4. Pandora

4

PANDORA

The reception continues after Theseus—Hephaestus, I have to remember that—and his new bride go upstairs. I’m worried about him. He’s always been too locked down, and Minos fostering him hasn’t done anything but make that worse. Not that he listens to me when it comes to his fucked-up little family.

I’m sure I’m supposed to be somewhere, but like every other time Theseus is occupied with Minos’s tasks, I’m immediately ignored. Normally, I appreciate the reprieve. Minos doesn’t like me and he’s not very good at hiding that fact, for all that he’s an excellent liar.

I’ve never felt so adrift before this moment, though.

I drain my champagne glass. Too much alcohol, but I think I can be excused. It’s a party, after all.

“Pandora?”

I turn, tipping a little, to find a pretty Black woman standing a few feet away. She’s wearing a deep-purple dress that flatters her light-brown skin. It takes my brain a second to place her familiar face. “Eurydice.” She was one of Minos’s guests at that ill-fated house party. At least she survived it. I look around. “Where’s your handsome shadow?”

“Ah.” She tucks a loose curl behind her ear. “Charon is around here somewhere. He’s my ride back to the lower city when this is over.”

“Your ride,” I repeat slowly. I could have sworn they were dating, but apparently I was wrong. “Right.”

She stalls for a moment, but gives herself a shake. “Actually, that’s why I came over. I know you’re relatively new in town. I thought you might want to see the lower city.”

Well, if that’s not a trap, then I don’t know what is. I snag another glass of champagne. I know I should stop, but the last two weeks have been a special kind of torture. Theseus barely has time to talk to me, and while I don’t have a problem with his new wife in theory, the reality is that she didn’t agree to marry him because she’s madly in love with my best friend. She did it because he’s made himself Olympian Enemy Number One. Theseus is going to get himself killed and he doesn’t seem to care.

If I go back to Minos’s home—not my home, it will never be that—all I’ll do is pace my room and worry. There are far too many hours until dawn, and each promises to be filled with fears about everything that could go wrong on this wedding night.

I try to sip this glass slowly, but give up before it touches my lips. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Instead of leaving in a huff, she smiles. “I’m not talking about the tourist route, Pandora. I’m talking about the kind of stuff only locals know about.” She steps closer. She’s wearing a light floral perfume that is just as lovely as she is. “I’m talking about a very special kind of club that caters to people with very special tastes.”

I blink. Of all the pitches I expected to hear, this didn’t make the list. “You’re talking about a kink club.”

“Well…” She looks around, but there’s no one paying us the least bit of attention. That, in and of itself, is suspicious. During the last two weeks of whirlwind wedding planning, I have existed under a microscope. I could have told them it’s a lost cause; I don’t know anything useful about Minos’s plans, let alone have an acting role in them. Instead, I endured the stares and just smiled harder.

Eurydice leans down. She’s very tall, nearly as tall as Theseus’s new wife. Just as pretty, too, though Eurydice’s beauty is more traditional and less feral than Aphrodite’s. “Yes, it’s a kink club. Very exclusive. Very expensive.”

If this is a trap, it’s the strangest trap I’ve ever encountered. I finish my glass and reach for another. Eurydice catches my wrist. “I think you’ve had enough. If you drink too much, you can’t participate.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “Honey, I’m buzzed, but I’m nowhere near drunk enough to agree to a sex party with a bunch of people who’d like to run me over with a car.”

“That’s fair.” She releases my wrist. “Participation is absolutely optional. You can come watch, if you like. See if it’s your kind of thing.”

She’s being too insistent. I peer up at her. “Are you coming on to me?”

“No.” She looks away and then back at me. “I mean, you’re really attractive, but I’m not exactly over my ex, so I’m not great company these days. But, if you’ll forgive me for being blunt, you don’t seem like a total asshole like the rest of your household. You’re obviously sticking around for the long term, so there’s no reason we can’t get to know each other.”

Yeah, it’s still a trap.

