Page 292 of Mayhem and Minnie

“His identity is a mystery. But for thousands of years, he has served as the Commander of the Aperite forces.” She pauses. “And the executioner for all deities that misbehave. He’s not called the God Killer for nothing. Every single deity in Aperion fears him. The demons too. When the Sons of Tenebreis will break out of Tartareia—they’re bound to do so at some point—he’s the one everyone is counting on to lead the war against them. And from what I hear, he’s also set to become the new Polemos Supreme.”

So he’s the most feared guy in the universe. Damn. Now I’m curious about the contents of the letter too. How does one manage to defeat someone so strong?

“You mentioned that term before—supreme. What does it mean?” I ask.

Minnie purses her lips.

“It’s difficult to explain since most mythologies in the universe that have a pantheon consider their deities to be absolute. In reality, no deity is absolute. As I told you before, we might be immortal, but we are not eternal. The position itself, however, is eternal. A Supreme is the representation of a god for a certain designation.” Her brows pinch in concentration. “Take the gods in Anthropa's mythologies. Like the god of water. Or the god of earth.”

“Right.” I nod.

“In reality, those are just designation. There’s no one god of water, or god of earth. There’s the Supreme position that is the equivalent. But the people who fill that position come and go. Of course they usually hold onto their positions for thousands or tens of thousands of years,” she explains.

“It’s strange to hear that even gods can be replaced.”

“Yes. The strongest deities in a House are nominated for the Supreme position when it becomes vacant. It’s why the entire Aperite society operates on power and prestige. And every clan within a House competes to have as many Supremes from their families as possible. It’s not at all that different from your world, actually.”

“Who is the Ice Supreme?”

“Krisaides. He’s not from my branch of the family. I know of him, but I’ve never met him. He’s been a Supreme for far longer than I’ve been alive.”

“And your first fiancé?” I ask in a sharp tone.

She rolls her eyes at me.

“I’ll have you know I only met him a few times and always in the presence of a chaperone. He’s the heir to the King of Pyros, but from what I hear, he’s not as strong as the current king. I don’t know how he’s going to be received when he takes the throne. Although, after he repudiated me—very publicly I might add—he gained some sort of a reputation for being an honorable and upstanding Aperite.”

“Honorable and upstanding because he abandoned you?”

She sighs and nods. “It is what it is. No one in my world would accept a female who’s had an affair, let alone an affair with a mortal,” she adds flippantly.

“Still, it must have hurt to have everyone turn against you.”

“I was hurting about other things at that time to care much about what others thought of me.”

I grind my teeth to stop myself from asking if she was hurting about Lucien. But I have no doubt she was hurting about his death. Jealousy bubbles inside of me and I do my best to keep a leash on it. The last thing we need is another argument—especially after I promised her we would not broach that subject again.

I take a deep breath and look at the map instead.

Inhale. Exhale.

It appears that not even desecrating that fucker’s corpse was enough to curb my rage.

I pretend to look around to orient myself. There’s a strip of land not too far from us, and I try to cross reference it with the map.

“I think that’s where we need to get off,” I mention.

Minnie nods.

She’s sitting primly in the boat. The dress Katrina gave her gives her a sophisticated look. It’s a navy blue with frilly lace around the collar and four pearl buttons on the chest.

She looks damn good, but that’s something else I try not to notice.

Just sleeping in the same bed with her last night was torture enough. Her almost naked body was flush against mine, and I’d be lying if I said I got a proper sleep.

All I could do was take a trip to the bathroom every few hours to get some relief, but at this point that doesn’t even work.

Soon—I tell myself. Soon, we’ll be able to be with each other in every way imaginable, and perhaps some that I can’t quite imagine—yet.

---