Desperate Housewives of Olympus (17 page)

HERA

Hera wrinkled her nose. “Really? What a centaurhole. Yeah and then to ask you to call his wife? Dick move.” She snorted with another laugh. “No, I have no idea what’s wrong with him. He what? WHAT? I’m coming.” She snapped her phone off, but stayed put. Partly because she wasn’t hurrying anywhere under Zeus’ command and partly because she wasn’t sure if she could move. Hera hadn’t been able to sit correctly since she’d started this mad affair with Hades. On the one hand, she loved it, or the other, it was hard to keep her feelings compartmentalized.

On second thought, that was a lie. They
weren’t
compartmentalized. She had feelings for Hades, regardless of what was happening between them or what he felt. She simply had to accept that and get on with the business of living. Hera couldn’t change anything either of them felt; she could only control how she reacted to it.

“What’s happened?” he asked, pushing a damp lock of hair behind her ear.

She leaned into the touch, wanting more of it and less of the rest of the world that would take a sledgehammer to the foundations of their idyll. “Zeus. He’s had some sort of episode at Abstinence’s temple.”

“What kind of episode?” Hades wore a look of concern.

“He passed out and turned all flaky. I guess he didn’t drink his ambrosia. Now, he expects me to come haul his ass home and tend him like a loving wife. It’s not that big a deal.”

“No, Hera. It is a big deal. I’m afraid you do have to help him.”

“Why? I mean, I will help him, but it’ll be on my schedule, damn it.” She wanted to roll over and pull the blankets up over her head.

“Do you want him to die?” he asked quietly.

“He can’t die.” Was that even an option?

“He can. And if you don’t help him, he will.”

How come this was the first she’d heard of this? Hera wanted to say that she didn’t care—that he had it coming for treating her so badly and making her feel like shit. For all of the mortals and gods he’d punished because he didn’t get his way.

“Ye—no.” She slumped down further in the bed. “How do you know what’s wrong with him anyway?”

“I can’t believe he didn’t tell you this. You’ve been married for an eon.”

“Tell me
what
?” she almost screeched.

“It’s his secret to tell you, Hera. Although, the irony today will amuse you to no end, I’m sure.” Hades smirked at her and moved to dress.

“What are you doing?”

“Coming with you of course.”

“Why?”

“Been doing it all day, why stop now?” He eyed her lasciviously and she felt his appraisal in the throbbing between her thighs.

“Stop that.” Hera shivered.

“Or what? You’ll fuck me again?”

“Yes! It’s gotten to be where I need it like I do ambrosia and taunting me with it doesn’t help.”

“Pleasure on par with ambrosia.” He made a big show of stopping to consider the possibilities. “That’s certainly something to be avoided.” Hades’ voice was silk over her skin and his long strides took him around the bed and he’d hauled her up against him. “Be a good goddess and get your delectable ass in gear and I promise when we get home, I’ll lick
your
ambrosia until you scream.”

His words made her need intensify, but it wasn’t only the promise of his tongue working her flesh until she came. He’d said home.
When we get home
. Hera knew she shouldn’t read so much into what he’d said, it was a word said casually. It meant little or nothing to him, so it shouldn’t mean anything to her either.

But it did.

The implications were they would go to see Zeus, to help him, but that Hera wasn’t going to stay where her ailing husband was. She was going to stay with Hades. Her god. Her future. This was
their
home and she wouldn’t lose it to Persephone, or anyone else.

She smiled brightly. “I’ll let you drive then.” Hera struggled into her clothes. “Wait, should we cleanse first?”

“No, definitely not.”

“You’re bad.”

“Actually, you’ll need it.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.” She narrowed her eyes, but before she could question him, he’d anchored her against him and they were standing in front of Abstinence’s door. “Damn it. You didn’t even let me do my hair.”

Abstinence opened the door, a panicked look on her face. “He’s in the front room.”

Hades stood straighter. “Death was here.”

“He was,” Abstinence acknowledged. “He came for me.”

“Okay, you need to tell me everything. These half-assed explanations are going to make me rip my hair out,” Hera grumbled.

