The King of Hearts - Jovee Winters Page 0,11

indifference, glancing around to make sure none had caught that momentary weakness. I was cloaked in shadow, but only so long as my concentration held. I had to keep my emotions in check. But all eyes were trained on mother and Dionysus.

Dionysus snorted. But if he’d found mother’s delight at the idea of allowing a poor mortal to be raped and tortured by men whose lusts had been turned to hate repugnant, he hid it well.

He shook his head. “While your idea has merit, dear sister”—like Tartarus it did, sometimes I really hated how evil my mother could be—“I was thinking something a little more… comical.”

“Oh,” she rolled her eyes, “of course. Because this is all just one big joke to you, Dionys—”

He held up his hand, stopping her. “Hear me out first. I think you might just see things my way, my dear. Believe me when I say this will be torture for her. But it will make you smile. It is far more pleasant a task to see our enemies incapacitated for decades as opposed to quickly snuffing them out. That pleasure lasts but a second. This will be lifetimes of fun for you.”

She’d seemed ready to dismiss him, but now she was smirking again. Fully onboard. “I’m listening.”

“Send the boy,” he suddenly looked at me, “make him your peddler.”

I clenched my jaw, nostrils flaring. Knowing I was hidden from mother’s view. How dare he. To include me in such a vile, nasty plot as this. Just because I was my mother’s son did not mean that I enjoyed her games. But no one on Olympus ever took the time to know me. To really know me. They saw me merely as mother’s pawn, one of the tools in her extensive arsenal to always get her way with.

Dionysus merely smirked and I was about to break my silence, to reveal too much of myself in my fury, but then for a split second, his smile slid away and there was something in his eyes. Something weighted and heavy, something that felt a lot like “trust me.”

I blinked and so did he. And then that light was gone. Replaced once more by his hateful smirk and I wondered if I’d ever actually seen it at all or if I’d merely been deluding myself.

“No. I won’t do that,” my mother said, “Eros will not get close to that disgusting, filthy mortal.”

Dionysus shrugged. “Do you trust anyone else on Olympus the way you do your faithful son?”

Devil take him.

I had to fight not to scowl. He made me sound like a mindless beast of burden who lived only to do my mother’s bidding. But I was so much more than that. So much more than almost anyone on Olympus.

I felt my mother’s glacial stare suddenly on me. “Step into the light, my son. Let the gods look upon you.”

Her words were proud. Haughty. I hid myself in shadow for a reason. Not because I was hideous to look upon, I was my mother’s son. I simply did not enjoy the attention the way she did.

Knowing I could not fight her command, I stepped into the light. And just as it always did when the gods gazed upon me, their eyes turned glassy, lustful.

I was my mother’s perfect counterpoint.

Persephone even sighed.

I held my chin up high. “As my mother commands,” I said dutifully, robotically. Wearily.

But she did not notice. She never did.

My uncle nodded. “Disguise him. Make him unattractive to her. But just attractive enough,” my uncle held up a finger, “that she will not fear him.”

“And what is in the potion?”

“Repulsion,” he said with a chuckle. “She will keep her beauty, but she will repulse all mortal men. None will offer her their hand in marriage. Her parents, once so proud of her, will reject her for being unworthy. All friends who once enjoyed inviting her to their dinners and soirees will cease associating with her. She will bring nothing but bitterness and discontent to them. And meanwhile, dear sister, you will watch as her beauty slowly fades and her once kind heard melts into something bitter and jaded.”

I blinked several times, stomach roiling with sickness at the thought of what was being planned against that poor woman. With beauty came a certain type of temperament. The beautiful ones always knew they were beautiful and tended to use their attraction for their benefit. Not all, but those were outliers and quite rare. Most beautiful people I’d encountered had hearts as dead