💘 Inflamer
6LS6: The God of Love preps an arrow and his aim.
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
—From The Rivers of Pain & Fire
…Her sodden locks flew back in an arc as her climactic scream shot like fire from her throat. The brilliance of her orgasm transformed the Akherousian Mere into the Pyriphlegethon’s molten, purifying sea, and for one breathless moment, he beheld her in her true splendor: rose-gold and honey-creamed peaches ablaze.
The River of Fire surged up into him, through him, out of him. It scoured his insides. Purged clean his gunked-up runnels. The searing geyser arced. It blew a crater in the bank as his thunderous bellow exploded against the roof of the Underworld. Eight stalactites crashed down, blocking half the Gate of Shades. Didn’t matter. The ghosts would still seep in. He didn’t care. He kept roaring and pumping and roaring and pumping and he hadn’t known that kind of satisfaction in a blasted millennium.
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
Also. Nobody calls Persephone by her true name. They call her KORE, “the Maiden,” and it’s pronounced like “ko-ray” or “kora” not like “core of the planet.” KLYMENOS is one of Haides’ gazillion epitaphs. It means “illustrious” (or depending on who’s grumbling it, “notorious.”) Hardly anybody calls the King of the Dead by his true name either, because doing so can call his attention to you. And nobody wants that.
(Well…almost nobody.)
EROS, GOD OF LOVE, MASTER MATCHMAKER, CONNIVING BALL OF LUST
⛅️💘⛅️
As the vision of wildfire faded from the surface of the rose oil, his eyes took over the blaze. His grin went as devious as the Styx—and that river’s course curved back on itself so many times it formed nine rings around the Underworld. The tip of his heart-finger traced the lip of the Descrying Bowl. He practically salivated into it. “He watches her, mother.”
“And you don’t find that disturbing?” Aphrodite shuddered.
Eros beamed. “Any more disturbing than our own spying? The stars know I’ve shucked it over this very bowl while watching innumerable nymphs, goddesses, princesses, kings, chambermaids...”
“Yes—”
“…dryads, naiads, satyrs, sailors, huntresses, priestesses, farmboys—”
“Thank you, son. I’m aware.”
“It’s our divine duty to keep track of these things and to…bless them with our favor.”
“How fortunate that you’re so deeply committed to your work.”
“Exactly!” Eros bounce-floated into the air, flashing the cherub-smile. He gathered the bulk of his aura into a glowing, golden corona. “I always clean up my mess.”
“Praise puffy, white clouds.” The Goddess of Love spun away from the bowl, whipping the curtains closed around the alcove with a swat of her hand. “So this is your cure for what ails the world? For what’s happening to me? To our temple? You think the answer is to shackle the sweetest blossom in the history of blooming to a sneaking, skulking, stave-shaving villain in a dank, dismal cave?”
Eros gave an enthusiastic nod.
A sea of warning brewed in his mother's eyes. “You are not nearly as cute as you think you are.”
With a wrinkle of his nose, Eros turned his palms up toward the reflection of his physique in the silver dome overhead. “Of course I am.”
Any iridescence left in Aphrodite’s girdle went as as immovable as doldrums. Even her luxuriant hair-mound stiffened as she put her nose in the air and stared out the window.
He crossed his arms and harrumphed. Usually he could sway her with the merest smile. Oh, I hate when she gets like this.
The God of Love's impending masterpiece was as intricate as it was delicate. The last thing it needed was his mother's annoying gadflies of doubt and revulsion. Worse still if she decided to meddle. If he couldn't ignite her desire for this project, she could set the whole thing on its ear, and that would keep the Temple of Love on its ever-tilting decline.
Blast it, I am Love Primordial Made Flesh! Whereas she is merely divine, so I refuse to stand by and watch our power ebb away with every hair that falls from her head. Not when I have the solution.
“You can deny it all you want,” Eros said, “but it’s the most perfect coupling in the Universe, I swear it on my wings.”
Aphrodite stared him down. “Son, what has that girl ever done to deserve your enmity? Did she reject you? Is that it?”
