Electric Idol(Dark Olympus #2)(10)

With another curse, I pick up my phone.

A chirpy female voice answers. “Eros, my favorite little sex god. It’s my lucky day.”

Normally, it’s difficult to keep a smile off my face when I’m dealing with Hermes. She’s incorrigible and the only one of the Thirteen whose presence I actually enjoy. I don’t feel much like smiling today. “Hermes.”

She gives a sigh. “So it’s business, then?”

“It’s business,” I confirm. It’s not always business with Hermes and me. She and I have hooked up a few times over the years but ultimately settled into something resembling friendship. I don’t necessarily trust her—her title is practically spymaster, after all—but I like her.

“All business and no play makes Eros a dull boy.”

“We can’t all spend our time playing jester in Hades’s court.”

She laughs. “Don’t be mad just because Hades banned you from his sex dungeon. You would have done the same thing in his position.”

She’s right, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to admit it. The only reason Hades let me come and go across the River Styx without an issue was that we had something of a mutually beneficial relationship. He controlled the information I reported back to my mother. I enjoyed his hospitality. That all changed when Persephone entered the scene. She expanded his allegiance from himself to his now wife—and her mother, Demeter.

Seeing as how Demeter and my mother hate each other, that means I’m persona non grata in the lower city these days. When Hades cut me off, he cut off my main outlet to blow off steam. Not that that matters now, but Hermes always did know how to find a person’s buttons…and then do jumping jacks on them. “I have a message I’d like you to deliver, but it’s delicate in nature.”

A pause. “Okay, you have my attention. Stop toying with my emotions and tell me what you’re up to.”

I force a small smile as I sketch out what I need from her. Hermes’s role in the Thirteen is a little bit messenger, a little bit spy, a little bit agent of chaos for her own amusement. Her only real allegiance is to Dionysus, and even then, I’m not sure that friendship would hold if things got really intense. He’s not my aim, however, so I have no doubt she’ll do exactly as I request.

When I finish, she gives a merry laugh. “Eros, you sly rake, you. I’ll have the message delivered by morning.” She hangs up before I can respond.

I sit back with a sigh and rub my chest. No matter my personal thoughts on this, things are in motion. It’s too late to go back and change the past; I can only do what I’ve always done—come out on top.

Psyche Dimitriou will be dead before the end of the week.





4


Psyche

“I swear to the gods, if Mother gets one more party invitation, I’m going to pull a Zeus and throw myself out a window.”

I pause in the middle of sorting through the dresses in the rack in front of me. None of them are right. They’re all pretty in a pale sort of way, but this designer has a nasty habit of merely adding inches to their plus sizes instead of actually taking into account how different my curves are from a size two. I had heard they’d gotten better with the new spring line, but obviously I was misinformed.

That irritation matters less than what my sister is spouting off behind me, within easy eavesdropping range of everyone in this shop. The last thing we need is more of a scandal, especially right now. The rumors about me and Eros have held on longer than I expected—it’s been a slow news month in Olympus and that was a truly excellent photograph to get the gossip mill churning—but they will pass. Or they will pass as long as we keep our heads down and our mouths shut. Eros has all but disappeared from the public eye; smart of him. I don’t have that option, so the only other route is to go on about my life as if I’m not the subject of everyone’s conjecture.

Today, that means shopping.

Just my luck that my eldest sister is feeling overprotective and decided to tag along. I turn around and level a look at Callisto. As always, she’s dressed in a pseudo grunge look that makes her appear like a model on her day off. We share the same dark brown hair and hazel eyes, but Callisto’s beauty is sharp enough to cut while mine is a softer variation. She’s never had to deal with Mother trying to gently guide her to try some new diet, but any resentment I felt about our differences is ancient history now.

What isn’t ancient history is how godsdamned reckless she is.

I march over to where she’s sprawled on the waiting area couch and lean over her. “Keep your voice down.”

Callisto narrows her eyes. “What do you care if these lemmings hear? I’m only speaking the truth.”

It’s been a little over two months since Zeus’s “accidental” death and Olympus is still reeling. Making a joke about it will be in poor taste twenty years from now, but right now it’s a great way to attract the kind of headline we do not need at the moment.

Dimitriou daughters mock the former Zeus’s death!

On the heels of the Eros photograph, Mother might actually follow through on one of her many threats to toss her frustrating daughters out the nearest window. I’m sure Perseus—er, Zeus—would be delighted by that. We’re under strict instructions to avoid making him angry, and Callisto seems to have taken that as a challenge to see how far she can push things. Normally, it would be a minor irritation, but we’re under a much heavier spotlight right now. I still can’t believe I was so foolish as to get caught alone with Aphrodite’s son. I’ve received no less than three of Mother’s lectures about my irresponsibility and how this will affect my prospects with Zeus.