Cruel Seduction

Book 5: Dark Olympus

by Katee Robert

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; Romantic Fantasy; Fantasy Romance

Synopsis

Aphrodite has never flinched at getting her perfectly manicured hands dirty, and she's not about to start now—even if that means marrying Olympus's enemy number one, the new Hephaestus. She has a wicked plan to keep her deadly new husband off-balance, seducing the one person he seems to care about most in this world: Pandora, a woman as beautiful as she is sweet. Two can play the seduction game, however, and Hephaestus is all too happy to put his new wife in her place. Her ex, Adonis, seems like he'll do the trick. It doesn't hurt that he's gorgeous in the way of fallen angels either. The only problem with using seduction as a weapon? Hearts are all too quick to get involved. With Hephaestus and Aphrodite trading venomous strikes that feel a whole lot like foreplay, lines become blurred and emotions entangled. But a broken heart may be the least of their worries. With unrest in Olympus reaching new heights, these bedroom games may have deadly consequences for them both, their city, and everyone they've come to love.

Release date: August 8, 2023

Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca

Print pages: 357

Sample

1APHRODITE

Even as a child, I knew I wouldn’t marry for love. Love is a fairy tale, a fantasy built on lies as fine as gossamer wings. Normal people marry for love. They settle down, do the white-picket-fence thing, have two-point-five children and a dog named Spot. Maybe they’re happy in the end. Maybe they’re not.

That isn’t my path.

I’m marrying for power. For duty. For Olympus.

I tighten the tie of my silk robe and fight the urge to pace around the bridal suite. Just fifteen minutes before, it was filled to the brim with bridesmaids and hair and makeup people, but I sent them away to give myself time to breathe. Two weeks is nowhere near long enough to pull together a wedding worthy of my title, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

My new husband is an enemy to the city that I love. A murderer, who killed the last Hephaestus to gain his title. He and his family are a danger unlike this city has ever known, and with the barrier around Olympus failing, the stakes have never been higher.

Even if I have no doubts about taking this course of action, that doesn’t mean it’s without cost.

I press my hand to the spot on my hip where a small tattoo is hidden, the skin still tender from the fresh inking yesterday. An anemone flower. I’m not normally so sentimental, but the physical pain alleviates the ache in my chest a little. Or at least that’s what I tell myself as I turn to the window overlooking the courtyard where I’ll walk down the aisle and sign my life away to Olympus’s new Hephaestus.

The rows of seats are half-filled with all the important people in this city. My family is nowhere in evidence; likely they’re having some kind of hushed meeting right about now to ensure my groom doesn’t attempt to leave me at the altar.

He didn’t choose this marriage, after all.

I smile. I don’t know what Theseus Vitalis thought he’d accomplish by taking the Hephaestus title by force, but he’s a small fish in a big pond here, even if he is now one of the Thirteen. He tried to argue against the marriage, but with the rest of the Thirteen in agreement on this course of action, he was essentially out-voted.

I chose this. I will continue to choose this. Growing up as the daughter of one Zeus—and now the sister to another—there was never any question that my marriage would be one of politics.

It also means I’m no stranger to violence and death. And if Minos’s people decide they’re better off trying to take my title by making him a widower…

I ignore the frisson of something almost like fear slithering down my spine. Ruling Olympus means we’re all swimming in blood up to our necks, even if some of my peers pretend otherwise. I’ve never had the luxury of a soft fantasy, and I’m not about to start now.

I’ll do anything to keep this city safe.

Even this. Especially this. I was made for this.

A knock on my door has me turning from the window. I tighten my belt again, pause to ensure my makeup is pristine, and walk to the door. “I said I need some time. Why are you—” I stop short when I see who’s on the other side. I thought the ache in my chest was inconvenient earlier. It’s nothing compared to the pure agony that flares as I look up into Adonis’s dark eyes.