The problem is…I’m not sure I care. It’s a distraction, and at this point, I’ll take what I can get. I’m reasonably sure that the Olympians won’t hurt me, not when they still think they can coax secrets with honey.

Besides, I’m curious about this kink club.

“I don’t know anything useful.” I peer around, searching for another waiter with champagne. “If you’re going to, like, throw me in a kinky dungeon and torment me for information about Minos and the rest of them, it’s a waste of everyone’s time. I’m not part of the family.” The words taste bitter, but that can’t be right. Minos only pulled me out of that orphanage alongside Theseus because that was Theseus’s condition for allowing the fostering. We were a package deal, and Minos has barely tolerated me in the years since. He puts a good face on it for Theseus’s benefit, but I see the way he looks at me when he thinks no one is watching.

If he can find a way to remove me to gain full control over Theseus, he will do it in a heartbeat.

“I don’t know how you think we do things here in Olympus, but torture is a bit extreme.” I give her a long look and she sighs. “Okay, I won’t pretend the people in power here aren’t capable of that kind of thing, but I honestly just thought you could use a friend.”

Damn it, I’m going to say yes. This is so ridiculous. “You’ve convinced me. But only if we go now and only if there’s alcohol there.” I’m not normally a big drinker, but I think I can be forgiven tonight. It’s the only thing that numbs the pit of worry that opened up in my stomach when Theseus agreed to marry Aphrodite.

No, that’s not the truth. It started earlier, when Minos announced his plan to take us all to Olympus, to use the Ares title to secure a spot among the Thirteen for either Theseus or the Minotaur. Something that seemed simple enough on the surface, but nothing Minos does is ever simple. Sure enough, look at us now.

Eurydice’s eyes go wide. “Sure. Okay. Let’s go.”

The champagne is really starting to kick in, which is the only excuse I need to snag a full bottle on our way out the door. Charon, a tall white guy with dark hair, broad shoulders, and the suspicious look of bodyguards everywhere, falls in behind us as we leave. He manages to get in front of us to open the back door of a nondescript black town car, though.

It’s only when we’re driving away from the hotel that I wonder if I should have told someone where I was headed. Not Minos, but Ariadne or Icarus. Whoops. I dig my phone out of my tiny purse and shoot off a text to both letting them know about my poor choices. I don’t know if either have their phones on them now, but they will before the end of the night.

Eurydice keeps up smooth small talk that requires little of me as I drink my way through the bottle I took. I slump back against the seat. “I’m not normally like this.” I feel downright morose right now, instead of my normal sunny self. It will come back. It always does. But not until I see for myself that Theseus is okay.

“I, ah, kind of noticed.” Her hazel eyes are kind. “Are you in love with him?”

That surprises a laugh out of me. “What? No. Not like you mean. I mostly prefer women.” I take a long drink from the bottle. “But Theseus is my best friend and I love him. It’s just not like that with us.” We did try it once when we were teenagers, since it seemed a natural progression of how much we care about each other, but it was a disastrous experience and we both agreed that there is no next level for our friendship.

“I see.” She motions and I hand her the bottle. “You aren’t like the rest of them.”

“Sweet words will get you everywhere.” The farther we travel from the hotel and the mess contained there, the better I can breathe. This is fine. This is better than fine. “Look, you’re cute and this is a fun little field trip, but I meant it about not knowing anything worthwhile. Also, not a single one of them will give even a penny in ransom.” Theseus doesn’t believe in ransom, though he’d come for me and kill everyone responsible.

Eurydice laughs. “Again, not kidnapping, torturing, or otherwise harming you. You just looked like you needed to get out of there. I understand that urge, so I thought I’d help you out. That’s all.”

She’s lying, but I don’t mind. Everyone lies. Once you accept that, you get really good at reading between the lines. “So you’re taking me to Hades’s famous sex club?”

“It’s hardly famous.” She makes a choked sound. “And that’s my brother-in-law you’re talking about.”

