Why don’t I let them?
I shove that thought away before it can take root. I won’t let them for the same reason I don’t stab him in his sleep, for the same reason I haven’t given in to my mother’s less and less subtle recommendations to poison him. When Zeus dies—and he will—it can’t be linked to me. It can’t affect my future child’s reign as leader of Olympus. I will allow no scandal to touch them before they’ve even drawn breath.
“Go on, Ixion. It’s okay.” I sit there and I watch my people file out of the room, each looking more unhappy than the next. They don’t go far. I can see the outlines of the trio and the bartender through the glass of the door next to the street.
I turn my attention back to my husband. “Well?” He’s still standing on the other side of the table, looming over me. Still staring at me with a strange expression in his pale blue eyes. It looks almost human. I snap my fingers, more to jar myself out of the strange feeling twisting in my chest than to gain his attention. “Zeus. Speak. You threw a hissy fit to get me alone, and now you’re just sitting there staring at me. Let’s get this over with.”
He plants his hands on the table slowly, in a way that makes me think he wants to rip it right off the floor and throw it to the side. “Are you here on a date with Ixion?”
The question is so shocking that I forget to mask my response. My jaw drops and I stare at him. “What?”
“Ixion. Your lover, Wife. That’s the only thing it could be, right? Because not even you would be foolish enough to continue with your plans to murder me while the city burns around us.” He speaks softly, practically biting out each word. “You may be safe from me, butheis not. Cease your plotting, or I’ll kill him myself.”
A shiver goes through me, and I can’t even pretend that it’s fear. This is the most honest I’ve seen him. It proves that, for all his icy exterior and attempt at civilization, my husband is a monster right down to his core. He’s just as twisted and broken as I always suspected.
Just as twisted and broken as I am.
I hate the feeling inside me, the sensation of a bell ringing in perfect tune with his. I hate recognizing something in him that I understand on an intrinsic level. I hate…
“You’d kill him for the sin of fucking me and pretend it’s because of some greater plot against you.” The words slip free despite my best efforts. I’m on a roller coaster and the brakes are gone, hurtling me forward. It’s terrifying. It’s exhilarating. I can’t decide if I want it to stop or to continue to the inevitable conclusion.
Zeus tenses his hands on the table, but he surprises me. He’s always had more control than I know what to do with. He doesn’t manage to tuck his rage away, but instead of the expected burst of physical violence against the table or an unsuspecting chair, he slidesinto the booth next to me. And keeps sliding until we’re pressed together tightly and he has to loop his arm around my shoulders.
Even as I tell myself not to, I can’t help leaning against him, just a little. He’s so incredibly warm in a way that makes me wonder why I didn’t realize I was cold before. More than that, he smells good.Intoxicating.At a time when even the most comforting smells now turn my stomach, my husband alone is so tempting that I have to constantly remind myself I cannot press my nose to the hollow of his throat and inhale deeply every time we’re within touching distance.
“Hera.”
I know that tone. Even as I tell myself to straighten my spine and put some distance between us, I press my thighs together in anticipation. “Don’t.”
“Say yes.” He reaches over and winds my ponytail around one fist, so gently that my head is guided back one slow inch at a time. Until my throat is completely bared to him. It’s always like this. A seduction with no subtlety to speak of.
Except it’s never like this, with no veil of darkness to shield the truth of ourselves from each other.
My husband never takes. That would be too easy, too simple. Instead he makes me a willing partner, sharing equal blame in every illicit thing we do together. This marriage wasn’t supposed to include sex, at least not until the allotted grace period is over. Zeus needs an heir, after all. Hehasone; he just doesn’t know it yet. All I have to do is tell him that I’m pregnant and any excuse to be intimate disappears like smoke.
But I don’t tell him this time. Just like I haven’t told him every night since the pregnancy test came back positive.
“We’re in a bar in the middle of the day. Anyone could walk in. What would your precious MuseWatch think of a story like this?” Just like that, I remember what else MuseWatch has been reporting on. I narrow my eyes. “Or are you too busy prioritizing a fuckingcoup?”
“There and gone,” he murmurs. “It’s over.”
“Over…” I’m having a difficult time focusing with him so close, looking at me so intensely. “What do you mean, ‘over’?”
“It was only intended for a single night to aid our efforts to remove Circe.” He narrows his eyes. “But you’re not really worried about a coup, are you? There’s no one here, Hera. No one to see.” He cups my jaw in a way that’s both comforting and threatening. Threatening because all he has to do is squeeze and I’m done for. That pressure makes me come undone in a way I don’t understand. I refuse to examine the fact he’s the only one who holds the particular skill set to make me react in such a way.
I’m falling. Maybe I’ve already fallen. Desire weaves its spell around me and I want to blame everyone but myself, except I know it’s not the truth. From the moment I learned his taste, Zeus has been a drug I want to kick…but never seem able to.
In desperation, I grind out, “You assume I came here on a date with Ixion. Surely you aren’t so jealous as to fuck me when he’sright there.”
“I don’t know why you came here, Hera.” He says it almost absently, his gaze intense on my mouth. “But if it was for Ixion, he’s going to get an unsubtle reminder of whose wife you are. Regardless of where you spend your charms.”
His words are rough and possessive, and they have no business making my pussy pulse. I don’t belong to him. Not any more thanhe belongs to me. “And what ofyourlovers, Husband?” I’ve seen the way people fawn over him. They’re not subtle in their aims. He’s Zeus, after all. No one expects him to be faithful.
Something hot and feral alights in his eyes. “Feeling possessive, Wife? If you want to stake your claim, just say so. I have no problem with that.” He leans down, so close that I imagine I can feel the barest movement of his lips against mine. I know I don’t, though. He never kisses me without permission, never touches me until I say yes, never fucks me until I beg for it. I still don’t know if it’s all a game to him or if he genuinely wants to ensure I’m completely consenting. Most of the time I assume it’s the former, but in moments like this, I’m not so sure.
“I’m… I’m not.” What am I saying? I have no idea.
“Of course not. You don’t even like me.”
