“Because I find you all to be beastly bores.”
Amusement continued to sparkle through her lovely eyes. She confused me.
“I agree. Truth be told,” she leaned in to whisper hotly in my ear, “I only came here today because Hephy made me.”
By some quirk of fate, the enchanting creature before me had fallen madly in love with the deformed little imp Hephaestus. Theirs was an odd match, but it was rumored to be a healthy one.
So far as Olympian matches went, that was.
“What are they doing to Hades?” When I said his name, I looked back at him and again experienced a wonderfully delicious sensation of heat whipping like lava through my veins.
He had a face that would make a master sculptor weep. Classically handsome, with dark, swarthy features. Deep, impenetrable eyes. Yes, I wanted him as my first sex partner.
“Whew,” Dite lifted her hand off me and shook her fingers. “You’re positively brimming with raw lust. So you want to have Count Dracula’s babies, do you?”
“Count Dracula? No, I do not know of whom you speak. Nor do I wish more children. I have plenty. I just want to screw Hades’ liver out.”
Dite blinked. “I believe the expression is ‘screw his brains out.’”
“Whatever.” I shrugged. Nimue often laughed at my inability to form proper phrases. “I want him.”
“What would you be willing to do to get him?”
“Make him my sex slave?” The thought had honestly never occurred to me. But now that it did, there was some merit to it. I could already imagine that big, brawny body strapped to my bed, naked and pleading for mercy.
I grinned.
“Not a slave, dear. You cannot enslave any of us.”
“Oh, I could enslave him. Without my permission to breathe below, he’d drown. He would be required to do my bidding in all things.”
“Such a deviant mind, Sea. I love it!” Dite clapped her hands prettily.
Everything about her was pretty. I might have been nauseated were it not for the fact that she currently amused me.
Themis held up her scales of justice.
Aphrodite leaned in. “They are about to pass judgment, and once it is passed, his fate is sealed. Which means you have less than a minute to decide if sexing up Hades is worth it.”
“What can I do?”
“All here believe Hades has orchestrated a plot to have Persephone removed from his Underworld. Offer to take him as your prisoner instead.”
Anyone who knew the two of them wouldn’t have a hard time believing that to be true. Persephone was the apple of her mother’s eye and a giant douche bag. She was spoiled, rotten, and self-centered.
Hades was also vile, loathsome, and fiercely dangerous.
My heart sped.
I stepped forward just as Themis opened her mouth.
“Excuse me, ladies and gents,” I curtsied quickly, flashing my most winsome and innocent smile. “I think we got off on the wrong fin here.”
“Calypso,” Zeus said through gritted teeth, “step aside before I make you step aside.”
My smile vanished. But it was the quick shake of Dite’s head that held my tongue. Swallowing my anger, I pinched out another smile, this one not quite as believable as the last one.
“What I’m trying to say here is, I want him.” I pointed at Hades, who now had his head bowed and seemed to be glaring furiously at the ground.
“Want him?” Poseidon snapped. “You are mine.”
“Oh, piss off, fish fart.”
Zeus held up his hand. “Olympus save me,” he groaned. “Calypso, the evidence is clear. Hades has either killed Persephone or knows the fate that has befallen her. Either way, he must be made to pay. And unless you have new evidence to present—”
I smiled sweetly. “Well actually, thunder butt, I do.”
He gnashed his teeth, and Aphrodite looked like she was about to come unglued from suppressed laughter.
Themis’s scales tipped sharply downward. “She speaks truth.”
Hera rubbed the bridge of her nose furiously. As Queen of the Pantheon, she had equal rights to demand answers in this trial. “Then tell us, Calypso, for all our sakes.”
Walking over to Hades, I once again was cocooned in the warmth of his scent. Placing a hand on his shoulder until he looked into my eyes, I asked him, “Oh, God of Darkness, tell me, when was the last time you left this hellhole?”
“I’ve not left in thirty-seven years and fifty-six days.”
The scales leveled out.
“Truth,” Themis decreed.
