Ambrosia Lane 1-3: Saranna DeWylde Read online

  “Nope, I do believe you’re bony,” he replied with unabashed glee. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I like to mix it up a bit. Can’t have steak for dinner every night, can I? I think you’d be like crab.”

  “Excuse me?” She blinked like a night animal that had been struck in the face with a searchlight. Had he just compared her to seafood? At least it wasn’t tuna. Then there was the STD comparison and she didn’t care for that at all.

  “Yeah, there’s not much meat to them and you have to work like a dog for what you do get, but when it’s finally on your tongue, it’s so tender and delectable you can’t get enough.”

  “It’s obvious that you think that was a compliment, but the image I get is me with my legs broken apart so you can suck the marrow from inside.”

  “And what sweet marrow it would be, between those legs.”

  Abstinence found herself with her back up against the wall and his strong hands kneading up her thigh. She shoved at his chest to put some space between them.

  “Tell me, oh King of Gods, does this sort of garbage actually get you laid?” It must work because he kept doing it, but his behavior bordered on needing to watch a No Means No PSA. She couldn’t believe he’d spoken to her to crudely.

  He spluttered and looked like he was going to choke on his own tongue and he stepped back.

  That was much better. “Hey, just because I’m Abstinence doesn’t mean I’m a dumbass, okay? I wouldn’t have gone home with you before I was a goddess. Does that tell you anything?”

  He recovered quickly. “Yeah, that you don’t know a good thing when you see it.”

  She rolled her eyes. Abstinence knew a good thing when she saw it and Zeus wasn’t it. She even doubted he was a good lover because he was so selfish in all of the other aspects of his existence. There was no reason for her to expect he’d be any different in bed. Unless of course, it was a vanity thing. Even then, she could imagine him getting distracted by a dresser mirror so he’d be watching himself instead of his partner. The story of Narcissus came to mind and wondered what would happen if the gods turned that sort of judgment on themselves.

  “Did you have any other reason for violating the sanctuary of my temple or was it simply to get a piece of the new meat?” Abstinence hoped he got to the point, she could say no and then he could leave—all nice and tidy.

  “I brought you a gift.” This was said as if it would somehow entice her.

  “Meant to get in my pants.” She rolled her eyes again. By the time this visit was over she imagined her head would feel like a pinball machine from the frequency with which his male petard inspired her to roll her eyes.

  “That’s always an option, but no, it wasn’t only to give you a mustache ride. We do have quite a sense of community here on Olympus. It’s a good place for immortals to raise their children or to live a quiet life, insulated from the mortal world. Although, we have made the move to modern technology. The wife does love her gadgets. Anyway, think of Olympus as the ultimate gated community.” He looked very proud of himself.

  “So far, I find security to be lacking.” Abstinence looked pointedly at the door and then back at him. She wondered if they had some version of Brinks or ADT to keep out unwanted gods who thought it was okay to teleport wherever they chose.

  She had this horrible imagery in her head of being in the john and having him teleport in on her in the middle of the deed. Which was stupid, because Abstinence didn’t eat, so she didn’t need those sort of facilities. Therefore, he wouldn’t be catching her mid-deed. She rather imagined it was like the nightmare where she thought she’d gone to school naked.

  “Oh, that.” He had the good grace to look a tiny bit bashful. “Honestly, I thought you simply didn’t hear my knock. If I promise not to do it again, will you forgive me?” Zeus smiled and his dimples gave him a boyish look that was almost impossible to resist.

  So that was how he did it—how he inspired everything with an X chromosome to fall over ready to submit to his will. (She’d heard the stories about his legendary conquests that really couldn’t be described as XX or XY.)

  She found herself smiling back at him, even though she’d been convinced only moments before she’d rather gargle broken glass than give the libertine that much. He was good. Too good and way out of her league. He’d have her on her back in a month. Too bad she couldn’t invoke herself, for herself.

  Perhaps that wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

  Abstinence smiled again. “I suppose I could forgive you this time.” What had just come out of her mouth? Get the hell out would have more appropriate than this smarmy flirting. Was she possessed?

