Page 3 of Sweet Obsession

No. There’s no reason to check on him. There is, however, every reason to ensure that the meeting of the Thirteen doesn’t progress without me present. There are people among that number who I trust to put the city’s safety first, but unfortunately they’re in the minority. I need to be there to act as a balancing force.

I run into Polyphemus near the front door. He looks just worried as I feel. “You’re off to the tower?”

“Yes. I need you and Orion to gather all the people we have and set up a network of sentries along the coastline to ensure that none of those ships land without our knowing about it. Use phones but have radios as backup in case something happens to the cell towers.” I don’t want to believe Circe would be able to dismantle our communication so quickly, but better to plan for the worst outcome. “I’ll be back as quickly as possible.”

“Everything with the Thirteen takes longer than it should. But yeah, I’ll see it done.” He shakes his head, his strong brows drawing together. “And the captive?”

Despite myself, I can’t help my gaze tracking to the door of the room Icarus is currently locked in. There isn’t a sound coming from behind the thick wood, which is just as well. He can’t escape. “He may have information we need. I’ll deal with him when I return.”

I don’t bother to call for a driver as I leave the house. My truck will serve my purposes fine, and I prefer to drive myself unless having a driver is absolutely necessary. I recognize that employing one is the normal way of doing things among the legacy families in Olympus, but it’s silly to employ someone just to drive me around on the rare occasions I need it. My people have better things to do with their time. Most of the rich and powerful in this city already think I’m odd, and this is just one additional piece of proof to support that belief. Having realized they couldn’t use me to further their goals, they mostly leave me alone.

At least until Hera recruited me for her coup.

It takes far too long and yet no time at all to drive into thecenter city. I hate to spend time in this part of the upper city. No one says what they mean, and everything is a lie. Even the buildings themselves participate in the illusion, each of them nearly identical despite their disparate purposes. A bar looks the same as a pharmacy, which looks the same as an office building. It’s a low-level irritation, but an irritation nonetheless. It’s also a perfect representation of what Olympus is. Of what the Thirteen are.

I’m one of the last to arrive. It makes sense, since I had the farthest to come, except for Hades…but Hades isn’t here. Neither is Hermes, now that I start counting heads. The latter makes sense; she’s been missing more often than she’s been present in the last few months. But Hades? He shows up for every meeting like clockwork. He’s the one other member of the Thirteen that I can depend on to have a cool head and to have his priorities in order.

At least until the attacks in the lower city had him raising the barrier that runs along the River Styx. I assumed it had fallen with the exterior wall and that he would be present, but maybe my assumptions are false.

I take my customary seat midway down the large rectangular table, between Demeter and Artemis. Artemis is about ten years younger than me with light-brown skin, dark curly hair, and a selfish streak a mile long. That trait hasn’t gotten better with the death of her cousin, the former Hephaestus. Demeter…is more complicated. She’s a soft-looking white woman who’s on her way out of middle age, not that you can tell by looking at her. She has deep laugh lines around her full mouth and crow’s-feet branching from her hazel eyes, but there’s something about her that continues to be ageless.

It’s what drew me to her initially, at least long enough to have a short, ill-fated affair. Ill-fated because I had no interest in becoming one of her ex-husbands and she had no interest in sharing power, even if it was only the perception of shared power. I wouldn’t say we’re friends now, but we have an uneasy truce.

Across the heavy wooden table, Athena watches me with unreadable dark eyes. She’s a beautiful Black woman about my age with her hair cut fading up the sides of her head and leaving her curls longer on top. She’s not happy I chose to spare Icarus, and while I can understand that, I’m not one to let my emotions get the best of me. Most of the time. Icarus is a tool to be used; I didn’t spare him out of the goodness of my heart. But Athena doesn’t like to leave loose ends, especially when that loose end sent her on a wild-goose chase through Olympus before the confrontation in the marina.

Zeus clears his throat, drawing everyone’s attention to the head of the table. He’s only a few years younger than me, but there’s something untried about his energy. I can appreciate his having no interest in playing the games the others do, but that lack of interest is a weakness all the same. The last Zeus may have been a monster, but we relied on his charm to keep the people happy and the streets relatively safe.

