He said, “So, no breaking the rules for him just because he’s king, no sending political enemies to be reborn or thrown in Tartarus, and all of his decisions will be reviewed by us?”

  I shook my head, “Not all of them, that would be exhausting, and we all have lives and ambitions of our own. Just the ones relating to law and justice internal to god society. This is just about making him part of the rules and keeping him in check. That’s the council’s only job.”

  He nodded.

  I said, “I mean, I still plan to go to college and get my degree, and I’m hoping you pursue that master’s degree. Plus, big family and supporting their goals and desires.”

  He said, “That would split us up.”

  I grinned, “But by then we’ll be bonded, and be able to call each other, find each other, and know when we’re in trouble. You could be at my side instantly, and vice versa, if Nate starts trouble. Plus, even Nate isn’t monstrous enough to destroy a college building full of young matriculating adults. He hides his corruption, or tries too, especially from humanity and the human politicians, that means we’ll be safe enough when in a public place.”

  He said, “Okay, I can see that. The goddesses?”

  I pulled out the data sheets, and then passed them across the table.

  “I think we should recruit Mandy first.”

  He snickered as he read it over, “They say Aphrodite and Athena were enemies.”

  I shrugged, “More frenemies than real enemies. Plus, I’m not into selfish and empty pleasure, and this Athena is a love starved and quite a wicked young woman, besides being wise and intelligent. She’s also a warrior, and I’m a fair hand at martial arts, I think we’ll have a lot in common.”

  He grunted, “Just joking really. I learned my lesson about making assumptions using Greek myth. Why her first?”

  I winked, “Wisdom. Once we onboard her, I want her to go through my plan with a fine-tooth comb. I bet she’ll have suggestions and be able to spot flaws or shortfalls. That way when we recruit the other two, we’ll have a solid final plan to pitch.”

  He made a face, “Duh. Of course, and I agree.”

  I giggled, “It’s my plan, you’re only just seeing it, no harm in missing a subtle point.”

  He put the papers to the side as the food arrived.

  He said, “I’m… impressed. It’s not what I expected it to be. In some ways it’s even more dangerous, but I think it’s the right thing to do. Thoughtful, not just to punish but to fix it.”

  I blushed, “Thanks.”

  He winked and we both dug into breakfast.

  We were about half done with eating when we felt another god.

  Gary scowled, “Brandon, how the hell did he find me?”

  “Do we go or stop him?”

  I wasn’t sure what the best idea was, but I knew I didn’t want to kill Brandon or for Nate to find out that I was a part of this. But if we kicked his ass then Aria would see the victory and tell him anyway. A kind of workaround to our immunity to farseeing by lesser gods, like the marble filagree charm tigress around my neck. It might be too late either way, chances were if Brandon knew we were here so did Nate.

  Gary tilted his head and focused, “He’s going to confront us, let’s get out front. Do you know how to cloak from mortals?”

  We stood up, and I said, “In theory,” and I focused on that end result. A few people looking our way looked extremely confused.

  “Got it.”

  Gary chuckled, and we moved toward the door, “Be wary of him, he’s extremely quick. He almost took your father’s head once, and Mark was expecting him to attack. He might be tier-two but he’s a war god, and our bodies are still relatively fragile, immortal and incorruptible or not. He can shoot fire and create any weapon on the spot, including modern ones. Stay close to me.”

  I grabbed his arm and bumped his hip with mine as we got to the door, and he grinned at me as he opened it. Flirting right before a confrontation might seem weird, but not to me.

  “Don’t forget he’s under compulsion, an order to stop will likely be against Nate’s will.”

  Gary grunted, “I won’t. Suppress his teleport and block him from being seen, I’ll take care of the rest.”

  I focused on that as we headed out. His protective words warmed my heart, but at the same time if he needed help then I wasn’t about to stay out of it. It also wasn’t the time for that argument, our enemy was here.

