Worth It - Lisa Oliver Page 0,32

me? Butterflies started warring with the empty feeling in Paulie’s gut.

/~/~/~/~/

So far, so good, Zeus thought as he loaded up Paulie’s plate with lasagna and then broke off some hunks of bread, putting them on the side of Paulie’s plate. Yes, he had made some modifications to Paulie’s apartment; okay, a lot. But the sheer banality of the place had saddened Zeus in a way he didn’t want to think about. His mate should be surrounded by lush furnishings and color and instead it was as though Paulie had been too afraid to even put a picture on the wall. Even his drawings, which Zeus admired, had been kept in a folder, instead of framed and on the walls like they were now.

“I have been watching you since just before Christmas, you know.” Zeus helped himself to some lasagna and bread and picked up his fork. “I’m glad I saw you when I did, or those bastards out to hurt you would have left you for dead that night.”

Paulie winced, and Zeus wondered if he should’ve been so blunt.

“I couldn’t let my tiger out, although he really wanted to help,” Paulie said quietly. But he was eating, and Zeus took that as a good sign. “How did you see me? Is this something gods do?”

“Spying on people?” Zeus shrugged. “I suppose all gods do at some time or another. When we were worshipped, we used to watch our people all the time. But now, I’ve streamlined my system with computers so I can watch a lot of places at once. I saw so many acts of violence against paranormals who are helpless to save themselves against humans because of the non-disclosure law. I got annoyed with it, so employed Cass and Wesley to help shifters out. You were their first case, but they’ve saved many more paranormals since then.”

Paulie grabbed a piece of bread, crumbling it in his fingers. “Do you give apartments to all the people you save? Do you visit them and give them new beds too?”

“Bloody hell, no.” Zeus looked up from his meal. “I’m actually not a huge fan of people as a rule. You and me,” he pointed to Paulie’s chest and then his own. “Mates. Only one. The others get help, yes, according to their needs, but not a lot. The Fates get iffy if gods interfere with a mortal’s life.” Then a thought hit him, and he grinned. “You’ve got nothing to be jealous of, precious tiger.”

“I’m thinking jealousy may be a fact of my life from now on. I’ve read about you.” Paulie stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth, his cheeks a fetching pink.

Zeus chuckled. “Half of what you’ve read comes from an author’s overactive imagination. It’s not like any scholars came to Olympus and interviewed me or fact checked anything they printed.”

“You’re married.” Paulie stabbed at the remains of his lasagna. “To your sister, Hera, and a few others were mentioned, but everyone seems to agree you stayed married to her.”

“Hera lives at Olympus,” Zeus agreed, wondering how to explain. “Marriage is a fairly modern concept, wouldn’t you agree?”

“You would probably know more about that than I do.” Paulie kept his eyes on his plate.

Damn. “Okay, how about this then. Wouldn’t you agree that it’s not even legal to marry your biological sister?”

There was minute movement in Paulie’s shoulders. “I guess.”

“Hera and I never married in the sense you’re thinking, so technically I was never unfaithful to her, because we never married. She’s my sister, in that we have the same parents. It’s just, after the great war, and defeating the Titans, well, somewhere around there anyway, me and my brothers, Poseidon and Hades split up the realms and each managed one. I got the sky and became the father of the Greek gods. I needed a queen to rule by my side. We had children, but not in the traditional way – I mean, shit. I gave birth to Athena myself.” Zeus didn’t mention the back story for that little tidbit.

He hurried on. “The point is, you can’t believe everything you read about us. Anything really. When we were worshipped, our people assigned relationships to us that had no bearing on how we lived our actual lives. You know, mortals just assumed we had all these affairs, and indulged in huge quests and things like that, when in truth they were just stories pulled from the writer’s imagination. I am father of the Greek gods. That means I