“Of course not! I mean…well, she did.” Eros’ eyes shifted. “Erm…rather, Demeter did. But that’s not the point. This is not malice. It’s matchmaking of the most elevated design, something you have apparently lost the capacity to comprehend.”
Aphrodite hurled an irate squeak at him.
“It’s all right. Mere godlings cannot be expected to fathom primordial design.”
“And pompous primordials-in-little-fleshy-bodies cannot be expected to comprehend the nuances of what a godly heart needs, trifling creatures that we are.”
Eros tossed off a shrug of agreement.
That just ruffled her more. “This is one of your cruel pranks, isn’t it? But are you playing it on him? Or her?”
“Actually, it is a prank, but not the cruel kind. And I’m playing it on the world.”
“Oh, falling heavens. You and your father with your world-dominating schemes. You realize how many of Love’s maladies result from those schemes, don’t you?”
“Hey, you were the one complaining about unmated maidens, your unsightly hair loss, and the almighty bindings of the Universe.”
Her hand flew to her exquisite mound of curls. “I told you not to jest about that.”
“I’m not. Just like it’s no jest that I’m going to give that lonely, horny old god the blossom-cheeked bride of his dreams. Heh, and his lusty hours of stave-shaving.” Eros made a squeaky sound in time with his crotch-level gesture.
Aphrodite winced away with a nauseated noise. Her seafoam gown went the color of marsh-slime.
Eros poofed a gust at her with his wings. “Since when does masturbation disgust the Mistress of Desire?”
“Self-satisfaction does not disgust me. Klymenos does. Watching the King of the Dead grasp his bone by the putrid banks of the Akheron? My appreciation for the innumerable expressions of erotic love is as variegated as it is vast, but even I do not want to know what sorts of twisted things he burns to do to darling Kore.”
Eros leered, practically drooling again. “I do.”
Another revolted shudder quaked up Aphrodite’s spine. “Beautiful he might be, and magnificently built. That does not change the fact that He of Many Names is still…”
“Bulging?” Eros crooned.
“Notorious,” she snapped.
“Vigorously rigorous?”
“The King of Cruelty.”
“Inflamed by everything he saw Kore do?”
Aphrodite took her own turn at crossing her arms.
Eros soared infinities in the air. “Did you miss the size of his bicep as he was shucking it? Mother, you love biceps. What ripe maiden wouldn’t swoon over that?”
“Eros—”
“Trust me, she’ll love it. The second he takes off that armor and flashes his genuine, illustrious smile, she’ll be hooked like an evildoer on his wall. Oh, the way his whole body surged with glorious, veiny vitality as that searing load arced out over—”
“EROS INCARNATE.”
The spine-jarring impact of his mother’s formal invocation brought him up short with a grunt. He stopped gliding and faced her, donning his father’s grin. “What?”
She glowered back, which vexed, for Eros had never seen his sire fail with that smile. Yet there the Goddess of Love stood, steadfastly testy, refusing to be won over. “That was the Tormentor of Tartaros you just spied on,” she said. “And have you forgotten his myriad other epithets? He’s earned every one. Is that creature even capable of love anymore?”
“Against my arrows? Please. He’s smitten with her already. Once I hit him Fated Love, no power in the Universe will be able to stop this match. All those qualities you so love to disparage will work in our favor. He’s relentless. Authoritative. He has unimaginable wealth and resources at his disposal, and the entire Underworld at his command. To have that kind of might backing the forces of Love?”
“I would think thrice before naming the Notorious One as my ally. He has his own motives for everything he does. All very personal. None very savory.”
Eros went back to floating. “So he’s dark, devious, and passionate. So is Father.”
Aphrodite’s lips purpled and compressed flat. “Klymenos is not Ares, and Kore is not me. She is sweetness and light, and that hulking fiend from the pits would overpower her just to make himself feel grandiose again.”
“I think you have him painted in a slanted light. And what’s more, I think you underestimate her.”
Aphrodite thrust out one hand, then the other as she said, “Blossom… Tormentor!”
“Yes!” Eros’ wings flapped wide with all the feathers splayed a-prickle. “It’s his job to torture evildoers into redemption before their souls are recycled. It’s also his job to keep the worst ones in eternal agony—at King Grandpapa’s orders.”