Turning to the crowd, I held out my arms, striking a dramatic pose. If there was anything in this world more dramatic than the waters of the deep, I did not know it.
“So you see, it was not him.”
“That literally tells us nothing.” Zeus shook his head.
I rolled my eyes. “Poseidon, you ignorant fool, tell them what you smelled back in the blood-soaked field.”
His eyes widened, and as I’d suspected, I knew he’d withheld one very important, key bit of evidence from the bloodthirsty mob.
Zeus twirled on his brother, his white beard beginning to darken and fluff up like a thundercloud. “What did you smell, brother?”
Behind me, I sensed rather than saw Hades’ head snap up.
“Just because I smelled it doesn’t mean that Hades wasn’t involved in some way. We all know the history of loathing that exists between the two.”
“What the hell did you smell!” Zeus roared. A flash of lightning struck at Poseidon’s heel, making him jerk away.
“If you weren’t all so quick to make snap judgments—” I said and then was rudely interrupted.
“You’re one to talk,” a deep male voice said. My coral was on Apollo.
I smiled; he’d be getting a nasty surprise when he got home later to discover his once-immaculate mansion now dripping with seawater and kelp.
Pressing on, I ignored his little jab. For now. “—then you’d know that the air reeked of Seren cone snail. A nasty little creature with a most venomous touch. That, oh,” I tapped a finger to my chin, “lives in the deepest parts of my waters and cannot survive more than fifteen minutes in the Above before dying. Poor dear. To be frank, there are so few of us here who could possibly get our hands on one that I’d be more apt to lay the blame on fish breath first.”
“You devilish hag!” Poseidon roared, and rain fell in thick sheets around us all.
But I remained toasty and dry, tossing up a deflective shield over not only myself but also Dite (since I rather liked her after all) and Hades because he was hawt and I wished to bang the liver out of him.
Everyone began yelling then, snarling at Poseidon to turn off the waterworks. I merely stuck out my tongue at him.
Themis’s scales leveled out. “All true. Judgment must now be delayed until I can study the new evidence that has come to light.”
Demeter lifted a hand. “Until Persephone is discovered, I cannot allow Hades to remain here. If her body is buried here, he’ll try to—”
“You have no right!” Hades finally spoke up for himself. “I’ve told you often enough what your daughter has done. Her wildness has led her here. This is not on me!”
“And yet her soul screams out to me!” Demeter snapped, her eyes brimming over with tears.
I did feel a small thread of sympathy; after all, I was a mother myself. Should any of my precious babies be lost to me thus, I’d lose my poop. Or was that shit?
Probably shit.
Poop sounded so silly.
I sighed. “I want him. I’ll take him. Considering he cannot leave my waters unless I grant it, he will be perfectly tortured until you can discover where Persephone has gone.”
“Tortured?” Dite frowned, obviously thinking I’d misspoken again, but this time I hadn’t.
I did mean to torture him. In every conceivable way. I’d make him scream my name to the very heavens. My thighs tingled at the thought.
/>
“Calypso,” Poseidon drawled, no doubt ready to go all caveman on me again and claim me as his own.
We hated each other, and yet he hated to lose what was “his” more.
“Oh, shut your trap and go mate another porpoise.”
Themis shook her head. “I will now pass judgment.”
She had to mostly scream to be heard above the hullaballoo. “Calypso, Goddess of the Sea, your request has been granted. You shall keep Hades within your Kingdom for the next fortnight. He cannot be allowed into the Above for any reason while we follow the evidentiary trail toward the true culprit. Should he escape, he will be lashed a thousand times by Athena’s whip, chained to a rock, and have his eyes picked on by vultures for the next thousand years.”
“Oh, is that all?” Hades growled.
My lips twitched. He was funny.
“Hades, should all signs still point to you, however, you will suffer the fate laid out after the two weeks are up. I hope these terms are sufficient for all.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway.
“Not really.”
“Good,” Zeus boomed. “Then take him and go.”
