“Yeah.” Adonis sighs. “I guess she is.”
The car stops outside a building that looks just like every other building in the center of the upper city. Chrome and glass and concrete. Back home, the buildings have more character. Even the rich like to put their own stamp on their businesses and residences. No one would mistake Minos’s house for any other, not with its copper roof tiles that have aged to a pleasing green or the brilliant coral door that is twice the size a normal door should be.
I rub my chest. I might have come here at Minos’s command, but part of me misses that house. Everything is wrong in this city, from the people to the buildings to how it’s affected my friendship with Pandora, rot already worming between us.
Adonis climbs out and again offers his hand. “Come on. No one will bother us in here.”
Again, I consider ignoring his offer for help, and again, my need not to fall flat on my face overrides the pride demanding I do it on my own. This time, his palm doesn’t linger against mine, and I tell myself I don’t mind the lack at all.
The door he guides me through takes us to a small half-circle lobby with a trio of doors leading deeper into the building. Stylized lettering frosts each of them, all in the same font and the same style. Only the words set them apart.
This city truly lacks soul.
Adonis heads to the far left one. He slips a key out of his pocket and unlocks the door. When he catches me looking, he shrugs. “As you said, it’s ten in the morning. They won’t be open for hours yet.”
I pause meaningfully. “If you’re looking to get some revenge, I’m not going to be an easy mark.”
“If I wanted to hurt you, I would have won the moment you got into the car with me.” His lips curve, though the expression still hasn’t reached his dark eyes. “I want to talk, Hephaestus. That’s all. We’ll have privacy here, which is something you’ll find in short supply in this city.”
“Theseus.” I don’t know why I say it. But once it’s out of my mouth, I don’t want to take it back. “My name is Theseus.”
“Not anymore.”
“Still, I’d rather you use it.” I follow him through the door and into a surprisingly charming little bar. It’s nothing like the pub I used to spend my time in before leaving Aeaea, its walls plastered with signed dollar bills, its floors permanently sticky and the jukebox stuck on some weird-ass band no one but the owner had heard of. But…this place does have more soul than most of the city I’ve interacted with so far. There’s black and red art hanging on the walls, the style abstract in a way that feels almost violent. I look at the painting nearest us for a long moment, trying to figure out what’s causing the effect. It makes me vaguely uncomfortable.
“Maybe one day I will.” Adonis moves past me to the long bar that stretches down one wall. When I met him, I would have wagered he’d never worked a day in his life, but he slips behind the bar with a level of comfort that suggests he’s slung drinks here plenty of times.
Interesting.
I follow more slowly, still taking in the space. Black marble tabletops and black leather chairs and stools. Bright-red shelves that house a truly impressive selection of liquor. It should feel like the whole place is trying too hard, but somehow it forms a cohesive whole.
Adonis doesn’t ask me what I want. That should irritate me, but as I slide onto a stool, I find myself fascinated by the graceful way he creates two identical drinks in front of him. He moves fast enough that I can’t quite catch everything—sure as fuck not enough to recreate it.
“This is your family’s place?”
“Yes.” He adds a cherry that’s so dark it’s almost black to each drink and slides one over to me. “It’s more a hobby than anything else, but my family likes to pride themselves on being a working family, so it’s tradition that each of us work here for a bit as adults.”
An entire business that functions as a hobby. That sounds like some rich people shit. Technically, I’m one of the rich now, have been ever since Minos pulled me out of that orphanage at fifteen. But half a life among the privileged doesn’t erase that my first half was spent with nothing of my own.
Nothing except Pandora.
I should have known better than to yell at her. She’s never liked that shit; it’s a guaranteed way to ensure she does the exact opposite of what I want. Like stay with Aphrodite.
The thought of my wife anywhere near Pandora has me clenching a hand around my glass. No matter what Aphrodite wants me to think, Pandora would never jump into bed with her… I pause. Well, she wouldn’t jump into bed with my wife on our wedding night, at least. I’ve seen the people Pandora is attracted to, and to a person, the only thing they have in common is that they’re beautiful, dangerous, and bad for her.
Like my wife.
I take a drink, mostly for something to do, and am surprised to find it light and refreshing. I examine the liquid in the glass. “What is this?”
“Old family secret.” Adonis smiles and leans forward to prop his elbows on the bar. “Now, let’s talk.”
7
ADONIS
“Eris would lose her mind if she knew I was here alone with you.”
“What my wife doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
His wife. Not mine. Never mine. She was never going to be, as she reminded me yesterday.
Most of my life, I’ve gone with the flow. I live a charmed existence and I’m aware enough to realize that, but I also realized pretty early on that I’d never hold one of the thirteen titles. My mother takes after her mother in being too outspoken and too stubborn to bend when others think she should. Old money has a way of thinking the world revolves around it instead of the other way around, and my mother reflects that.
My other parent isn’t that much better. They like to poke their nose in when they’re not welcome and have a nasty habit of sharing gossip a little too freely. Everyone does it, of course, but my parent doesn’t bother to pretend they’re not. It gets people’s hackles up.
So, no, I was never going to become one of the Thirteen.
I never wanted it, frankly. Hard to go with the flow when you’re the one directing it. It’s a lot of responsibility and I’ve seen the toll it takes on those who hold those positions. The power might be nice, but I have everything I could ever want. Why do I need more?
I know better now.
Hephaestus watches me like he’s not sure if I poisoned his drink. Honestly, it’s not a completely irrational fear. I wouldn’t do it, but there are others in the upper city who wouldn’t hesitate. But if Eris wanted him dead, he’d be dead, and I might be so furious at her that I can’t think straight, but I won’t trample on her plans.
“But you do want to hurt her. Hurt us, really.”
Hephaestus shrugs. “I got what I wanted. I’m one of the Thirteen.”
Surely he doesn’t expect me to believe that line. I’ve seen Minos’s kind before; Eris’s father, the last Zeus, was a lot like him. Charismatic enough to have the people of Olympus enraptured, and all the more dangerous because of it. Minos didn’t come to Olympus to place one of his children among the Thirteen.
He came for Olympus itself.
Which is why Eris is doing what she’s doing. The best and worst thing about her is that she will always put this city first. Her father was Olympus’s monster and raised his children to be the same. Somehow it got twisted into this messed-up sense of responsibility because of the family she was born into. Now that she’s Aphrodite, that feeling of responsibility has only gotten stronger.
Her brother is leaning hard on her. Probably her sister, too. Three of the Kasios family. It’s never happened even once in Olympus’s history.
“Why did you invite me for a drink?” Hephaestus asks abruptly. “Be honest with me.”