“Oh, yes, and I’m sure the Divine Jailor loathes every moment of it.”
“If you were granted Olympian sanction to gather up all those who have committed sacrilege against our holy calling and who have hurled blasphemy upon your name—if you were divinely charged with staking them down to a flaming wheel, tell me you would hate that.”
Aphrodite drew in a long breath, held it, huffed. Eros waited until a hint of her disgruntled scowl cracked through. So much hunchiness. Such a big bottom lip.
“Hah.” He recalled his bow from the aither and plucked at its string as if playing a lyre. “Kore has nothing to fear from the King of Cruelty. She is not an evildoer, so she’ll be just fine down there.” Casting a shrewd look from under the reckless fall of his hair, he tossed off, “You’ve never heard the song he sings about her, have you?”
Aphrodite’s face screwed up in disbelief. “Klymenos sings?”
“And quite well. When the Moon hides her face from us on this side of the Impassable, yon dark king wades into the reeking Akherousian Lake, singing his ode of woe to all the blossoms he will never again behold.” Eros’ nimble fingers made the bow sing a glissando in spite of it only having one string. “Afterwards, the poor sap swigs oblivion from the River Lethe like Olympians guzzle nectar. He’s a god, so the spell of forgetfulness wears off, but it’s enough to keep his heart firmly in check. Absolutely unacceptable. Nobody should be immune to my artistry. Or yours, mother.”
She frowned as the barb struck true.
Eros balled fists on his slim hips. “The Underworld has gone without our gifts for far too long, and so has its lord. Balling she-daimons in the Lake of Fire with his eyes closed does not count.”
“I should say not. That is the art of lust, not love.”
“I’m all for a good, lusty fling, you know that. But that won’t resolve the issues at hand. There is an entire realm devoid of divine love, so how can we can expect anything to stay in balance? There hasn’t been a spectacular tryst down there since Nyx rode Erebos. And how long ago was that?”
“Too many millennia. Our Lady of Night has spawned a multitude of offspring, but so many have emerged from her womb without…”
“Assistance?”
“Precisely. Even our King and Queen On High have experimented with procreation lacking so much as a good lust-based rut, to say nothing of love. It appears as though Klymenos plans to follow in their footsteps. Have you seen his bed?”
Eros’ eyes popped open. “Have you?”
She mashed her lips into a succulent, strawberry purse. “As you said, it is our divine duty to survey every bed and take account of its goings-on. Or lack thereof.” She made a perturbed tisk. “That sprawling monstrosity is shrouded in rancor and despair as thick as the dust and cobwebs coating its coverlet. I dare say he has never used it once.”
“Exactly my point. What a waste of all that fire and fortitude. And so much bulging.”
“Again with the bulging?”
“Always. In his biceps. In his chest. In his…underworld.” Eros double-wagged his brows. She was not impressed, so he drew out the heavy-hitter. “And oh, what a blazing, Olympian heart, all going to waste. Is the Goddess of Love truly telling me that she can sit apathetically by while such an ardent heart cries out, nearly beyond breaking?”
Aphrodite flinched away and wrapped her arms about herself.
Eros’ ichor ignited. Got you.
And he hadn’t even had to shoot her with an arrow. (Which he would have done, had she resisted for much longer.)
“I can’t ignore this, mother. I won’t.” Eros fixed his gaze upon her, allowing his ageless primordial essence to gleam through his adolescent visage. “I am never wrong about these things.”
“Take care, my boy. The Fates have cruel senses of humor and they do love to cackle.”
Eros snort-chortled, then plopped down amidst a bed of flower petals in the corner, causing the colorful blooms to fly up in a heady spray. “Don’t fret your pearls off, mother. Those atrocious old biddies adore me. They revere my work and give me everything my boundless heart desires, and right now? My greatest desire is to remedy the abysmal state of this bickering, backstabbing, loveless world by making the King of the Dead chirp my song.” He pulled out all his gold-tipped arrows from his quiver and brandished them.
Aphrodite sank down to admire them. “Well, the Fates do seem to worship your wings. And if you say you’re foreseen it, perhaps you’re right.”
