Forge of the Gods 2 Read online

  Forge of the Gods

  Book 2

  Simon Archer

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Hephaestus - God of Blacksmithing

  I looked down at the piece of armor in my hands, so different from the normal weapons that I built with my bare hands. The gold glinted off the light of the forge in front of me, and the cream-colored laces were smooth against the roughness of my fingers.

  “Are you almost ready, son of mine?” the sickeningly sweet voice of Hera filtered through my head. I knew she wasn’t in the forge, but I grimaced all the same, my fingers tightening on the girdle in my hand. Hera may have been the one to birth me, but she was not my mother in any sense of the word.

  I smirked as I recalled the time that I trapped her in the throne, unable to move from the seat until she had Dionysus trick me into a drunken stupor and bring me back to Mount Olympus to free her. Ignoring her, I brought my attention back to the girdle in the palm of my hands. Even though its power was going to be used for acts I did not agree with, I still took pride in its intricate design and in the beauty of the gold.

  The gold sang to me through my hands, but I could not find comfort in its familiar song. Aphrodite was waiting for me, and I could do nothing but prepare myself for the inevitable shame of everyone knowing that her lover, Aries, would be in attendance at our wedding.

  With a deep breath, I straightened my back and walked out of my forge and headed up to Olympus.

  Aphrodite was stunning, all sex and blonde hair as she stood at the altar with her hip popped out and a bored look on her face. She was only here to marry me because I had beaten the challenge that she had laid out before her suitors. At the time, I thought I loved her, that she loved me as she kissed me sweetly and plied my ears with whispers of what she wanted to do to me when we were alone.

  Now I knew better. She was not the goddess of love, desire, and beauty for nothing. She loved to play with the hearts of those around her, teasing them, bringing out the love in them and then leaving, not caring about the damage she left behind. I may have won her hand in marriage, but I had not won her heart as I saw her cast a lustful look full of desire to Aries, who sat in the front row of the assembly of gods and goddesses.

  Maybe I would take a break and go down onto Earth after the ceremony, I thought distantly as I stood across from the Goddess of Love and Beauty.

  Zeus stood at the head of the altar with his ever-present giant smile and puffed chest, always trying to remind everyone that he was the boss.

  “Did you complete the challenge laid out before you, Hephaestus?” he asked, his voice booming loudly through Mount Olympus. Of course, everyone already knew, but it was all about the show and the presentation to the big gods.

  I knew better than to lash out at one of the big three Olympians, so I simply laid out the golden girdle at Aphrodite’s feet for her to inspect. She raised a brow as she picked it up and looked it over.

  “And this will make me irresistible?”

  I clenched my teeth tight and nodded, not trusting my voice as I eyed Aries from the corner of my vision. I decided then that I was going to be taking a long vacation on Earth. I didn’t have many demigod children, so maybe I could find a woman who would appreciate my blacksmithing and my rough sort of humor.

  Those fantasy thoughts kept me occupied as the ceremony went on, and I was able to ignore the looks my soon-to-be wife kept throwing to her lover.

  Aphrodite might have been my wife on Olympus, but she would not have my full heart. A twisted sort of smile fluttered over my face at that thought, fast enough to be mistaken as a loving smile for my wife. And more so, I had an idea, and I needed to work on it right away as soon as the wedding was done.

  I set to work right away, weaving a golden net so fine that it could not be seen unless someone knew what they were looking for. As soon as it was complete, I set it up to hang right beneath the canopy in the bed I shared with Aphrodite, and which Aphrodite shared with Aries.

  “Must you leave?” Aphrodite purred as she stretched out on the bed the morning that I was enacting my plan.

  She always did this, played the perfect lover, the perfect wife… up until I left her presence, or Aries was there to distract her.

  I leaned over and kissed her, biting back the urge to scream at her that I knew the truth. When I pulled back, I smiled, and Aphrodite mistook it for one of longing instead of the malicious one it was.

  “You know I must see to my forge. The Gods need their weapons made.”

  Aphrodite sighed, but let me go. But I did not leave to go to my forge as I had told her. Instead, I hid in the attic of our humble house on Mount Olympus and waited by the controls of my trap. The roof here was thin enough that I could hear everything that happened in our bedchambers through it. I did not have to wait long before I heard the sound of heavy footsteps.

  “Oh, Aries!” the honeyed voice of my wife called out. “I’ve missed you!”

  I gritted my teeth and waited, my anger and fire burning me from the inside out as I heard Aries laugh.

  “That ugly husband of yours gone?”

  Aphrodite giggled. “He’s at his forge. He’ll be gone for days! Now, I know you don’t want to talk about my dear husband, so why don’t you come over here and let me show you how much I love sucking on your--”

  I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I released the mechanism and listened to the startled screams of both Aphrodite and Aries as they became entangled in my net. I snickered as I left the house, seeking out Hermes. I found him mere moments later.

