Chapter Twenty-One

"You haven't done anything about fixing that hammer handle, I see. It's still too short."

"You haven't done anything to fix that gammy leg of yours either." Thor grinned, enveloping Hephaestus into a solid hug. The leg/hammer debate was a running joke between them.

He and Orin had agreed to come for dinner the following evening. Landyn had been cooking a huge roast and all the trimmings, spending most of the afternoon in the kitchen. The house smelled wonderful, and more importantly, inviting, and that was what Hephaestus had hoped for.

"You've not met my gorgeous mate, Orin, have you?" Thor broke his hold and stepped aside indicating a man similar in size to Landyn. The man had kind eyes and a sweet smile.

"It was so kind of you to invite us for dinner." Orin came forward, holding out his hand. "I have read so much about you in the scrolls I used to decipher for the ancient documents department in New York."

"My mate reads. Can you imagine?" Thor laughed, slapping his own thigh. "Who would've thought the Fates would pair me with a booklover, although I have to say they were right."

"It's not like I ask you to read anything." Orin looked around. "You have a lovely house. I have to admit, when I heard you lived with three cyclops, I wasn't sure what to expect. But it was so nice to get out of the house for a night…Bastet is babysitting for us. As you can imagine, any twins of Thor's are going to be a handful and now they're walking, it's bedlam at times."

"As you know, Orin is the God's Keeper, but when it comes to keeping bedtimes he's not as powerful."

"I had heard." Hephaestus nodded. "You know how gods gossip. Come on through to the kitchen. My mate, Landyn has been busy cooking. You're our first dinner guests."

"Ooh, I sense a story behind what you're not saying, Hephaestus. A new mate and no cyclops breaking the furniture." Thor rubbed his hands together. "Does this mean I get to smash some cyclops' heads?"

"We'll talk over dinner. Come on through."

Walking through the living room, Orin stopped and gasped. "We need one of these in our house." He pointed to the cat frame. "Do you have a pet cat, or…?"

"My mate is a ferret shifter. I didn't want for him to have to shift outside at night or when it was cold." Hephaestus could feel his cheeks heat.

"That is the sweetest thing," Orin said warmly.

Thor pouted. "I get you balls of wool for your cat to play with."

"But this is a whole structure that has a scratching post and a climbing frame and places to where I could sit in my shifted form, without being tugged at by the boys." Orin eyed the structure. "Although, ours might have to be a wee bit taller and sturdier. Knowing our boys, they'd start climbing it."

"Yes, well we don't have that problem yet." Hephaestus took them through to the kitchen where Landyn was wrestling with the roasting tin, trying to get it out of the oven. "You should've called me. I would've come and gotten that for you." He shuffled quickly over to the stove, taking the tin from his mate and putting it on the counter.

"I knew you were greeting your friends." Landyn stood up, using his arm to brush his hair from his face. "Please excuse the state of me." He fanned his face. "That oven is hot, and yes, the tin is heavy, but I wanted to make sure everything was just right."

"It is so sweet of you to make the effort." Orin rushed over, giving Landyn a hug. "You must be Landyn. I'm Orin, half-cat, half-fae, mate of Thor, and lover of the smells in this kitchen. So lovely to meet you. I was just admiring your cat setup in the living room. I'm so jealous of it."

"Hephaestus built it for me, following the instructions and everything." Landyn giggled, clearly thrilled with Orin's friendliness. "There was a lot of cursing going on that day."

"See, Hephaestus actually built it, no zapping it up and then standing there with his chest puffed out." Orin pointed at Thor who was watching his mate, a half-smile on his face. "That's Thor, my mate. He's the Norse God of the Storms. We met when he saved me from a magic attack."

"My mate saved me, too," Landyn admitted shyly. "I was a rough sleeper, and he came and found me, all thanks to some light or other, and he's been wonderful ever since."

"That Fates know what they're doing." Orin beamed. "Now, what can I do to help? Shall we get Thor to carve the meat, or does it need more resting? Are we making gravy with these meat drippings? What can we do?"

