Two weeks later
“Bring me her heart.”
“My chest is healed up just fine. Thanks for asking.” I don’t look up from my phone as my mother paces from one side of the room to the other, her skirt swishing about her legs. Knowing her, she chose her clothing today to maximize her dramatic flouncing.
She’s nothing if not a showwoman.
The phone isn’t the distraction I’d like it to be. In the two weeks since the party, the speculation and gossip about me and Psyche Dimitriou hasn’t died down. If anything, our refusal to make a public comment about it has only fanned the flames. There’s nothing Olympus loves more than a good story, and the children of two public enemies hooking up is nothing if not a good story. The truth doesn’t matter when there’s a compelling lie to be told.
Not to mention the photographer got a stellar shot.
In the picture, we’re standing so close, nearly in an embrace, and she’s looking up at me in question. And me? The look on my face can only be described as hungry. I wouldn’t have done something as foolish as to kiss Psyche in that hallway, but no one looking at our image will believe it.
“Stop playing with your phone and look at me.” My mother spins on her tall heel and glares down at me. She’s fifty, and though she’d skin me alive for saying as much, no wrinkles or gray hair betray her. She spends a fortune to keep her skin smooth and her hair a perfect icy blond. Not to mention the countless hours with her personal trainer to accomplish a body twenty-year-olds would kill for. All in the name of her title, Aphrodite. When one has the role of the matchmaker of Olympus—the peddler of love—one must meet certain expectations.
“Eros, put down that godsdamned phone and listen to me.”
“I’m listening.” My bored tone betrays my waning patience, but I’m already tired of this conversation. We’ve had some variation of it about a dozen times in the last two weeks. “I already told you what really happened.”
“No one cares what really happened.” She’s almost screeching now, her carefully curated smoky tones going high and sharp. “They are dragging your name through the mud by attaching it to that upstart’s daughter.”
I don’t point out that the title Aphrodite has no more legacy than Demeter’s. The only titles in Olympus that pass from parent to child are Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. The rest of the Thirteen come to them as adults, in ways both aboveboard and clandestine. My mother can’t stand the fact that she was appointed by the last Aphrodite, while Demeter was chosen through a citywide election.
The people chose Demeter, and she’s never let my mother forget it.
“It won’t be long before the next scandal hits. Just be patient.”
“You don’t tell me what to do, Son. I give the orders, and you obey.” She stops in front of me and glares. “This is your mess. If you’d done the last job properly, you wouldn’t have been photographed with that girl.”
“Mother.” I don’t know why I’m arguing. Once my mother goes on a rampage, it’s all but impossible to divert her. It’s one of the reasons people step so carefully around her. Even I have to step carefully around her. She might present our relationship to the public as adoring mother and loyal son, but the truth is far less appealing. I am Aphrodite’s knife. She tells me where to go, what revenge to exact, and I follow along like a fucked-up toy soldier. My input is never asked for and sure as fuck never heeded. I told her that we needed to wait to deal with Polyphonte instead of rushing into things the night of that party, but Aphrodite pushed the subject.
She always pushes the fucking subject.
“Her heart, Eros. Do not make me ask again.”
I swallow back my irritation, but only barely. “You’re going to have to be more specific, Mother. Do you literally want her heart? Do you have a silver box all picked out for it? Maybe you can stick it on your mantel next to my graduation photo.”
She makes a sound suspiciously like a hiss. “You are such a little shit.” This is the Aphrodite she doesn’t show anyone else in Olympus. Only I get the dubious privilege of witnessing what a monster my mother truly is.
But then, I’m not one to throw stones on that subject.
I don’t see a single scale or fang.
I nearly flinch at the memory of Psyche’s soft voice. I really thought she was smarter than that; she’d have to be a fool to move in nearly the same circles I have for ten years and not call me a monster.
I make a show of turning off my phone screen and giving my mother my full attention. “You’ve decided on this course of action, so don’t be shy now.”
Another person would flinch in the face of my mild tone with the threat of violence threaded beneath it. Aphrodite just laughs. “Eros, darling, you really are too much. After that stunt Demeter pulled last fall with her other daughter and Hades, she really thinks she can bypass me completely and set up Psyche as the next Hera. Over my dead body. Or, rather, over hers.”
My chest goes strangely tight, but I ignore it. “If you’re so furious at Demeter, then do something about her, rather than the daughter.”
“You know better.” She flicks that away with her fingertips. “Both mother and daughter need to be taught a lesson. Demeter has been throwing her weight around, thinking she’s anything other than a glorified farmer. This will bring her down a notch.”
Only my mother would consider the death of a child to be bringing someone down a notch.
