Chapter 1
WHERE A MUSE (WHO IS DEVASTATINGLY GOOD LOOKING) IS FORCED INTO A CONFESSION
S he was devastatingly good looking. Proof of her good looks were the veritable hordes of cupids, mortals and an occasional goddess left, well, devastated. Wrecked by her very own looks. By how good said looks were.
Erato flicked her golden hair out of her eyes, tugged on the lapels of the buttery smooth leather jacket and winked at herself in the mirror.
Even her reflection swooned.
She stopped just short of throwing finger guns at the poor mirror-Erato. She had her limits. And that would be the absolute overkill in attractiveness.
Somewhere to her left, a long-suffering sigh sounded particularly put off. Ah, Erato had quite forgotten that her best friend, former lover (in true queer tradition), and—for all intents and purposes—boss was still in the room.
Actually, come to think of it, it was Erato who was the one doing the lingering. After all, this was Aphrodite’s office. Good thing she had not shot those finger guns at the mirror. She’d have to do something drastic like throw herself headlong out of whatever floor this was.
“Dramatic. Way too dramatic even for you. Hell, Melpomene, the actual muse of Drama, would roll her eyes at you.”
Aphrodite’s voice was full of mockery. Erato huffed out a breath.
“It looks good on her. The eye rolling. As someone who has made her beautiful eyes roll back in her equally beautiful face, I’d know.”
Aphrodite raised her own blues to the heavens.
“Is there a reason you’re being crass in my office?”
Erato dismissed the possible innuendo in the tone of her friend’s voice.
“Are you suggesting I go be crass somewhere else, Dite?”
This time, the Goddess of Love just let out a no-longer-covertly-suffering groan.
“Erato, you have been hounding me for days since my return to Paris. You’ve done nothing but follow me around.
You oscillate between moping, pouting and faking the most bizarre cheerfulness and boastfulness that for the life of me—lives, perhaps, as there have been so many, being immortal has its perks—I cannot understand. ”
Erato threw a final gaze at the still mesmerized and devastated mirror-muse and plonked herself in the chair in front of Aphrodite’s desk.
One piled up with new correspondence and probably dozens of tasks that the Goddess of Love should be focusing on after her sojourn in the godawful New England frigidness.
Erato made a face, then mentally corrected herself.
It was cold, yes, but Aphrodite glowed with the power of several suns and Helios wasn’t even in Europe with them.
The reunification with Athena had obviously gone amazing.
Still, Dite was making an effort. Now, she was regarding Erato with her most patient gaze.
Or maybe it was just one of supreme sexual satisfaction.
Erato would know. But somehow, after everything, thinking about Aphrodite that way was suddenly inappropriate.
Not that it had ever stopped Erato before…
And yet. It felt so now. Erato pouted. Aphrodite raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow.
Erato sank lower in the chair. Crossed her booted feet. Tugged on the lapels of the leather jacket. Flipped her hair. Then decided that she might as well spill it.
“ImightvefuckedDemeterattheCon… Andsheisntspeakingotmeanymore.”
The second eyebrow joined the first one and pushed Aphrodite’s hairline up.
“I heard exactly what you just said, but I refuse to believe it, so could you please repeat that mumbo-jumbo, now with pauses and perhaps punctuation?”
Erato sighed again. She didn’t think she’d ever sighed as many times in her life as she had in the past few months.
“I might’ve fucked Demeter?—”
Aphrodite closed her ears with her red-tipped fingers and stood up, putting as much distance between herself and Erato.
“No, no, no. Stop. Stop! You did not say any of this. I do not want to know any of this. We had a deal.”
Ah, yes. The deal. The one longstanding, unspoken deal that all gods, cupids and muses were aware of.
“Nobody fucks with Demeter.”
Aphrodite said it like an oath. And when you thought about it, as the Goddess of Love, this would have been one of her responsibilities. To take care of Demeter’s love life. To make certain that?—
“Absolutely nobody fucks with that woman, Erato!”
And here came the raised voice. Erato winced and lifted her hands, palms up.