She followed Abstinence into the front room and saw a pitiful figure—a skeleton prone in a pile of dust on the floor. He was emaciated and week, unable to move—his chest sunken and shriveled. There was nothing about him Hera found to be familiar except for the glacial blue of his eyes. Those were eyes she’d stared into for centuries, eyes that had seen all of the horror and pleasure the world had to offer. They were ancient and youthful both.

Zeus.

“What did you do to yourself, you ass?” Hera whispered almost tenderly. She sighed. “And then you told your would-be mistress to call your wife. Do you know how tacky that is?”

“Hera, you can ream his ass later if you so choose. Right now, you need to hold his hand,” Hades told her.

Hera wrinkled her nose. “Nuh-uh.”

“I will hold his hand.” Abstinence took the barely animated bones in her own tiny hand.

Hades put a reassuring touch on the thin goddess’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Abstinence. It must be Hera. She has the energy to share.”

“Oh.” It all seemed to click for Abstinence, but Hera felt like she still had goat cheese for brains. She didn’t understand at all.

Hades sank to his haunches behind her and traced his fingers down her bare arm and Hera breathed deeply as those light touches sparked sensation through her body. She didn’t feel the least bit guilty about it either. Zeus was lucky she’d even bothered to show up after all he’d done to her.

He whispered in her ear. “Think about this afternoon. Remember what I said to you before we left?”

About licking her? She shuddered and wondered how perverse Hades really was. Until she saw that it wasn’t punishing Zeus or tormenting him, at least not obviously. In fact, his form had become more solid, fleshy. The more aroused she became, the more it healed her god-husband.

Hades kissed her neck and took the tender skin near her carotid between his teeth and this sent jolts of healing energy to Zeus. As Hades ran his hands down Hera’s sides to her hips, Zeus sprang to his feet and ripped Hera away from him.

“Thanks for your help, brother. But your work here is done.” Zeus snarled.

“No, Zeus. It’s not. I’m not your wife anymore.” Hera jerked away from him. It felt so good to say the words, to release the bonds that chained them together. Hera felt free.

“Are you
his
wife, then? You know you’ll never be as young or beautiful as Persephone. He will never love you the way he loved her.”

Hera had her arm drawn ready to slap him, but it fell useless to her side. She didn’t need him to tell her that she wasn’t Persephone. Hera knew that. She wasn’t an idiot. And now it was so obvious how his barb had stuck home because she had nothing to say.

Abstinence slapped him for her.

The undernourished goddess packed quite a punch. She knocked Zeus back a good two feet and he wobbled for a moment like he was going to fall. He braced himself on the fireplace and rubbed his jaw.

“What was that for?”

“Saying something that horrible to your
wife
who came here to help you when by all rights she should have let you rot,” Abstinence snapped. “Gods know I would have.”

“Saved me?” Zeus smirked.

“Left you here to think about what you’d done all of these years, you bastard. You know, I thought I saw a glimmer of redemption in you today, but I was mistaken,” Abstinence snarled.

From the look on his face, Zeus had been hit harder by her words than her fist.

Hades had been right; the irony of the situation was killing her. Only not how he’d thought. Their sexual energy had healed him. By cuckolding her husband, she’d done him a favor. But that wasn’t what caused her to mourn the irony of the situation. It was that Hera and Zeus’ hearts both were breaking now, but it was their lovers who’d done the breaking and not each other.

She was amazed at this change in Zeus at how one word from the goddess had caused him pain. He’d never been like that with her, even in the beginning.

“I think you owe your wife an explanation,” Hades said quietly.

“Fuck yourself,” Zeus snapped. “She’s not my wife anymore, remember?”

“Fine. I will tell her then. She deserves to know.”

“You only think that because she’s not yours.”

“Not mine? She was mine twelve different ways this afternoon, brother. She bears my mark; she’s vowed herself to me. No, I have her. She’s mine no matter what happens here.”

Zeus used his renewed strength to catch Hades in a choke hold and Hades didn’t fight him. He allowed the violence, but smiled coldly, as if it didn’t matter. “Choking me doesn’t change what happened. Nor does it change the fact she
wasn’t going to come
.”