But then, she’ll do anything to maintain her power. Aphrodite is responsible for a number of things, but her most popular task is arranging marriage between the rich and elite within Olympus. The Thirteen and their families, yes, but also those in the wider circle of influence that never quite make it into the parties at Dodona Tower.
With Demeter inching in on her territory, it’s no wonder my mother’s head is about to explode. She arranged all three marriages for the last Zeus—the fucker kept killing off his wives, which suited my mother quite nicely as she loves a wedding and hates everything that follows. Securing a new Hera for the new Zeus is her top priority, and it seems like Demeter is determined to launch Psyche into the position of Hera without consulting Aphrodite.
I try to picture it, but my mind rebels at the thought. All I can see is the line of concentration between Psyche’s brows as she bandaged me up. Surely someone foolish enough to show kindness to the son of their enemy is the same kind of someone who will be eaten alive in the position of Hera.
I clear my throat. “How’s Zeus doing these days? Does he not like any of your eligible options?” Up until a few months ago, he was Perseus, but names are the first thing sacrificed at the altar of the Thirteen. Once upon a time, we were friends, but Olympian life has a way of forcing people apart. The older we got, the more Perseus became embroiled in training to become the next Zeus. And me? Well, my life took an equally dark path. We’re still friends, I guess, but there’s a distance there that neither of us can quite recover. I don’t even know where to begin to try.
I let the thought drift away. Perseus has been Zeus’s heir for his entire life. He knew he’d take the title when his father died. If it happened a bit earlier than anyone expected…well, he’s more than capable of handling it. It’s not my problem. It can’t be my problem. After all, I didn’t kill the man.
“Don’t change the subject,” she snaps. “Ever since Persephone ran off and shacked up with Hades, Olympus is unbalanced. Now Demeter thinks she’s going to pair up another daughter with another legacy position? What’s next? Marrying off that feral older daughter of hers to Poseidon?” She huffs. “I think not. Someone needs to check Demeter, and if no one else will step up, then we’ll have to.”
“You mean I’ll have to. You might be demanding a heart, but we both know that I’m the one doing all the work.” I have no desire for someone to start calling for my head, so I try to keep the murders to a minimum. It’s so much easier to remove an opponent with a well-placed rumor or simply observe them until their own actions provide the ammunition for their downfall. Olympus is filled to the brim with sin, if one believes in that sort of thing, and no one in the Thirteen’s shining circle is without their fair share of vices.
Except, apparently, Demeter’s daughters.
They’ve tried hard to stay out of the spotlight, and it even worked…at least up until a few months ago. Ever since the old Zeus decided he wanted Persephone for his own—for all the good that did him—Olympus has gone rabid for the Dimitriou sisters. After all, Persephone’s story seems like an epic one for the ages, the kind of shit the gossip sites eat right up. Zeus drove her right into Hades’s arms, which in turn brought Hades out of the shadows of the lower city. No one saw that coming.
Zeus and the rest of the upper city like to pretend Olympus stops at the River Styx. Hades was something of a dirty little secret only the Thirteen and a few choice others had knowledge of. Now he’s out in the open and the entire power balance of Olympus is in flux. It will be months yet before things settle, possibly longer.
Hades’s romance with Persephone has only amped up Olympus’s fascination with the Dimitriou sisters. They’re all attractive, but none of them quite fit. Persephone always had her eyes on the horizon, her determination to find a way out of the city clear to anyone with a drop of perception to their name. Callisto, the oldest, is just as feral as my mother claims. She’s constantly getting into fights or saying things she shouldn’t, a blatant refusal to play Olympus’s power games that people both resent and are drawn to. Eurydice, the youngest, is pretty and sweet and far too naive for someone in this city.
And then there’s Psyche. It’s not just that she’s different physically from her sisters—she’s just flat-out different. She plays the game and plays it well, all without seeming to. She’s got this unassuming thing going on, but I’ve been watching her long enough to notice that she never makes a move by accident. I can’t prove it, of course, but I think she’s got just as savvy a brain in her head as her mother does.
None of that explains what happened the night of Zeus’s party. If Psyche were really as conniving as her mother, she never would have let herself get caught alone with me. She wouldn’t have patched me up. She wouldn’t have done any of the things that happened from the moment I saw her in that hallway.
I don’t have much of a moral center, but even I think it’s shitty to reward her kindness by ending her life.
“Eros.” Mother snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Stop daydreaming and do this task for me.” She smiles slowly, her blue eyes going icy. “Bring me Psyche’s heart.”
“Have you really thought this through?” I raise my brows, working to keep my expression disinterested. “She’s rather beloved by hundreds of thousands of Olympians—at least according to her social-media follower counts.”
