Page 75 of Ungodly Rich

If she had to fight for her place within his family, well, Harry was worth it.

Chapter Thirty

Hades

Really, Hades thought, Zeus’s behavior had become almost painfully clichéd.

When Zeus had slipped out of the Mayfair house an hour ago, Hades had followed, invisible in the Helm of Darkness. He’d half-hoped that Zeus might surprise him—that he might be visiting an illegal gambling ring or overseeing the delivery of some illicit shipment that had slipped through customs. But it was nothing that exciting.

Zeus had come up to the Sky Lounge at the Shard, ordered a bottle of wine, and immediately found a mortal woman to flirt with.

Despite its name, which struck Hades as reminiscent of an airline lounge, the Sky Lounge was an exclusive club atop the Shard: the highest building in London. The Shard was a geometric monstrosity among the city’s genteel neighborhoods, all sharp angles and harsh lines, like the fragment of glass it was meant to resemble. To Hades, the whole building felt loud and blustering and a bit careless.

Just like Zeus.

There he was now, sitting near the window with a young woman,the city spread out below him like his own personal feast. Ridiculous. It was as if Zeus had come up here to prove he was the king of the gods, to sit up high and lord it over everyone.

Hades stood there for a moment, watching as Zeus leaned back in his chair with that panty-dropper grin of his. Perhaps his errand was foolish, but he’d come this far.

He twisted his ring and became visible again.

He must have appeared in Zeus’s peripheral vision like a light turning on, but Zeus didn’t look over for several long beats. He kept listening to something the mortal woman was saying, nodding as if he actually cared about her thoughts. Hades took a step closer. He was dressed simply, though expensively, in a Loro Piana button-down and Armani jeans. He fit into this crowd, even if none of them spared him a second look.

Finally Zeus muttered something to the woman, who stood, revealing how low her dress swooped over the bare skin of her back. She walked off, and Zeus turned to Hades.

“Brother.” He gestured to the chair the mortal woman had vacated. “Care to join me?”

Even though this was the precise reason he’d come, Hades felt uneasy as he took the opposite seat. There was always something overwhelming, slightly disorienting, about being the focus of Zeus’s attention. Hades couldn’t imagine how it felt for the mortals he encountered, both the women he seduced and the men he took things from. When you were near him, the sheer force of Zeus’s will felt as vast as the sky, and just as volatile.

But Zeus’s strength was all brute force, Hades reminded himself. He had something that Zeus would never possess: Cunning. Cleverness. A slippery, deft, mutable mind that darted from one idea to the next like quicksilver, instead of always wanting to keep things as they were.

Well. It was easy to support the status quo when you were at the top.

“Thank you for inviting me to the party tonight,” Hades began.

Zeus rubbed two fingers against his thumb like he was about to snap, then plucked a thin-stemmed wineglass from the air. Showoff.

“Glad to see you out and about,” Zeus lied as he poured a measure of champagne into the glass and slid it toward Hades. “First the reunion on Olympus, and now this? We don’t usually see you at family events.”

As if Hades hadchosento live in isolation. To be just as powerful as the Twelve, yet indelibly separate from them.

“This particular family event felt worth attending,” Hades said easily. “And the young woman Ares is marrying—what’s her name?—she seems interesting.”

Zeus shrugged, as if he couldn’t remember Julia’s name, either. “Ares is happy. That’s all that matters.”

There were a few curious glances from nearby tables, which always happened when several of the gods came together. It was simply too much power for mortals to ignore. As much as they sought to deny the supernatural world, to explain away everything magical or strange, they could still sense it on some deep-rooted biological level.

And of course, Hades and Zeus made an arresting pair. Though Zeus had called Hadesbrother,they looked more like colleagues. It was their body language, wary and distrustful, as well as the seeming difference in their ages. Zeus resembled a mortal who had aged quite handsomely, but still one in middle age. Hades looked no older than Ares or Athena, like a mortal in his late twenties. He’d never understood why this was, though he imagined it must have irritated Zeus no end.

Perhaps watching over the mortals had affected Hades in some mysterious way, keeping him young—though that made no sense, because if their mortality was rubbing off on him, wouldn’t it make him appear older?

Hades took a sip of the champagne. Zeus had so many flaws, but his taste in wine was not one of them.

“Why do you think Ares chose Julia, when he could have had any woman in the world?” he asked casually.

“Who knows why Ares does anything? Now, I’m sorry, but did you have a reason for following me here tonight, or can I get back to my conversation with…” Zeus gave up on trying to remember the woman’s name and settled for a wave toward the other room.

Clearly, Zeus had no idea that Julia was worth a second glance, that there was anything at all unique about her. But then, he’d never been all that observant. He had a tendency to see what he wanted to see, to accept things at their surface value instead of delving deeper.