Chapter One
"Oh, Lacey, no! Come on! You can't tell me you don't realize that's your brother-in-law! That's what you get for marrying twins! Oh, this show is so stupid. I'm so done with this."
Since the moment the midwife slapped me on the ass, I'd been destined for a military lifestyle, in which I spent several centuries going on campaigns with my father and brothers. I'd been all over Greece, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. I'd been tortured and fought battles in every place, and spent most of my life fighting for my life in a family that loathed me.
And yet, this moment... this moment right here was probably the weirdest moment of my life.
Instead of fighting a bloody battle, I found myself sitting on a strange pastel blue sofa that was made of some odd fake leather material. Instead of armor, I was wearing a long sleeved v-neck top and strange pants made of rough jean material I was having difficulties becoming accustomed to. And let's not forget the foul tasting alcoholic beverage in a brown bottle that the people of this era called beer... to call it beer would be insulting to beer.
But what made this moment weirder was my brother-in-law, and I shuddered in revulsion at having to refer to him as such.
It wasn't that the angel --and he was literally an angel-- wasn't attractive. Far from, in fact. Akin was incredibly beautiful in a surreal angelic way. His long pale blonde hair was coiled into some half-assed attempt at a bun, his sapphire blue eyes always snapping fire at something, and his skin such a pale shade of cream. He also wore the strangest clothing that was apparently considered high fashion in this time period.
No, Akin was just fucking weird for a number of reasons. One being that he constantly yelled at the strange talking box people called a television, even though Akin knew the device wouldn't respond directly to him. He was also very... feminine. I wasn't even sure what it was exactly. Maybe his clothes, his hair, his make-up, or even the way he called everyone "honey" or "sweetie" as if everyone was his friend. It was unnerving.
Or it could all be linked to the fact that I hated him and his very existence and I hated myself for hating him. I should've been a god of hate-- instead, I was a god of anger. So everything pissed me off, including Akin and the fact that he was Hannibal's husband.
Akin was kind, friendly, caring. And even though he yelled at inanimate objects --the other being the coffee making device in the morning-- he was rather intelligent and very astute. It was what made hiding my feelings so difficult. Akin had already caught onto my affections for his husband and I had expected him to react like everyone else; disgust and rage.
Instead, he'd welcomed me into his home to stay with him and Hannibal.
It just pissed me off even more.
"This is ridiculous," Akin was saying as I tuned back in when he struck the arm of the sofa, glaring at the television screen, "Who can't tell the difference between their husband and their brother-in-law? He's obviously Greg just tricking her because he killed his own brother." I had no opinion to give him, so I took a forced gulp of the wretched beer mixture, trying to find some reprieve.
I didn't understand what he was saying. He was speaking Greek just fine, but the television was not. It spoke some strange foreign language I'd never heard before, something Akin referred to as English. It sounded... posh. I didn't like it. It was too complicated. What had happened to the years where everyone spoke Greek or Egyptian? Even worse, both languages had changed over time, so even now it was difficult to understand some of their slang. Egyptian wasn't even referred to as Egyptian in the mortal realm; they called it Arabic. Why?
It didn't matter, though. I didn't need to know what the talking box said, or even what Akin said. I had been resurrected for a job. And until that job was executed, nothing else mattered, but the job. It was just frustrating when these moments of downtime, as Akin referred to it, happened. I loathed the empty days in which we were forced to sit and wait for the next event. I would much rather seek out Atlan and beat his face bloody instead of waiting for his next move, but according to Hannibal, St. John told us to do nothing until something happened-- and that infuriated me even further.
That damned demon snake had no idea how war worked. Granted, not every day was a battle, but damn it all, waiting for your enemy to make the first move? Iapetus was rolling in his grave... or his cell in Tartarus anyway.
"Do you want anymore beer, hon?" Akin's question drew my eyes to him, but I avoided his eyes directly. I felt like he was trying to read me otherwise.
"No, thanks," I replied briefly, setting aside the empty bottle, frowning at the lack of result from drinking it. What happened to the days when beer was so potent that it gave me at least a buzz? This beer was far too weak and watered down. Even Akin's deplorable sweet coffee in the morning was preferable.
