Dionysus snorted. But if he’d found mother’s delight at the idea of allowing a poor mortal to be raped and tortured by men whose lusts had been turned to hate repugnant, he hid it well.
He shook his head. “While your idea has merit, dear sister”—like Tartarus it did, sometimes I really hated how evil my mother could be—“I was thinking something a little more… comical.”
“Oh,” she rolled her eyes, “of course. Because this is all just one big joke to you, Dionys—”
He held up his hand, stopping her. “Hear me out first. I think you might just see things my way, my dear. Believe me when I say this will be torture for her. But it will make you smile. It is far more pleasant a task to see our enemies incapacitated for decades as opposed to quickly snuffing them out. That pleasure lasts but a second. This will be lifetimes of fun for you.”
She’d seemed ready to dismiss him, but now she was smirking again. Fully onboard. “I’m listening.”
“Send the boy,” he suddenly looked at me, “make him your peddler.”
I clenched my jaw, nostrils flaring. Knowing I was hidden from mother’s view. How dare he. To include me in such a vile, nasty plot as this. Just because I was my mother’s son did not mean that I enjoyed her games. But no one on Olympus ever took the time to know me. To really know me. They saw me merely as mother’s pawn, one of the tools in her extensive arsenal to always get her way with.
Dionysus merely smirked and I was about to break my silence, to reveal too much of myself in my fury, but then for a split second, his smile slid away and there was something in his eyes. Something weighted and heavy, something that felt a lot like “trust me.”
I blinked and so did he. And then that light was gone. Replaced once more by his hateful smirk and I wondered if I’d ever actually seen it at all or if I’d merely been deluding myself.
“No. I won’t do that,” my mother said, “Eros will not get close to that disgusting, filthy mortal.”
Dionysus shrugged. “Do you trust anyone else on Olympus the way you do your faithful son?”
Devil take him.
I had to fight not to scowl. He made me sound like a mindless beast of burden who lived only to do my mother’s bidding. But I was so much more than that. So much more than almost anyone on Olympus.
I felt my mother’s glacial stare suddenly on me. “Step into the light, my son. Let the gods look upon you.”
Her words were proud. Haughty. I hid myself in shadow for a reason. Not because I was hideous to look upon, I was my mother’s son. I simply did not enjoy the attention the way she did.
Knowing I could not fight her command, I stepped into the light. And just as it always did when the gods gazed upon me, their eyes turned glassy, lustful.
I was my mother’s perfect counterpoint.
Persephone even sighed.
I held my chin up high. “As my mother commands,” I said dutifully, robotically. Wearily.
But she did not notice. She never did.
My uncle nodded. “Disguise him. Make him unattractive to her. But just attractive enough,” my uncle held up a finger, “that she will not fear him.”
“And what is in the potion?”
“Repulsion,” he said with a chuckle. “She will keep her beauty, but she will repulse all mortal men. None will offer her their hand in marriage. Her parents, once so proud of her, will reject her for being unworthy. All friends who once enjoyed inviting her to their dinners and soirees will cease associating with her. She will bring nothing but bitterness and discontent to them. And meanwhile, dear sister, you will watch as her beauty slowly fades and her once kind heard melts into something bitter and jaded.”
I blinked several times, stomach roiling with sickness at the thought of what was being planned against that poor woman. With beauty came a certain type of temperament. The beautiful ones always knew they were beautiful and tended to use their attraction for their benefit. Not all, but those were outliers and quite rare. Most beautiful people I’d encountered had hearts as dead and cold as they weren’t on the outside. Still didn’t make any of this right. And I wanted to say so, but I knew no one would listen to me.
They never did.
“I love it!” She squealed with true rapturous delight. I hated my mother in that moment. I was ashamed of her. Embarrassed to be associated with her.
But my will had never been my own. If mother told me to go, I would. Because my uncle was right, I was and always would be her good little soldier.
“Eros,” my mother cried out and it was all I could do not to grimace.
“Mother,” I said neutrally.
“You will do as your uncle has said.” She rolled her wrist, and suddenly sitting on her palm was a glowing glass shaped heart that rolled with a mercurial pink glittering substance within. “This is the potion. You will make her drink it. Do you hear me, my boy? Do not disappoint me.”
“I never do,” I said and meant it, hating myself more than anything I’d ever hated in my life.
I was about to single handedly destroy someone, and all because the gods were capricious, fickle demons.
“Now make yourself ugly,” she said.
I had the power to alter my appearance. Normally I would just go invisible when I dwelled in the land of men, but this time I knew I could not do that. I snapped my fingers and imagined myself as the type of man mother would automatically cringe away from.
I gave myself a soft belly. Hunched my shoulders a bit. Thinned my hair. Added a few pockmarks to my face and gave myself a hooked nose. I was not actually ugly. I kept my eyes kind. And my mouth pleasing. Because I wanted to draw the poor woman in and what mother did not understand was that outward beauty could only get one so far. It was the inner beauty, the soul, that actually created eternal bonds. I wanted the poor human to like me.
Which was stupid. And silly.
I knew.
Mother cringed. “Gods, if I didn’t know better. You are positively hideous, my boy.”
I clipped a nod at her. Heartsick and disillusioned by my life.
She walked toward me, holding out the potion. “Find the girl. Make her take this. And then I want you to report back to me in a fortnight. I will watch through your eyes, see what you’ve seen. I am proud of you.” She tenderly gripped my chin in her hand. “My son.”
I hated that my heart trembled when she said it, and that for just a moment I really, really did want that from her. But not because of something like this. Not because I was about to be the cause of one woman’s ruination. It was a cruel fate. And if I were a better man, I would not do it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and muttered words I wasn’t sure I really meant. “Thank you, mother. That means a lot to me.”
“Now go. Destroy her happiness, my child.”
Gripping the damned potion tight in my fist, I turned. Snow white wings suddenly exploded from my back and though I was not outwardly as beautiful as I normally was, the gasps of delight ran through the crowd.
I did not look back at them, I did not wish them farewell. I sailed into the sky, racing like a fiery meteor toward the land of men. A lone tear slid down my cheek.
I was dead inside.
And I wasn’t sure I would ever come back to life again. Not after this.