Page 13 of Monster Song
I would pay it forward. Hades adopted me and made things better for me. I knew River was trying to build Hephaestus up.
I would do the same thing for Hephaestus that Hades did for me. Just listen and talk. I didn’t have to be a bitch all the time.
Chapter 10
River
I
know Hades used to be worshipped as a God, but he really needed to learn how to knock. I had four monsters and a God in my bed, and eventually, things would progress past who would be the big spoon. He might run this entire place, but he couldn’t just go barging into a grown woman’s bedroom, right?
And of course, he brought my father with him. Perfect. My stepdad didn’t even want me in my bedroom with the door closed with one boy. Was my demon dad going to have a massive problem with all the people in my bed? I still didn’t know all that much about that side of the family.
“Can we get some sort of knocking protocol here?” I asked.
Hades just scowled at me.
“I’ll worry about knocking when my wife is home safe.”
Barbatos just tapped him on his shoulder.
“She’s right. She’s obviously gotten close to people in the Underworld, and she didn’t have to get involved in this. I wouldn’t have even heard you out if you hadn’t kidnapped my child. The only reason you aren’t in Hell getting tortured in my dungeon for touching one of mine is that she agreed to stay and seems happy here. Give her some fucking privacy and knock before you enter her chambers.”
Okay, so demon dads were pretty cool. Even at my age, if my stepfather were here, he would have sided with Hades and demanded he keep all of them away from me. My stepdad went a little overboard with the protectiveness because of all the time I spent in therapy before I started faking not being able to hear animals.
“Fine!” Hades said, throwing his hands up. “Can the duchess get out of bed now that our reinforcements are here?”
Finding out my father was a demon was more of a relief than anything because it answered so many questions, but I don’t think I’d ever get used to anyone calling me a duchess. But he was right. We needed to end this.
“Don’t call me duchess, and yes, we are coming.”
Hephaestus sighed like he didn’t want to get up, but soon, we were all piling back into that war room. Charley and Finn were back and there was a tall, slim red-headed woman covered in tattoos and decked out in all black leather. She was hunched over a laptop and didn’t even look up as we were sitting down.
“You’ve met Charley and Finn. This is Solron, and no, she will not be nice until she hacks Demeter’s site. Solron, look up for two minutes and meet my daughter.”
Solron hardly looked up before she was clacking back at the keys.
“I could have guessed which one was yours when I was done. She looks exactly like you. I can be polite to everyone once I’ve cracked this encryption. I haven’t exactly played with Underworld servers before.”
“Do you need me to bring someone in to help?” Hades asked.
“Ha!” Solron yelled. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
“Athena’s children are all very intelligent. No one will judge you if you need help.”
Hephaestus just laughed. It was nice to hear him laugh. He had such a sexy voice.
“You’re forgetting Athena. Sure, her kids are smart, but she sends them to the Underworld if they don’t pass her intelligence tests. I don’t know the first thing about demons, but I’ll bet Solron can do exactly what she says.”
Solron’s eyes flicked up.
“I like this big, sexy God. Does anyone want to make a wager on it?”
“You can’t use Drachma in Hell, Solron,” Barbatos pointed out.
“I don’t want money. I want to torture the Goddess bitch a little. Can I have her as a present?”
“Hades isn’t Bael, Solron. He doesn’t give those kinds of presents,” Barbatos pointed out.