He looks good. Of course he looks good. He always does, even when he’s obviously been missing sleep. His dark-brown skin is warm in the early afternoon light, but there are exhaustion lines around his eyes. He doesn’t smile. It’s fine. I don’t deserve his smiles any longer, but I still mourn the loss. “Adonis,” I say softly. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited.” I belatedly register that he’s wearing a perfectly tailored pale-gray suit. He

always dresses well, but this is clearly event clothing.

I didn’t invite him. I have plenty of capacity for cruelty, but I don’t level it at those I care about. At those I…love. I swallow past the awful sensation in my throat. “You shouldn’t have come.”

He doesn’t deny it. Instead, he seems to drink in the sight of me. “It should have been me, Eris.”

He’s the only person outside my family who uses the name I was born with instead of my title. It used to feel like a secret just between us, but now he might as well have pulled out a knife and stabbed me. Gods, why does this hurt so much? “It was never going to be you.” Pain makes my voice harsh. “My brother never would have allowed it.” Except that’s a cop-out. Zeus didn’t force me to marry Hephaestus. I decided on this course of action. I square my shoulders. “I never would have allowed it.”

If I could marry for love, I would have married Adonis without a second thought. Our relationship has never been particularly smooth, but it has been consistent in its inconsistency. He makes me laugh more than any other person in this city, and he makes me feel seen, even if he doesn’t always like my more chaotic impulses.

But I am Aphrodite, formerly Eris Kasios, daughter of one Zeus and sister to another. My fate was written the moment I was born.

Adonis’s jaw goes tight. “Come with me.”

“What?”

“Come with me,” Adonis repeats. He holds out a broad hand. “I’ve already bribed Triton. We just have to get to the boundary and he’ll see us through. You don’t have to do this, Eris. We can leave. We can start a life somewhere outside this fucking city and be happy.”

The space behind my eyes burns, but I am a Kasios and I learned from a very young age to control my tears. I will not cry now, even if it feels like the broken shards of my heart are grinding to dust against each other. “No.”

He doesn’t drop his hand. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

How can I love him even more now, knowing that he would sacrifice everything for me, even though I would never have asked it of him?

I shake my head slowly. “No,” I repeat. “We had something special, Adonis. Don’t ruin it with theatrics.” The words are cruel, intentionally so. I swallow hard and push through. If I have to hurt him to keep him safe, then I will.

This is why we could never be endgame. Adonis insists on seeing the best of me, without acknowledging the depths I will descend to in order to keep my people and my city safe. He will always balk about doing what needs to be done, and I don’t have the luxury of hesitation.

“Eris—”

“Aphrodite.” My grip goes white-knuckled on the door. “I am Aphrodite, and you’d damn well better remember it. I chose this, Adonis. I chose…him.”

“Don’t lie to me. You hate him.”

“I would rather take a knife to his throat than slip his ring on my finger.”

He flinches. 

“Then why?”

“You know why.” I have to pause and lower my voice. “Your parents didn’t raise a fool, so stop playing the innocent. Minos has a foothold in the Thirteen now; he isn’t going to stop. What happens if we tuck tail and flee, leaving everyone else to pay the price of his ambitions?”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. Neither is you showing up here and asking something from me that we both know I can’t give.” My chest aches so much, I can barely draw a full breath. I refuse to let it show on my face. “What I do, I do to protect this city and everyone in it. Including you.”

This marriage is the only way. Friends close and enemies closer and all that. I want Hephaestus to pay, and the best way to ensure that happens is if we’re sharing a life, a home, a bed. He and his little fucked-up family won’t be able to slither about unnoticed when we’re in such close quarters. He’ll slip up, and when he does, I’ll be there to gather all the information I need to ensure Minos doesn’t succeed.

In the meantime, I’ll keep my new husband so busy chasing his tail that he won’t have time to worry about plotting his next move.

I lift my chin. “I am marrying him, Adonis. Nothing you say or do will change that.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to apologize, but if I’m sorry this is hurting him, I’m not sorry that I’m taking this necessary action. “I think you should leave.”

His broad shoulders slump. “You’re serious. You’re really going to marry him.”

