permission to access it. I wondered what he thought of it. I’d very much like to explore his Elysian fields someday, perhaps even Tartarus. I was rather fond of fire.

“Ask him.”

“What?” I shook my head, scattering the images of ghostly wails and licking flames from my mind’s eye. “But why?”

She shrugged. “It’s what people generally do when they wish to know one another better.”

“But I don’t want to know him better, do I?” Why had that popped out a question? I shouldn’t want to know him better, and yet it seemed to me that I might actually be lying to myself. I was curious. Far more than I should be.

I also wanted to know what he’d done to Sephone and why. Not that I much cared for that brat, but he couldn’t just go off and kill a goddess willy nilly, whether she deserved it or not.

It was god etiquette 101.

After what the pantheon had done to the Titans, the three Fates had decreed no more killing or enslaving of family; otherwise the offender’s term as a reigning god would come to a screeching and violent end.

Of course, I was immune to such laws, as I was a Primordial and had had nothing to do with that distasteful uprising. Stupid Psycho, however, was not immune. We might share waters, but I was older than the bastard and twice as powerful, and he knew it. Prick.

Just thinking about Fish Butt made me feel ragey.

“Do you?”

It took me a moment to realize what she was asking. I’d gone off on a tangent again. I was prone to doing that sometimes.

“I shouldn’t. He’s leaving in a few days.”

“That’s not an answer, Janita. Even if he leaves, there’s nothing saying he couldn’t come back.”

“Oh no, he’s never coming back.” I shook my head and then realized she had no idea Harvey was Hades, and I didn’t wish to open that can of nematodes at the moment. “What I mean to say is, I very highly doubt he’d be able to return. This is strictly an afternoon-delight type of situation, Consort.”

“Well,” she plucked up a star bell and began plucking at its petals, “I’m not really sure he sees it that way.”

“Really?” I leaned in, heart thumping terribly fast. “Did he tell you something? What did he say?”

She smiled. “Oh, nothing he said with his mouth, but his eyes speak volumes. My mother once told me eyes are the windows to the soul. You see, a man can say anything he wants with his lips, but his eyes always give him away. Look at them next time, and you might just see what I have.”

His eyes were lovely. I could drown in their dark pools. But a window? Hm, I would need time to ponder that notion.

“Nimue, he may have done something bad.” It was as close as I was willing to come to revealing who he was. I chewed on my bottom lip, not really sure what to expect her to say.

Her shrug spoke volumes. “Yes, but how bad is bad, really? You must remember who my own father is. There are those who’d call him rotten to the core, but I never really saw him that way. Still don’t. He is a pirate. It is in his nature to steal, plunder, and loot, but where it matters, his heart is pure.”

“See,” I pointed at my chest, “I feel the same way. What’s a little death now and then, aye?”

Her smile slipped for a millisecond, but then she quickly recovered and laughed. “This is why I like you, Janita. You never fail to shock and amaze.”

“Glad I can be of service to you, my dear.”