Page 9 of The Fifth Gate

The words land like a slap, stinging. I close my mouth. “I’m not my mother.”

He gives me a look from beneath slashing black brows. “I’m going to tell Aphrodite I have you. I’ll give her one chance to come here, herself, to get you back. Then, this can all be over.”

He turns to go then, the wide line of his shoulders almost filling the door.

“She won’t come,” I tell his back bitterly. “She might be the Goddess of Love, but she doesn’t actually love anyone but herself.”

Ares stiffens. It’s a small tell, but an obvious one. He turns back just far enough to look at me over his shoulder, and his face is twisted into a ferocious scowl again.

“Pray that you’re wrong,” he tells me, and then the door slams shut behind him, and I’m alone.

FIVE

ARES

I stalk down the hallway, and everyone is smart enough to stay out of my way.

It’s too bad, really. I want to hit something, to vent the fury rolling around inside me like a thunderstorm waiting to break. I want a fight. Almostneedone. But everyone feels the anger rolling off my power, and they know to steer clear.

It would be so much easier if I’d just snapped her fucking neck the second I came up behind her. She wouldn’t have even known I was there. Over. Done. Just like that. Then that bitch Aphrodite wouldn’t have a choice. She would have had to avenge her blood kin, or lose her seat of power in Olympus. No more games. No more waiting. No more bullshit. I’d finally have my revenge for the bitch trapping me down here all these bloody years. Away from my duties. Away from my worshippers. Away from my seat on Olympus, where I was meant to be.

I know all this. And yet, I wasn’t able to bring myself to do it.

It felt… wrong. Not the killing, that’s just part of who and what I am. But the idea that someone who had fought her way through the Underworld, who had defeated the Fallen, who had come so far and refused to cower to me, that she should die in such an undignified way: simply snuffed out and gone.

It… offended me.

The girl might look like her mother, but they truly are nothing alike. Aphrodite is a vain, treacherous viper, who apparently won’t inconvenience herself in order to save her daughter (if the woman is to be believed). I don’t believe Aphrodite is even capable of love, of emotion—nothing beyond her own vanity. Yes, there is no way she will risk coming to the Underworld and placing herself within my reach when she knows I’ll kill her given the slightest chance.

Her daughter did not even hesitate.

Penelope,I remind myself.Her name is Penelope.

I clench my jaw hard enough to make my teeth creak.She’s still Aphrodite’s blood. It doesn’t matter that she’s brave, or stubborn or… beautiful.

It can’t matter.

The door to my chambers opens before I reach it, the castle reacting to my dour mood much as the rest of my realm does. Perhaps my prison worries I’ll kick the door down if it’s in my way. Perhaps I would.

I stalk across the room to the polished shield hanging on the wall. My powers are all bent towards combat and slaughter, but I’m still a god, no matter how far I’ve fallen. Aphrodite couldn’t cut me off from Olympus, not entirely. Of course, I never bothered reaching out again after Zeus blew me off in order to chase after yet another nymph, telling me that a true god should be able to free himself easily enough, or that Aphrodite was just playing a little prank to soothe her ‘feminine pride’.

I leveled part of the castle after that little talk.

I run my hand along the edge of the shield, sending my will and my power through the metal. It rings like a sword blow, and the metal fogs like someone blew a warm breath across it.

I grind my teeth so hard that, if I were human, I would shatter them.

The steel of the shield clears, revealing Aphrodite in her diaphanous gown of pale violet, lounging on a chaise in a way that draws attention to both the curve of her hips, and the swell of her breasts. Her hair cascades over one shoulder in a waterfall of golden ringlets. A silver circlet keeps the rest of it off her flawless face.

I barely resist the urge to spit.

Apparently sensing the fact that she’s no longer alone, she looks up from her lounging and directly at me through the shield.

“Ares,” she says in greeting, as though we’re old friends. As though centuries of silence haven’t existed between us. “Have you finally come to your senses, then?”

In this moment, I would trade every ounce of my power, hell, my godhood entirely, just for the ability to reach through the surface of the shield and wring the bitch’s throat.

I want to tell her exactly what I think of her, but instead I growl out, “I have your daughter.”

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