"You sure? We have plenty left and Hannibal prefers whiskey to beer."
I know.
"I'm fine." I was finding it easier and easier to respond with that. Back when Iapetus had harassed me with questions, I'd be forced to tell him. The bastard read everyone like an open book and it was why he hated me so much. He'd keep up appearances in front of the other gods, and he'd even act like I was one of his favorites in front of Hannibal, but the moment we were away from them, Iapetus would put my head through a wall. And all of it because I dared to ask if I could hold Hannibal.
At the time, it'd been an innocent question. I hadn't meant hold him. I meant just embrace him as a brother, or what I had thought was merely brotherly affection. Even then, Iapetus knew what was going on in my stupid little head and had attempted to snuff that flame out. Unfortunately, he never had the chance. Zeus did it for him.
I shuddered when I thought of the Greek god that now ruled Olympus. My teeth practically chattered when I remembered the sight of him leering at me during my last vision to the cursed mountain realm of Olympus. He remembered me. He took every chance he could to taunt me with double-entendres or lecherous sneers. I wanted to vomit just thinking about it, so I jammed my fingernails into my palms, savoring the little pinches there as decent distractions. Of course, it wasn't nearly as good as real pain.
The sound of the front door creaking open made me tense, followed by a deep baritone calling out,
"Master, I'm home!"
He's home. I ground my teeth together, saying nothing as Akin gave a happy cry and leapt off the sofa faster than I'd seen any man move. I didn't turn around or look up as I heard his heavy footfalls coming into the living room where Akin met him and was probably kissing him and hugging him.
Instead, I kept my eyes on the television, pretending I knew what was going on between the random man who was dancing on his desk and the woman who was dancing with him. Was that truly how people in this era behaved? I remember Iapetus once boxing Atlas's ears for behaving as such.
Still, my main focus was on Hannibal. His voice had always given me goosebumps. A rich Atlantean accent just lightly tinged with Greek whenever he spoke his Ss. I swallowed at the sound of it as he asked Akin how he was, and by how he was, he was asking Akin if I had behaved and that sent a bolt of irritation through me. What? Was he expecting me to piss on his strange shiny wood floors? Tempting though it was, I had better things to do... like figure out why these programs called commercials kept leading to even more. I couldn't even remember what Akin was watching anymore.
"I brought dinner," Hannibal said, and I heard bags rustling around as he placed them on the countertop, "I figured since I wasn't going to get here in time to make anything, I'd buy something. Is that alright?"
"Of course, baby," Akin replied, "Oh! Thai food!" I rolled my eyes. Didn't Hannibal's mother say something about his constant eating of Asian food? The only reason I knew was that Lea had a big mouth and liked to yell her childish chiding to her son, and she'd given him a complete list of foods to avoid for a while so he could focus on more Atlantean meals.
Little did Lea know that a lot of the foods Atlanteans consumed no longer existed. Certain plants and animals had gone extinct after the island crumbled away into the ocean. It would be difficult to recreate some of their meals, especially since some of the foods now are extremely frowned upon in Atlantean belief.
"Menoetius, do you want some?" Akin asked me. My stomach was rather empty, and it'd been aching for a while now, but I wasn't about to join them to eat.
"Actually, I think I'm going to go out," I said, getting to my feet. I made the mistake of turning around at the same moment Hannibal was approaching me, and my knees went weak, my breath catching at the sight of him standing there. Even with his expression cold and shuttered, he still made an impressive sight.
By far taller than me at several hands, his skin was a rich shade of caramel signifying his Atlantean heritage, his long black hair currently draped over one broad shoulder, arms folded over his muscular chest. A familiar vicious scar ran through his left eye, dipping down to the corner of his lips, a scar that had turned his eye a milky white, but didn't blind him. And his right eye was the clearest shade of blue I'd ever seen. He was dressed in a pair of tight leather pants and a t-shirt that emphasized bulging muscles. It was almost enough to make my mouth water, but years of practice taught me not to react, so I stood there with a bored expression as I prepared for yet another one of Hannibal's lectures.