  Brandon was six foot four with the wide muscular build of a body builder. Black hair and gray eyes, and he honestly wasn’t hard to look at, at all. My intuition told me however, that the man was a monster. He cared about little but victory and violence without care for the cause, the human in him giving into his mantle completely. I wasn’t sure there was anything redeeming about him, and he had a towering arrogance and a fearless smirk on his face.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d always been like that, or if twenty years in Tartarus had turned him into a psychopath. I could almost even see Nate’s point in locking him down with compulsion, it was probably either that or kill him outright, and then wait another twenty years to get his god of war back. I was certainly having second thoughts about freeing him, and that bothered me.

  Brandon asked, “Enjoying your vacation, Gary? Nate’s been looking for you.”

  Gary shrugged, “Yet you haven’t called him. You’re not contemplating suicide by darkness are you? To get free of him. Because I’ll just throw you back in Tartarus if you attack, for a little while anyway.”

  Brandon looked at me, and my skin started to crawl at the look on his face. Sure, I wanted to be treated like an object in the bedroom, but not seen like one, or treated that way out in the real world by a man that wasn’t my lover, it made my skin crawl. He was creeping on me and it was disgusting. Also, probably a ploy to piss Gary off, and it kind of worked. Though ploy or not, I knew Brandon would rape me if he got a chance too, it was all over his face and body language.

  I wasn’t afraid though, that would never happen.

  Gary growled, “Well?”

  Brandon smirked and winked at me, then looked back at Gary who was trembling in anger. I was a little turned on by his jealous possessiveness, but also worried Brandon would somehow use it against him. People in a fit of jealous rage rarely thought straight, and without a clear mind it would compromise his reflexes.

  Brandon said, “You should surrender, and come with me, before this ends in a death. He might be merciful, and he’ll certainly want to meet the divine creature at your side. The goddess of love freed you? That’s… amusing. Do you plan on running the rest of your lives?”

  It occurred to me it was possible Nate’s compulsions made him like this. It was probably worth freeing him just to find out if he was truly a monster. It was possible Nate had ordered Brandon to focus on his mantle and follow his orders, to be useful. Telling a god to focus on their mantel would completely remove their humanity.

  Despite Brandon’s words, he suddenly moved forward so fast I could barely track it, and the sword he was suddenly holding gleamed in the light.

  But Gary was ready despite Brandon’s emotional distraction meant to slow his mind and reflexes, and darkness exploded forward before Brandon had closed half the distance. Brandon tried to dodge, but the darkness curved, engulfed him, and then spat him out. Brandon went flying and I heard his back crack and his head slammed into the dumpster. When he fell to the ground there was a dent in the thing, and the god of war was knocked out.

  Gary growled, “Arrogant bastard.”

  I touched his arm, “Let’s see what happens when we cut his leash. It might be Nate that turned him into a monster with orders, one on a tight leash. If he’s still a psycho, we can kill him or put him in Tartarus until this is over.”

  Gary frowned, “Fine, but we’re not taking any chances.”

  Darkness flowed from his hands, and when they faded, he was holding an enchanted pair of magical suppression cuffs. I followed him over and he bent down to cuff him, Brandon’s head was partially caved in and seeping blood, and his back was broken. Gary must’ve been pissed.

  After he was cuffed, I cast a healing spell that fixed his wounds, and as soon as he started to come around I hit him with the same compulsions I’d used on Gary.

  “My will is Nate’s will, his orders are my orders.”

  I noticed Gary’s scowl, and I paused to look at him in question.

  Gary shrugged, “Your compulsion voice is ridiculously sexy, I don’t…”

  I giggled, “Like it pointed at him?” I asked in seductive and smug tones.

  Gary grunted, but his lips twitched.

  I turned back to Brandon, “You are now free from compulsion and all orders.”

  The change in Brandon was significant, but not in the direction I’d hoped. Instead of a cold psychopath with no redeeming qualities, he turned into an unhinged psychopath with no redeeming qualities.

  He yelled incoherently in a growling voice, “I’m going to bathe in your blood, you, your slut, and that fucking prick Nate.”

