Chapter 17
HADES
Several hours passed before we reached the Underbridge.
Wolfe and I had remained silent during that time, our gazes pinned on the world passing us by.
It was a tense silence, but not an uncomfortable one.
Too much swirled in the dense air between us to be discussed in a car.
Something had happened during our intimacy—something neither of us had expected.
A mutual share of pleasure? Certainly. We were both attracted to one another, and in our proximity, a tryst was to be expected.
But the way our bodies had connected, the way I was able to fully let go with him…
Our relationship was different now, and I wasn't sure how to take that.
Wolfe wasn’t my first by any means. Though my brother's additional security had put a damper on my paramours, I was no saint.
Unfortunately, I could not truly be myself with any of them.
None of them were so in tune with what made my body sing.
Wolfe also enjoyed my domination as well, which I had never explored before.
I shifted on the soft leather, hyperaware of the wetness between my thighs, both from his pleasure and my own. Somehow, I enjoyed that too.
Then there was everything we had learned today.
My brother had gotten one over on me again, and I had let it stand for a century.
I was a fucking fool for not seeing the signs earlier.
I should have laid waste to his entire city, yet I did nothing about the guards tailing us, or the lines of guards on the Underbridge that caged me in.
A stronger woman would've razed all of Olympiara for these injustices, yet I was taking them like a good little sister.
I was weak, and that was an infuriating pill to swallow.
My people had migrated toward the Underbridge, their undead forms desperately seeking me out.
Even they were trapped here, sad and lifeless as they were.
If they got too close to the bridge, the guards would throw them into the River Styx, where eternal suffering awaited them.
I had let that go on as well, though the souls that wandered my undead city were innocent.
It was an injustice, and I shouldn't have let it stand.
At least my presence would draw them toward the city where they were safe. We crept toward my home through the swarm of wraiths clamoring for their goddess. Their vacant expressions locked onto us, and they turned to follow the vehicle.
Once the grand steps to my home were visible, I took a steadying breath. I needed to get with my team and discuss all we had learned as soon as possible. My focus went to Wolfe. "You're free to do as you please for the rest of the day. Meet me in my quarters at nine."
Wolfe jerked as though he had forgotten my presence, but that was impossible.
He was a wraith as well, drawn to me whether he liked it or not.
His bright blue eye sockets, tainted that color because of the powers I had imbued within him, were wide.
The light glowing from the gemstone at the base of his neck danced with his turbulent emotions.
Finally, he blinked, and the stone calmed to its normal bluish glow. "Of course, Master."
My core heated at the name. Perhaps it was twisted, but I loved the sound of that deep, raspy voice saying the word. It would be more wretched if he hated the title, but there was always a slight flush in his cheeks when he called me his master.
Lamia was waiting to open our doors when we came to a stop.
I smiled at my secretary, a woman I considered a friend after the two centuries we had worked together.
She only came to my chest, but she had never looked upon me with fear or reverence.
Somehow, this mousy little woman saw the person underneath the death that shrouded me, and I appreciated her for it more than she could know.
She was one of my few loyal friends in this wretched world.
She took me in, and a smirk spread across her dainty face. "Are you ready to meet, or would you rather go wash up first?"
My cheeks heated, and I turned my attention to my person.
How the fuck had she known? I had fixed my hair and makeup in the car, and my dress was perfect and void of wrinkles, thanks to the formfitting cut.
Somehow, Lamia had sniffed out something no one could ever pull from me.
She may not have been immortal, but I swore that was her superpower. I threw her a glare. "I'm ready."
She chuckled and dared a glance into the car, where Wolfe was climbing out the other door. "I have questions."
"We have more pressing matters, Lam," I snapped. Dany would tell her anyway, but I had hoped we would get through this meeting before my friends had the chance to drill me on my sex life.
"Clearly," she snorted.
Her attention went to Dany as my other friend stepped out of the car. Her head tilted to the side in a silent question, to which Dany shook her head and stuck her tongue out in a gag. I rolled my eyes at them both. "Grow up and let's get this moving along."
"Of course, Your Highness," Lam responded with a sarcastic bow.