"I told you I want you to stay here," Hannibal informed me sternly, "It's not safe to leave right now. I'm going to see Hades in the morning about what we can do." Oh, that was perfect. Let's talk to Hades about my problems. He'd be more than happy to gift wrap me and dump me at Atlan's feet-- like he did when he dumped me at Zeus's feet for the last mission. The asshole failed to inform me that Zeus was still a prominent figure of Olympus. I had spent the rest of my mission extremely paranoid. Thankfully, I'd managed to avoid sleeping on Olympus until one night I couldn't handle it and passed out in the shower, where I'd dreamt of that strange labyrinth. I found it odd considering Hades had taken my ability to dream away.
Oh no, instead, I was graced with the presence of his bastard son, Malachi, who monitored my dreams to make sure none of them were pleasant. I dreamt of torture and I dreamt of blood and I dreamt of all the times Iapetus had backhanded me-- which was quite a long list considering I was ever a target for his abuse.
"I'm just going across the street," I told Hannibal, "I don't like that food anyway." Hannibal looked irritated and Akin looked uncomfortable as he leaned on the countertop in the kitchen. He pushed off and was moving toward us very slowly, like he was unsure whether to get involved with a pair of men that made it a hobby of beating the shit out of each other.
"How am I supposed to even believe you when you tell me that," Hannibal demanded, "You never go where you say you're going. You never pick up your phone, which is the whole reason Akin bought it for you. You stay out way past the time you tell us you'll return." I almost laughed at that. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was getting better at faking concern. No, the only reason he didn't trust me running off was because of the deal he'd made with Hades to bring me back.
Should I fuck up even once, Hades was going to send us both to Tartarus.
And then there was the fun fact that I was apparently some stupid key to Atlantis. Another thing that made me laugh when Anexius had told me back on Olympus.
Right. I'm the Key to Atlantis. I'm also a fluffy bunny.
"I can order you something else," Akin spoke up as he came up beside Hannibal, who visibly relaxed at his presence, "Did you like that pizza we had the other night? I can order some of that, or if you prefer something Greek, there's a restaurant my dad really likes in town that does deliveries. I could always call them up." Why did he have to stick his nose where it didn't belong? Why did he feel the need to be our mediator? Akin could pretend to be nice and sweet all he wanted, but in the end, I knew he wanted me here even less than Hannibal did.
I was an intruder. Even worse, I was one of the many people who'd treated Hannibal like shit, and Akin knew it. There was no way he could forgive me for that, no matter how nice he seemed. He was putting on a show and his dishonesty infuriated me.
"Never mind," I said, "I'm not hungry." I slammed my shoulder into Hannibal's on my way to the kitchen to grab something to drink and he growled low in his throat, but Akin put a hand on his arm and shook his head. Now I was even more pissed.
I wanted Hannibal to hit me. I dared him to, every time we were together, but there was always someone there to keep him off me. Was it too much to ask for a little payback? Hannibal hadn't attacked me even once since I'd come back. Oh, he would react defensively, but he never outright attacked me with vengeance and that pissed me off. What happened to the monstrosity that tore apart entire armies single-handedly? The one who drank their blood and tore their skin like it was nothing, but paper? The one who would've killed me had he the chance to do so?
He was domesticated. He was no longer angry. If anything, he looked tired.
Hell, the bastard was happy.
And I hated myself for being angry at him for that. Why should I hate him for that? He'd never had a happy moment in his life. His entire life had been a shitstorm of mockery and abuse, of neglect and hatred. Nothing in his life had been perfect, even after I died in hopes that Hannibal would be free. No, Hades was happy to show me that my death meant nothing. Hannibal had been enslaved repeatedly. By Zeus, by Hades, by Hades's shitchild, Cain. And then...
I shook my head as I opened the fridge door, reaching inside the strange cold device to take out Hannibal's bottle of whiskey. Now this should do nicely. I could feel Hannibal's eyes on me as Akin unpacked their food. The hot smell of it wafted through the kitchen and practically taunted me, but I rather starve than sit with them another second. I'd lose my appetite watching them kiss, watching Hannibal sit at Akin's feet and rest his head in his lap like he worshipped the very ground Akin walked on.