  “How about a little sip of ambrosia wine?” The cork was out of the bottle and he held two crystal glasses in his hands. “My apology,” he said by way of explanation.

  “I’m afraid I must abstain.”

  “You will be abstaining. See, I offered you a full glass. If you decline and only have a sip, you’ve still abstained, but indulged at the same time. Very epicurean.” He promised all of this like a car salesman trying to get her to sign on the bottom line before she read the contract too closely. Yet, he was still somehow likable.

  The scary part of it was that his reasoning did make a certain sense. She wondered if she weren’t on Mt. Olympus at all, but lunching in Hell with the Devil. Abstinence took a small sip of the wine and when it touched her tongue, it was like dipping the edge of a papyrus in water. It was absorbed so quickly through her tongue and burst in bright energy through her body. She wanted more.

  But that was her curse. She always wanted more of everything. More taste, more touch, more scent, more, more, always more. Abstinence would have taken another drink when he plucked the glass from her thin fingers.

  “Wouldn’t want you to glut instead of abstaining. Never let it be said I led you from the path of righteousness.” He smirked.

  “No, never that.” Her eyes rolled of their own volition and she was starting to get dizzy.

  “I’ve never met a woman as unimpressed as you seem to be. Or is it all an act simply to make me desire you more?” Zeus asked.

  “I don’t want to be desired.” Liar. “I’m new, so it’s like finding a new restaurant. After you get bad customer service a few times you’ll be back to your old favorites in no time.”

  “Why is sex always likened to food? Have an answer for me next time I visit and I won’t seduce you.” Zeus grinned and disappeared.

  How rude. He disappeared before she could retort. Not that she cared. She had nothing to say to the god. Poor Hera. How did she deal with him? Abstinence still saw things through mortal eyes and felt them with a mortal heart.

  If her husband had ever treated her like Zeus treated Hera, it would have shattered her heart time and time again. The sex couldn’t be that good, could it? Or maybe Hera wasn’t even sleeping with him anymore. Was there such a thing as the immortal clap?

  3

  PERSEPHONE

  O h. My. Gods. If she had to listen to her mother blasting White Snake’s Here I Go Again just one more time, Persephone was going to smother the goddess in her sleep. It made it impossible for her to angst out to Resurrection by His Infernal Majesty. Ville Vallo’s vocals made her think of Hades in all of his dark, tortured and misunderstood beauty.

  She’d been devastated when he released her from the curse that demanded she spend the winter months with him in the underworld. He’d said he was letting her go because he loved her enough to want her to be happy. Persephone remembered his hands in her hair, the hard slash of his mouth crashing into hers and that moment with his fingers between her thighs when the universe had stopped still while galaxies exploded for her. She’d been so afraid of him at first; his broad shoulders, his eyes with their curious flames, the strength that thrummed through him like the pulse of eternity. She’d been sure his hands on her would have been like the Kraken trying to hold a butterfly, but his touch had been tender, considerate. He’d waited for her to sa
y yes to all the things he wanted from her, but she’d been too afraid.

  Persephone remembered those nights in his four poster bed, dragons and gargoyles intertwined; carved in stark relief. She remembered the solid length of his body and how he’d held her so gently against him, even with his cock hard against her belly. Still, he’d not rushed her to give him anything she hadn’t been ready for.

  Now, she wished he had. She wished she’d spread her thighs for him and loved him as a grown goddess should. He’d still be hers and she’d be in his arms, in his house and she would be his forever instead of rotting topside with her over-protective yet somehow still self-indulgent mother, Demeter.

  Demeter who demanded her daughter’s purity, demanded her devotion and commanded every aspect of every breath she’d ever drawn. That wasn’t love. If she’d loved her, she would have seen how happy she’d been with Hades. Sure, maybe it had been a little bit of Stockholm Syndrome at first, but that wasn’t something one could build eternity on. Persephone wanted Hades. She wanted his hands, his mouth, his body and his soul.

