Page 89 of Muzzled

Ryan shot outof the reception room, Hades hot on his heels.

“Maybe we should consider keeping them apart until the wedding,” his boss called out while they bolted through the halls. “It’s only been getting worse every week.”

Skidding to a halt at the door to his suite, he listened as the women’s voices continued to shout over each other. “If we make it through these final three days without one of them killing the other, I’ll consider that a feat of epic proportions.”

The past month had been a flurry of activity in the underworld. Upon hearing the news of their engagement, Persephone had thrown herself into what she referred to as “her obligations as a suitable mother-in-law.”

Micah insisted it was Seph’s way of making up for what she’d done, but Ryan wasn’t fully back on the Make Nice with Persephone train.

Banquet preparations were begun, attendance lists created and deleted as old grudges were brought up and assessed for significance. Seating arrangements had taken a week, with Seph creating color-coordinated maps she then used to craft the 3D models she studied every morning. Invitations were meted out with deliberate timing, the most influential of the deities receiving theirs days before the lesser ones were welcomed into the fold. A plethora of flowers and bolts of cloth were strewn throughout the banquet hall, meticulous notes tucked beside each one.

Micah held her tongue for the first week, calmly following Seph from room to room and making polite observations on the minute details which had become of upmost importance to the goddess. As they lay in bed at night, she would entertain him with her impersonations of Persephone, her own involvement in their wedding taking a back seat to the goddess’s obsession with becoming the perfect mother-in-law.

But by the end of the second week, her good humor was waning. Every waking moment became an unending parade of colors and names and textures, and he would return in the evenings to find her glaring at reams of cloth and paper samples curated from top-quality papyrus.

The din inside the suite rose again and he opened the door, Hades keeping a few steps back.

“Micah, angel?” he called over the rising voices. “Everything okay?”

She stormed from the bedroom, barely visible over the mountains of satin and lace billowing around her. “No. No, no, no!” Holding her arms out, she spun, tripping gracelessly with a curse. “I look like a goddamn possessed marshmallow.” Seph rounded the corner, arms crossed and eyes narrowed into slits. Micah gathered the skirts and ran across the room, yanking the dress off when she was a safe distance away and standing unashamedly in her underwear. “Deal with this, Orion Echidna.”

Orion Echidna.

Hades shrunk back as his future daughter-in-law invoked Ryan’s full name.

Apparently, the gift of his freedom included the freedom to deal with his raging fiancée alone.

“You look regal and modern, as the wife of a deity should,” Seph huffed, snatching a pile of white tulle from the floor and shaking it. “How can you make a judgement about the dress when you aren’t wearing the crinoline?”

Micah kicked the mound of dress at her feet, sending it across the floor. “I’ll carry that fifty-pound bouquet. I’ll curtsy to whoever you say I have to curtsy to. I’ll even wear those ridiculous bloomer things. But no way in hell am I going to be seen in that.”

He stepped between the women, doing his best not to become distracted by his half-naked fiancée. “Seph? Why don’t we bring in Rhapso? She and Micah can sit down together and design something while you attend to the thousands of other details requiring your attention over the next seventy-two hours.”

Persephone mulled over the idea while Hades quietly listed off a few of the items from a safe distance. “Fine.”

Walking over to Micah, he dropped his forehead to hers. “Seventy-two hours,” he whispered.

She frowned and butted his head lightly. “Fine.”

*

Ryan barked andpadded across the floor as the air electrified, grinning when Dio appeared, two hounds wrestling at his feet.

“Hey, boy!” the god called over, pulling his gloves off. “You ready for your last night of bachelorhood?”

Alex and Bo tackled him to the floor before he could respond, nipping at him until he fought himself back to his feet.

Damn right, he was ready for his last night of bachelorhood.

Micah had been whisked away the previous morning, cloistered in another wing of the palace where she would be surrounded by Persephone’s handmaidens until their wedding.

The emptiness of their bed had sent him to the reception room at midnight and he’d been pacing the banks restlessly ever since.

Dio held the door open for them, following the hounds out as they raced down the hall toward the banquet room where Apollo sat, his inks and needles spread across the table. Hades sat across from him, his attention on a paper in his hand.

“I don’t go through fur, so human up, boys,” the god muttered, leaning over to look at the drawing in Hades’s grip. “This could take a while.”

While he and his brothers transformed, wrapped towels around their hips, and flopped onto the three chaises stretched out along the banquet table, he lifted his head to take a peek at Micah’s artwork, grunting in disappointment when Hades snatched the paper away.

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