Chapter 3
Calypso
Hades wasn’t particularly keen on my method of transportation. I’d already had to knock a watery fist into his thick skull a time or twenty to get him to stop screaming at me as we sank beneath the waves.
“If you stop screaming, you’ll stop swallowing so much damned water,” I said sweetly, plastering on a tight smile.
He could breathe. Sort of.
I hadn’t given him the kiss of life yet, but it was kind of fun to have him completely at my mercy and clinging to my body like a man drowning.
He pinned me with a cold, obsidian glare, clamping his full, kissable lips shut and snarling hate at me. Seriously. I saw the hate just bubbling off his shoulders like pools of heated lava.
“You can breathe, you know.”
He shoved his face to within an inch of my own, his nostrils flaring like Linx’s sometimes would when she was really angry. Aw, he was so cute.
“Only when I’m clamped onto your side like a foul leech. Kiss me and allow me to retain at least a small measure of dignity here, Calypso.”
My heart beat faster than a hoodoo priestess banging on her drums.
“You only needed to ask, Dead Boy.”
The waters around us were a black so deep it seemed bottomless, but my body glowed like a raft of mating kreels. I glimmered every shade of blue and knew I looked beautiful.
Hades might dislike me right now, but he was enraptured by me. I could see it in his eyes. Many a man had lost his heart to the Sea. He’d not be the first. But the Sea had never lost her heart to any man.
Still, when I dug my nails into the curve of his ass and yanked him to me, it was I who trembled.
I’d seen sex. Too many times to count. Seen the courtship before and after. I knew what I was doing. But I’d never technically done it before.
Still, how hard could it be? Insert tab into slot, grunt, writhe, moan, boom...sex. Easy.
I bet it didn’t even feel all that great.
Opening my mouth, I called to the life inside me, the sweet nectar of air that I would gift upon him with one press of my lips to his.
I warned all creatures away from me. I wanted nothing and no one to hinder my first-ever, honest-to-Kingdom kiss.
“Open your mouth,” I commanded him.
Smart man that he was, he didn’t argue.
He opened, and then the tip of his tongue swiped along his upper lip, and I couldn’t stop myself anymore. With a groan, I slammed my mouth to his. Just this touch was sufficient to let him breathe. I felt his chest inflate as my air became his. I knew he could move unhindered now, but he was mine. At least for the next two weeks.
So I altered the kiss just slightly. And then I stopped thinking about altered kisses when his tongue swiped along the inside seam of my lips. Greedy, I sucked him in, twining my tongue through his.
He tasted of power, divine, magnificent, colossal power. Every inch of my body felt electrified by his deadly touch.
Hades was the keeper of the dead. Be you a mortal, to touch him would mean to seal your doom. To taste of his flesh would feel like bathing in the pits of Tartarus for an eternity.
But for me...ye gods.
The Seren seas churned. Waves rocked upon the shores. My children crawled from out of their caves, their homes, aware of the primal magick just released upon them.
I moved my hands from his ass to the rock-hard planes of his back and up to the nape of his neck. Nimue said that if you clawed at a man’s head just lightly, with a tiny little scrape, they’d come undone.
I scraped, and Hades shuddered.
His hard fingers dug into my shoulders, the grip firm and punishing. And it was glorious.
I purred into the back of my throat when I finally pulled away, licking my lips like a very contented kittycat.
Hades looked supremely pleased with himself. His dark hair was a mussed mess around his broad forehead.
“I could leave you now, Sea. Disappear through these waters and never return,” he mocked.
I cocked my head, the glow of my body even brighter in intensity than before. There wasn’t an inch of me that didn’t tingle. I laughed.
“Why, because I’ve kissed life into your lungs? Do you truly believe me fool enough to give you all of me? There is none that can tame the Sea. Remember that, my precious Reaper.”
He took a deep breath. “I am a god, Calypso. You cannot own me.”
“Who said I wanted to own you? I just want your body. Your...” I glanced down at his very obviously bulging package. “...prick. The kiss I granted you may not consider much of a gift in time, soon-to-be lover.”