Frustrated, I went to the guest room they'd put me in. It was just the guest room, not my room. I didn't intend to stay here long. Just until my job was finished.
The room itself wasn't foul. They could've forced me to sleep outside. But still, the room felt cold and empty and uncomfortable. And for some reason, Akin had decorated it in pastel blues. What was his problem and the color blue? Everything was so modern in here that it had taken me days to figure out how everything worked, and even now the showerhead still gave me panic attacks. The damn thing had several settings and at some point, I'd been sprayed with scalding hot water in the face. I'd settled for filling the tub and bathing like a normal person...
Then again, that probably wasn't normal anymore.
I sighed and splayed out on the bed, taking deep swigs of whiskey every so often. The taste was strong and burned my throat the whole way down.
No wonder Hannibal likes this stuff.
Still, it would be a while before I was drunk enough to fall asleep without having any nightmares. I'd found a way to keep Malachi out of my nightmares, but it only worked on certain nights. I'd drink myself into a coma and he'd only stay in my head for a few minutes before vanishing as if he couldn't stand it, as if my brain smelled like fucking alcohol.
My cell phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts and I cursed the damn thing. I set the whiskey aside and rolled over the edge of the bed to my backpack beside the nightstand, rummaging through the pockets before I found the cell phone, touching the strange flat screen before holding it to my ear.
"I told you not to call me unless it was an emergency," I said immediately. There were only two people who called me, and one of them was already in the apartment with me. It could only be one other person.
"It is an emergency, jackass," came the man's voice on the other end, a husky growl of irritation, laced with the faintest accent I'd never heard before, "You have to slow down on your little crusade. You're arousing suspicion and the last thing I need is Theo's men knocking my door down in front of my children when they connect me to you." I frowned instantly. I had made sure to space the kills out, so I had no idea what he was talking about. Surely they hadn't connected the dots this quickly. Death happened frequently in Hades. How could they possibly be able to connect all those kills in such a short amount of time?
Even worse, as much as I didn't want to give a shit about the man on the other line, or his family, I did and I hated myself for it. Some god of anger and violence I was. I couldn't even force myself to not give a shit. The idea of hurting children stung.
"I've spaced them out," I told the man on the other line, keeping the concern out of my voice and where it belonged-- in my head, "I've even done them in different parts of Hades. Hell, I even killed one in Helheim. Do you have any idea how fucking cold it is in Helheim?"
"I'm from Russia. Everything there is cold."
"I don't know what Russia is."
"Right. Too old. Anyway, I'm warning you about that and the fact that I found the last guy." My blood ran cold at that. I should've been relieved, but we'd been saving the worst for last and it was going to be a lot harder to pin him down and slit his throat. The last few had been rather easy considering they were very open and enjoyed their solitude, considering they were also killers as well as... I swallowed hard at the thought and sat up slowly, sliding off the bed and moving to the bathroom, turning the sink water on to drown out our conversation in case anyone got nosy.
"Where is he?" I demanded, sitting on the edge of the tub. I listened to papers rustling around, the sound of a children's cartoon playing in the background, and a toddler's laughter. I tensed. So that's what it sounded like to hear a child laugh... I'd only ever heard them scream and cry. Their laughter sounded... I couldn't describe it. Musical. Carefree. What would it have been like to be able to make that kind of sound?
"Hell," came the man's response, drawing me back and making me frown instantly, "But he's not alone, Menoetius. Tiberius is the father of a Russian mob group called Azrael." I had no idea what any of that meant, but I didn't care. I'd run into my list of victims in groups and had no problem taking the rest of them out.
"Sure. Where in Hell is he?" I asked. The man sighed.
"Menoetius, in this time period, the Russian mob isn't just something you brush off like it's nothing. The worst part is that they work like one big family. If you kill one of them, the rest of them will come after you with a vengeance. They won't stop until you're paid for what you've done."
"You seem to know an awful lot about Russian mobs."