“Yes.” It hurts to watch him crumple, but it hurts more when he straightens and shakes it off. Anyone with a drop of power in Olympus learns to lie early and often, with word and action and expression.

Adonis has just never bothered to lie to me before.

He does it now with a bright grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Point taken, Aphrodite.”

Gods, but it hurts to hear that name on his lips. “Adonis—”

“See you around. Or not.” He turns without another word and walks away.

I tell myself to close the door, to not watch him and hope against hope that he’ll turn back and look at me. That this thing between us won’t be over, once and for all.

I know better. Despite how he sometimes seems, Adonis is no innocent. We grew up together. He knows exactly what it takes to grab power in Olympus—and what it takes to keep it.

“Eris?”

I jolt at my sister’s voice. I hadn’t even heard her approach. “I’m fine,” I say automatically. I almost sound like I believe it.

“Was that—” She looks past me to where Adonis is disappearing around the corner.

“I don’t want to talk

about it.” I step back into the room. It takes a full five breaths before I have my emotions under control. The new tattoo on my hip feels like it’s beating in time with my heart, but that’s just my mind playing tricks. “Help me get into this dress.”

Helen—Ares, she’s called now—follows me into the room with worry in her hazel eyes. She’s already ready, dressed in the tasteful red bridesmaid dress I picked out last week. It took a bit of doing to get our dresses tailored and ready in time, but the designer pulled it off. Not the legendary Juliette—she doesn’t like me much—but another recommended by Psyche Dimitriou.

My sister unzips the cover around my dress. “You don’t have to do this.”

We’ve had this same conversation half a dozen times since I announced I would marry our new Hephaestus, making our union a condition of the rest of the Thirteen accepting him and the power-hungry Minos into our inner circle.

But Helen is an idealist. I’m still not sure how she managed that while growing up in the same household I did. Having an abusive megalomaniac as a father has a way of bringing things into perspective. Helen has spent her whole life fighting against the role she was assigned at birth.

I’ve embraced it.

I don’t bother to answer her as she takes down the dress and holds it for me to step into. I’ve planned my image carefully for this event, from the dress that dips low between my breasts and skims the rest of my body, to the lace layered over fabric panels the same color as my skin. It’s meant to tease, to tantalize.

This marriage won’t be in name only. I won’t give my new husband a single piece of ammunition to say it’s anything less than legitimate in order to claim an annulment. That includes consummating, no matter how distasteful I find the idea. Hephaestus is attractive in a rough kind of way, but he’s crude and about as subtle as a brick through a window. Mutual hate can lead to intense chemistry in the bedroom, but in this case, with how he keeps looking at me like he’d love to see my blood paint the walls, I’ll be lucky if we both make it to tomorrow alive.

Helen finishes zipping me up and steps back, her expression unreadable. When we stand side by side, it’s achingly clear that we’re closely related. We have our mother’s coloring, though Helen’s hair is lighter than mine with little bits of red catching the late afternoon light. She’s prettier, too, though pretty isn’t the right word. Helen has traffic-stopping beauty. On me, the same features are a little too sharp, a little uncanny.

I prefer it that way. My beauty makes people uncomfortable. Wary.

My new husband won't know what hit him. 

 

2HEPHAESTUS

“I don’t want to do this.”

“It’s too late for that, my boy.” Minos, the foster father I owe everything to, stands before me and adjusts my collar. Almost as if he’s a real father at his real son’s wedding. The pride on his face is real enough, even if everything else about today is a farce. He pats my shoulder. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Funny how he only remembers the last part of that saying when it suits him. When we came to Olympus, things seemed simple enough. Take the Ares title and secure a spot for the rest of my family in this cesspool of a city. Except nothing has gone to plan since we arrived here. I was eliminated in the second round instead of going on to win the whole tournament. More, that little bitch left my knee permanently fucked up. Not even surgery could fix it.

If we were anyone else, that would have been the end of it.

We’re not anyone else, though. Minos isn’t anyone else. He’s a powerful man beholden to someone even more powerful. A single failure isn’t enough to set someone like that back. I’m not convinced he didn’t plan for us to miss the mark in the Ares tournament, because he pivoted fast enough afterward.

