I just rolled my eyes. She’d already thrown all of this in my face before, but for the sake of peace in my forge, I never told her what I was thinking. That time had come.
“Did you ever stop and think I didn’t want to marry you either, Aphrodite? You might not have a limp like me, but I find you vile and repulsive all the same. You’re vapid, self-centered, and I think it would have amused you if Zeus let it get to the point they were fighting over you. You were also lousy in bed.”
She just shrieked and slapped me in the face.
“You can’t talk to me like that! Everyone wanted to marry me then. They gave you a fucking blessing when Zeus picked you for my husband. Every man in Olympus would have done anything for that.”
I just laughed in her face.
“Not every man. I didn’t want you, and Ares tired of you pretty quickly. Tell me, Aphrodite, how is the Goddess of Love faring on Earth now? I’ll bet you’re single and drowning in one-night stands that end up ghosting you.”
She stomped her feet and balled up her fists. I knew she wanted to hit me. Why did Zeus grab her, anyway? She wasn’t a fighter. She wouldn’t be good at interrogation either. Trying to have a conversation with her was painful. If you tried to talk about anything except for how pretty she was, she zoned out and would try to steer it back towards kissing her ass.
Yeah, I could officially say I was getting to her right now. She was extraordinarily beautiful, even for an Olympian, and it didn’t matter if you were from my home or Earth. People tended to let the beautiful people get away with everything. I’m sure in the modern day, a few humans had told her she was self-centered, but she wouldn’t have cared about their opinion because she found them beneath her. Hearing it from an Olympian and a man who had been married to her was really hitting home.
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
“Focus on your bliss, Aphrodite,” she said, making a motion with her hands like she was shoving her anger down from the top of her head to her chest. When she opened her eyes again, she was all saccharin sweetness. “I forgive you for what you said. I know you don’t mean it. My poor Hephaestus has been chained up and tortured by his father. I’m here to make it right. How about a kiss for old time’s sake?”
Zeus had broken several ribs. They had already healed but were still sore. I still started laughing like a madman through the pain. This was Zeus’s big plan to get my weapon? Olympus was doomed if he thought sending my ex-wife; who I hated, who brought fucking Ares to my sacred forge to defile the bed I made, and who I hadn’t been married to in hundreds of years; to seduce me would work.
I treated her kindly and well when we were married because I knew she was forced into it just as much as I was, and I hid that I didn’t care for her very much, but all she did was throw anything and everything back in my face and insult me. She would regularly talk about how I was defective because of my limp. I set up my forge away from the Olympians because I didn’t want to hear that, and then I was forced to sleep right next to it.
Zeus never understood me. He never understood women either. He’d been alive for a long fucking time, and he still thought the answer to everything was a pretty face and sex. I’d always thought that would one day be his downfall, but maybe it would set me free.
I knew Aphrodite hated every minute of this, but she could have said no. Anyone on Olympus could have said no to Zeus at any time. Sure, he mastered lightning, but that wouldn’t kill us. Kronos had several children, and Rhea could have hidden any of them away before he swallowed them. Everyone hailed Zeus a hero for getting Kronos’s scythe away from him so the Titans could be trapped in Tartarus, but after growing up around him, he probably just got lucky.
Everyone still kissed his ass about that, even now, and they couldn’t see he’d totally turned into Kronos. He wasn’t swallowing his children as Kronos did, but he was just as bad. He was an abusive bully who had no issues with raping women. I just didn’t know how no one on Olympus hadn’t realized that yet.
Yes, Demeter needed to be stopped, but so did Zeus. Now that he knew that we could forge a weapon to kill an Olympian, he’d never stop until he got his hands on one. I already knew who he would start with too. Hades would be at the top of his list. Hades was the only Olympian who had ever questioned him, and he hated it. He’d move onto Hera next. Hera and Zeus hated each other, but they liked to pretend like they had no way of getting a divorce. Instead of just doing that, Zeus would kill her.
He’d use the blade to strengthen his rule. He left Olympus to become a god once. The only reason he ever left Earth and came back was that he was falling out of fashion. But he loved every minute, and I knew if he could do it again, he would. He’d use my weapon to make damned sure every Olympian was on board and never questioned him.
I had to get out of this room, but I couldn’t leave Olympus. I had to find a place to hide and contact Hades. He had a plan to come here to get me, anyway. We needed a plan to get rid of Zeus because now that he knew something could kill an Olympian, he wouldn’t stop until he had his hands on it, or someone permanently stopped him from looking.
I put on my puppy dog face and smiled at Aphrodite.
“You’re right. I didn’t mean it. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life, and I regret that we aren’t still married every day. Why don’t you unchain me so I can rub your feet, and we can talk?”
Hook, line, sinker. Aphrodite might be beautiful, but she believed anything that came out your mouth if you also added a compliment about her in the sentence. She pulled a set of keys out her pocket and stepped towards me.
I would get to do something I’ve wanted to do since she set foot in my forge. It wouldn’t kill her for good, but snapping her neck would knock her out long enough for me to get as far away from Ares’s place as possible.
And Olympus was my playground when I was a child. I knew where to hide from Zeus.
Chapter 5
Tryphon
A
ll this waiting around was maddening. I enjoyed teaching River to fight, and her demonic form was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen, but I wanted to go to Olympus. I think every monster in the Underworld did. We all wanted Hephaestus back. We couldn’t have ended Demeter’s reign without him, and he was just a nice guy. I didn’t mind sharing him with River or chatting over ale with him. I wanted to do all that again.
But every single monster here shared the same story—a god cursed us and we wanted revenge. It wasn’t just me that had a beef with Poseidon. Plenty of us down here wanted to shove his trident up his ass like a big pointy butt plug. I know I did, and I tried not to get angry often.
We were back to training River. Pavlina was working with her on throwing knives, and Demos was pouting because he wanted to take her flying with those spiffy new bat wings she had. She promised him that later they could. May I say that I loved how Pavlina was dressing River? So much black leather, so little time.
River was trying to fling knives while fending off my tentacles when Hades came running into the room. I had no idea what he wanted, considering we hadn’t seen him in a while, so he could try to placate Zeus verbally. Like that would ever work, but we had to keep up appearances. River dropped her knife to her side, and I used the opportunity to yank her to my chest before Kimon could grab her. That Minotaur was sneaky with his hugs.