I realize my mistake the second Aphrodite sneers. “She’s a fat girl with little style and no substance. The only reason MuseWatch and the other sites follow her around is because she’s a novelty. She’s not even close to my league.”
I don’t argue with her because there’s no point, but the truth is that Psyche is gorgeous and has a style that sets trends in a way Aphrodite can only dream of. Which is exactly the problem. My mother’s decided to take down two birds with one stone. “I wasn’t aware you were in competition.”
“Because we’re not.” She waves that away as if I’m foolish enough to believe her. “This isn’t about me. This is about you.” She props her hands on her hips. “I want this taken care of, Eros. You have to do this for me.”
Something in my chest twinges, but I ignore it. If I believed in souls, my actions would have guaranteed I’d sacrificed mine long ago. There is a price for power in this city, and with a mother in the Thirteen, I never had a chance at innocence. If you’re not at the top of the Olympus power structure, you’re being crushed beneath someone else’s heel as they use you to get ahead. I have no choice. I was born into this game, and the only option is being the best, the scariest, the one people would do anything to avoid fucking with. It keeps both me and my mother safe. If it means that sometimes I’m required to do these little tasks for her? It’s a small enough price to pay. “I’ll see it done.”
“Before the end of the week.”
That doesn’t give me much time at all. I stomp down on the flicker of resentment and nod. “I said I’ll see it done and I will.”
“Good.” She twirls away, her skirt once again flaring dramatically around her, and strides out of the room.
That’s my mother, all right. Here for the proclamations of revenge and heavy with the demands, but when it comes time to actually do the work, she’s suddenly got somewhere to be.
It’s just as well. I’m good at what I do because I know when to be flashy and when to fly below the radar. Aphrodite wouldn’t know how to be subtle if her life depended on it. I wait a full thirty seconds before I push to my feet and walk to my front door. If she changes her mind and comes back to spout off some more bullshit, she’ll be pissed to find my door locked, but I don’t like being interrupted once I get to planning.
And frankly, it’s good for my mother to be foiled from time to time. She controls so much of my life, it’s important to have at least one space that is Aphrodite-free—even occasionally. As much as I chafe at being under her control, my options are limited. My mother is one of the Thirteen. No matter where I reside in Olympus, the fact remains that she holds all the cards—all the power—and I am merely a tool to be picked up at her leisure.
I’m no saint. I’ve long since made my peace with my path in life. But fuck if it doesn’t smother me sometimes, especially when Aphrodite gives an order that feels especially cruel. Psyche helped me, and now my mother’s commanded my hand to be the one that strikes her down.
I head through the penthouse to what passes for my safe room. I use it to store things I don’t want nosy guests—or Hermes—to get their hands on. She’s tried at least a dozen times to break into it, and so far my security has held, but I’m all too aware that eventually she might prevail. Still, it’s the best option available to me.
Once I lock that door, I sit behind my computer and consider my options. This would be so much simpler if Aphrodite just wanted to make a nonlethal example of Psyche. She might be crafting a reputation as an influencer in that quiet way of hers, but reputations are easy to burn to ash. I’ve done it dozens of times over the years, and no doubt I’ll do it many more. All it takes is some patience and the ability to play the long game.
But no, my mother wants her literal heart. How very Evil Queen of her. I shake my head and bring up my files on the Dimitriou sisters. I have files on all the Thirteen and their immediate families, as well as close friends. In Olympus, information is 90 percent of the battle, so I work hard to keep myself informed. Since the party two weeks ago, I’ve taken a particular interest in Psyche, and I can’t even blame my mother for it.
Psyche didn’t have to help me.
She would have been so much smarter to turn away and pretend she never saw me. Anyone else would have done as much. Even some of the people I consider friends would have made that choice. I don’t blame them for it. In Olympus, it’s every person for themselves.
I click through the most recent articles on MuseWatch. Persephone visited her family last weekend briefly and caused quite the stir because she brought her new husband with her. The Hades-Demeter alliance is one nobody saw coming, and it’s feeding into my mother’s paranoia. She had the last Zeus on a leash, but his son hasn’t taken the bait she keeps dangling in front of him. It’s got her worried.
I stop on a picture of Psyche and her sisters shopping. The Dimitriou sisters seem to genuinely love and support each other. They might dip their toes into playing the power games, but they mostly hold themselves separate. I don’t know if it’s because they think they’re better than the rest of us or if the rest of us are just so naturally insular that we didn’t exactly welcome them with open arms when they first showed up. My mother likes to label the whole family as social climbers, and more than a few within the Thirteen’s inner circles have taken to doing the same.
