Page 6 of Deadly Games
“You’re telling me with all these conspiracy theories about what you did to get banished, and it was just some glorified fortune cookie prophecy?” I asked, folding my arms.
“More or less. When Cronus had assimilated power over all the realms of the gods, he had nothing left to gain and everything to lose,” said Ares. “That kind of power makes one paranoid.”
“Guess it really is lonely at the top,” I muttered. “So, what did the prophecy say?”
“That Death would remove its blessing from him and lend its power--and thus, his rule--to another,” he answered. “Given the nature of my domain, you can understand why I became the primary suspect.”
“That’s insane,” I said, feeling my blood boil even more than it usually did when I thought of the old god. Apparently, he was as capricious as the reputation he’d built suggested. Like father, like son, after all.
“Such is the way of the gods.”
“How can you be so casual about this?” I asked, frowning.
“Twenty years may pass in the blink of an eye out there, but in here…” He waved a pale hand in the air, gesturing around the great hall. “The fires of indignation have long grown cold.”
Well, that made one of us. I was still unsure of how to feel toward the man I’d learned to hate out of necessity, but where Cronus was concerned, the flames burned all the brighter.
“I still don’t understand. If you could reach me, why didn’t you do it before?”
“This is the first time your conscious mind has been dormant enough to match the frequency of the Ether,” he answered.
I blinked. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted.”
Ares gave me a knowing smile. “There will be plenty of time to discuss things later. Tonight, you should rest and get your bearings. Tomorrow, we feast.”
“Feast?” I asked warily. “Do I want to know what’s in the mystery meat here?”
Ares just chuckled and walked down the hall, which left me all the more unsettled. I went back to find Hades and Loki with Fenrir at my side. I still wasn’t sure what I was comfortable with telling him. After all, he was the son of the man who’d banished my father. As if I didn’t already have enough reasons to hate him.
Chapter 4
Loki
When Kore walked in looking like she’d just seen a ghost, I knew things were about to get interesting. Wherever she went, Fenrir followed like a lost puppy. Either he was laying it on thick or he was deeper in wolf land than I’d feared. At present, he was curled up at her feet while she just stood there gazing out the window.
I knew Hades was too much of a stubborn prick to talk to her, even though I knew him well enough to sense that he was as worried about her as I was, so I walked over. “I take it your convo with dear old dad didn’t go as planned?”
She glanced up and seemed startled. I just wasn’t sure if it was because she’d been in lala land, or because she was surprised I gave a shit.
And like it or not, I did.
“It was fine,” she answered, hugging herself as she turned back to the bleak landscape. “Just strange.”
“I’d imagine,” I said, leaning against the bookshelf. “First time you met the guy. That has to be awkward.”
“Tell me about it,” she snorted.
“I probably could.”
Her brows knit together and for the first time, I realized they were tinted purple just like her hair. A darker shade, but still. “What do you mean?”
I glanced across the room, content that Hades had immersed himself in a book from the other shelf by the door. Leave it to him to think he could read his way out of anything. He knew everything there was to know about me, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed talking about everything with or around him. Fenrir was as good as oblivious in this form. “I was adopted.”
Her eyes widened. “You what?”
I shrugged. “It’s not something our parents like people to know, but yeah.”
“I don’t understand. Why the secrecy?”