  Where Demeter got off handing down her edicts like she was in charge of something besides Spring, Persephone didn’t know. She couldn’t even sustain her own relationships without being needy and grasping. Everyone left her, even her human devotees eventually moved on when they realized she did nothing but take. Zeus had kicked her to the curb pretty early on for that kind of behavior.

  She cranked the volume on her iPod. “Goddess, Mother! The 80’s are dead. Let them rest in peace.” Persephone slammed her door so hard the entire temple shook. Her mother never even acknowledged the door slam anymore. It used to piss her off proper. And that made Persephone even more angry. She had no way to vent her frustrations, or engage in normal youthful rebellion. Oh no, she couldn’t do that because then her mother would get her thong in a knot and plunge the world into eternal winter.

  It was bullshit.

  Maybe Zeus would help her. He was technically her father. Not in the Odin All-Father way, (though, from the rumors, he took that title way too seriously as well) but in the biological way.

  Yes, technically that made Hades her uncle, but it didn’t work that way with gods and goddesses. They were all related in one way or another anyway, this one or that one leaping from Zeus’ head, or his foot… she wondered if any of his children had ever been spawned from a hemorrhoid. They’d come from every other part imaginable; his tears, his fingernails. That would be something to worry about: having another mouth to feed every time wind was broken, as Eros was fond of saying.

  Eros, the God of Love, was also on the list of unsavory company as far as her mother was concerned, but that didn’t stop her from sneaking out to the garden to talk with him every night. Yes, he was handsome, but contrary to her mother’s beliefs, not everything male would try to get into her chastity belt. (Her mother would have a stroke if she knew Persephone had figured out how to get the damn thing off and had been sans belt for sometime.)

  Granted, he read her poetry of the most salacious sort, but he used the poems to amplify the magic of his arrows. She gave a satisfied smirk when she imagined the look on her mother’s face if she discovered that Persephone not only knew what the word fellatio meant, but that she could rhyme it with six other words that meant the same thing.

  She frowned. Persephone was more than millennia old and she still had to hide things from her mother like she was some kind of mortal school girl hiding her cigarettes under the bed. Although, Persephone wasn’t permitted to go through a rebellious stage like every other creature in the universe, no. Because if she did, her mother threw the kind of fit that could end human existence and while the gods were loathe to admit it, they needed the mortals and if not their belief, the energy from the stories they told about them to keep them alive.

  Persephone had been tempted on more than one occasion to ask Eros to shoot someone for her mother so Demeter would have someone else’s life to meddle in besides hers. But she wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.

  He was bringing her an untraceable cell phone tonight for her help with this latest poem and she was going to call Hades. She wouldn’t blame dark god if he never wanted to speak to her again, but Persephone had to try. She refused to go the rest of eternity without him.

  4

  NYX

  N yx was looking forward to her afternoon at Jean Pierre’s with Hera. It had been an age since they’d taken a girl’s day and went shopping or had their hair done. A quick pomegranate salad here or a coffee there, no time to get to the meat of what was going on in either of their lives.

  She pulled the blanket of night around her and sighed. There was a new goddess on Olympus and no doubt Zeus had already tried to dip his thunderbolt into her cumulous places. Why Hera didn’t divorce him, she’d never know. It’s not like she wouldn’t be Queen of the Gods any longer. That title was hers until she croaked or chose to pass it on.

  Unless she had hatched some evil plan to make him pay and Nyx could definitely be on board for that. In fact, she’d captain that ship with certain glee. Zeus had been dicksmacking the goddesses of Olympus for long enough. It was time for him to pay the piper.

  Nyx teleported to Jean Pierre’s and was surprised to see Hera was already there. The pretty goddess already had a white towel wrapped around her hair and the Frenchman behind her in the tight leather pants was cooing happily. One dark tendril hung from the towel and Nyx looked at her questioningly. Hera was a redhead—or she had been until this recent visit to Jean Pierre.

  “What did you do?” Nyx asked with a giggle.

  “Something crazy, sugarbabe.”

