Deliverance [malexmale]

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Lucifer's palace was nothing if not impeccable. The architecture itself was a design that oozed royalty and elegance. I wasn't even entirely sure what the design was, but the white marble and gold inlays were certainly an testament to his money and status, and the fact that the palace overlooked the entire city like a giant eye in the sky only further asserted his power and dominance over the place.

My teleportation only took me as far as the front gates that were heavily guarded by armored demon guards, both of whom glared at me and curled their lips as I went past the gates to walk the unfortunate mile of stair steps to the front door. I felt the air of softness and warmth Arikos had somehow gifted me with deflate from me, probably a good thing if I planned to face Hades. I had no time to deal with the god's petty attempt at a power play. His constant reminders that I wouldn't be here in this great body without him were his way of trying to make me grateful, but the god had no idea that I would've rather spent the rest of eternity rotting in Tartarus.

I entered the lavish large front doors with gold etchings of legends and Lucifer's fall. The doors opened into a rounded room of strange fake leather sofas -- what the hell was wrong with this time period where real leather was so offense-- and everything gleamed in a flurry of sterile cleanliness I was sure Clymene would envy.

My mother had always taken every chance she had to berate the rest of the family for being smelly swine.

She was living in a home with four other men. What did she expect? A spa?

I shook my head, scanning the room, unsure where to go. The air rippled and pulsed for a moment in front of me, however, making me grow tense. I shut down my expression, reverting to the staunch military persona I'd had beaten into me as a child. I watched a column of smoke spiral into the room from nowhere in particular, then vanished in a plume to reveal the Greek god of sarcasm and misery himself-- Hades.

A gigantic in every sense of the word, especially ego, Hades was well over seven feet tall and dressed in more black than a funeral procession and eerie blue eyes that glowed like a pair of animal's eyes in the dark. Suffice it to say, Hades had might quite a terrifying spectacle on the battlefield, even back when his eyes were filled with agony as he cut throat after throat. In the Titanomachy, Hades had been less willing to take a life. He'd only taken the lives of those who dared to threaten his siblings. I'd seen him cut a man's head clean off for making a remark about his sister, Hestia.

But that fearful light was gone now. His eyes were a cold menacing blue that spoke of a torture I didn't even want to consider. Then again with a brother like Zeus...

"We're in the meeting room," Hades said, then touched my shoulder, and my skin crawled as we teleported from the lobby to a large meeting hall that was located somewhere upstairs, judging from the tall windows that looked out over the Black Sea that separated this realm from Hades's.

The room itself was a long sterile room with a sleek glass table with several papers laid out on one side, and a strange floating transparent model of what appeared to be Atlantis and Olympus. Joining us in the meeting room was Hades's current lover, Lucifer.

Unlike Hades, who was the epitome of tall, dark, and gloom, Lucifer was a bright ray of light in the room with his entirely white leather outfit, wavy golden hair that currently fell over one shoulder while he leaned over the table, celestial blue eyes locked on the models in front of him until Hades appeared. Instantly, as if the angel was conditioned to do so, he looked up and straightened at the sight of Hades, and there was a strange softening in his ruggedly handsome features that spoke incredible lengths of his affections for the Greek god of the underworld.