But if that were true, Persephone Dimitriou wouldn’t have braved crossing the River Styx to try to get away from a marriage with Zeus.
And Psyche wouldn’t have helped her.
Even I’m not sure exactly what happened that night, but I know Psyche was involved—and it wasn’t to play the part of the rational party convincing her sister that this marriage would help their family’s position. If they were any other family, Psyche would have taken advantage of her sister’s absence and placed herself in front of Zeus as a candidate for the new Hera.
Instead, she helped her sister. Just like she helped me.
I study the image of Psyche. She’s got long, dark hair and full lips that always seem curved in a secretive smile. Looking at her, I can’t blame the gossip sites for being so obsessed: she seems comfortable in her body, and that kind of thing is sexy as fuck.
She’s extremely photogenic, but the pictures still don’t do her justice. There’s something about her presence in person that makes people sit up and pay attention, even when she’s dimming her light as best she can the way she always seems to at the parties we’ve both attended over the years.
She wasn’t dimming herself in the hallway or down in the bathroom where she patched me up. I don’t think it was on purpose, but I caught a glimpse of a bright and inquisitive mind behind that pretty face. She might play as if her looks are all she has going for her, but she’s smart. Too smart to get caught alone with me, and yet she took that risk and got burned. Why? Because I so obviously needed help. Because even monsters need help sometimes.
All this leads me to one very unfortunate conclusion.
Psyche Dimitriou might actually be what passes for a unicorn in Olympus—a good person.
I curse and close the window. It doesn’t matter if she’s hot or that I respect the way she’s so effectively dodged the power games since her family arrived on the scene or that she’s nice. My mother has a task, and I know the consequences of failing.
Exile.
Being left with nothing. Being nothing.
Aphrodite likes to remind me that the only thing I’m good at is hurting people. Even recognizing the blatant manipulation for what it is…she’s not wrong. I don’t know how to run a corporation like Perseus. I don’t know how to charm people and put them at ease like Helen. Fuck, I’m not even that good at breaking and entering like Hermes.
Not to mention more than a few victims of Aphrodite—of me—have suffered exile. If I end up sharing their fate, I don’t like my odds of lasting a year without one of them tracking me down and taking their just revenge.
Best not to think about that too closely. I’ll take care of the task, and then I’ll find a few partners and lose myself in a week of fucking and drinking and anything it takes to numb me out completely. Just like I always have.
With another curse, I pick up my phone.
A chirpy female voice answers. “Eros, my favorite little sex god. It’s my lucky day.”
Normally, it’s difficult to keep a smile off my face when I’m dealing with Hermes. She’s incorrigible and the only one of the Thirteen whose presence I actually enjoy. I don’t feel much like smiling today. “Hermes.”
She gives a sigh. “So it’s business, then?”
“It’s business,” I confirm. It’s not always business with Hermes and me. She and I have hooked up a few times over the years but ultimately settled into something resembling friendship. I don’t necessarily trust her—her title is practically spymaster, after all—but I like her.
“All business and no play makes Eros a dull boy.”
“We can’t all spend our time playing jester in Hades’s court.”
She laughs. “Don’t be mad just because Hades banned you from his sex dungeon. You would have done the same thing in his position.”
She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to admit it. The only reason Hades let me come and go across the River Styx without an issue was that we had something of a mutually beneficial relationship. He controlled the information I reported back to my mother. I enjoyed his hospitality. That all changed when Persephone entered the scene. She expanded his allegiance from himself to his now wife—and her mother, Demeter.
Seeing as how Demeter and my mother hate each other, that means I’m persona non grata in the lower city these days. When Hades cut me off, he cut off my main outlet to blow off steam. Not that that matters now, but Hermes always did know how to find a person’s buttons…and then do jumping jacks on them. “I have a message I’d like you to deliver, but it’s delicate in nature.”
A pause. “Okay, you have my attention. Stop toying with my emotions and tell me what you’re up to.”
I force a small smile as I sketch out what I need from her. Hermes’s role in the Thirteen is a little bit messenger, a little bit spy, a little bit agent of chaos for her own amusement. Her only real allegiance is to Dionysus, and even then, I’m not sure that friendship would hold if things got really intense. He’s not my aim, however, so I have no doubt she’ll do exactly as I request.
When I finish, she gives a merry laugh. “Eros, you sly rake, you. I’ll have the message delivered by morning.” She hangs up before I can respond.
I sit back with a sigh and rub my chest. No matter my personal thoughts on this, things are in motion. It’s too late to go back and change the past; I can only do what I’ve always done—come out on top.
Psyche Dimitriou will be dead before the end of the week.