“You never said that taking the title like this would sink me up to my neck in political bullshit.” Political bullshit like marrying that witch Aphrodite. From the moment I saw her, I’ve hated her and wanted her in equal measures. She’s too smart, too gorgeous, too good at getting under my skin. A marriage would be bad enough—it’s not something I’ve ever wanted—but with this pairing, every day will be a battlefield.

“If you’d succeeded at claiming the Ares title, you would have married Helen.” An edge creeps into Minos’s voice. “You failed, so here we are. Helen would have been a more biddable wife, but the dice have been rolled.”

I highly doubt the woman who maimed me would ever be described as biddable, but I’m not about to argue. It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m not marrying Helen. I’m marrying Aphrodite. “I didn’t fail twice,” I snap.

I’m one of the Thirteen most powerful people in Olympus now, but since I killed the last Hephaestus and stepped into his place, there’s been nothing but strings tying me down. Can’t do this. Can’t do that. Have to marry her. In all this shit, no one mentioned that I’d lose all free will the moment I lost my name. I fucking hate it.

Minos draws himself up. He’s a big man, nearly as broad as me and an inch taller. He’s aged in the time we’ve been here, the lines deeper around his eyes and mouth. All my life, he’s been a godlike figure. He’s the one who rescued me from that orphanage, the one who taught me everything I know and carved me into the warrior I am today.

I might not agree with all his shit, but I owe him everything.

I start to drag my hand through my hair, but he catches my wrist. “You’ll muss yourself.”

“I could give a fuck.”

His mouth thins. “Appearances matter here, Hephaestus. That’s a lesson you need to learn, and fast.”

Hephaestus. Not Theseus. The only person who uses my real name anymore is Pandora, and I haven’t seen much of her in the last two weeks. My fiancée is holding her hostage in the wedding party, though Aphrodite would never be so plain as to say as much. “My name is Theseus.”

“Not anymore.” Minos looks me up and down. “You’re no use to me if you can’t do your job. We’re

not done here in Olympus, not by a long shot, and I can’t waste time babysitting you. I have things to take care of.”

Things to take care of. Right. Not that he tells me much anymore. My name isn’t the only thing I lost when I became Hephaestus. The title put me on the other side of the line from Minos, or at least it feels that way. I can’t shake the feeling he doesn’t trust me now. “I got it,” I finally manage. “I won’t disappoint you.”

“I know you won’t, my boy. Not again.” He glances at his watch. “It’s time.”

A protest rises up my throat, but I swallow it back down. It’s too late to turn back. It was too late the moment we came to this fucking city. I follow Minos out into the hallway where my groomsmen are gathered. My foster brothers, the Minotaur and Icarus…and the two men I didn’t choose. Eros, a fucking fixer for Olympus. And Zeus, my future brother-in-law. They couldn’t have spelled out the threat more clearly than if they’d written it in blood.

Zeus is a white guy with blond hair and blue eyes so cold, they give even me pause. He raises an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“Not at all.” Minos is all projected good cheer. “No cold feet to speak of.”

“Good.” So much threat in four letters. “Let’s go.”

We file out of the building and into the yard or courtyard or whatever the fuck this space is. It’s packed with people and there are flowers everywhere. As if this is a real wedding, instead of a charade.

The rest of the Thirteen are here. I easily pick them out in the first few rows. Artemis, who looks like she wants nothing more than to strike me down where I stand for killing her cousin. Athena, Dionysus, Apollo, Poseidon, all of them serious and stern. I notice that Apollo brought his little girlfriend along.

Every single one of them wants me dead, and here they are, attending my wedding. Have to keep up appearances. This city loves that shit. Demeter, Hades, and Hera round out the guests. Soft. All of them are so fucking soft.

The music swells, and the guests turn as one to look back at the fancy door at the back of the space. First comes Ariadne, my foster sister. I don’t have much experience with weddings, but I thought the point was to pick ugly bridesmaid dresses so they don’t show up the bride. Aphrodite hasn’t done that. The deep red looks nice against Ariadne’s light-brown skin and the cut is flattering on her curvy body.