  He lunged up at us, but I just stepped forward and snap kicked him in the face, punched his throat, stomped his instep and slammed his chest with both hands, all while continuing to step forward. He hit the dumpster and fell on his ass. He was quiet for the moment, holding his shin and gasping for breath, he also looked like he might be seeing stars.

  Gary cleared his throat, “That was disturbingly hot, baby. When you said you knew martial arts…”

  I giggled, “It would probably be a mercy to kill him, like I was killed twenty-two years ago, a life reset. But that’s not up to us to decide. Put him on ice until we ensure Nate can be a trusted judge?”

  Gary snorted, “I suppose that makes sense, if we hand him over now, he’ll just compel Nathan again.”

  “And if we judge him when it’s not our place to do so, we’re no better than Nate. Killing in self-defense is one thing, but he’s no threat to us.”

  Gary sighed, “You’re right,” darkness flowed out of him and around Brandon, and when it cleared the god of war was gone.

  “You took the cuffs off?”

  Gary replied, “Yes. That went back to my storeroom while he went straight to one of the holding areas I set up.”

  He looked at me with a wild look in his eyes that made me breathless, as he pulled me crushingly against him and claimed my lips.

  I let out a little whimper and kissed him back, beyond thrilled at his jealous and firm claiming. If he was going to react like this all the time to other guys, then I’d have to pay guys to be pigs or something. Damn.

  Another thrill went down my spine, as he pushed me up against the wall of the building outside and started to lift my skirts with grasping hands and fingertips digging deliciously into my legs. Gods, he was going to fuck me right here, while we were cloaked from mortals, up against the window in broad daylight with people eating right behind me. Even if they couldn’t see me, the wicked naughty thrill of his jealous claiming in semi-public was potent, and it had my body flushing with heat.

  Just… throw me against the wall and have his way with me, without a by your leave, in an insane jealous act of claiming and ownership. I was soaked for him at the thought, and I melted against his hardness, became soft, willing, and shamelessly showed him my breathless surrender, and I felt like putty in his strong insistent hands. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t let him do to me in that moment.

  A naughty thrill went through me, and I kissed him back as hard as he was devouring me.

  Chapter Eight

  Gary

  Her soft supple skin was like silk as I dug my fingers into her thighs, pressing her hard against the window while I clawed at her dress. I lifted those skirts an inch at a time while I kissed her fiercely. I couldn’t help it, I had to have her, claim her, fuck her. She’d been driving me crazy all morning, even her plans and intelligence had turned me on, but it was her every mesmerizing and sensuous movement that drew me to her like a fly to amber.

  I’d already wanted her badly before Brandon showed up, never mind I’d been balls deep just an hour before that, I couldn’t get enough of her. But Brandon’s dark leer had pushed the buttons on my insanely strong possessiveness and jealousy, and after dealing with him I had to claim her.

  Her breathy gasps into my mouth, the way she softened against me in sweet panting surrender, the feel of her body crushed against mine, the heat of her body, the taste of her mouth, and the very scent of her was driving me mad. The way she was kissing me back, so hot for me and my jealousy, the way her hands ran through my hair and her nails scratched at the back of my neck. She was encouraging me to take what was mine, to drill her hard and empty my nut sack, and I just knew I had to be buried in her heated paradise. I had to claim her as mine, show her she was mine, and her hot flesh belonged to me and me alone.

  When I got her loose skirt up high enough my hand gripped her panties, and she gave out a little gasp as the darkness flowed from my hands and caressed her flesh as it wrapped around her panties and took them away. If anything, me using my power had turned her on even more. I gripped her tight petite ass cheeks and lifted, slamming her against the window as her legs went around me.

  I growled, “Line me up, I’m going to fill you.”

  She said breathily, “Yes, sir,” in a voice full of sultry desire and as lost in lust as my fogged brain.

  She held me tightly and teased the head of my cock along her wet folds making us both gasp in pleasure, before she lined it up with her entrance.

  I growled, “You’re mine, trouble,” then slammed it up into her.

