Chapter 23
“He said what?” Ares boomed and Enyo stood her ground as her brother turned on her.
He took swift strides towards her across the mosaic floor in the main room of his house, his blue eyes darkening by degrees as he closed the distance between them. The sunlight streaming in through the bank of windows to her right, where her favourite blue chaise longue stood, reflected off his golden armour and warmed his tanned skin, and bounced off the white walls.
“Zeus has ordered you to participate in the coming war in the Underworld.” She braced herself as Ares halted close to her, loomed over her with a spark of anger lighting his irises.
Rage she could feel in him when he was this close to her.
His power, his strength, wrapped around her. Pressed down on her.
She curled her fingers into fists and clenched them, steeled herself and refused to crumble under the pressure.
“And I suppose you convinced him of this?” Ares barked and leaned closer, his golden eyebrows meeting hard as he sneered at her. “Honestly, Enyo, I thought you foolish for chasing the firstborn of Hades before, but this is just pathetic. Have you spread your thighs for him? Surely that honeyed trap would be enough to secure his backing and have him—”
Enyo slapped him.
The urge came out of nowhere, struck her so hard and fast that she didn’t have a chance to consider the consequences of her actions, or stop them from taking place. Her palm stung as she stood there with her hand still in the air, as her brother closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, and tilted his head even further away from her.
His blue eyes flicked open, locked on her.
His voice was low as he stared at her.
“I see how it is now. He has poisoned you against me. He was always trying to do such a thing and now he has succeeded. Tell me, did he fill your head with pretty promises? Sweet lies that tempted you to open your legs to him?” Ares rounded on her, darkness washing across his handsome features as he touched the red stain on his cheek. “Whatever he told you, it was all lies to get between your thighs.”
It wasn’t.
She told herself that as she stared her brother down, fighting the doubts that began to multiply in her mind.
Her brother was just jealous. His possessive side was rearing its ugly head, the side that desperately clung to his position and would do anything to stop her from attaining one that was above him.
He was trying to sabotage what she had with Keras so she would remain with him, under his thumb, his to order around and keep from the spotlight.
She saw another meaning in his words too.
He was painting Keras with the same brush that had created him, trying to push his own personality on Keras.
But Keras was nothing like him.
Her brother was the liar. He used his position to manipulate females into doing his bidding, probably whispered whatever they needed to hear in their ear to convince them to sleep with him, and then discarded them when he grew bored with them.
She had watched him for centuries, knew him better than anyone.
Her brother was the despicable one.
Not Keras.
Keras loved her, she felt sure of that, believed the words he had told her with an earnest look in his green eyes, and the feelings she had felt in him.
He loved her.
Ares must have seen the momentary flicker of doubt in her heart, because his lips twisted in a cruel smile that brightened his blue eyes.
He casually turned away from her, stroked a hand over his golden hair and stooped to pick up his heavy blue cloak from one of the chairs. He fastened it to one side of his gold chest piece and then the other, took his time about inspecting the richly coloured material before lifting his head.
His eyes locked on her again.
“Keras was in the mortal world for two centuries.” Ares picked a piece of lint from his cloak and flicked it onto the mosaic floor. “I wonder how many females he convinced to sleep with him in that time.”
His blue gaze slowly narrowed on her as a smile curled the corners of his mouth.
She refused to be rattled by him, refused to believe the hurtful words he was lining up on his lips.
“A man has needs, Enyo. The pleasure of one’s own hand is nothing compared with the pleasure of sinking yourself into a hot, slick, welcoming body.”
She glared at him.
“He has probably bedded hundreds of females. Thousands. Perhaps even several at a time.” He pulled a face of mock pity as she glared at him, the shield she had brought up around her heart taking a hit as her mind filled with images of Keras with other women. “Poor, sweet, foolish, Enyo. Did he tell you that you were special? Did he say he only has eyes for you? That he hasn’t slept with anyone since you two met?”
Ares paced the room, wisely keeping his distance from her, his gaze fixed on her wherever he went.
“He is not a liar like you.” She couldn’t hold back those words as rage began to get the better of her, the hurt mounting rapidly inside her now drawing it to the surface. “He isn’t.”
She believed that.
“Strange that he never came to see you.” Ares pivoted to face her and she steeled herself again, because the glimmer in his eyes said he had thought of something that would break her and found pleasure in it. “Two centuries banished from the Underworld… but not this one. What stopped him from coming to see you?”
“He was not welcome here.” She knew that in her heart, clung to it like a raft in a stormy ocean. “The sons of Hades have never been welcome here. Not only that, but he had a duty to perform in the mortal world.”
“Duty? Pfft.” Ares waved her away. “How noble that excuse sounds.”
“It is not an excuse.”
He grinned again. “He did not come here… did you go to see him?”
She glared at him again, because he knew damned well that she hadn’t been to see Keras.
He pulled that mock-pity face again, and the urge to slap him returned. “Did you not go to visit him because you feared you would discover he had a lover?”
“No,” she bit out, but her heart called her a liar.
She had feared that.
Keras was handsome, drew the gazes of females wherever he went and gained their attention without even trying. She had told him she was getting married before he had left her. There had been no reason for him to remain loyal to her, even if he had viewed her as more than just a friend and had loved her as she had hoped. In fact, she had felt that if he had loved her, he would have had even more reason to find himself another female. Her announcement would have hurt him and he would have wanted to rid himself of his feelings for her.
So, gods, yes, she had feared he had found someone else to love, or had indulged in a string of lovers, moving from one to the next as her brother did.
Her strength failed her, her heart taking a direct hit as her brother’s words all rolled up on her, collided in her head to tear her down. The urge to strike her brother transformed into an urge to get away from him, to find some space and be alone.
She needed to be alone.
“Zeus ordered you to participate. Do so or do not. I do not care.” She turned on her heel and stormed from the room.
Flinched when Ares called after her and drove a dagger into her back, right into her heart.
“When you realise he is a liar and has used you, do not come crawling back to me.”