Page 3 of The Queen & the King

Cerberus paws at the shadows cloaking me, and I want to lower the shield. Yet I don’t have control over it. Every time I reach out to force the shadows down, they only become thicker, more impenetrable.

“Get your shit together, pussy!” a familiar voice pierces through my haze of panic.

Zeus.

I look up, trying to find my youngest brother through the shadows. My eyes, so accustomed to darkness, refuse to see through to the light. I am trapped within the tornado of pain surrounding me.

A tremble of static makes the hair on my arms raise, and I roll away from the bolt of lightning Zeus hurls through my shadows. The blinding light cuts through my shield with brute force.

“The fuck?!” I shout.

My shadows tremble and drop, revealing Zeus dressed in an offensively bright Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts. I could strangle him. My breath is still short, but my annoyance with mybrother gives me enough focus to slice through the darkness, just like his bolt.Fucking dick.

“I heard,” Zeus says, tucking his hands into his shorts.

I pant, wiping the sweat off my brow. “You heard, and so you decide to throw a fucking bolt at me?”

Zeus smirks. “What do you expect from me? A tearful hug? An ‘everything will be alright’ pat?”

I struggle to my feet. Zeus stands there watching me with a smirk, his teeth flashing in his tanned face. I really want to punch him. He makes it so easy to hate him. It’s no wonder most of the pantheon does. Most of the world hates him, yet he couldn’t care less. Sometimes, I envy him that ability. But not right now. Right now, I want to turn his stupid shirt into a noose.

“Why are you here?” I growl.

Zeus looks me up and down. “You got what? A few days left before you can’t leave, right?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Yes, what does that?—”

Zeus grabs my arm and, in a blinding flash of lightning, teleports us to another place. I groan when we land, stumbling slightly. I hadn’t braced for the impact. Zeus’s method of traveling was just like him: abrasive, abrupt, and leaves you short-fused. I rip my arm from his grasp and snarl, “You couldn’t warn me?—”

A fist slams into me with the force of a meteor, throwing me across the landscape. I hit the ground and bounce, the breath leaving my body. I snap my wings out to stop myself from flying any further.

I shake the dirt out of my hair, taking catalog of what the fuck Zeus has gotten me into now. It is night, and the stars above us are dazzling. A giant white observatory sits to our right, and it’s enough for me to place our exact location.

The Griffith Observatory. Los Angeles.

A shadow lunges at Zeus, their powers colliding and exploding. One a blinding, searing bluishwhite, the other the color of glittering stars, shifting and moving.

Fuck.

Krios.

The Titan of Constellation glows, the stars descending from the sky and forming an astral shield over him. Zeus shatters the shield before it fully forms and throws the Titan, sending him tumbling.

“Witnesses!” my brother shouts to me.

I curse, my gaze snapping to the observatory deck. Some of the mortals are in the process of fleeing, but others are filming the fight on their phones.

I throw my hand out, hurling a net of power. It catches on each of the mortals, anchoring to their internal darkness. I grab their minds, yanking the shadows over their eyes and blotting out their memory. One by one, the mortals crumple to the ground. I could only turn their memory dark for a short period after it formed. Zeus was lucky to have brought me. Though I doubtluckhad anything to do with it.

The Treaty of All Pantheons prevented us from exposing ourselves to mortals, signed into effect before we were even born. It kept all pantheons to a strict code, even forcing the Primordials of all pantheons to sit out wars. Zeus is pushing his luck by doing this in the open. The last fucking thing I need right now is a Great Tribunal.

I release the mortals as they find unconsciousness. My shadows collect their devices and wipe them. Shockingly, I’m forced to clean up after other gods.

Zeus’s next bolt explodes the carefully groomed ground, sending debris soaring into the air. My shadows prevent any of it from landing on the unconscious mortals.

Krios roars as he struggles to his feet, a formation of stars glittering over him with the force of the cosmos. He shifts the constellations above us, forming an astral ram to hurl at my brother. It nails Zeus in the stomach, sending him soaring.

I do not have fucking time for this.

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