The Call of Monsters (My Beautiful Monsters #3) - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,23

telling him everything.

Did I mention I was hiding in the last place he would think to look? I grew up in Zeus’s palace. I learned every single inch of this place, including the secret passages, because it meant finding a place to hide from him. He had entire rooms built for his mistresses that my mother didn’t know about. Fuck, we just rescued Persephone from Demeter, and Persephone and her brother were created in one of these rooms.

The kitchens had been updated since the last time I was here, but I knew how to sneak in and steal food. There used to be a chef here when I was a child who would sneak me sweets. Zeus found out and thought it made me soft. He killed her, and after that, everyone was afraid to help me. After I found the passage that led to the kitchen, I’d sneak down here and steal food. I’d always had a bit of a sweet tooth and liked to eat.

The food was right where it used to be. I stole enough to keep myself fed, but not enough that anyone would notice it was missing. Zeus ate a lot, so his servants cooked a lot. He wouldn’t eat leftovers, but he allowed his servants to eat what he didn’t. That was also new. His servants used to starve. Yeah, Olympus had poverty, despite all its glory and the promise of paradise that was given to the humans that were brought here.

I had just finished up spying on Zeus and Ares again in his war room. Their big idea was that I had fled to my volcano and was hiding there. They couldn’t even fathom the idea I was still here, right under their noses, just like the Horae told them. The Horae were friends of mine, but they wouldn’t have told Zeus I crossed through their gates when I didn’t. He would have blamed them for letting me out and punished them.

The Horae told him straight to his face they didn’t let me out. Ares came back, puffing up his chest and making threats like he loved to do. The Horae told him the exact same thing. They weren’t punishing them, but I had listened to them in the war room. They were under the impression if I could forge a weapon that could kill them, I could have made something to breach the gates to Olympus and sneak out without having to go through the Horae. Honestly, I probably could, but I was currently without a forge.

If I had access to my forge, I’d could grab one of my weapons and just kill Zeus while he slept. Ares would be easy to take out too. Ares was huge and inserted himself as the God of War when the Olympians came to Earth, but he only knew how to fight with magic. He’d probably go down with a punch to the face. Ares liked to hurt women, but even though he knew full damned well it was going to heal in a few minutes, you’d think the entire world was ending if he got a paper cut.

So, I had to do this the hard way and risk people I loved. Ares was off stomping around outside my volcano, trying to see if I was home. He would eventually figure out I wasn’t there and report back to Zeus. They would have to come up with an alternative plan that either involved searching Olympus for me or sending people they considered expendable to the Underworld. I didn’t want either of those to happen. I needed to move now.

Ares was off trying to get into my volcano, and Zeus was distracting himself with a woman again. No one else knew I was here except Aphrodite. Zeus wasn’t letting her go home yet because he still thought she could seduce the answer out of me if he could locate me.

Zeus was such a serial cheater and rapist, and he had an entire wardrobe of clothes just for sneaking around in. I easily found black trousers and a black hoodie to keep my face covered on the streets. It was time to visit the Horae and see if we were still friends despite my long absence from Olympus.

I pulled the hoodie over my eyes and set out onto the streets. This was my home. I had grown up here, and I used to find it so beautiful until I realized how ugly my family was. As I