Chapter XIII: Theseus

CHAPTER XIII

THESEUS

Theseus stared at a series of photos. They were all pictures of the same man, taken from different angles. His name was Adonis—a famous favored mortal—and he had been beaten to a bloody pulp and stabbed through with Cronos’s scythe outside Aphrodite’s club, La Rose.

While Theseus had not been directly involved in this attack, he’d managed to plant the seeds that saw it through. He wondered how long before Aphrodite’s anger got the best of her, how long before Hades’s sense of honor brought him right to his door. Theseus has lived a long time in the shadow of the gods. He knew their strengths and their weaknesses, but he also knew mortals and how to make them afraid.

The start of snow in summer had been his sign to incite chaos. Amid the backdrop of Demeter’s storm, which would already inspire anger among the mortals and feature heavily in the media, he knew he could further feed the existing doubt and anger against the gods. And while he was aware that it would hardly hurt them, it would cause division, and at the center of it all were two gods: Hades and Persephone.

He had not expected them to feature as they were, but their love worked in his favor, and it would serve to further divide the gods while he continued to build mistrust among the mortals on earth. He would hardly have to lift a finger—the gods always got in their own way.

Theseus just needed to ensure that as the chaos unfolded, mortals had someone to turn to—someone to worship in place of the Olympians who had reigned for so long.

And that person would be him.

Theseus could sense the vibration of his phone before it rang. He snatched it up, answering before the sound could disturb the silence.

He gave no greeting, only waited for the person on the other end to speak.

“I’ve found her,” said the voice—Perseus, the demigod son of Zeus.

Theseus said nothing and waited for him to continue.

“She’s with Dionysus in the pleasure district. They’re on the hunt for Medusa.”

He was not surprised. He’d heard the rumors about the woman—her beauty first and then her supposed power.

She could turn men into stone.

He had suspected Dionysus of searching for her when he’d bought the Graeae’s services, and he’d considered that when he’d had them murdered, he would lose the fastest route to finding her—but there were other ways to locate a scared woman.

Perseus, for example.

A new set of photos came through on his tablet, and he scrolled through him. Ariadne was dressed in a short, black dress and high boots. She looked fuckable. Perhaps she had been fucked.

“Is she fucking him yet?” Theseus asked. He meant to express the question nonchalantly, but a hot blade of jealousy shot through him at the thought. Despite his marriage to her sister, Phaedra, Ariadne belonged to him too. She would always belong to him, even if she found temporary reprieve in the hands of this god.

And when she returned to him—and she would because he had her sister—she would pay for straying, for thinking for an instant that she could defeat him.

“Not sure,” Perseus replied.

“Keep following her,” Theseus said. “She’ll lead us to Medusa eventually, and when the time is right, we’ll take both.”

He hung up the phone and continued looking through the photos, his cock growing harder the longer he did. Before he’d married Phaedra, he had dated Ariadne. He’d liked her more than her sister. She liked to fuck and fuck hard. There was nothing soft about her, but therein lay the problem.

Ariadne would not be controlled, at least not on her own, but through her sister, who was so easily swayed with a few pretty words, she was malleable in his hands.

Thatmade him harder, and he let himself think about what he would do when she did return to him and demand to see her sister.

Perhaps he would agree and let her watch as he fucked Phaedra. Her horror would make him come, and when he did, he’d force his dick into her mouth and fill her throat.

Theseus looked up, sensing movement, and found Phaedra lingering in the doorway. She was dressed in a long silk nightgown and a matching robe that did not even close around her round belly.

The contrast of how she dressed compared to her sister was not lost on him. His wife rarely even wished to undress for sex, but Ariadne, she would roam the house naked, as if it were her natural state.

“Phaedra,” he said, locking his tablet as he set it down on his desk. “You should be resting.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, watching him from the door. “You…haven’t come to bed.”

Despite her modesty, she was beautiful. Her softness made her the perfect bride—a trophy he could parade about in public—and her timidness ensured she would never communicate her doubts or her fears about him.

She was the safe choice.

“You know things have been busy.”

“Of course,” she said. “I only came to check on you.”

He managed a smile because he thought that was what she would most like—some acknowledgment that he cared that she cared.

“I am fine,” he said. “Just busy.”

Except that she did not act as she usually did with his reassurance—which was to fold. Instead, she lingered.

“Busy with Ariadne?” she said, her voice quiet, and he wondered why, if she feared his response, she said it at all.