/~/~/~/~/

Secretly, Landyn had really been worried about meeting any of Hephaestus's friends. It's not like he'd had a good history with the ones he'd met so far. But rather than being "godly" as Landyn called it in his head, Thor and Orin were friendly and really funny.

Pictures of kids came out. Thor had a whole wallet full of them, and he happily passed them across the table, clearly proud of his two boys who were a beautiful mixture of Thor's blond looks and Orin's cute features. Landyn was amazed to hear that Thor gave birth to his kids, too, although the big blond blushed like crazy when Orin said Thor had tried to use magic to cause his babies to come because he didn't want Silvanus, another god, to open him up.

What was also really lovely, at least in Landyn's eyes - more than the praise for his cooking or the warm smiles Hephaestus would send his way – what was truly wonderful was how relaxed Hephaestus was with his friends. Landyn learned through the conversation that Orin had read a lot about Hephaestus's past and was genuinely interested in his work. That made Orin a solid friend in Landyn's mind. It was almost a shame when Thor asked about the reason for the dinner.

"Not that I don't like spending time with you, man," Thor said. "You've always been an ally in my opinion, and across pantheons, that's rare. But what's happening and who's heads do I get to bash in because of it?"

"Thor's always like this," Orin confided. "He's been getting bored lately as he's only had fae guards to fight with. Or the occasional bouncer at a club, where he starts a fight purely because someone looks at me funny." His grin was warm, and Landyn guessed Orin totally accepted his mate the way he was.

"As you know, I was living with the cyclops when I met Landyn. We've been together for more years than I can count…" Hephaestus went on, explaining everything. How he'd knocked Landyn off his bike with the car, how he hadn't been able to stop thinking about the light and what it meant and what had happened when he found out Landyn was sleeping under a bridge and why.

"That had to be so scary for you," Orin said, showing real concern. "Honestly, sometimes a person, of any species, gets some entitled views in their damn heads and doesn't care at all about the person they are hurting."

"Paulie told us the vampires would be taken care of. It was Zeus's mating present to us," Hephaestus explained. "Zeus also took care of the social media platform problem the cyclops caused." He carried on, laying out about the orders, how bullying the cyclops had been when Landyn first went to the warehouse, and how proud he was that Landyn had solved that problem.

"Those automatons are real?" Orin squealed with excitement. "I read about them, and I just thought there was no way even a god could create something like that well before the age of technology. You will have to show me them sometime."

"They responded to Landyn because we're mates." Hephaestus smiled. "That was quick thinking, but of course, it's not like the cyclops could work and be loomed over by automatons. And the cyclops, Bronte in particular, just kept getting worse. He won't even refer to Landyn by name, and I truly think if his opinion was changed, then the others would fall into line."

"Yes, but what do you want to achieve out of this?" Thor pushed his empty plate aside and rested his elbows on the table. "Landyn, you haven't said much. What's your take on all this?"

Landyn thought for a moment and then said, "I thought they would just leave us alone when we stopped going to the warehouse. I guess in my mind, I thought that maybe one day we'd have the house and land I dreamed of back when I was working. I imagined Hephaestus having his workshop there, and he could just make pieces when he felt inspired. But that didn't happen. The cyclops went to Aphrodite and tried to get her to interfere."

Landyn's anger rose all over again. "I'm not intelligent like Orin, and I haven't read hundreds of books. I didn't know who Hephaestus had been married to before, and then this snotty person with no pants on turns up in our house, in our house while we were just having a relaxing afternoon and starts spouting all this stuff about how Hephaestus was in the wrong, and what he was doing was going to reflect badly on Aphrodite, and…and… The cyclops are trying to turn other gods against my mate, and he hasn't done anything wrong."

"Eros?" Thor asked Hephaestus who nodded. "Honestly, that guy is as about effective as the god of love as I am. He can be a damn nuisance at times. But all right, this is serious."

"Of course, it's serious," Orin cried. "Can you imagine how poor Landyn felt when he first heard Hephaestus had been married? Remember when I thought you were still married to your ex-wife? For a shifter, hearing something like that is akin to getting a stab in the heart. That's deliberately cruel, especially if you didn't know the history of the person you were talking about. The cyclops need a beatdown for that alone."