"I do," there was an underlying bitterness to his voice, making me frown, "And that's why I'm warning you ahead of time. If you kill Tiberius, you're going to trigger a major domino effect. The mob will come after you. And if they do, and you get caught, you and Hannibal will go to Tartarus, and while I'm all for this crusade of yours, it's not worth it if the person we're avenging ends up in the worst kind of hell."
"I won't get caught. You forget that I've carried out my fair share of assassinations."
"And I made a living off of it," the man replied in frustration, "Just don't get cocky. For now, don't do anything. Let me do a little more research on him and figure out how many he brought with him, where they are, and how to get in and out without getting caught. If we can make it look like an accident, maybe, just maybe, we can get away with it. So until you get my call confirming this information, do not go after him yourself, Menoetius. If you do, you put not just myself and you in jeopardy-- you put Hannibal in jeopardy." Click.
I frowned, pulling the phone back from my ear to stare at the blank screen before I sighed and set the phone aside, pinching the bridge of my nose between my hands, rubbing at my face.
While I appreciate that man's help, his paranoia was a pain in my ass. I wasn't scared of a small crime syndicate that thought they ruled the world. I'd taken down armies before. This was nothing in comparison. Still, the man was right about taking things slow. I wasn't fool enough to go after Tiberius without checking him out first.
As far as I knew, Tiberius was the leader of a Russian mob and he'd also been involved in numerous human trafficking rings-- something that was strictly prohibited in all the other realms. Humans, while not the most attractive creatures in the world, were a delicacy and provided entertainment for some of the more vile creatures in the world. Tiberius would kidnap them from their realm and drug them so heavily they would think themselves insane, and he would pass them around for money until they died or killed themselves. He'd been arrested on several occasions, however, the charges had always been dropped due to lack of evidence.
It was disgusting-- and about time someone did something about him. Filth like that shouldn't exist.
And of course, the root of all my hatred came from the fact that I'd seen his face in one of the many videos Hades had forced me to watch of Hannibal's attack. It made me sick to think about it and anger permeated the air around me, making it crackle and hiss. I wanted to punch something, to hit something, anything to put the anger at bay. So I stood up and slammed my fist down on the sink, cracking the porcelain so one of the sharp pieces stuck into my fist. I hissed at the pain, but savored it as I lifted my fist to pluck the piece from my skin.
Blood dripped into the sink, oozing down the dark black hole. Then as quickly as the wound came, it was gone, leaving behind a small scar. I tossed the fragmented pieces of porcelain into the garbage and went back into the bedroom to finish my bottle of whiskey.
Sorry, Hannibal's bottle of whiskey.
And I was steadily learning why Hannibal drank the stuff. It was extremely potent. It wasn't diluted in the least, something that the Greek people would have a friggin' heart attack over. Or at least, they used to anyway. This stuff was strong and hit me like a fucking truck.
Before I knew it, I found myself laying on my stomach, face buried against the pillow, the bottle slipping between my fingers and falling to the floor with an empty ring. I sighed and closed my eyes, slipping into a slumber I prayed Malachi would stay the fuck away from... and he did.
For the first time since I'd been killed, I had that dream.
In the past, I had developed this strange dream. It was perfect and beautiful and calm. A slight pain followed me into the morning, but I loved the dream no less. It was the only time I could pretend nothing had gone wrong in my life. The only time I could pretend that... he was mine.
The dream was always the same. I woke up to warm sunlight pooling across my face, white curtains billowing away from large glass windows that looked out over a beach I'd never seen before. I was laying in a soft bed, one arm beneath my head, the other drawn to my chest, to make room for the person who lay beside me. His long black hair splayed across the white sheets, his dark skin a sharp contrast to the blankets, and he slept... on and on. He never woke up.
He never turned around. He never spoke.
Because he'd never looked at me the way I wanted him to, and he never spoke to me the way I wished he'd speak to me. I could never touch him either, because our touch was never anything less than violent.
Even in my dreams, I could never make Hannibal love me the way I loved him.
But it was alright, because at least here he could be at peace.
At least here, I could be at peace...