Page 10 of Taking Orders in the Underworld

“The twins will be with us shortly,” Nyx said.

Nika raised an eyebrow. So she’d been screamed at to arrive to supper on time, but the boys were allowed to come and go as they pleased?

Her father shot her a warning look, his thick black eyebrows knitting together as he gave her an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

Sighing, Nika knew now was not the time to push the matter and took a seat opposite her father, and directly to the right of her mother.

Nyx clicked her fingers. In front of them, sparkling palladium plates were suddenly filled with all manner of foods. Blackened fish and roasted marrow dripping with melted cheeses, savoury curd sprinkled with mint and a dash of citrus juice, sheets of floppy laganon pasta topped with a tomato sauce and more grated mizithra cheese, spanakorizo rice and spinach, and – at the centre of it all – a small, roasted goat.

“Do you think we have enough food?” Nika asked.

“Why don’t you tell me? Apparently you work in an establishment that would know. One which we still haven’t been invited to,” Nyx admonished her.

Nika stiffened. She’d known this was coming, that someone would have reported back to her parents what she was doing. But she’d expected them to berate her about it, not show an interest or ask for an invitation.

“I didn’t think you’d want to go somewhere that was named after Zeus. Especially after you called him an upstart.”

Her mother sniffed. “Well, he is one.”

“Ergo, why there’s been no invite,” Nika said curtly, wanting to move away from the subject as quickly as possible.

“You will watch your tone, young lady.” The words spoken by her father were quiet, but when he spoke, Nika listened. So did Nyx. So did everyone in the family, for he was the only one who knew how to broker peace amongst them. Erebus, who the world knew as the help-meet to Nyx, was actually the glue that kept the family from tearing one another's throats out.

Breeding children to be duty-bound deities and spirits tended to make for a lot of headstrong, independent, righteous personalities.

Nika was about to apologise for her brusque response when footsteps sounded.

“Well, well, well, who do we have here? Why, is that our little, long-lost sister?” a voice boomed into the depths of the dining hall as one broad-shouldered male walked into the room, followed by another who looked identical to him. Both strode over to Nika, and before she so much as had a chance to stand to avoid them, they came to either side of her, lifted her from her chair, and squeezed her between them.

“Put me down!”

“Oh, but sister, how we’ve missed you.”

“Look! Your hair is back to its lovely colour. Whatever happened to that bubblegum blue we last saw you with?”

“Oh yes! Right before she left, when she was trying to prove a point.”

“What point was that again?” one of them asked the other.

Nika wriggled. “I said, Put. Me. Down!”

At once Nika’s two brothers released her from their arms. She dropped into her chair like a ragdoll, bruising her tailbone with the force at which she collapsed.

“Ow!”

“Missed us?” Thanatos grinned at Nika, as he placed a peck on their mother’s cheek and took a seat beside their father.

“Not even slightly.” Nika scowled, as Hypnos, too, placed a kiss on their mother’s cheek, ruffled Nika’s hair, and took the seat beside her.

Both brothers immediately helped themselves to large portions of each dish in front of them, piling up their plates until there was a small mountain of food on each of them.

“See? There is only just enough food,” Nyx smartly reprimanded Nika.

“That’s because these two are monstrous,” Nika pointed at both her brothers, whose muscular frames were three times the size of any muscle-bound Soul that turned up in the Underworld.

“Hey! It’s not our fault you’re stick-thin.”

“Don’t body-shame me,” Nika bit back.

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