The Broken Soldier (malexmale)

Chapter Three

Horus's invitation had succeeded in making me anxious.

No, perhaps invitation was far too kind for what he'd said to me. It was more like a threat. If I didn't show up when he asked me to, he was going to turn his sights on my father, and that made my skin crawl. My father had left him alone these past few centuries. He'd avoided Horus, and Horus had done the same. My father had found peace since then. He'd found someone to truly love and value him the way he deserved it.

Someone who was currently visiting and also invited to the festivities. Mictlantecuhtli was the Aztec god of death, and the underworld that bore his name. He was a huge god, taller than my father, and with skin the color of rich caramel, his eyes deep blood red. His long black hair was done in an intricate ponytail with ribbons and tinsel tied into it. My father had once said that Mictlan's wife, Mictlancihuatl, did his hair. I wondered if she did his outfit as well, considering it always suited him so well. A dark deadly appearance that brought a whole new meaning to a god of death.

Mictlantecuhtli, or just Mictlan for short, was my father's one and only lover. My parents were still married, mostly for political reasons, but it was an open marriage as long as they were honest with one another about their partners and while my mother had many, my father only had Mictlan.

He had arrived earlier in the night with his middle son, Cuetlachtli. Somehow, I think he only did it to torment Cuet, considering Anubis just loved driving the poor male insane. Cuet very obviously loathed Anubis and was constantly shutting him down and telling him quite bluntly to fuck off, but Anubis never took a hint. Thankfully, Cuet had decided to hide out in his quarters at my father's palace while Anubis was stuck helping my mother prepare for the festival.

I struggled to focus on what my father was saying, but I couldn't with worries over what Horus could possibly want from my father. I looked at my father, who looked thoroughly annoyed about being dragged into festival planning when he hated the whole idea of parties.

My father was a beautiful male. That went without saying. But he looked smaller, more feminine, standing next to Mictlan. Even though he was anything, but. My father may look docile, but there was a danger in him that anyone could sense, and it had to be his Beast. Or, well, that's what most people assumed anyway. I myself knew for a fact my father simply just hated me and didn't want me to be around. It was why I couldn't comprehend why my mother kept sending me to him.

And why Horus was after him now.

He'd gone after my father before, but that was to control him in order to protect the pantheon. Or so he claimed. In actuality, he was threatened by my father's power and needed to find a way to subjugate him. Yet, certainly he'd have overcome that fear by now, or at least accepted it. So what did my father have that Horus wanted? Obviously it was something I could also give him.

Something my father had. Something I had. And something that apparently my mother nor my brother had either, if Horus came to me and not Anubis or my mother. Or anyone else for that matter. It was something that set us apart. What could that possibly be?

My father and I had nothing in common, save for our names, obviously, and our appearance. We both had long black hair, both had similar builds, our skin tone was nearly the same, though I had apparently paled out spending time in Hades, according to my mother. We had similar features. A lot of people had always commented on how much we looked alike, and my mother said that my father used to glow with pride.

Now, no one dared tell my father such a thing, lest he vaporize them on the spot.

Shame didn't begin to explain how my father felt for me. He couldn't even look at me directly most of the time. He didn't touch me. He didn't even say my name. My mother claimed I had a room in the palace, even, but I didn't dare stay a night in the palace. My father didn't want me there. He never invited me himself, never asked me to stay like he asked Anubis.