Chapter Forty-Three Hera
Chapter Forty-Three
Hera
“Am I correct in assuming you did all this?”
Zeus lay in bed next to Hera, propped up on one elbow, his figure more shadow than god in the semidarkness. Outside, rain still lashed at the windows, thunder booming incessantly overhead. But here in their nest of sheets and limbs, she felt sated and warm.
How decadent, to be lying in bed in the middle of the afternoon with one’s husband. Perhaps they should go on vacation more often.
“I can barely see you,” Hera murmured in reply.
Zeus flicked a hand toward the lamp on the bedside table, and its bulb lit up. “Better?”
“Much better.” She closed her eyes, relishing the way they lay side by side, their naked bodies brushing in so many places.
Hera sometimes thought she even loved this better than sex: the languorous intimacy that followed, her head pressed to her husband’s chest, hearing the steady beat of his immortal heart. Knowing that he was here, and hers.
Zeus had come to find her earlier, in the hotel’s lounge area downstairs, where most of the guests had gathered to wait out the storm.
They clustered around the lamps and candles that Nicole had placed on the coffee tables, staring down at the board games she had brought out without opening their boxes.
Well, at least in the lounge there was light, and alcohol (wisely, Nicole had opened the bar).
The guest rooms were eerily dark without electricity.
That is, for everyone who wasn’t married to the god of lightning.
Zeus had found Hera where she sat in an armchair, listening to Nicole offer useless updates from her emergency radio.
He’d made up some story about “checking on something” in their room.
The whole way upstairs he’d held tight to her hand, their fingers laced, as if he was afraid she might change her mind and flee.
How little he knew her, if he thought she would ever run from him.
“Hera,” he prompted again. “You’re responsible for all this, aren’t you?”
“For all of what?” she asked innocently.
Zeus stood and walked over to the window, then threw it open.
Hera let out a yelp of surprise as raindrops hurled angrily into the room, drenching the carpet.
Yet there was something refreshing about it, too, the way the scents of rain and ocean flooded in to mix with the heady, musky scent of their lovemaking.
“This is what you’ve been scheming, isn’t it? You’ve been plotting to ruin Ares’s wedding?” He didn’t sound angry, just confused.
Hera sighed. “Shut the window. You’re ruining this carpet, and it’s a Turkish antique.” When Zeus had done as she asked, she shifted on the bed, and he rejoined her, falling back onto the pillows with his hands laced behind his head. Fully naked in all his godly glory.
“I did it,” Hera confessed. “I don’t want Ares marrying that woman.”
Zeus frowned. “What is it about her that you dislike so much?”
“She isn’t right for Ares! I am his mother, I know what’s best!” Hera burst out. It was part of the truth, at least.
Zeus shifted to face her, blue eyes dancing with amusement. “How could I forget? You always know what’s best for everyone.” The words weren’t spoken mockingly, but affectionately.
Hera caught herself mirroring his smile. “Of course I do,” she agreed. “That’s part of being a mother: knowing what’s best for your children, even when they don’t know it themselves.”
“And I would never presume to challenge your decisions as a mother. If you say that Julia is wrong for Ares, then by all means, get rid of her. You have my blessing, not that you need it.” A thunderclap echoed his words, and Zeus lifted an eyebrow.
“Though I must say, did you really need to summon such a storm? Surely there were less drastic means of scaring off a mere mortal.”
Except that Julia wasn’t just any mortal. She was under the protection of the Aegis, though Zeus still had no idea.
“I started with less drastic methods, but they proved unsuccessful, so I switched to bigger ammunition,” Hera said crisply.
At that, Zeus barked out a laugh. “One of the things I love most about you.”
Love, he’d said. It had been so long since that word echoed between them.
“How ruthless I am?”
“I love that you’re a force to be reckoned with.” He hesitated, then added, “I do wonder, though. Why didn’t you ask for my help?”
“Against a mortal woman? You have better things to do,” Hera reminded him.
“You wanted to call up a storm to ruin their wedding weekend, and you didn’t think to ask your husband, the bearer of lightning?”
“Poseidon was able to handle it, since we’re on an island.”
“You didn’t even come to me to shut off the electricity,” Zeus went on. “What did you do, go out there and sabotage the generator yourself?”
“I asked Notus.” The moodiest and most unpredictable of the wind gods. “He was happy to shatter some tree branches into the side of the generator.”
“Notus does love destruction.” Zeus chuckled.
“Are you angry that I didn’t involve you?” Hera asked hesitantly.
“No, of course not. But it’s easier when I know what you’re up to, so I can further your interests,” Zeus offered. “Not to mention that I can help cover for you. Demeter cornered me this morning, accusing me of breaking the treaty we all signed at Olympus a few years ago.”