My gaze tracks to the reporters clustered just off to the side. Their snapping cameras are audible even with the strange little melody the wedding planner picked for this part of the event.

Pandora follows, and fuck if that doesn’t piss me off even more. She looks great. She always looks great. Her dress is a little different from Ariadne’s and fits her curves to perfection. She gives me a big smile, as if this whole thing is real instead of a political marriage to my enemy. But then, Pandora has a habit of only seeing the bright side of things. She’s my perfect balance in that way because fuck if I can see anything bright about this situation.

I wish I’d had a chance to talk to her in the last couple days. She always has a new perspective

to offer, and maybe she knows some secret that will make this marriage anything less than open warfare.

Except that’s a fool’s dream.

Hermes and Ares follow. Hermes is a petite Black woman wearing an honest-to-gods jumpsuit with her natural curls on full display. She’s cute, but I’ve seen exactly how dangerous she is. Only a fool would see the impish smile and think she’s harmless.

Ares is last: a white woman with auburn hair, each move showcasing the kind of grace that she used against me in the Ares competition. I hadn’t known she was a gymnast before entering the tournament. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have underestimated her. I watch her approach with narrowed eyes. She’s the reason I walk with a limp now, and I’d like nothing more than to return the favor.

Ares lifts her gaze and catches me staring. She’s absolutely stunning, even when glaring. If Aphrodite didn’t want to be outshone on her wedding day, she shouldn’t have put her sister in the wedding party. Ares is the kind of beautiful that makes me a little sick to my stomach. Features too perfect to be real.

I could fix that for her.

Her gaze flicks to my knee and her smile widens. It’s everything I can do to stand perfectly still as she walks past to take up her place on the other side of the altar instead of wrapping my hands around her long throat.

The music changes and then it’s Aphrodite’s turn.

The air goes charged as she steps through the doors and makes her way slowly down the aisle. She doesn’t have the same otherworldly beauty that Ares does, but I can’t tear my gaze away from her. Her dress is almost indecent, or at least hints that it could be with one wrong move, and her mass of dark hair is piled on her head in a fancy design that looks like it took hours.

She holds my gaze boldly. It strikes me that she’s walking down the aisle alone. Shouldn’t her brother be giving her away instead of standing at my back like he wants nothing more than to sink a knife between my ribs before I can say my vows?

There’s probably some symbolism here. Olympus seems to love that shit. Nothing is straightforward and no one says what they mean. It wasn’t like that back on Aeaea. I won’t pretend it was some nice life without pitfalls, but at least people didn’t smile to your face and then murder you the first chance they got.

It isn’t lost on me that I did exactly that two weeks ago.

Aphrodite stops in front of me. She’s already tall, but wears heels that make her even taller than my six feet, two inches. She smiles and it’s not a happy expression. I once again have to fight not to tense. I’ve read the headlines of that gossip site they call news—MuseWatch. No one believes this is a love match. It’s a relief in a way.

I don’t have to pretend to like my wife.

The priest, an old white guy with all of three hairs on the top of his head, starts going on about the principles that guide a good marriage, but I ignore him and stare at the woman I’m linking my life to.

Not for long. Not if Minos and the others have their way. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, all smiles and pretend joy. My foster father doesn’t share my difficulty with lying in both expression and body language. The memory of his words has me straightening.

This is what’s required to keep the rest of them thinking we’re cowed. Play the part, Theseus. 

 

I follow the priest’s instructions to place my left hand under Aphrodite’s right. Her skin is soft and smooth, free of the calluses that mark mine. I’m not fool enough to think that means she’s not dangerous. She’s already proved otherwise.

“Cold feet, Husband,” she murmurs.

“No colder than your heart,” I snap.

The priest ignores us as he wraps a piece of golden cloth around our hands, binding us together symbolically. He drones on about binding our lives together. It seems to go on forever, ...