Page 11 of Monster Song
“I agree. Then, it’s on. We’ll use a combination of your plan and Hephaestus’s rescuing Persephone.”
“Wait!” I said. “Demeter has a Hellhound. She just wants to go home. She knows I’m from Hell, but she might attack if Demeter gives the word, and I can’t tell her we have means to bring her.”
“She also wants to mate with me and make beautiful puppies.”
I rolled my eyes. There was so much horniness around me, could I get a break from the animals too?
“She wants a date with Cerberus before she goes back. They have plans to make puppies.”
Hades scratched him on the butt.
“I knew you would find your mate eventually. Okay, so we have two hours before our reinforcements get here. No one should go into the pits until backup is here. That means you too, Hephaestus. The monsters are either totally despondent or wanting to die. They aren’t above attacking us, hoping we kill them. We can’t go down there until we can tell them we have a solid plan to get out of this.”
Pavlina must have taken what I said to heart about being kind to Hephaestus.
“Come on, God boy. I want to introduce you to a television show that makes fun of your parents and siblings. Don’t worry. They don’t make fun of you since you didn’t do horrendous things to your own kids or humans.”
I grabbed Hephaestus’s hand.
“And I want to show you big spoon if you are comfortable.”
Chapter 7
Tryphon
I
would give it to my team. After all that bickering the night before over snuggle positions, I thought they would be mean to Hephaestus when he was invited to the pile. I knew some monsters in the pit would blame him for our collars, but none of us did. I could just tell he stayed isolated in his volcano for a reason.
His family said some nasty shit to his face, then spread it around to anyone who would listen. I’d never met him before, but everything I’d heard about him was that he was hideously deformed. For the life of me, I couldn’t see why anyone would say that about him. The man was pure sex. He just lacked confidence.
And I loved that about River. She knew that. She saw something in him the same way she did us, and I had a feeling Hephaestus would be wondering the same thing the rest of us were. What was she going to do, and where would she end up when this was over? Would she let us come when she decided?
Hephaestus agreed to be her little spoon. I was her big spoon this time. I could see him lying there like a stick of wood, but he visibly relaxed after she started playing with his hair. I was watching him like a hawk. I had the same desire River did. Someone hurt this man, and I wanted to make him whole.
I heard him laugh once at one episode making fun of Zeus and Hera. I knew they were his parents. I couldn’t pretend to know what it was like to have issues with your mom and dad. Unless you wanted to consider Poseidon my father since he created me, but I never did. I was always more his slave.
I didn’t even remember my old life when I was human before Poseidon decided he needed his own monster. I used to ask myself if I had slighted him in some way that he would turn me into his Kraken, but after a time, I realized there was no reason for any of their creations or curses. They did it because they could, and they were cruel.
Getting sent to the Underworld was the best thing that ever happened to me until this mess with Demeter. All Hades expected from the monsters here was exemplary behavior, but he didn’t care if our monsters came out to play when someone was acting up. He got it.
Those of us that were touched by the Olympians were immortal, but there was something about the Underworld that nothing died here. No one could ever figure out why, but if you died in the Underworld, you ended up in these horrible pits.
There was no telling what was living in there now. Hades told all of us close to him that the Underworld was another realm. The Titans slaughtered everyone here, and when they were overthrown, their children trapped them in the pits. There was an entire realm of slaughtered people who used to live here down there and the people who died since Hades took charge.
There was something about the air here that no one died unless they received a fatal blow. Not even Hades knew why his family started spreading rumors about humans being sent to the Underworld when they died. No one really knew what happened when they died, but the Olympians started handpicking humans to send here.
Some of them were just groveling sycophants, and some were showing their true colors by filling up that arena to bet on our lives. It didn’t matter how long they lived here or how well Hades treated them, they were still devoted to the Olympians and thought Hades was some evil God who ruled over the souls of the Underworld. And they all thought they died to end up here.
They were willing to believe Demeter’s lies because she was supposed to be one of the good Gods. They couldn’t believe what had been in front of their faces for all the centuries they’d been down here. Humans could be so stupid sometimes.
I wasn’t mad at Hephaestus that it was one of his weapons that made humans think I was dead. No, I was grateful for that. It meant he had to send me to the Underworld, and I gained my freedom. I wasn’t even mad at him about the collars. He made it right when it counted.
I got the feeling Hephaestus was now carrying all this weight about some things his creations did. River was trying to build him up. I could see that. But I had my own stuff I wanted to say to Hephaestus.
I needed to thank him for my freedom. If the other monsters here just thought about it and got over the collars, they would too.
Chapter 8
