God of My Dreams (Greek Heroes #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Three: Training Day Yoga

Training Day Yoga:

Morpheus took a deep, calming breath. Deciding that was nowhere near enough he did it again, then once more for good measure. He was on the verge of doing something really stupid and needed to settle down fast. Stefano stood within the dream simulator fucking everything up, and the dream god’s patience was hanging on by the proverbial thread.  

He closed his eyes and concentrated on finding his inner calm. What was it humans called that nowadays…yoga? Whatever it was called, he attempted to focus on it – or more specifically on the passage of air as it moved through his body. In and out. Inhale. Exhale. He imagined a large body of water, still and calm. No waves. Not a single ripple – a perfect reflection of inner peace and a tranquil mind to anchor his mind and emotions.

Stefano’s grunt of pure male satisfaction broke through the still waters of Morpheus’s inner calm. His eyes flew open and he felt the vein in his forehead start to throb. It was taking every molecule in his substantial body to refrain from killing the dead warrior all over again.

Perhaps he was not doing the yoga correctly.

Stefano, a celebrated hero in his day, seemed an excellent candidate to be his replacement – at least at first. Knowing his father, Hypnos, would never permit his duties to be set aside so easily, Morpheus had taken excruciating care in finding the right mortal for the job. Many of the other gods could enter the dream realm, which was technically a part of the Underworld. However, it was similar to the heavens men spent lifetimes gazing upon. Everyone understood the sun and earth shared the same galaxy, but this fact did not make them the same. The Underworld followed the same rule – the land of the dead and the land of dreams shared the Underworld but were as different as the sun was from the earth. Most other gods would never willingly give up their claim to life outside the Underworld because they were not born of it as Morpheus and his brothers were. The dream god couldn't blame them. Instead, he'd been forced to look among the race of men, mortals who would welcome the power his life provided. Though many fine leaders had stood out, they all paled in comparison to Stefano.

He’d been most pleased with the warrior’s tactical mind, attention to detail, and enthusiasm for immortality. Granted, it was a fractured immortality since he was confined to the dream realm, but it beat the hell out of where he’d been headed. Though a conquering hero, Stefano had not been the most honorable of men and Tartarus had laid out the welcome mat post haste upon his death.  

As expected, Stefano proved an apt pupil; learning how to manipulate the dream world with a crafty deftness that was truly impressive. It was no surprise the former commander excelled at dreams of warfare and vengeance, but he also scored exceptionally well on dreams of fancy. Sci-fi, horror, pure fantasy, paranormal, all types were quickly mastered. Every module completed within the shortest amount of time of any other trainee – at least this had been the case until he’d moved onto the final training program in the simulator:

Creating and controlling sexual fantasies.

Holy Hypnos, Stefano was as bad as a living human male. He was completely controlled by his ridiculous libido and seemed to lose all self-control in sexual situations. Didn’t human males grow out of that at some point? Particularly dead ones? Granted, Morpheus wasn’t immune to such…stimulation, but mild appreciation and drooling wantonness were two entirely different things.

Morpheus watched now as Stefano continued to override the simulator’s preset program, manipulating the dream to his own taste. The simulator was currently set to female erotic play, but nothing Stefano created for the potential dreamer could be construed as “play.” Everything he wove into the dream was over the top and unabashedly male-orientated.

And some of it was just plain wrong.  

There was a vast ocean of difference between the sexes, none so clearly apparent than in the dream world. Women and men did not dream the same things, in the same way, or even at the same time. What women found sexy and enjoyable in dreams took a subtle and delicate hand to create. Men weren’t nearly so hard to please. As a matter of fact, if he were to rate the difficulty of satisfying men and women in their dreams on a scale of one to ten, women would come in at an unsurprising ten. Men were around negative seventeen. 

Stefano was clearly not getting this portion of the Oneiroi’s strict training. They’d been stuck on this particular module for nearly a month and it was only the first one in the sexual fantasies program folder. If Morpheus had to ditch him and start over, it would set his own plans behind for Zeus only knew how long.

And that shit wasn’t cool.

The last thread of his patience snapping, the dream god cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders back. Some lessons took patience and guidance to learn, while others had to be pounded in with both fists, over and over again. Morpheus was done being patient. He proceeded to unfurl his midnight wings to their impressive size. Stefano was too distracted to take notice. Good. In the dream god’s vast experience, it was best to take an unsuspecting trainee by surprise – especially one as crude and ridiculous as the mortal before him.  

Cracking a smile for the first time that day, Morpheus swooped in to give Stefano some one-on-one training.  

Surprisingly, it worked great for his inner calm.