Narrowing his eyes, he shook his head. “What have you done to me?”
I shrugged, trailing a finger down the razor-sharp plane of his left cheek. “I’ve only made you dizzy with dependency for me. For the next two weeks, you are my slave. So suck it up, Bubble Butt.”
That had sounded wrong. Hm.
Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder at his delectable rear. “Are you sure you meant to say—”
Waving his words away, I grabbed his hand and yanked him down into the abyss with me. Linx was really not going to like my surprise. But just this once, I wasn’t sure I cared.
He was mine; she could run off and get her own toy if she wanted too.
My children, aware that they were no longer required to keep their distance from us, soon squeezed in on us from all sides.
Goblin sharks, their razor teeth gleaming as their mouths hung open like cute little panting puppies, stared curiously at me and hungrily at Hades.
“Go away, my darlings,” I cooed.
“Darlings,” Hades shuddered, “They look more like globs of steaming dung with beady eyes.”
I gave him a droll look. “Say one more word against them and I’ll let them have you for a light snack later.”
Moray and electric eels slithered between our bodies, pressing their flattened tails to my cheeks in greeting.
Fish of every color of the rainbow peeked at us curiously, scuttling off when a giant, fanged wolf shark suddenly made its appearance and snapped up a tiny lamprey eel on its way back down into the abyss.
Hades clenched his jaw.
“Do not tell me my children frighten you, God of Death,” I smirked.
His eyes were full of mystery as they turned toward me. I wished I knew what he was thinking.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, too impatient to play guessing games.
He spread his arms. “You act as though you care.”
I might have been offended by his words, but his tone seemed more thoughtful than accusatory. So instead I shrugged.
“I do care. I love my children. And they love me, too, don’t you, Bruce.” I smushed my face against my favorite great white’s cartilaged nose. Bru
ce had been with me as a pup. I’d found him half starved and gored through the side by the rapier edge of a swordfish’s snout. I’d nursed him back to health, and now my baby was a fully grown twenty-foot monster with teeth the size of my fist.
Bruce head butted Hades in the center of his back.
“Is he tasting me?” he asked when Bruce’s tail snapped his thigh.
“No. What would give you that idea?” I smiled, slapping at Bruce’s head when he opened his massive jaws to take a bite out of Hades’ delectable ass.
That was my ass, thank you very much.
“Go find your own ass, Bruce. Now go.” I flicked my wrist at him.
His look was grumpy, but Bruce always wore a grumpy look. He took an angry swipe at a passing red horned devil octopus, slurping it down in one mighty gulp.
I grimaced. Okay, so maybe he had been tasting Hades.
Moments later, we arrived at my home. It wasn’t much, just a simple temple composed entirely of gold, mother of pearl, marble, and coral. The temple stretched a good four hundred feet or so in either direction, with pillars that supported the heavy beams. Every brick of gold gleamed, resplendent in the early-morning wash of light. I was rather fond of my humble abode, if I must say so. As Queen of the Sea, I could have chosen any place in the waters to call home, but this cozy house suited me just fine.
With a thought, I pushed the massive gates open and was immediately greeted by Linx.
But her horsey smile vanished almost instantly the moment her gaze alighted upon my captive.
Why is he here? She demanded. Miniature bolts of lightning sparked off her hooves as she struck the gold-veined marble floor.
I’d still not released Hades’ hand. Or maybe he hadn’t released mine. I tried to disentangle my fingers and couldn’t.
Oh, that was interesting indeed. I grinned.
“I do hear you, you know.” His voice was a deep, almost seductive purr, and it made me frown.
“Are you seducing my hippocampus?” I twirled on him, shoving him back with a wall of water.
But Hades was no mere man, and my show of theatrics did not impress him. He brushed off his black coat without answering me and turned to address Linx once more.
“I have nothing but the highest respect for you, dear hippocampus. Your people have always been good to mine. I hope we can remain cordial during my stay here.”