Shaping Fate (4 page)

Thane grinned back at Ria as Achlys ran off to enjoy his new found freedom.
“So,” Thane said, taking her hand, “You ready to eat?”

“
He’s a good man in the prime of his life, you bastard! Take me instead! I’ve lived my life; he still has children to raise and a wife to support!”  The elderly man screamed at the dark shadow that hovered over his dead son’s chest.

The shadow hesitated
, then began to solidify into a tall, dark man with menace in his cold blue eyes and dread rolling in waves from his body. Obsidian wings blacked out the sun. “You don’t bargain with Death, Mortal,” the horrifying monster growled. “He does as he pleases, when and why he pleases. Besides, I’ll see you soon enough.”  Thanatos grabbed the dead boy’s wrist, yanked the soul out of the corpse and disappeared. The old man held the body and shuddered in bone-deep terror.

****

“Wow, little brother. I’ve never seen you actually react to a mortal’s words before. Why the sudden change, Death?”  The voice was barely female, so low and rasping it was. He closed his eyes and silently growled in annoyance. His wings tightened around his body protectively. Only two of his many sisters were older than him, and this one was more of a pain in the ass than all the others combined. She was also the most likely to try and destroy him.

“
Ker. No major battles for you and the Keres to devour? You girls prefer violent deaths, not heart-attacks.”  He knew contempt filled his voice; he didn’t care for the way his sister and her flunkies ripped bodies apart and feasted on their blood before taking the souls to Hades. Besides, he really didn’t want to put up with her right now. He wanted to get back to his Ria. His? When in Hades had she become his? Just because he’d spent as much time with her as he could these past few weeks didn’t mean he’d become possessive of her. Yes, he enjoyed her ringing laughter, loved how her smile brought sunlight into his shadowed home, and waited with bated breath for the wicked glint in her eyes when she teased him. Shit, he was getting too close to her. He had to wrench his mind away from Ria as his sister replied.

“
Our sisters have the battlefields covered. Erebus knows, there are so many wars and violent deaths that we’ve been horribly busy. I thought I’d take a break and see how my favorite little brother was doing.”  She oozed insincere affection. She was patronizing him. She watched as he placed the soul on the Underworld Dock he had materialized upon.

“
You will have to stay here until Charon decides to let you cross. If you have cash on you, give it to him and he’ll take you over more quickly. He doesn’t accept paper money.”  Thane instructed the soul before dematerializing again.

He re-materialized in front of a cave
on the highest peak in the range of nameless mountains found in the Land of Dreams, the northern continent of Hades.

“
Don’t you miss the days when mortals knew the rules and how to go about their lives?” Ker spoke behind him, making him jump imperceptibly. “There was once a time when loved ones would burry their dead with coins over the eyes or under the tongue for the ferryman. Charon’s boat was loaded with gold and silver of the purest quality. Now, our poor brother is left with cheap copper and nickel.”

“
Sometimes.”  He replied shortly as he entered the cave; he didn’t want her with him, not in this place. He loved coming here. Besides his home, it was the only place he was accepted; where he wasn’t Death, he was…

“
Thane!”  Three happily excited female voices called his name, making him twitch his lips in a semblance of a smile. This was one of the only places he felt almost happy. Three identical young women ran toward him. Heavy, thick, wildly curly blonde hair fell to their hips. High cheekbones emphasized pixie faces and slim builds. They were two and a half feet shorter than Thane, and he loved them fiercely. The only differences between the triplets were their eyes. Clotho had azure eyes so pale that they made one think she was blind, Lakhesis’s were sea green, and little Atropos’s were the color of dark violets. Clo, Lacey, and Atty; the Three Fates; they were his favorite little sisters.

They hugged him tightly, always glad to see him
, and then glared behind him.

“
You’re not welcome here, Ker. Go get your assignments from Moros,” Atty said. She was the only one of the fates that wore her hair in a tight braid down her back, and loved to wear the Mortal fashions of skin-tight black leather pants, black halter top, and black knee high combat boots with iron spikes down the side. Eleven thousand years ago, she'd started keeping up with the edgiest of mortal fashions as they changed throughout the ages. He had to admit, she pulled leather off rather well.

“
I just wanted to finish a quick conversation with Thanatos, you bitch, so don’t start your crap.”  Ker wasn’t allowed near the Fates due to her literally bloody appetite. Respecting her daughters’ wishes, Nyx had pretty much put a divine restraining order on Ker.

“
Bitch? Crap? Oh, I’ll show you how much crap this bitch can dish out you corpse defiling, sun loving, rainbow-bright…”  Atty stepped forward, only to meet Thane's chest.

“
Atty, I’ll take care of her and be back in a minute. Why don’t you three go in and sit down. I have somebody I need you to give me some information on, if you don’t mind.”  He carefully used his wings to block the sight of Ker from Atty as he steered her toward her sisters, who each grabbed a hand and pulled her deeper into the caves.

“
Say what you have to, Ker, before they call Mom.”  Thane wanted her away from him so that he could enjoy the time with his sisters.

“
Atty wouldn’t call Nyx. She can handle herself ever since… whatever the hell happened eleven thousand years ago.”  Ker snorted in disgust.

“
Atty won’t, but Clo and Lacey will. Now hurry up and leave.”

“
Fine. You have a new friend living with you, don’t you, little brother? A girl that appeared out of nowhere? Helios wants the Keres and me to capture her. After he’s finished raping her, he wants the girls and me to torment, and eventually kill, your girlfriend.”

The ground shook with the force of
Thane's fury. He would never allow Helios or the Keres to lay one sunbeam or claw-tip to Ria’s perfect body. He froze his emotions instantly. What in all the Underworld was wrong with him? She didn’t even know who he was or why he kept leaving her in the middle of their conversations! He needed to quit spending time with her.