The fire of his rage was extinguished and he released Hades. “What do you mean?”

Hera answered for herself. “After all that I’ve given up for you and how you’ve treated me, did you really expect me to drop what I was doing and run to see how I could serve my god-king?” she snarled.

“Yes, you’re my wife.” His face was twisted with anger.

“A fact you conveniently forget when you’re trying to fuck our new neighbor. Or all the countless others you’ve ridden. Even though you haven’t touched your willing wife in more centuries than I care to count. Your mighty thunderbolt is a bad porn joke, Zeus.”

“You never wanted sex, Hera.”

“Oh, I did. I wanted it, but with my husband and only my husband. Not the entire extended family of the Emperor of Rome at one sitting.”

“You said no, so I left you alone. What did you want from me?”

“Fidelity. Trust. Honor.”

“You sound like you’ve been reading Grail Romances. Wrong pantheon.”

“I know. I do know. Your brother is more worthy of your crown that you are.”

“Be careful what you say, Hera. If you try to take my crown, wife or no…” He let the threat hang.

Hera screamed. She screamed so loudly all the glass shattered and splashed out onto Ambrosia Lane like a waterfall. “It isn’t your crown! It never has been. It’s mine. Mine.
Mine!
Do you hear me?”

“Hera, everyone can hear you.” Hades put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

Zeus made a face like she’d kicked him in the sac, bit it wasn’t enough.

“It’s mine. I made you King of Gods and if I so choose I will unmake you and there is nothing, absolutely
nothing
you can do about it. You’ve frightened everyone else with that little stunt you pulled with Prometheus, but just try that with me and you will find out how great and terrible my wrath really is,” she seethed through her clenched teeth.

“Oh and what would you do with
my
crown?”

“Give it to Hades.” she shot back. “You’re lucky he didn’t want it.”

“You treacherous bitch.” He took a step toward her.

Hades was between them before Zeus could blink and a long, dark shadow filled the room. It billowed out from behind Hades in wings of darkness and sucked all of the light from the space. The Lord of the Underworld grew taller, broader and the blue flame that burned in his eyes spread; now crackling over his palms and up his forearms.

That living shadow wrapped itself around Hera and moved her further behind him. The voices of the damned lived in that breathing darkness and they whispered to her—a cacophony of suffering—but they touched her hair and her face softly and she recognized her lover in those caresses. His power was greater than anyone on Olympus. The crown of the gods was his by right. With a certainty, Hera realized it always had been.

She felt a rush of desire, not just because of the power he held, but for how he wielded it. That quiet confidence in himself, he didn’t need a crown to know who he was. He didn’t need to take something from another only to prove he could, not when he knew how much Zeus needed that crown to define himself.

Hera had another epiphany.

It was something she’d known was there, so she supposed maybe it wasn’t the lightning strike of an epiphany after all, but an acceptance of an irrefutable truth.

Hera loved Hades.

It wasn’t a silly godling infatuation, it wasn’t something that had sprouted in her fantasies because he’d made her come, she loved him for all of the things he was as a god; a male. For all of his darkness, his soul was a bright beacon and it was beautiful. It had made her want to be a better goddess. He’d changed her without trying, without wanting anything from her other than what she could give.

With that realization, she knew what she had to do. Hera had given him her heart—metaphorically speaking. Now, she was going to do it for real.

ABSTINENCE

When Hades released his power, Abstinence was reminded of every foul thing she’d feared lurked under the bed and watched her in the darkness. While he terrified her, she thought Hera was lucky to have a god such as Hades who treated her gently and protected her as if she were the most valuable of jewels.

“I said get out of my way, brother. This is between me and my wife,” Zeus growled and thunderbolts gathered in a quiver strapped to his broad back.

Abstinence hated to admit it, but she was pretty sure Zeus would be the one who had his ass handed to him with a bow on it. Then there was the fact he was
wrong
. It occurred to her Zeus had always taken or been given everything he’d ever wanted with no one to gainsay him. Now, he was learning a hard lesson and he was acting like a spoiled child who’d been forced to give up a toy.

“Be that as it may, Zeus, I won’t allow you to hurt her,” Hades said evenly.