Page 159 of Bonds of Hercules
His head was shaved down the middle, and the crimson rings around his irises flared. Layers of bronze skin rippled as he slowly turned in a circle.
Long jagged scars slashed across his lower back and the thick ridges of his stomach, matching the scar across his lips.
“Revelation—zero defeats!” Zeus shouted.
Hades was called forward, and he also shrugged out of his suit jacket. I looked away, because I didn’t want to be scarred for life, and Zeus announced he also had zero defeats.
“Erebus!” Fate yelled.
Kharon stiffened, his grip tightening around my neck.
Erebus stepped up to the altar, his mask gleaming menacingly in the golden light of dusk.
He parted his cloak, revealing combat pants and a plain black T-shirt. He was probably the only person in the stadium not dressed in ceremonial clothes.
Erebus gripped the neck of his shirt and ripped down.
The stadium gasped.
Every inch of Erebus’s pale lithe torso was covered in old and new raised claw marks. It looked like he’d been attacked by hundreds of wolves,repeatedly.
“Revelation.” Zeus cleared his throat like he was composing himself as he stared at Erebus warily. “Zero … defeats.”
Erebus turned swiftly, cloak parted, ripped shirt fluttering off his ruined torso as he stalked back to the line.
Between the claw marks and bone mask, I understood why the poster of him on Helen’s wall said, “Beware: this creature is more beast than man.”
“Look at me—over here, Erebus!” Nyx hissed loudly as she slid invisibly along my arm. “Stay sexy, you absolutemonster.”She made a seductive clicking sound that would haunt my nightmares, and I whimpered.
Kharon looked down at me, and I shrugged, because a little male harassment never hurt anybody.
Womanhood was complicated.
Men could never understand the lifestyle.
“Aphrodite,” Fate called.
The stadium fell unnaturally quiet as everyone collectively held their breath and stared at her with rapt attention. Olympians and creatures alike.
Aphrodite’s curvy figure was clothed in a diamond-covered silk toga.
Augustus covered his eyes with his right hand.That’s his mother.It was easy to forget.
Unlike Artemis, Aphrodite didn’t rip the neck of her toga.
She lifted her long ruby-covered braids—they tinkled as the gems clacked together—and exposed her graceful neck.
Poseidon licked his lips; Athena’s eyes widened; Zeus stared across the altar at her like he was possessed; Hera’s face twisted with malice.
With every eye on her, Aphrodite slowly spun in a circle. Long lashes fluttered and her electric green eyes practically glowed. She pulled one silk sash of her toga off her shoulder; it slipped across her arm.
Somehow, the silence got quieter.
Another silk sash was removed.
The top of her toga fluttered down, exposing dark unblemished skin and a dozen sparkling diamond necklaces, nestled between the most impressive cleavage I’d ever seen.
I blinked, and Aphrodite was covered, the sashes of her toga once again concealing her chest.