I twist in the seat to face her fully. I’d much rather talk about this than about myself. “You know, your sisters seem the overprotective sort, and that’s not even getting into your mother.” Talk about a nightmare. “I’m surprised they let their precious baby sister attend a place like that.”

“Oh. That.” She waves it away. “They don’t know.”

“What?”

“They don’t know,” she repeats. Eurydice smiles. “So, you see, now you have a secret of mine.”

Sharing simple secrets to promote the sharing of deeper secrets is a trick as old as time. I ignore the impulse to do exactly that; it’s just the alcohol talking. “Rumor has it that you’re living in the same house as your sister and Hades. How could they possibly not know that you’re playing tourist in his sex dungeon?”

She shoots a look at the back of Charon’s head. He doesn’t appear to be paying us the least bit of attention, but he’s too close to miss any of it. Eurydice clears her throat. “I’m not allowed to participate or go into the club without Charon as an…escort. I just get to watch on the nights Persephone and Hades aren’t down there.”

“I see,” I say slowly. That’s an interesting piece of information that I don’t bother to file away because I have no interest in helping Minos do whatever he plans to do to Olympus. Murder and mayhem and chaos. He’s a bastard and a half, and I have no doubt that he’d sacrifice Theseus at the altar of his ambition.

Theseus already got hurt. I don’t want him to get dead, too.

I take another long drink of the champagne bottle. My stomach isn’t feeling too great. Or maybe that’s because we’re crossing over the bridge to the lower city. Apparently there’s a barrier here similar to the one that surrounded Olympus, keeping it separate from the rest of the world. Magic or some fancy tech that might as well be magic? I have no idea. I suppose it doesn’t matter. The alcohol fuzzes my brain, making it hard to tell if it’s the same sensation I felt entering the city or if I’ve just drunk too much.

I mean, I’ve definitely drunk too much.

It doesn’t take long for the car to roll to a stop in front of a nondescript gray building. I frown out the window at it. “This looks like a place you take people to murder them.”

Eurydice gives a choked laugh. “The other entrance is in my sister’s house, and that will create more questions than I want to answer. Come on.” She slips out of the car, leaving me to follow.

I’m distantly aware of Charon coming around the car and following us up to the large door. I’m so far past buzzed that I start to list to the side, and he has to move fast to catch me. He slips an arm around my waist and keeps me on my feet. “You sure about this, Eurydice?”

“Yes.” She opens the door. “Come on.”

The room is kept atmospherically dim in a way I might appreciate on a different night. Not right now, when the strangely reflecting light on the ceiling makes me dizzy. I try to focus on Eurydice’s back, but everything is a bit watery right now. “I drank too much.”

“You’re safe here, Pandora.” She leads the way through a series of couches and chairs, circling a low dais in the center of the room. The place is packed, and the couples and throuples and moreples in various states of undress and sexual revelry only add to my dizziness. I’m pathetically grateful when Eurydice stops in front of a private booth tucked back against a wall. Charon helps me slide into it, but I keep sliding, slumping down against Eurydice. She laughs a little and helps me right myself. “She’ll be here soon. But let’s get you some water in the meantime.”

She?

Time ceases to have meaning. Water appears at some point, and Eurydice coaxes me to drink a little, but my stomach is still swirly in a really worrisome manner. Damn it, I shouldn’t have drunk so much. I never do this. I have fun, but never recklessly. Even before I came to Olympus, I knew better, but these days the stakes are so much higher.

My blinks are getting longer and longer when the room seems to darken. I blearily look up, only to realize it hasn’t. There’s a woman standing over our table in a gorgeous red dress that screams sex. It coats her lean body lovingly, kissing the curves of her breasts and hips. As she shifts, it presses to the mound of her pussy in a way that makes my mouth water. From this angle, with her height, I can almost see beneath the short hem, and that’s probably wrong, but I can’t quite remember why.

Then my gaze reaches her face and my stomach drops. This isn’t some stranger. No, the woman I was just ogling is Aphrodite.

Theseus’s wife.