“
I just wanted to give you a heads-up before we bring on the pain… Her pain,” Ker finished. He knew that she sighed in satisfaction and pleasure at the thought of causing not only a stranger pain, but Thane as well.

“
Why would you do anything for Helios? You hate him, and the feeling was mutual last I’d heard. Not that someone hating
you
is new.” No matter how much he tried to block it panic filled him at the thought of losing Ria; he shoved it away, refusing to feel anything for his mysterious foundling.

“
The bastard and I have an agreement. If you can find a way to null and void our deal, then by all means, knock yourself out.”  Ker turned and began walking away, “I’m so tired from the battles, though, I think I’ll go after her tomorrow… or maybe the day after.”  She vanished.

Thinking over the strange end to the conversation,
Thane returned to The Fates. He had to find out who his baffling guest was and they would know.

“
Please, please, please tell me that you cut her heart out and fed it to Cerberus! It’s the only thing that’ll make me forgive you.”  Atty glared at him fiercely, a black, shimmering haze beginning to emanate from her body. He could see the tight control she kept on her temper begin to slip. He quickly jerked her into his arms and hugged her as hard as he could; unlike her triplet-mates, he knew she could take it.

“
I love you, little sister. You know that, right?”  He knew what had happened eleven thousand years ago; knew too that he had failed her then, but he wouldn’t fail her again. Not ever again.

She softened against him; squeezed him close,
“I know,” she whispered. After a few seconds more, she shoved him away. “Enough of this mushy, lovey-dovey bullshit. Come tell us who you’re looking for.” 

Thane
smiled; his little sister sure loved how the humans spoke nowadays. “I’ve already found her,” he told her as they stepped into The Fates’ living room. It was of average size; the walls were covered in tapestries to block the draft, with a large, cozy fireplace that was always blazing merrily. Huge comfy couches and chairs that a person could lose themselves in were situated around the fireplace to capture the most warmth.

“
If you’ve already found her, then why do you need us?”  Clo asked from her place on the couch, never looking up from her knitting needles.

“
She doesn’t have a name or family, yet she’s immortal. I want to know how she came into being.”  Thane didn’t like mysteries, and though he liked Ria and enjoyed her company, he hated the fact that a mystery was currently running amok in his stables.

The three girls looked at each other for a long moment, silently communicating in some eerie way they had
. Even the Gods felt uncomfortable when they started speaking to each other with their unique triplet ESP thing. “Can you show us an image of her?” Lacey asked, finally looking at him from her measuring of the strand that Clo was knitting.

Thane
looked at the fire and used his powers to manifest an image of Ria in the flames. He’d never seen her completely whole and healthy, but hopefully, his sisters would recognize her through what was left of the fading bruises.

They stared at her as if they were mothers who’d found their babies sitting next to a rattlesnake
. Shock and horror slammed across their faces in rapid succession. Their voices tumbled over each other in their eagerness to be heard.

“
It’s her.”

“
Of course, it’s her!”

“
We have to tell them.”

“
We can’t!”

“
We made an agreement!”

“
Shut UP!”  Thane projected his voice above that of his sisters and waited until the last echo died in the cave. He glowered at them as they tried to avoid his gaze, and decided that he’d just about had enough of complicated women for one bitch of a day. See? He liked to use human terms, too. “One of you had better start talking or big brother is going to have to get mean.”  He glared at his sisters as his growled threat reverberated throughout the cavern system.

“
Yeah, right. You love us; you wouldn’t do anything to us,” Lacey said defiantly, handing the strand she’d been measuring to Atty, who absentmindedly picked up her scissors and cut it. Distant, high pitched screaming was barely heard within their home. Atty placed the now separate piece into a wooden chest carved with images of Mortals toiling in the fields.

“
Stop that for a minute and help me, damn it.”  The cavern shook violently. Thane closed his eyes and gathered his fraying emotions. He couldn’t lose control. Not here. Not near his sisters, who kept right on knitting, measuring, and cutting as if nothing had happened.

“
We said we wouldn’t tell
them
,” Atty addressed her sisters. “We said nothing about not telling our family.”

Clo’s eyes widened with a sudden bright light,
“Goodness, if we’d thought of that sooner, we could have saved them all of this grief and suffering, because one of our family members would tell them and we wouldn’t! Atty, you’re brilliant!”

“
Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”  Thane yelled, frustration biting at the cords of his now tenuous control; his wings unfurled and stretched in his frustration at trying to understand the impossible intricacies of the female mind.

“
YES!” they said together, in another creepy way they had. They beamed at each other and at him.
As if
, he thought disgustedly,
I’m some mutt who has successfully done a trick
.

“
Her name,” Atty said, watching him closely and speaking very slowly, which was probably a good thing, “is Makaria. Her powers were bound as a young child when she was stolen from her parents. Goddess of a Blessed Afterlife and Blissful Death, she is the long lost daughter of Hades and Persephone.”

“
Oh, shit.” The King’s daughter. Ria was the King and Queen of the Underworld’s youngest daughter. Where nothing had ever caused him to lose complete control, this information had the power to shock him. He distantly felt the caves shudder as a black haze marred his vision. He was aware that Atty caught him as he fell, but knew no more.

Oblivious to t
he Fates’ shocking revelation, Ria was laughing so hard, tears were making rivers down her cheeks. “You didn’t really, did you?” she finally gasped.

I did
. The little snot was so scared he was screaming like a schoolgirl. He left the same afternoon. I don’t know why, I only wanted to play with him a bit.
Azrael’s voice reeked of innocence as his eyes flickered devilishly.