Theseus clenched his jaw. This defiance was new.

Phaedra hesitated and then added quietly, almost in a whisper, “I heard you.”

Heard me? He was certain he had not said her name.

“Were you listening at my door, Phaedra?” he asked. He worked to control his voice, to keep the anger from seeping into his words.

She knew the consequences of eavesdropping.

“No, I…I promise. I only thought I heard her name as I came down the hall.”

She was lying. He had to quell this. He wondered what was making her so brave.

“You thought?” he asked.

She took a deep and audible breath. “I must have misheard.”

Theseus stood, and as he approached, Phaedra placed her hand on her stomach. Prior to her pregnancy, he would have silenced her with a kiss or even sex, but since, he’d had no interest in fucking her. It did not matter anyway. He’d used sex to keep her, and now the baby would do that for him.

He liked how she tensed as he approached, though, and that made him hard, which was also helpful, because when she noticed, she would think it was her who made him eager to fuck and not her fear.

He touched her chin.

“What have I said about Ariadne?”

Her eyes were glassy. “Theseus,” she whispered, and he hated how she said his name. Perhaps it was because she sounded a lot like her sister, and he thought of how Ariadne once moaned it. “She is my sister—”

“What,” he said, silencing her, his voice loud and then tapering off, “did I say?”

Phaedra stared at him and swallowed hard, unable to keep the tears from welling in her eyes.

Theseus stepped as close as he could, her stomach pressing into him. “Oh, Phaedra,” he whispered and tilted her head back. She winced as his fingers tightened in her dark hair. “What am I to do with you?”

He kissed her forehead.

He knew how Phaedra worked. She melted at the slightest show of affection, the opposite of her sister. Ariadne did not preen beneath soft touches and sweet words. She wanted everything hard and fast and bruising.

He let his hands fall to her shoulders, his mouth near her ear as he spoke quietly. “I wanted to protect you from this, but I suppose I will have to tell you.”

He pulled away and crossed to his desk, picking up the tablet. He handed over the device, showing her the pictures Perseus had sent.

“I have kept my promise to you,” he said. “I have kept track of your sister, and despite my attempted interventions, she’s turned to prostitution. Just tonight, she was spotted in the pleasure district with the god Dionysus.”

He watched Phaedra looking through the photos. After a moment, she whispered, “She doesn’t look like herself.”

“Oh, darling,” he said. “Such is the case with addiction.”

Phaedra put the tablet aside and buried her face in her hands. Theseus stepped up behind her, pulling her against him. His arousal pressed into her ass. The only thing keeping it erect was her pain, and he siphoned it, fueling the blood that rushed to the crown of his cock.

“I am sorry,” he soothed, letting his head rest in the crook of her neck. “I did not wish to tell you. I thought it was better to protect you and the baby.”

“No,” she said, her hands falling to his, which he’d placed around her belly. He cringed as her palms touched his, wet from her tears. “I should not have asked. I knew better than to hope she had reached out to see me.”

She turned in his arms and rested her head against his chest, for which he was glad. He did not think he could muster the ability to appear remorseful any more tonight, his frustration was too acute.

“I know how hard this is for you,” he said. “But you always have me when you have no one else.”

He let her cry for a few moments longer but pulled her away when he grew tired.

“You need rest,” he said, drawing his finger over her wet cheek.

She nodded numbly, but he only cared that she obeyed.

“I love you, Theseus,” she said.

He smiled at her and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth.

“Good night, my love,” he said and pushed her off into the hallway. “I will be along soon.”

He watched her go until he could no longer see her and then closed the door, wiping his mouth free of her tears.

Fucking disgusting, he thought.

He crossed to his desk and pressed the call button on his intercom. It went straight to his secretary, who he knew to be awake and waiting.

“Now,” he said, and as he waited, he unbuttoned his trousers and took out his cock, jerking it up and down, priming it for what was to come.

After a moment, the woman entered. He forgot her name. She was new, recently hired to replace the one who had died.

Her eyes went to his cock. There was no hunger in her gaze. This was her job.

She crossed to him and knelt, her mouth even with his dick.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Rebecca,” she said.

“Your real name?”

“No,” she said.

He liked the way she looked at him, with as much spite as Ariadne.

He dug his fingers into her hair.

“I’m going to fuck your mouth,” he said. “And you’re going to take it. All of it.”

She rose a little higher, preparing for their transaction, still defiant, still unafraid, and his chest filled with warmth at the challenge of seeing the light die in her eyes.