The Reaping [malexmale]

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

In the days that followed, my family began to arrive one by one in accordance to the emergency family meeting that my father had called.

It was safe to say that, in a way, we were preparing for war. We'd hired in hundreds more soldiers and Raven and Jaques were in charge of training them and preparing them. While Lucifer was sure that were going to war, the rest of the family was still a bit skeptical.

"It's the Titans versus the Olympians," Dania was ranting in the family meeting room one afternoon, "Why would they bother us?" Dania was one of my older sisters. She was slender and petite, with long auburn hair that she currently had stacked up on her head in ringlets, wearing a green peasant top under a brown hunting corset, matching leggings and ankle boots. Beside her was her husband, Alexis. A Greek man that towered over me by half a foot with dark hair swept back from a ruggedly handsome face, wearing a Hell soldier's uniform, he appeared to disagree with her.

"The Titans ruled a lot more than the Olympians do now. If they come into power, they will take whatever they can." Alexis promised grimly. Thorn agreed with him. My third oldest brother with dark wavy hair to his shoulders and deep blue eyes and probably in need of a shave, he stood near the window that looked out over the city, his arms folded over his chest, and dressed in the beige and tan robes that wore commonly considering he lived in the deserts of Purgatory.

"Alexis is right. They'll be gunning for us because we're neighbors to Hades. They'll probably launch themselves at Duat and Hel as well." He explained matter-of-factly. Beside him, his boyfriend, Ambrosius, appeared grim and thoughtful. He was Hades's youngest son, I'd learned, the one who'd run away from home and was a very touchy topic around Hades. Ambrosius was devastatingly handsome, much like his father. And damn did he look almost like Hades. Though, Hades's hair touched the middle of his back, Ambrosius's was cut to his shoulder in straight locks. His eyes glowed eerily just like Hades's. Except Hades's wardrobe consisted of black. Ambrosius's was a pair of low black harem pants and a cropped deep red sleeveless turtleneck with gold designs printed across it, his bare feet not making a sound when he paced on the marble floor.

"Why isn't Hades doing anything about it?" One of my twin sisters, Bali, asked. Bali and Wednesday were my other two sisters, twins in almost every sense of the word. Long dark hair in the same style, deep dark eyes that seemed to see everything, and short black dresses and black and purple striped stockings that disappeared into knee-high Victorian-style boots.

"Because he's a coward." Ambrosius spat with enough venom to down an elephant. Thorn passed Ambrosius a gentle, but stern look that told him to calm down. Ambrosius just folded his arms over his chest and jerked his head in the opposite direction, reminding me of a toddler pouting.

The amount of hatred Ambrosius held for Hades actually made me feel sorry for Hades, but then, I suppose I didn't know the whole story, so it wasn't enough to judge either of them.

"Still," Wednesday insisted, "What about his family? His realm? Surely he doesn't want them stepping all over him."

"He hides behind his sons," Ambrosius muttered bitterly, "He won't defend a realm he hates anyway. I remember many a rant he went on about how much he hated the underworld." Raven, who was standing near Jaques at the doors as we waited for our father, frowned.

"Why does he rule the underworld if he hates it?" He asked. Ambrosius gave him a droll stare.

"Because if he didn't have anything to bitch about, he wouldn't be Hades." He answered flatly. Dania snorted a laugh and Thorn covered his face with a hand as if they were both embarrassing him. Jaques rolled his eyes and pushed off the wall he'd been leaning on to approach the rest of us.