Lords of the Underworld [malexmale]

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

"You're cheating."

I glanced up past my hair to see Atros staring at me intensely, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. I narrowed my eyes, but couldn't resist laughing at how he'd managed to catch onto my bluff so quickly. I lifted the cup to reveal the dice on the bed and Atros shook his head, reaching out to snatch them from me.

"You've won every single game by cheating. Is playing fair too much to ask?" He asked, tossing the die into his cup and taking mine. I shrugged, leaning back on my hands and distracting him from putting the game away as his eyes stared at my crotch.

"Playing fair is ridiculous. If you can find other ways to play, I say play them; otherwise, why are they there?" I asked. Atros cocked his head, lifting his eyes to meet mine.

"Is that how you justify it?"

"There's no justifying the truth. Anyway," I added, waving a hand idly in my face as I rolled onto my side and stretched my foot out to poke him in the chest, making him roll his eyes and wave it away, "We should find something else to do. I can only play board games so long before I get, well, bored."

"We could do that thing that you're supposed to be paying me for." Atros offered, climbing off the bed and heading to the nightstand to put the dice and cups away. I rolled over to watch him, frowning up at him. There was an odd look on his face. In fact, I noticed that he'd been acting strange for the past few days. It'd been almost a month that we'd been sleeping together. It was a good thing I was a god, or I'd be dirt poor by now with how much I was forced to pay for Atros because his employer refused to give him up. Not that I offered to buy him. If I did that, it would make this relationship much more than client and employee.

Something I couldn't risk.

I'd already gotten too comfortable with Atros. It was at a dangerous level. I found myself unable to go one day without visiting Atros twice or three times a day. Each time we had sex, but each time we ended up talking. Actually, Atros did most of the talking. I didn't want to risk ranting, else I'd fuck up and give away my real identity.

But I think that's what was driving me insane.

When Atros went off, he always ranted and blamed me without even knowing it. He'd never officially met Hades, but he swore up and down that he was the epitome of all that was evil and cruel. He hated Hades for ruining his life, for causing his wife and son's deaths, for why there was so much poverty, why people were bitter and cruel. It was Hades's fault everything in the world was bad. And Atros swore that, if given the chance, he would rip Hades apart and bathe in his blood.

All the while, I sat there and listened quietly. His words didn't hurt me, or surprise me. I was too used to people saying things like that about me. A dozen millennia and it was the same thing, over and over again. Everyone was a broken record trapped in the past. They needed something to focus their hatred on, and I just happened to be it. I'd grown accustomed to that thought process, and I thrived on it. If it wasn't for the hatred built against me, I wouldn't be who I was and I was fine with who I was.

I wasn't nice. I wasn't friendly. I wasn't romantic or good or loving or any of that.

But, I was strong. I was independent. I was intelligent.

It was worth it.

"Your hair smells wonderful." Atros murmured half an hour later as he spooned himself behind me, his nose buried in my hair. I wasn't sure what to say to that. Personally, I thought it smelled like ash and soil. The things I was surrounded by. Hell, maybe even sulfur considering how often the stench of it wafted up the Phlegethon, which passed through the mountains my home was built into.