The three of us remained silent as we shuffled past the soldiers milling around the main floor of the castle.
My friends knew better than to allow in listening ears, and I was even more grateful for their caution now.
Our silence didn't break until we were locked within my soundproofed study, though I nervously searched for any sign of a listening device.
My brother could be listening anywhere, but it was a risk I would need to take.
"Zeus is the one who put a hit out on me," I breathed out the words as though they pained me to hold. My shoulders lifted as the statement left me, though both of my friends' expressions went wide with horror.
"He hired Thane—I mean, Wolfe?" Lamia barked.
I nodded. "So that he could install our tight-assed friends downstairs."
She snorted. "Fucking of course. He definitely has been spying on us, then."
"No surprise there," I retorted with an eye roll.
Dany gasped. "Oh my goddess, what if that was the reason he never let you buy more souls? He wanted the castle to be vacant of soldiers, so he could place his own!"
My heart stuttered. He had said that signing contracts with wraiths was immoral.
The two women in the room had been granted approval because they wished to be by my side, for whatever reason.
Just enough company to keep me compliant, I realized.
He knew I would be more resistant if I didn’t have any companionship.
The thought hurt more than it should have.
This was small compared to the other things he had done to me, and yet, I had lived in isolation for centuries, with only the two women in front of me as company. He had done that to keep me vulnerable.
"He probably wanted to make it harder for me to rise against him," I muttered.
Wraiths were near impossible to kill, and I controlled them completely if they signed a contract with me.
It would give me undead soldiers, not afraid of death and desperate to follow my every whim.
That was too big a risk for Zeus to take.
Why had I let him control me? The more I unearthed, the more my rage rose to a ferocious boil. I was furious with Zeus and the other immortals supporting him, but I was more upset with myself, because I had been a fucking idiot.
"That fucking prick," Lamia snarled. I shared the sentiment.
"Well I thought my gossip was juicy, but now I'm not so sure. Hades might have shown me up," Dany piped up. She flopped into a chair nearby, and Lamia and I followed suit.
"We can decide who has the more fucked-up story later, just tell us," Lamia responded.
Dany sighed and waved her hand. “Your brother is doing some shady stuff."
"Yeah, no shit," I retorted. We had already assumed as much, which was why we had sent Dany into the servants' quarters of Zeus’s home to sniff out information.
Dany held an invaluable skill set; the woman could peel information from a person more effectively than torture.
I had witnessed it with my own eyes on multiple occasions.
She crumbled her target's walls with casual conversation.
Then with one bat of her pretty eyelashes, they were gushing their innermost secrets.
"It's worse than we imagined, Hades. He's using this as a cover-up. The servants say this whole blight was intentional."
A bomb had fallen on me, leaving me scrambling to pick up the pieces. Fucking Apollo. He wouldn't have crept out of whatever hole he hid himself in to travel to Zone 1 for a few measly murders. He wouldn't have mobilized that quickly, meaning he had already been there.
Zeus had manufactured a story to cover his movements before.
It was what had allowed us to take over to begin with, after all.
Swarm the news with stories of god-like beings conquering the monsters that went bump in the night so they wouldn’t stop to consider how those same immortals were taking positions of power within their government.
By the time anyone was any wiser, it was too late.
Except now he was making me out to be the monster and condemning hundreds of our people while he did it.
"Do we have any idea what he's covering up?" I asked, my eyebrow raised.
Dany shook her head. "No, I asked around, but the servants all shuttered up. I didn't have time to dig further before we had to rush out."
She tossed me a pointed stare, at which I scowled. "My brother tried to kill me. The plan changed," I retorted. She shrugged but let out a huff. She did not like coming away empty-handed on gossip.
"What do we do?" Lam asked, her tone surprised but calm. She was always the voice of reason.
"We're going to ruin their plans, of course," I responded.
A level of acceptance for the situation I found myself in washed over me.
Zeus had been building up to this for a while, possibly since the assassination attempt.
This was a small step in whatever endless game he played.
He had already vilified me as the malevolent god that forces humans to stay in line.
I was done with his games. I would not be the good little sister that took my mistreatment with a smile on my face.
If he wanted me to be the villain, so be it.