This is the third book in the "Alice Cunningham" series. Please read "Threads" and "Weaver" first.
It was a dismal place for Gods to meet. Adonis kept looking around, at the bare white walls and the dirty concrete floor, unable to believe that Dione would resort to this. That her fall from Olympus had driven her so low.
The god of beauty shifted in his seat, raking his fingers through his blonde curls, a gesture so habitual that he hardly noticed anymore. He was only wearing a thin black t-shirt, and though it accentuated his chiseled torso, it didn’t block out the chill that was seeping in through the walls of this wretched place. He refused to let any of them see him shiver. They barely called him a “god” as it was, and any reminder of his mortality set his nerves on edge. It was bad enough to be technically dead, but to be dead and laughed at…
“She is late,” a low voice said.
Dione was pacing the room, and Adonis flinched as the hem of her long white gown swept the floor. This place was so dirty. “She’ll be here. She just went out…”
“For a smoke,” Eris finished the sentence for him, cackling madly, like it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard of. The goddess of chaos was lounging on a plastic lawn chair, hands behind her head. She shook the tangles of her black curls and laughed again, letting the chair tip her forward so that the legs hit the cement floor with a loud crack.
Adonis winced. Everything that Eris did grated on him.
“Who ever heard of a goddess that smokes?” Eris cupped her pointed chin in one hand and rolled her black eyes up to the ceiling. “She just does it because she thinks it makes her look sexy.”
“It does.” Adonis glared at her, but the expression didn’t stay long. His mind drifted to Aphrodite’s mouth, her shapely red lips curved upwards at one corner, the cigarette trailing smoke between her slim fingers….
“I swear,” Dione grumbled. “Were she younger, I’d turn her over my knee…”
“You’re overreacting,” Eris said. She gestured at the lawn chair beside her. “Sit down and relax.”
“How can I relax when everyone is a bumbling idiot?” Dione’s clenched fists trembled at her sides, and her nostrils flared. Adonis leaned backwards in his chair, eyeing the goddess nervously. Her red hair was starting to whip around her face, as if Dione had been caught in a sudden wind. She was really angry.
“First Epimethious, and I still don’t know what I was thinking sending a fool like that. I thought for sure…I thought…”
“You thought Athena couldn’t possibly fail to defeat a mortal.”
The other gods looked up at the new voice.
Aphrodite was leaning in the doorway. She flicked the cigarette onto the floor and ground it into the cement with one slender, bare foot. Adonis winced.
Her dark hair was loose today, flowing over her shoulders. She’d abandoned the traditional white robe that some of the gods favored, for a figure hugging dress. The red silk contrasted with her golden brown skin. She looked radiant, as if she’d just come in from the sun.
Adonis shifted in his chair.
Her full lips parted, sending a string of smoke upwards. He was glad he was sitting down. He could still feel those lips on his neck. Could still taste them…
“It’s time to pull out the big guns…” Aphrodite smiled. “As the humans are so fond of saying.”
“You’ll go?” Dione stopped pacing to stare at her daughter. “I thought you were too good for dirty work. You said..”
“I am too good.” Aphrodite turned wide, almond shaped eyes to Adonis’ face. Her lashes were impossibly long and dark, and when she narrowed her eyes at him he felt a confusing mixture of fear and lust. It didn’t matter how long you were Aphrodite’s lover…days, months, years….you never got used to it.
“Adonis will go, I’ll simply manage things.”
“Adonis?” Dione looked over at him doubtfully. “He only has a few weeks left above ground. Are you sure we shouldn’t…”
“What…send Eris next?” Aphrodite smirked. “She’ll get distracted and forget what she was doing. Probably start earth quakes or something instead.”
Eris gave her a wide grin, clearly not bothered by the accusations. “Probably.”
Aphrodite looked irritated. “Mother, you know she’s only here because she’s attracted to trouble…”
“What does that say about you?” Dione settled back in the plastic lawn chair. She somehow managed to make it seem like a throne. “She’s on our side…”
“That’s like saying a shark is on our side. She might eat one of us, and if she smells more blood in the water somewhere else she’ll go for that instead…”
“Oooh, sharks,” Eris said happily. “I like sharks.”
Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “See? Adonis and I will take care of this.”
“You’re sure?”
Aphrodite stood up taller, crooking her finger at Adonis. The god of beauty stood up immediately, feeling the pull of her call like a physical hook in his gut. You couldn’t resist Aphrodite.
Her lips curled upwards, eyes locked on his face as she spoke. “You think a mortal can resist the both of us? Alice Cunningham will be ours in under a week, and that’s a promise.”
YOU ARE READING
Goddess Unravelled
Fantasy"Who will we send after the little witch?" The room went silent as one of them stood up from her throne, pacing forward. Her skirts flowed over the marble floors as silently as a whisper. Every eye was drawn to her. "I will go after her and make he...