Not that I think he would have been better suited to handle the crisis before us now. Knowing him, he would’ve tried to make a deal with the enemy so he could come out on top, even if that meant sacrificing large numbers of people. That wouldn’t work now anyway, not whensheis the head of the enemy forces. The monster threatening Olympus is of the former Zeus’s making. A reckoningthat has been a long time coming.

“Circe is here.” I don’t mean to say it, but I hate this pregnant silence. We don’t have time for this. We need to move, to plan, to orchestrate some kind of defense. We squandered what little time we had to prepare for her with infighting. Now she’s here and all that’s left to do is scramble for our lives and those of every person in the city.

Or surrender.

Zeus plants his hands on the table and half rises. He’s an athletic white man with dark-blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He’s handsome in the way of all Kasios family members, but where Ares and Eris—and even Hercules—are the beauty of warmth, Zeus is all ice. His cold doesn’t thaw now. If anything, the sensation of a freezing barrier closing around him only seems to grow. “The time for personal vendettas and bullshit is past. The enemy is at our gates, and if you think Circe will spare a single one of us, you’re a fool. She has more reason than most to hate the Thirteen and Olympus. She’ll show no mercy. She won’t be satisfied until the city is reduced to rubble and every person in this room is dead.” He takes a deep breath. “And that’s why I’m calling for the vote of war. We need to attack the ships before more arrive, to cut Circe down before she has a chance to do more damage.”

I accidentally catch Hera’s eye. I look away almost the moment I make contact, but even in that brief glimpse, I see satisfaction. The idea of the Thirteen ceasing to exist doesn’t seem to bother her. It’s strange. Her family has more connections to the various members of the Thirteen than most—her sister married to Hades, her mother occupying the title of Demeter.

Those connections should make her fight all the harder to protect the Thirteen. They don’t. Maybe she craves a simpler time, before her mother became Demeter and brought her and her sisters into the city proper. It’s those connections that resulted in her becoming Hera, a bargain to protect her family—not to seek power herself.

It’s a similar enough story to several of the past few Heras. Our current Zeus’s mother was a social climber, but Circe was just a beautiful woman with no connections. The Thirteen sure as fuck didn’t protect her when the last Zeus picked her up off the street and married her in a whirlwind ceremony. No one stepped in as he swept her off to a honeymoon that only one of them returned from. A swimming accident, he said. His fresh bride drowned in the ocean. Her body was never recovered.

Now we know why.

She’s back for revenge, and if her plan didn’t involve a navy laying siege to the city itself, I would step back and allow her to do it. Except the man who hurt her has been dead for nearly a year. Our current Zeus was a teenager when all of that happened, and while I was freshly named Poseidon at the time, I wasn’t much older. Perseus couldn’t be expected to do anything. Not when his father saved the worst of his torments for his eldest son. Or that’s what the rumors say.

But I should have done something. The guilt for the past Zeus’s actions have been a weight for the entirety of my tenure as Poseidon. I’m one of the three legacy positions. I should be able to use my power to protect people. Except nothing works like it should in Olympus.

The only people I can protect aremypeople, so I’ve spent the last decade focused on doing exactly that. Maybe it was a mistake not to fight for more power, not to try to expand my circle of protection past my territory… I don’t know. Even if I had tried to push back against Zeus’s abuse of power and people, I’m experienced enough to acknowledge that nothing would have changed.

Except there would be someone else of my bloodline occupying this seat right now, observing the same bitter rivalries play out, again and again.

While I’ve been musing, a heated discussion has started. Not that I need to be present to know the familiar routes this conversation takes. Zeus makes a declaration. Immediately, Artemis and the new Hephaestus begin listing all the reasons he’s wrong. It doesn’t matter what statement he begins with; it always progresses the same. Now Demeter will step in, making a big show of striving for peace while really riling up both sides. Hermes and Dionysus will whisper back and forth, lobbing a well-aimed insult from time to time to increase the chaos. All while Hades and Hera watch with unreadable expressions on their faces.

Except Hades and Hermes aren’t here.

I clear my throat. “We’re missing two key members.”

“A vote of war only needs a majority. They aren’t necessary.” Zeus meets each person’s gaze in turn. “As long as those of us here tonight are united.”

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