Page 7 of Loved By Aphrodite

“What for?”

“Their baby shower, which you managed to ruin.”

“Me? How?”

Aphrodite rarely lost patience with her son, but Hephaestus could sense her growing frustration. “You came here, or rather, crashed,” he said. “Landed outside here in a ball of flame, like you’d been shot out of a cannon. What happened to you, s—Eros?” He bit his tongue, glad he didn’t call him son aloud. He hadn’t done that in millennia, not since Eros was a young boy.

“Who hurt you?” Aphrodite added. “And why?”

Eros paused, as if trying to remember. Shrugging, he sat up. “It was nothing.”

“Those burns weren’t nothing,” his mother countered.

He let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re being dramatic, Mama. I’m sure I would have eventually been fine. It was just Drakkon fire.”

“JustDrakkon fire?” Aphrodite exclaimed. “You damned well better get down on your knees and thank Apollo for helping you. Drakkonen fire wounds would have taken decades to heal.”

Formerly servants of the gods, Drakkons were winged, serpent-like creatures who used to pull the chariots of Mount Olympus. For their loyalty and contribution to winning the war, Zeus freed them from their drudgery and gave them human forms so they could live free. Kind of human, anyway. The transformed Drakkons were all males, over twenty feet in height, covered in diamond-like scales, and could breathe a fire so intense they could raze entire cities and make them burn for years. They mated with human women over the centuries, and while their current descendants were only seven feet tall, theywere still formidable and retained their ability to spew a deadly magical flame.

“Why the hell would Drakkons hurt you?” Hephaestus asked.

“They weren’t trying to hurt me,” he said dryly. “They were trying to kill me.”

His mother paled. “Wh-what?”

“I said, try, Mama. They knew they couldn’t kill me.” He got to his feet, using his bow as a crutch. “I was just messing with them. But they do get protective during their mating season, and I may have used some of my arrows on a few of the human women they were courting.”

“I don’t even want to know what you did,” Aphrodite sighed. “Whatever will I do with you?”

“I can take care of myself,” Eros said.

“Yet in your time of need you wanted your mother,” Hephaestus snorted. “You called for her and thus transported yourself as close to her as possible.”

“Well—wait a minute.” His gaze shifted from Hephaestus to his mother and back again. “What are you both doing here, together?”

“We’re not together,” Aphrodite said quickly. “I was invited to the baby shower.”

“So was I.” And now he wished he hadn’t shown up at all. “And don’t try to change the subject.”

“I wasn’t.” He brushed his hands down himself. “Anyway, it sounds like everything’s fine. Do say hi to the happy parents-to-be.” And with that, he disappeared.

Aphrodite could only shake her head and cover her face with her hands. “I know he’s an adult. Millenia-old and a god at that but…”

“That doesn’t mean he stops being your child.” He raised a hand toward her as if to soothe her, but dropped his arm to his side when he realized what he was doing. “Besides, you wouldn’thave been able to say no to him.” And Hephaestus would know, because he himself could not say no to his ex-stepson.

As soon as the divorce was finalized, Hephaestus did everything he could to avoid Aphrodite. Eros, however, continued to come around to his workshop, mostly asking for help with improving or repairing his bow. The boy was the innocent party in this entire mess, so Hephaestus never turned him away, but he did not discourage him either.

“Th-thank you, by the way,” Aphrodite said. “For your assistance.”

He grunted. “Of course.”

Her expression softened. “Hephaestus, do you think?—”

“I should get back to my workshop,” he interrupted.

“But the party?—”

“I only came to deliver the gift. I wasn’t planning on staying.”

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