Our sex was furious.
Wild.
He pulled my hair, so hard I felt strands being plucked free. I slapped his face. Delighting in the red blooms that suffused his dark cheeks.
We fucked like there was no tomorrow. We never kissed when we were hate fucking. Because this wasn’t love. This was lust. Pure and simple.
It was also some of the best sex we ever had.
After my third orgasm and his first, we were finally able to see beyond the haze of our dark emotions.
He was laying beneath me. One arm tied to the foot of my bed with the sash from my discarded robe. His chest rising steadily up and down. I slid off his face, still straddling him, feeling sticky and gloriously used, but still pissed as hell.
I chanced a look at him, but he was not looking at me. His hair was in disarray around his head. His eyes were still dark, not burning with fire, but disgust.
He found his need of me a weakness. A proud god like him shouldn’t need anything or anyone, he’d told me so on countless occasions. But I was his drug of choice and he was a hardcore junkie.
Somewhere in a private corner of my soul, in a place where I would only admit my deepest darkest truths to myself, I hoped he would look at me not with shame but with pride. Even love.
His eyes turned toward me. Aware I was looking. There was no pride in them. Just repugnance.
And that small, private island in my soul fractured just a bit more.
But I didn’t like to feel or even acknowledge pain, so much easier just to give into the anger. With a snarl, I slapped his cheek, and then I stood.
I smirked when the fire in his eyes raged. I was the only one who ever dared touch him in such a manner. I arched a brow, waiting, maybe even hoping he’d say something. But all he did was tug the sash loose, ripping it in the process, and rolled to a sitting position.
His hands were around his knees and he was staring off with a mile long look into the distance.
And for just a second. Just a fraction of a moment I suffered a terrible thought. What if one day I pushed him too far and he left me? I could not bear the humiliation.
I swallowed and then opened my mouth, ready to apologize for that last slap. Realizing I’d gone too far this time.
But he was looking at me now. His cheek was an angry red and I winced, realizing I’d slapped him just a little harder than I’d intended to.
“You’re such a fucking bitch, Aphrodite,” he hissed, speaking low but steadily. “You like to think that no one sees through your façade, that you’re an ice queen. But I know who you are. Who you really are? You’re a little girl with insecurities a mile long. Your heart is as cold and dark as your soul. You could have made us all love you. Worship you. But instead you choose to use your gifts to hurt anyone around you who might have tried to love you. One day you will push me beyond the limits of my endurance and I will not look back.”
I tried to hide my tremors, but I couldn’t keep from taking a miniscule step back and giving a soft shake of my head. “You fucking bastard,” I whispered, clenching my fingers together. When I felt the strongest it was like I forgot how to string words together.
He got easily to his feet. Standing tall and nude before me. And my heart sputtered. I clutched at my left breast. But he only shook his head.
“I hope to the primordial gods that one day you’ll get exactly what you deserve.”
Then he was gone, leaving only a swirl of glowing ash in his wake.
That’s when I came unglued. “Then stay gone! Don’t you ever return to my bed again!”
And in the darkness of that room I did what I would never do anyplace else.
I sobbed.
The tears spilled up from the very deepest pits of my soul.
I hadn’t started out wanting to be so wicked. But I also knew I would never change. Olympus would never allow that of me, not anymore. I’d burned too many bridges.
And as I felt sorrier and sorrier for myself, I began to think of my child. My wayward, beautiful child. He was hiding from me. I knew it. I just didn’t know why.
Sitting up, I scrubbed at my cheeks with my wrists. I still stunk of Ares’s mouth and jizz. I curled my nose. I didn’t want him anywhere on me. I would clean up. And then… I would find what my wicked child was up to and if this Psyche dared try to get her hooks in him, I would kill her.
In the most violent and hateful of ways.
I smirked, feeling better already.
Eros
“Very nice,” a sly, devil may care voice broke through my musings.
I twirled, for some reason I’d expected to see mother even though the voice had been a male.
To my surprise it was Dionysus who stood before me, leaning slightly against a pillar of my home. Legs crossed at the ankles, dressed in a fashion that was lightyears ahead of the time we currently inhabited.
My right brow lifted high up on my forehead. “Uncle? This is an unexpected surprise.”
He snorted, pushing off the pillar and brushed at invisible lint on his hunter green dinner jacket. “Must I have a reason for visiting my favorite nephew?”
I narrowed my eyes, not trusting his innocuous expression. “No. But why are you really here?”
He chuckled, before looking around the palace I’d taken great pains to build with my own hand’s day and night. I’d found the perfect location, hidden in a perpetual bank of low lying clouds coming in from the coast.
The palace was simple. Not as opulent as the ones upon Olympus. It was not hewn of gold, or silver, pearls, or whatever else the gods fancied. It was built of the very stone of this land. But my attention to detail was absolute. And I had managed a trade with the local sea witch. A harmless love spell for a pile of her best sea glass. From it I’d begun creating an elaborate splash mosaic. It was not yet done. I had the image in my head, but not much yet in the way of work. Dionysus found me now sitting amidst the pile of polished glass.
Carefully, I moved the pieces I had on my lap, making sure to keep the colors separated. It’d been the devil organizing the over ten thousand pieces last night, and I stood.
“Nice palace, my boy.” He said, staring up at the domed ceiling that rose twenty feet above us, then at the pitch covered torches flickering upon the walls. Then his bright eyes met mine. “If one didn’t know better, one might actually believe you intended to take up residence here.”
My heart gave a stutter and I automatically shook my head. “I am here but for a time.”
He snorted. “Right. Well, good to know.”
I swear, for a god of the drink and revelry Dionysus was surprisingly astute at seeing the truth beneath the surface.
Swiping a hand across my sweaty brow, I gave him innocent eyes. “Well, Uncle?”
“Ah yes,” he smirked, “my real reason for visiting. You were right, of course.” He walked ever so slightly closer. His dark hair was combed back, his olive complexion bright and not sallow like it was when he’d been too long in his drink. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen him as sober as he’d been the past few times, I’d seen him.
“Do you know, Eros,” he said lazily as he traced the lines of one of my own paintings. It was of the monster Medusa. A monster I felt tremendous sympathy for. What Athena had allowed to happen to her made me sick to my stomach.
I’d encountered the vivacious Medusa when she’d been but a girl of five. She’d had wings then, just like me. I’d often flown alongside her, invisible, cloaked in my shadows, but she’d always seemed aware of my presence. Laughing and giggling, even speaking to me a time or two. And I would play along, because I’d liked her. She’d had a sweet soul. Even though I’d seen the mark of the gods upon her, and had known in my heart her end would be a terrible one and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it, I’d still felt drawn to her.