Chapter 7 Hera
Hera
I am still reeling with shock that my husband is here of all places, let alone commanding my people—and the godsdamned owner of the building—out. “What are you doing?” I mean for the question to come out sharp and serrating. Instead, the words waver around the edges. Almost as if I’m afraid.
The strange thing is…I’m not.
My recent conversation with Circe has shown me what true fear is. It’s my sisters’ and mother’s faces in the sights of a sniper rifle. What are my husband’s cold temper tantrums compared to that?
It’s because of Circe that I’m still so shaken, because of this damned baby in my stomach that I’m feeling strangely weak and sick to my stomach.
Not because of him. Even when my husband loses his temper and actually finds the capacity to be more than a human-shaped icicle, he still draws the line at abuse in any form.
Smart of him, because even in my diminished capacity, I would cut off his hand rather than let him hurt me. I am my mother’s daughter, after all.
And it’s been a long time since I actually properly stabbed someone.
While I’m sitting there, wrapped up in my own thoughts, Ixion is looking at me for direction.
Of course he is. He doesn’t answer to my husband; he answers to me alone.
I nod. It seems Zeus and I will be having this fight one way or another, and I’d rather not do it in front of an audience.
The bar owner would likely take to MuseWatch and report every bitter detail.
My team might very well shoot my husband.
Why don’t I let them?
I shove that thought away before it can take root.
I won’t let them for the same reason I don’t stab him in his sleep, for the same reason I haven’t given in to my mother’s less and less subtle recommendations to poison him.
When Zeus dies—and he will—it can’t be linked to me.
It can’t affect my future child’s reign as leader of Olympus.
I will allow no scandal to touch them before they’ve even drawn breath.
“Go on, Ixion. It’s okay.” I sit there and I watch my people file out of the room, each looking more unhappy than the next. They don’t go far. I can see the outlines of the trio and the bartender through the glass of the door next to the street.
I turn my attention back to my husband. “Well?” He’s still standing on the other side of the table, looming over me.
Still staring at me with a strange expression in his pale blue eyes.
It looks almost human. I snap my fingers, more to jar myself out of the strange feeling twisting in my chest than to gain his attention.
“Zeus. Speak. You threw a hissy fit to get me alone, and now you’re just sitting there staring at me. Let’s get this over with.”
He plants his hands on the table slowly, in a way that makes me think he wants to rip it right off the floor and throw it to the side. “Are you here on a date with Ixion?”
The question is so shocking that I forget to mask my response. My jaw drops and I stare at him. “What?”
“Ixion. Your lover, Wife. That’s the only thing it could be, right?
Because not even you would be foolish enough to continue with your plans to murder me while the city burns around us.
” He speaks softly, practically biting out each word.
“You may be safe from me, but he is not. Cease your plotting, or I’ll kill him myself. ”
A shiver goes through me, and I can’t even pretend that it’s fear. This is the most honest I’ve seen him. It proves that, for all his icy exterior and attempt at civilization, my husband is a monster right down to his core. He’s just as twisted and broken as I always suspected.
Just as twisted and broken as I am.
I hate the feeling inside me, the sensation of a bell ringing in perfect tune with his. I hate recognizing something in him that I understand on an intrinsic level. I hate…
“You’d kill him for the sin of fucking me and pretend it’s because of some greater plot against you.
” The words slip free despite my best efforts.
I’m on a roller coaster and the brakes are gone, hurtling me forward.
It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. I can’t decide if I want it to stop or to continue to the inevitable conclusion.
Zeus tenses his hands on the table, but he surprises me.
He’s always had more control than I know what to do with.
He doesn’t manage to tuck his rage away, but instead of the expected burst of physical violence against the table or an unsuspecting chair, he slides into the booth next to me.
And keeps sliding until we’re pressed together tightly and he has to loop his arm around my shoulders.
Even as I tell myself not to, I can’t help leaning against him, just a little.
He’s so incredibly warm in a way that makes me wonder why I didn’t realize I was cold before.
More than that, he smells good. Intoxicating.
At a time when even the most comforting smells now turn my stomach, my husband alone is so tempting that I have to constantly remind myself I cannot press my nose to the hollow of his throat and inhale deeply every time we’re within touching distance.
“Hera.”
I know that tone. Even as I tell myself to straighten my spine and put some distance between us, I press my thighs together in anticipation. “Don’t.”
“Say yes.” He reaches over and winds my ponytail around one fist, so gently that my head is guided back one slow inch at a time. Until my throat is completely bared to him. It’s always like this. A seduction with no subtlety to speak of.
Except it’s never like this, with no veil of darkness to shield the truth of ourselves from each other.
My husband never takes. That would be too easy, too simple.
Instead he makes me a willing partner, sharing equal blame in every illicit thing we do together.