“Technically I fucked her, not with her, though the linguistics of this are rather ambig?—”
“Enough! Do not joke about this! And do not tell me you have no idea how that even happened. Do not shrug off the one thing we have all agreed on. That woman has suffered. Hence the damn deal we adhere to. Demeter has always been off limits. What the hell were you thinking?”
Erato opened her mouth, looked at Aphrodite, ran headlong into one of those dagger stares and decided that her friend knew very well the answer to that question.
“But you weren’t thinking!”
Well, she really did know that answer. Except?—
“And do not tell me Demeter started it, because NPW. No possible way.”
Again, Aphrodite knew her all too well if she was able to maintain this one sided conversation.
Asking questions, answering them herself, since Erato was just that predictable.
Except for this one detail, Erato would’ve given Aphrodite her due.
Being right looked good on her. But there still was that one small, tiny, almost blink-and-you’ll-miss it detail.
And Erato couldn’t help but think it mattered. Just that teeny bit.
“It’s complicated, but she did. Start it.”
Erato breathed. Aphrodite stared. The clock on the desk measured their heartbeats. Aphrodite gulped, closed her eyes, hummed something that sounded suspiciously like a curse, and sat back down in her chair.
“Do you know what is at stake when matters concerning Demeter become ‘complicated’, as you call them?”
Erato blinked, then nodded. Her devastatingly gorgeous hair flowed prettily around her face.
In the dark window, her reflection looked chiseled from marble, all sharp angles and cutting glass cheekbones.
Her jaw alone was a work of art. But as she opened her mouth, plump lips and all, to say that yes, she was very much familiar with the ruin that upsetting Demeter usually resulted in, Aphrodite waved her away and reached for the calendar. Then she massaged her temples.
“Do you know what month it is, Erato?”
Well, that was one question Erato could answer.
“April. Late April.”
Aphrodite did not praise her. Erato wilted a bit.
“And do you know what the temperature outside is?”
Erato looked back at the mirror, almost fixed an errant strand of hair that nervously raking her fingers through it had dislodged, and settled on, “Freeze your tits off temperature?”
Aphrodite’s gaze hardened. But as rain, which was undoubtedly ice cold, started pelting the windowpane, Erato’s eyes went suddenly wide with realization.
Aphrodite’s expression mellowed somewhat.
“And there goes the lightbulb.”
Yes, there it went. Erato didn’t consider herself the brightest one on the porch, but nobody had ever accused her of being slow on the uptake.
Vain? Often. Gorgeous? Oh, yeah. Sexy? Sure thing, hon.
But not stupid. Maybe a touch indolent when matters of the vagina were involved, which admittedly was often with her, but still?—
“The Goddess of Harvest is clearly miffed, since we are getting a fifth month of winter and nothing is blooming, Erato.”
The phone rang. In the room's silence, it sounded like a fire alarm. Aphrodite swiped to answer and then winced at the chill audibly coming through the receiver. Only one Goddess was this cold and this bitchy when needed. Fates, even when not needed. Hera could pretty much freeze Hades’ domain over with her attitude.
And there she was, calling Aphrodite, and Erato could venture an educated guess about what.
Aphrodite for her part said nothing, occasionally shivered at the onslaught of vitriol coming her way, but listened silently.
Then she simply hung up. And gave Erato a telling look from underneath those ridiculously long lashes, rivaled only by Erato’s own.
A look that screamed volumes and managed to transmit Hera’s message, perhaps better than any words.
Still, Aphrodite spoke.
“Erato…”
Her name sounded like an accusation. But what was she supposed to do?
“No need to tell you what Hera said. Because it wasn’t nice or helpful. Just… fix it, Muse. Or we are all in deep trouble. Remember last time?”
Oh, Erato remembered. Every immortal did. Demeter going all scorched earth when Hades and Persephone had shacked up. Nothing bloomed for years. Famine, pestilence, locusts… Well, not the locusts, but yeah, many had suffered.
“So… I guess I better fix it, then?” Erato’s voice was a mumble.
Aphrodite reached for her phone again, already dismissing Erato from her sight.
Well, that was only fair. Erato had some fast thinking and fast acting to do and, by the sound of it, Aphrodite didn’t like where all of this was going.
Erato could sympathize, mainly because her own gut told her it was all about to get worse.