  “Send a call for all Olympians to my house,” I told him. “I have something I created that will be sure to impress them.”

  Hermes went and gathered the Olympians, not questioning my strange request to show them a piece of my work inside my house instead of my forge like usual. Once I had everyone gathered, I brought them through the house until we entered my bedroom. The sight of a naked Aries with his cock tangled in a net with Aphrodite’s legs spread out was a sight indeed.

  “Hephaestus!” Aries snarled at me. “What is the meaning of this?”

  I growled with a feral grin, and that seemed to surprise Aries along with the rest of the Olympians. “What is the meaning of you cuckolding my wife?”

  The Olympians roared in laughter at Aries’s dumbfounded expression.

  “Let me out of here right this instant!” Aphrodite screamed shrilly.

  I leaned around Aries to look at my wife with a look of compassion, though my smile was quite the opposite. “Do you not like my gift? Now you can show everyone your appreciation and how much you like sucking Aries off.”

  Aphrodite went red in ra
ge as she realized that I had been listening in on her and Aries. I laughed at their expressions and left the room as the other Olympians continued to laugh and jeer at Aries and Aphrodite.

  They wouldn’t be able to get out of the net until I let them out, and I had no qualms with leaving them there as I headed to my forges for real this time. After all, they were the ones that were caught in flagrante delicto… a blazing crime.

  1

  Sparks flew around my hands as the metal thinned. It was beautiful but tedious work. I was on the last knife of the set, a cleaver ideal for slaughtering meat. My left hand held tight to the handle as the fingers on my right hand gracefully guided the blade along the grinder. Back and forth. Back and forth.

  The metal sang to me while I toyed with it. It told me a story of its origins, of the various meats it had chopped through. Of the weight of the chef who wielded it put behind his swings. The care he took in crafting his delicacies, which seemed to be the same level that I took when making my own creations. I heard it as the blade told me its preferences, how sharp it wanted certain sections to be, and the exact angle which to leave the topmost corner. This way, I could give into the blade’s natural shape and pay homage to the original creator.

  This wasn’t unusual, blades speaking to me this way. I’d gotten used to it by now, the thrum of the metal when I touched it or the tone it gave off when it connected with another metal. It was a one-way conversation that no one else could hear, so I used it to my advantage as much as I could. This was the ideal way to practice listening, under a tent with a single grinder instead of in the heat of battle.

  When the blade let out a delighted squeal, I knew we were done. I stopped the grinder by tapping the pedal on the ground, then stepped away.

  I weighed the weapon in my hand and twirled the handle. It was well made with a square grip that didn’t bite into my hand too much, and the balance between blade and handle was well maintained. While this cleaver had been through the wringer, I managed to smooth out some of the nicks and return the weapon back to its former glory.

  Proud of my work, I turned back to the front table and laid the cleaver back in its spot on the leather cloth. The other eleven blades I’d previously sharpened were carefully placed in a row, slipped into their designated spots in the cloth container. These were professional blades, expensive though used often.

  “Do you mind me asking who made these blades?” I said to the owner of the knives, who waited at the corner of my booth.

  “I bought them at a Renaissance faire if you can believe it,” the man replied with an embarrassed chuckle. He was a larger gentleman with a scruff of a red goatee poking out from his double chin. “I needed a new set to give my son, who was going off to culinary school, following the family tradition. There was this man there who had some of the most beautiful blades I’d ever seen.” The cook offered me an innocent shrug. “I ended up keeping them for myself and gave my father’s set to my son.”

  A pang knocked my gut like a gong. I kept my face as neutral as possible as I thought about the possible blacksmith who’d crafted these blades for this man. I didn’t want to share my discomfort with him. He was still a stranger and a paying customer, after all.

  “Well,” I said after a gulp, “they are beautiful. And now fully sharpened.”

  “Great!” the man bellowed enthusiastically. He pulled out his wallet from deep in his pants pockets. “How much do I owe you?”

  We completed the exchange, and the gentleman offered me a wave as he walked away, with this rolled up set of knives that my father had made.

  There was no doubt in my mind that my dad, Greek god Hephaestus, had made those knives. Mom told me she’d met him at a Renaissance faire where he often frequented to sell his wares. Items he didn’t make for the gods, but for his own enjoyment.

  The set that the cook had bought was too perfect, too pristine to be made by mortal hands. I’d rarely seen blades that beautiful, even just a simple set of cooking knives. My father was the blacksmith of the Gods, and that title definitely showed in his work.