This marriage wasn’t supposed to include sex, at least not until the allotted grace period is over.
Zeus needs an heir, after all. He has one; he just doesn’t know it yet.
All I have to do is tell him that I’m pregnant and any excuse to be intimate disappears like smoke.
But I don’t tell him this time. Just like I haven’t told him every night since the pregnancy test came back positive.
“We’re in a bar in the middle of the day. Anyone could walk in. What would your precious MuseWatch think of a story like this?” Just like that, I remember what else MuseWatch has been reporting on. I narrow my eyes. “Or are you too busy prioritizing a fucking coup?”
“There and gone,” he murmurs. “It’s over.”
“Over…” I’m having a difficult time focusing with him so close, looking at me so intensely. “What do you mean, ‘over’?”
“It was only intended for a single night to aid our efforts to remove Circe.” He narrows his eyes.
“But you’re not really worried about a coup, are you?
There’s no one here, Hera. No one to see.
” He cups my jaw in a way that’s both comforting and threatening.
Threatening because all he has to do is squeeze and I’m done for.
That pressure makes me come undone in a way I don’t understand.
I refuse to examine the fact he’s the only one who holds the particular skill set to make me react in such a way.
I’m falling. Maybe I’ve already fallen. Desire weaves its spell around me and I want to blame everyone but myself, except I know it’s not the truth. From the moment I learned his taste, Zeus has been a drug I want to kick…but never seem able to.
In desperation, I grind out, “You assume I came here on a date with Ixion. Surely you aren’t so jealous as to fuck me when he’s right there.”
“I don’t know why you came here, Hera.” He says it almost absently, his gaze intense on my mouth. “But if it was for Ixion, he’s going to get an unsubtle reminder of whose wife you are. Regardless of where you spend your charms.”
His words are rough and possessive, and they have no business making my pussy pulse.
I don’t belong to him. Not any more than he belongs to me.
“And what of your lovers, Husband?” I’ve seen the way people fawn over him.
They’re not subtle in their aims. He’s Zeus, after all. No one expects him to be faithful.
Something hot and feral alights in his eyes.
“Feeling possessive, Wife? If you want to stake your claim, just say so. I have no problem with that.” He leans down, so close that I imagine I can feel the barest movement of his lips against mine.
I know I don’t, though. He never kisses me without permission, never touches me until I say yes, never fucks me until I beg for it.
I still don’t know if it’s all a game to him or if he genuinely wants to ensure I’m completely consenting.
Most of the time I assume it’s the former, but in moments like this, I’m not so sure.
“I’m… I’m not.” What am I saying? I have no idea.
“Of course not. You don’t even like me.”
This is wrong. It’s not following our established pattern.
Of me resisting, of him waiting me out. He sounds like he wants to claim me, and fool that I am, my body suddenly wants to be claimed.
I have shit I’m supposed to do, circles I’m supposed to frantically spiral through.
I’m so godsdamned afraid, I can barely breathe.
And yet, in the circle of his arms, a small, weak part of me is suddenly sure everything will be all right.
A lie, and not even a comforting one. Not when it’s at the hands of Zeus.
My resistance snaps, and I snap with it. “Stop gloating and do it, then.”
“So angry,” he murmurs. He’s still close enough for me to feel the movement his lips make in the miniscule distance between us. “I used to think you’re angry at me, but that’s not the truth, is it? You wouldn’t fight this so hard if you truly hated me.”
I tense. “I do hate you.”
“I know. Now close your eyes and tell me what you want.”
My face burns. He’s right. I have to close my eyes because it’s one insult too many to be this vulnerable without the comfort of darkness.
He’s never approached me like this—in public, where we might be witnessed.
We’ve never even had sex in daylight hours.
The only time we fuck is in our bed at the end of long, exhausting days.
Not that exhaustion ever seems to touch Zeus.
When he has me beneath him, or over him, or in front of him, he’s tireless and downright relentless in the pursuit of my pleasure.
Something’s changed and I don’t know what it is. That should scare me, but I can’t think past the need for him to touch me more. To offer me a sliver of escape before I have to fix my world. “Kiss me. Touch me. Make me come.”
I practically feel his self-satisfied smile. “That was hardly enough detail, but I suppose I’ll make it work.”
And then there’s no more space for words because his mouth is on mine. I don’t wait for him to coax my lips to part before I’m devouring him right back. I have no intention of moving, but my hands are in his hair and it’s everything I can do not to climb on top of him. All from a kiss.
Except it’s not just a kiss, is it? It’s the promise of more.
This man knows my body better than any of my past partners, and he uses that knowledge with ruthless efficiency.
He’s playing chess while I’m coming undone.
It’s an insult that only makes me despise him more, but I can’t shake my addiction to how he makes me feel in those moments when my body takes over.
More. All I want is more. Even if it burns me in the end.