  Her legs wrapped around me like a vice, and she rolled her hips, taking me deep with a breathless, “Yes, I am. Yours to fuck, whenever you want. To claim… so good to be yours, sir. So good to be your nasty and willing whore.”

  I grunted and hissed in pleasure, as I started to drive up into her, watching her lustful and thrilled eyes start to glaze over with both discomfort and pleasure, even as she rolled her hips each time she fell, thrusting with me to get it buried faster. Her pendulous breasts bouncing riotously in the dresses barely there support, but plenty of support for her ridiculously pert DD cups, at least when she wasn’t being pounded.

  I lost myself in the sensations of her, the taste of her, the intense and myriad pleasures of her body. He body worked mine so hard, grinding, clenching, grasping, and milking, as I pounded up into her like a man possessed. I felt almost insane doing it, losing myself in her beauty, sexy body, and her thrilled eyes as I showed her she was mine. Claimed her with my cock.

  There was no holding back, no worrying about her pleasure, her body was taking care of that while I plowed her up and down the glass possessively, selfishly, and potently. The rise to pleasure was sharp, fast, and inescapable. She was too hot around me, the satiny friction too much pleasure, as her hot flesh enveloped me again and again, pleasured, rippled, clenched, and massaged my sensitive and hard driving cock.

  Her gasps of pleasure and the look of surrendering bliss on her face, and her wild pants of wanton and wicked joy as she looked at me in naughty and wicked surrender had an effect too, drove me to take her mercilessly.

  “Mine, baby,” I roared my pleasure, and her cry of ecstasy followed a split second later, as the first pulse of my claiming seed was forced into her hot body. Her pussy convulsed wildly, milking me, as I locked my legs to stay upright and glared at her in orgasmic claiming, telling her she was mine.

  She gasped, whimpered, and keened hers, and we rode the heights of that rutting jealous fuck together for what felt like an eternity. Then we fell back to Earth.

  I felt both thrilled and guilty, by what my possessive jealousy and her seductive nature combined had done to me, as powerful waves of protectiveness and affection rose in me. The insane lust and jealousy had drained into her with my seed, and now I just felt a protective awe toward my amazing goddess. I claimed her lips, and she sighed sweetly into my mouth as I kissed her languidly. The heat of her still around my spent cock was luxurious.

  She surprised me then, when I let her down, she dropped to her knees, cleaned me up with teasing licks and hard sucks, not to mention her sensual moans of enjoyment in the act, before packing me away with a teasing and very satisfied glint in her eyes. Then to prove she’d truly wanted to do it, she cleaned herself up with a witch spell and winked at me saucily.

  “I’d have rather kept you in me, but I don’t seem to have panties anymore to stop it dripping out.”

  I snorted, and darkness raced out of me, teased up legs and under the skirt of her dress. The most thrilling thing about it was there was no fear in her eyes, just a thrill of danger and total trust in me as she gazed into my eyes with her seductive dark chocolate eyes.

  She sighed, “That’s handy,” as I put her panties back, then she blushed.

  I tilted my head in question.

  She giggled, “I could’ve made a new pair too, I just… wasn’t thinking straight yet,” she winked.

  She was so stunningly beautiful, not a hair out of place as her power and mantel sorted her out. I was also growing confident that she really did want a man as possessive as me, and even needed me to be selfish in bed every once in a while. I mean, between what just happened, and the way I’d taken her in the shower, I was feeling it in my gut. Even when being selfish, I suspected she’d always cum at least once and that made it feel a whole lot less dark as well.

  Damn, I already wanted her again, her beauty, sex appeal, the way she looked at me, the way she moved and her exuberantly warm personality. But we had things to do.

  “Where are we headed?”

  She said, “Harvard.”

  “Isn’t school out?”

  She nodded, “Mandy is a post grad, she has an apartment near campus. She doesn’t have a family, so she just stays there during the breaks. She’s already in her second year for her Juris Doctor degree. From what I understand she’s been going to colleges for the last twenty years picking up doctorates like candy.”