  “How crazy?” Nyx bit her lip.

  Hera grinned and whipped the towel from her head. Her signature waist-length red locks had been cut to her shoulder blades and they were as black as the night Nyx draped over the mortal world until the last two inches of her ends. Those were royal purple. Hera made a kissy face and suddenly, her lips matched her ends.

  “Non! You promised!” Jean Pierre cried.

  “But I like it,” Hera wheedled.

  His gaze slid to Nyx. “Only if you make it up to me.”

  “Me? She’s the one wearing the purple,” Nyx pointed to Hera.

  He narrowed his eyes with contempt and Nyx shrugged. “What is it you want?”

  “I will color no more hair today. But I could be persuaded to take color off.”

  “Oh no. Not a chance, JP.”

  He cringed. “Now, it is a must. No one ever calls me JP. You know better, Nyx.”

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “How is it you always get your way? We’re goddesses and you’re… you.”

  “Because I am me, mon cherie. And I am French.” Jean Pierre eyed her hair with a satisfied expression.

  “If this goes bad, I blame you.” Nyx looked to Hera. “I can’t believe you started without me.”

  “I’m sorry, I knew if I didn’t do it I’d lose my nerve. Now I have to wear something besides the toga, or my hair won’t look right.” Hera leaned back as one of Jean Pierre’s assistants began massaging her hands and dropped a warm towel on her face.

  The good thing about immortal make-up, it tended to be water and steam proof. It was really more the experience of having the facial than any of the post-treatment benefits.

  Nyx couldn’t believe she was going to let Jean Pierre take the color off of her hair. She’d feel positively naked. Her tresses hadn’t been without Midnight Number One since 1920. Without it, her hair was silver. Not gray or blue steel like what some older mortal women were saddled with, but pure silver. Like moonlight, her lovers had told her.

  Nyx still thought it made her look old.

  As the warmth began to spray over her hair and slip down the drain; the armor of color with it, Nyx tried to relax. “The things I do for you, hooker,” she grumbled.

  “But you love me.”

  “Of course I do. Though, I will love you considerably less if you don’t open that sexy purple mouth an
d tell me all about whatever devious devices you’ve got up your sleeve.”

  “I’m going to fuck the Cerberus loving hell out of Hades.”

  “You are NOT. Are you? Oh my gods.” Nyx giggled. “That will serve blondie right. He’s treated you like refried Minotaur crap for long enough. He’s lucky if that’s all you do.”

  Good. She was happy to see her friend taking a stand against her cock-led husband. Nyx’s first husband, Nod had been a right bastard too and Nyx had sent him packing without a second thought. He’d pleaded with her to come back right up until the day he died. Nyx had cared for him in his end days because she’d never stopped loving him and he’d given her two beautiful sons, but she’d held firm. It warmed her heart sometimes to see her sons smile his smile, or laugh the way Nod had before he’d turned into such a cock, but it made her even happier to know at their cores, they were nothing like him.

  “Jean Pierre, I must swear you to secrecy,” Hera said earnestly.

  “I will tell them nothing!” he swore vehemently.

  And he wouldn’t. Hera would erase it from his memory as soon as they left. She’d known Jean Pierre for a long time, but she wasn’t stupid.

  “Well, you know I’m going to do Hades like he’s never been done before. But I’m a kingmaker, Nyx. I made Zeus who he is and I can unmake him too. Forget alimony, he can rot in Tartarus while Hades wears his crown.”

  Oh, this was more serious than she thought. “You can’t just…you know…leave him? Why do you have to do the whole bloody insurrection thing?”

  “You won’t support me?” Hera asked in a quiet, disbelieving tone.

  “Don’t be a dumbass. Of course I’ll support you. It’s just, if you don’t do this very carefully heads will roll, Hera. One of them will be yours. Remember the last time someone tried a little bite of mutiny cake? Zeus is paranoid as a meth head when it comes to his rule.”

  “I know. That’s why everything will be done under the cover of night. In your realm, where he can’t look unless you allow him.”