Hera rolled her eyes. “The one where we all swore not to interfere with the earth’s natural climate?
” Demeter thought that the gods had brought on global warming by constantly interfering with weather patterns—forcing sunshine on days that were important to them, calling up storms when it suited their moods.
“Yes, exactly. She thought the sudden onset of the storm was strange. I told her that she was being paranoid, of course,” Zeus assured her. “I said no one in the family would want to prevent Ares from getting married. That she should have been suspicious if the weather was too perfect.”
“Good thing she doesn’t know about all the galas where you’ve chased off storms for me,” Hera joked, but Zeus wasn’t to be deterred.
“Then Ares confronted me, demanding that I get the power back on. I told him no, since I had a feeling that this might be your doing.”
“Thank you,” Hera said quietly.
A smile tugged at Zeus’s mouth as he added, “Next time you scheme, let me in on it? We could have fun, working together.”
Fun. Another word that hadn’t been used in their marriage for far too long.
“We are quite the team,” Hera agreed.
In that moment, she felt the truth of her words. She and Zeus had their flaws, sure, but wasn’t that the nature of marriage? The important thing was the life they had built together.
Zeus chuckled again. “I should be grateful that you’ve never turned your weapons of mass destruction on me.”
“Stay on my good side and you’ll never have to worry,” Hera teased.
He reached around her torso to flip her over, then tugged her flush against him. “I’m not quite sure which side of you I want to be on.”
They hadn’t been this insatiable for each other since…Hera didn’t know how long. She was startled by the flood of desire that rushed up in her, eager to meet his.
Just as Zeus’s mouth lowered to hers, they heard knocking at the door. “Hera? Please, we need to talk.”
What the hell was Hermes doing here?
“Hera,” Hermes called out again, undeterred. “I know you’re in there. Please, just give me a few minutes of your time. I want to discuss what’s happening with Julia. There are things you need to know.”
“Get rid of him, or I will.” Zeus’s words crackled with irritation.
Hera slid out of bed and hurried to the hotel’s walk-in closet, where she grabbed one of the fluffy white robes and hurried to tie it on. She didn’t bother to hide her annoyance as she opened the door to their suite.
“What is it?” she demanded.
Hermes stood before her, looking disheveled and distracted. Hera longed to tell him that he needed to shave; he resembled the scruffy messenger boy who delivered pot to Dionysus in the Hamptons.
“Please, call off the storm,” Hermes began. “I know you asked Poseidon to summon it, because you wanted to keep Julia and Ares from marrying.”
How did he know? And how dare he accuse her, the queen of the gods? Hera bristled. “It’s too late, Hermes. This wedding isn’t going to happen.”
“Because you and Aphrodite made sure of it!” Hermes’s eyes darted past her, as if he might be able to see into the suite’s bedroom. “Does Zeus know what you’ve done?”
“Quite frankly, Hermes, I’m shocked by your impertinence. Get out of here, before my husband fries you to a crisp.” Hera slammed the door in his face.
She took a deep breath, shaking off the unpleasantness of that encounter, then padded back into the bedroom.
“Sorry about that interruption. Now, where were we?” she asked, untying the robe so that it dropped in a pool to the floor.
Zeus’s eyes lit up appreciatively, but he still asked, “What did Hermes want?”
“I had asked him to spy on Julia. He was reporting back.”
“Poor Hermes,” Zeus said, without an ounce of actual sympathy. “He’s gotten rather soft lately, hasn’t he?”
Hera was surprised by the observation. “Doesn’t matter. It was too little, too late.”
She climbed back onto the bed, and Zeus pulled her atop him, so that she was straddling his torso. “You know, we should do this more often.”
“Break up weddings?” she joked.
“I meant spend all afternoon naked in a hotel room.” His hands skimmed up and down her bare torso. “Where will you be next week?”
It was hard to think with Zeus touching her like this, but Hera made a show of considering. “I’ll be in New York, dealing with the aftermath of this canceled wedding.”
“I have a better idea. The second the weather clears, we should fly out of the country. What about Antigua? Or that chateau you love in the French countryside, the one where we rowed across that lake and ate a picnic on the island?”
Hera was touched that he remembered. That trip to the Loire Valley had been years ago.
“I’ll go anywhere with you,” she murmured, meaning it.
Zeus nodded. “Good. Let’s go everywhere, together.”
As they fell back onto the bed, Hera swore she could feel it—the tectonic plates of their marriage shifting, allowing for new honesty, a new trust between them. A new beginning, after all this time.