"And when it comes to giving a beatdown, you know I'm your go-to god for that sort of thing. But I can't take them out of the weave – the Fates would have a fit," Thor said, with a grimace. To Landyn it seemed he didn't like that sort of restriction.

"I don't think they deserve to die," Landyn said, just in case his new friends got the wrong idea. "I don't even care about an apology anymore. They don't have to like me, that's not what this is about. But Hephaestus and I are talking about having children." He had to force himself not to duck his head as his cheeks heated. "I don't want to bring them up in a troubled home. I know what that's like, and what's going on with the cyclops and what they're doing doesn't make me feel safe when it comes to bringing children into the mix."

"I feel like shit because I truly believed Bronte, Steropes, and Arges were my friends – true friends. I brought them to Earth with me when I decided I didn't want to live under a mountain anymore, never dreaming they would turn against me like this. My sweetling is more understanding about this than I am. I'm gutted they're behaving like this."

Oh, no. Hephaestus sounded so defeated and that just would not do in Landyn's opinion. "Scoot your chair back," he said, getting out of his. "You two will just have to excuse this, but Hephaestus gets down sometimes, and this cyclops situation is not helping." He climbed onto his mate's lap and wrapped his arms around Hephaestus's torso. "Sometimes mates need special hugs to help them feel better."

"Works for me," Thor said, nodding. "And hey, I'm happy to bang the cyclops around a bit – consider it our mating present to you two. Far more effective, and more in keeping with who I am than a silly gift basket or something." Then he winced at his mate. "However, I have a strong suspicion my cute mate is going to put the blocks on that plan."

"You'll still get to play with the cyclops, stop being a baby." Orin slapped Thor's arm, and then wrapped his arms around Thor's bicep. "Honestly, keeping this one occupied is a full time job on its own, and that's without the twins. If Thor doesn't have someone to fight with at least once a week, he gets edgy, and there's only so much pounding my sweet ass can take."

Landyn was so shocked, he burst out laughing. Thor looked pleased though, and Orin was wearing a big grin.

"But no, what I meant to say is, Hephaestus, why don't you rescind the cyclops' right to live on Earth? After you've had your play," Orin added to Thor. "It's not like you owe them anything. They are here through your grace alone. From what I read, they did help you learn your craft, but that was back before humans even had fire. What you've gone on to do since then, with all the objects, weapons, and treasures you've created for the gods since, you've done through your own skills. Your obligation to the cyclops as a friend has long since been paid." He shrugged. "If they can't be made to behave, then don't allow them back on Earth."

Landyn looked at Hephaestus, who had his thinking face on. "The thing is," Landyn said, "I don't see how that would stop them going to any of the other gods, the way they tried to mess with Hephaestus using Aphrodite. I don't know about godly stuff, or even where gods live, but wouldn't that make it easier to cause even more trouble for us that way?"

"Not really, no," Hephaestus said slowly. "Their use of Aphrodite was deliberate, and Orin was right. It was cruel. Actually, when I think about it, none of the cyclops would have anything to do with me when I was married to her either, or during my time with the Graces. It was as if, when I had a partner, they didn't want anything to do with me, although I never knew why."

"Jealousy? Codependence?" Orin shrugged. "That does explain why they're not accepting of Landyn to a point. They don't seem to like the idea of you being with anyone."

"But they never interfered with those relationships," Hephaestus said. "Not in the way they are with my mating."

"Ah, but you said it right there." Thor pointed at Hephaestus. "Every being knows a mating blessed by the Fates is permanent, forevermore sort of stuff. I guess the question of the hour is are there any other gods who'd listen to them?"

It was like watching tennis. Landyn looked back at Hephaestus who was shaking his head. "I don't think so, no. Not anyone who could cause me any grief, or who would care enough to bother. Hera doesn't like to even remember I exist, so she'd be no help to them, and Zeus and his brothers are busy with mates of their own and wouldn't listen to them either."

"Awesome, so we have a plan." Orin clapped his hands. "Come on Thor, use some of that power of yours for something useful, like clearing this table and zapping up some tiramisu for dessert. Have you ever tried it, Landyn? It is divine."

Orin was right. The tiramisu was divine.