  I released a heavy sigh and turned back to the grinder to change out the belt. Thoughts of my father were still hard, though they came up more frequently than I would have liked. I was still getting used to the idea of having a father at all, even if I’d never met him.

  For as long as I could remember, it had been my mother and me. Biologically speaking, I knew I had a father, but growing up, he wasn’t around. I never minded. Mom and I made up the ideal family, with enough love to fill that missing piece so much so that I hardly ever felt it as a child.

  The only things my father had left me were my bright blue eyes, my candy cane red hair that grew straight out of my head, and an uncanny ability to touch anything hot without getting burned. It was only coincidence that I was obsessed with blacksmithing and then happened to be the son of the god of blacksmiths. Or that’s what I chose to believe, anyway.

  We kept the secret of my unnatural abilities for my entire life. Until I was recruited by the Demigod Academy for the Elemental Military, a college for demigods to learn about their heritage, hone their magical abilities, and defend the world against the mythical beasts who still threatened the lives of mortals.

  It had been quite a shock to discover my status as a demigod. I suddenly went from having no father to having a godly one with magical powers I’d inherited. While I thought I had taken the last year, my first one at the Academy, to process all of that, the pang of disappointment and frustration still showed up at the mention of him.

  Especially when the mentions were so random. Like in the middle of the Sunday Farmer’s Market on Ruby Street, where I worked over the summer.

  It was one of the last summer Sundays before fall would hit, and I would have to go back to school. People from all over town were bustling about, picking up novelty honey, fresh vegetables, or overpriced almonds. There were food trucks in the center square, and on the south end, a local animal shelter had brought dogs to be adopted. Families and young couples buzzed about, nearly everyone wearing sunglasses and hats. People rushed for shade, crowding under the large oak trees just off the Farmer’s Market, or dipped into the local businesses on Ruby Street for a whiff of air conditioning.

  It was days like this that I was grateful for my ability to resist heat. The air felt light and perfect to me, though I knew the humidity made others break out into a sweat the minute they got out of the car. Still, I stayed underneath my tent and settled into the lawn chair to await the next customer.

  Curled around my feet were two large Dobermans. Unlike the other dogs at the Farmer’s Market that squirreled away from the sun and pranced on the hot, black pavement, Khryseos and Argyreos lounged in the sun like lizards. Despite their mainly black coats, the two enchanted dogs were like me and relished in the heat. They gathered energy from it, like solar panels. The more intense, the better. Considering both dogs were used to being in my father’s forge, which was hotter than Hades, this trait wasn’t surprising.

  I leaned over the sides of my chair and offered each dog a pat on the head. Khryseos leaned into my palm, whereas Argyreos nipped at me with his nose, so he could lick me. The Dobermans had been my dad’s dogs and sent to the Academy when he went missing. Since then, they’ve been under my care.

  Khryseos and Argyreos didn’t take the notion of me leaving very well. They’d ripped crops out of the ground, torn apart the barn, and even had the audacity of peeing around the outside of the Academy’s forge. All as an act of rebellion. So Ann, the Academy farmer and animal caretaker, conceded and let them stay with me for the summer.

  Mom and the dogs got along well enough. They were very protective of me, but the minute they knew that Mom was my ally, Khryseos and Argyreos adopted her into their circle of protection.

  They pretty much followed me everywhere nowadays, like a shadow. The Farmer’s Market was one of their favorite places because they got to meet all sorts of new people, experience new smells, and try n
ew foods. I spoiled them relentlessly with the stuff I fed them. But they were immortal dogs with iron stomachs. They could handle it. Plus, knowing all of the hipster, organic, and uber-healthy stuff at the Farmer’s Market, I was pretty sure this was the best diet they had in millennia.

  I didn’t sell anything like hand made granola or weirdly spiced popcorn at the market. No, my friend Jade was the one with the cooking talent. Certainly not my area of expertise. My booth was a blade sharpening stand. It was a simple set up, and I charged reasonably to sharpen these aspiring or professional cooks’ knives. It wasn’t the most lucrative business, but I traveled to Farmer’s Markets throughout the week and made enough over the summer. Considering I’d lost my previous job at the outdoor interactive museum when I went away to the Academy, I needed something for the few summer weeks that I was home to make some sort of income.

  Luckily, Mom let me stay at her place rent-free, for which I was eternally grateful. Not only did I have to give up my job when going to the Academy, but I had to give up my apartment too. So I was back in my childhood home, living with my mom.

  It was one of the only things that made me feel like a normal twenty-something.

  After not having seen my mom for eight months, it was wonderful to reconnect with old movie nights, dinners, talks that went late into the evenings, and morning runs. She wasn’t thrilled about that last activity, but it was something we did every morning at the Academy and became a healthy habit I didn’t want to break.