The Greek Gods of Romance Collection (Kingdom Book 15) by Jovee Winters

Author:Jovee Winters [Winters, Jovee]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: JoveeWintersPublishing
Published: 2019-08-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

Hephaestus

I entered the marbled archway that led toward my father’s golden throne room. His private chamber, as usual, was full of major and minor gods, all of the female persuasion, but there weren’t just goddesses in attendance. He had others. Humans. Centaurs. Sirens. But mostly nymphs. Many, many of them. Several hundred of them, by my count.

Nymphs of the air, water, earth, and fire. Father was not picky. He loved them all, much to my mother’s chagrin, though nymphs had always been a personal favorite of his. Likely because they were as vacuous as they were pretty. They were here for the sex, nothing more. And the truth was, Zeus had nothing more to offer than that. I fully acknowledged he was a pig. But I was not cut from the same cloth as he was. I’d only ever had my eye for one. Faithless and unworthy though she’d been, it had only ever been Aphrodite who’d called to me. Father had reviled me my choice of only one. He thought me weak, always had. A man, he’d said, must sow his seed in fertile soil so as to reap a worthy harvest.

I cringed when I thought of how truly loathsome he was when it came to his attitude pertaining to the opposite sex. There were times I wasn’t sure why I cared so much for him. He and I were really nothing at all alike. But then he’d show me an ounce of kindness, and for some damn reason, it made me crave more.

I fought so damn hard to make my father recognize me as worthy, but deep down, I wondered whether he ever truly would. And I was no fool. I knew the rumors—that he wasn’t my father at all—but he was a hell of a bloody lot nicer to me than my bitch of a mother had ever been. So there was that.

I sighed heavily and instantly regretted it the moment a blue-haired sea nymph turned my way. Her aquamarine eyes grew wide in her elfin face, and then I saw it start, the same as it always did.

The quiet gasps. The pointing fingers. The murmurings as they watched me, an abomination of both man and machine, stride—with head held high and nose high in the air, feigning that I didn’t care about their taunts and their hateful, hurtful words, when that couldn’t be further from the truth—toward a man who still called me bastard.

I clenched my molars so hard I heard them grind as the titters grew louder, bolder.

“Here again,” one said. “When will he learn? The poor bastard.”

“Glutton for punishment, that one.”

“Gods, he got none of their looks, did he? What a freakish thing he is.”

Nothing new, and yet each time I heard the insults, they speared my soul like fiery barbs, making me hate the vain pettiness of my father’s harem. And for the millionth time, I questioned my devotion to a man who didn’t give two shits about me.

“Look what the cat’s

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