Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“What would these old gods do in that situation?”
“That is quite a backstory,” I told him. “Well, I guess they would… find ways to make themselves known.”
“How so?”
“Well, I think you can imagine that each god, especially the more powerful gods, would show themselves in stereotypical ways. Zeus might start with sudden, violent storms. Lots of lightning.
“Ares might have the humans starting sudden and bloody wars between seemingly peaceful allies.
“As for Poseidon, you can expect ships to sink or strange water phenomena. Hurricanes, tsunamis, that sort of thing.”
“Anyone else?”
“Well, I think you can imagine that gods like Aphrodite would bring about a lot of, well…”
“Fucking,” he supplied, and the way that word just rolled off his tongue? Yeah, it was doing things to me. Things I hadn’t felt in a good, long while.
“Yes, that,” I said, reaching up toward the delicate little necklace I always wore, that had been given to me by my father when I graduated university, something that I was so used to, I never even felt it, but it suddenly seemed like it was choking me.
“What else?” he asked, and it took me a second to think past the strange surge of desire building in my system and get back to the subject at hand.
What the hell was wrong with me?
I’d been learning about the myths, and all the raunchy tales found within, since I was a little girl. I’d never been turned on thinking about them before.
Which meant the only reason I was at that moment was because of a certain disarmingly handsome man sitting close to me.
“Ah, well, I think some good things could happen, actually.”
“How so?”
“Well, you have the gods who are the more vengeful sort. But you also have gods who might show themselves by sharing their gifts with the world once again. You could see a Renaissance of music and art thanks to Apollo. Or more happy domestic lives thanks to Hera and Hestia. Dionysus could bring about a lot of fun parties and overindulgence.”
“Okay. That’s good,” he said, then shook his head. “For balance. For the app story,” he said, the words strange, tight, not sounding genuine.
Or maybe I was too clouded by the strange desire in my system to think straight, clouding my judgment.
“Yeah, it’s always good to balance the doom-and-gloom with something more positive,” I agreed, taking another sip of the coffee.
There was a long pause, Bael looking off at the case of books for a long second. When he spoke, his attention was on those same books until they shifted to me.
And I swear the impact of the intensity in them made me sit up straighter in my seat.
“What about Hades?” he asked.
CHAPTER FOUR
Bael
I didn’t give a shit about what happened to the humans.
That was not something the other guys in the club would want to hear.
But I believed that was only because that after being trapped on the human plane for hundreds of years had softened them to the human race.
I still saw them for what they were at their core.
Selfish.
Rotten.
Wicked.
Evil.
That was how I’d always known them.
That was why it had been so easy to do my job down in Hell, punishing them for all of their sins.
In my experience, the only time they felt even the slightest bit guilty for the shit they’d done when they were alive was when they were being held accountable for it in the afterlife.
And if your “goodness” in life was dependent upon the punishment you might receive in death, then you just weren’t a fucking good person, period.
My time on the human plane hadn’t exposed me to much in the way of good humans, either.
Sure, it likely didn’t help that I spent most of my time at the house, not wanting anything to do with them. Unlike my brother who was out there fucking a different human woman every hour on the hour, sharing drinks with them, going out to eat with them, practically fucking pretending that he was one of them.
The only humans that were in the house were the ones who attended the drug and alcohol and violence-infested parties that our club threw. Though, admittedly, those weren’t happening all that often anymore. Not since a few of the guys had found their other halves.
A witch, which meant mostly human to begin with.
A human nurse who, admittedly, was likely not going to go to hell thanks to her selfless service to her other humankind.
And then a damned demonslayer.
All of them, though, were no longer fully human anyway. Once they’d gone through with their little ritual, they became just a little bit like us.
I was apt to say that any goodness I saw in those women was due to the demon blood in their veins.
Maybe that would sound fucked to a human, to claim that the demons were the “good guys.”