“No.” He ensnared her chin upon one of his arrows. “I am EROS. And it is done.”
She rolled her eyes, swatting the arrow aside so she could snuggle him closer, which was always a reason to glow more warmly. “Perhaps the world does require some shaking up to amend the abysmal state of Love,” she said. “A star-crossed match of opposites is always good for that sort of thing.”
“I can think of few more potent potions.” Eros looked up at her with his biggest, brightest eyes, emanating her favorite rose-scent. “You really should watch them singing together. Then you’ll know like I do. Kore needs a god who can match her. Not some piddly Apollo or any other godling of her own generation. She’s not just some prancing sprite. I mean, she is that. But she’s so much more.”
The Goddess of Love hummed in agreement. “Our sweet Blossomtime has always carried an air of the ages within her. Something…almost ancient.”
He nodded. “You can smell it on her.”
“I dare say that girl would devour the Cosmos just to taste it.”
“Well, she’ll never have the chance to taste anything except Earth Mother’s flavorless barley without a major intervention.”
As Aphrodite’s resistance eroded along with her bristly posture, she reached out to stroke the dove-feather flight on one of the arrows. The barb of each one had been dipped into a potion of her devising to ensure a specific type of arousal. “I think this one,” she purred.
“Mmm...Passionate Agitation. Perfect to get our grumpy boulder rolling downhill.”
“And this one.”
“Inflamer?” Eros’ heart thrilled. He hardly ever used that one. Its punch was too potent for most. “Mama, you are wicked.”
“No less so than the god in question.”
Eros scrubbed the arrows against his bowstring, chanting, “Klymenos, Host of Many A Ghost. Notorious Fiend of Tartaros!”
With a low chuckle, she toyed with his locks, pushing the rakish mess back from where it forever hung in his eyes. “Well, my intrepid matchmaker, I can see only two tiny snags in your grand scheme.”
“Snags?” He caught one of her dangling ringlets upon Inflamer’s barb. “What snags?”
She deftly unwound the corkscrew with a glance, then traced her finger upon the spells wood-burned into the arrow’s shaft. “Did you consider, first, how you’re going to incite your own immortal demise so you can pass through the Gate of Shades without arousing anyone’s suspicion? And second, once descended into Eternal Night, how to keep from having your neck, wings, and spine snapped by a certain three-headed puppy as you attempt your daring escape from the Tormentor’s lair? He never leaves it, and no one ever leaves him.”
Eros waggled Inflamer in the air. “Darling mother, fear not. I have worked out every one of those details.”
“Have you now? Well, you have learned the arts of plotting from me, not your father.”
“Father plots? I thought he just blazed in all bull-headed with his sword out and his hair on fire.”
The words sparked a lovely flush upon the Goddess of Love’s cheeks and set all the flowers in the room to emitting their intoxicating aromas. In a breathless voice, she murmured, “That he does, cherub.” After a moment of mental indulging, she placed a kiss upon Eros’ brow, then slipped across the chamber to throw back the curtains of the alcove.
With a wave of her hand, she called up the Underworld once more. There stood its Lord, panting and sex-drunk in grimy water up to his thighs. “Perhaps it is time that sunbeams came to the Lands of the Dead. Can you imagine Kore’s brilliance reflecting off all those gemstones to pierce the Tormentor’s hardened heart as keenly as your arrows?”
“In fact, I can.”
I’ve only been devising it for eight hundred years.
He didn’t dare say it. Better now to act like everything she did was her idea.
The pulse of Fated Love began to thrum through her body. The vibration stood all of Eros’ feathers on end and set his golden hair aflame. That’s it. That’s what I need from her. He tamped down the exuberance of his grin and clasped his hands so he wouldn’t burst into aerial infinities.
Doubtful she would have noticed. Her gown had gone the hue of Dawn’s rosy kiss upon mist, a perfect match to her cheeks and the darkening tint of her lips. Her heart finger traced the sign of infinity in the oil, over and again as she glanced back and forth between the bowl and the spiral of potions, herbs, spices, and more. They floated over to swirl around her, each one vying for her attention.
One caught Aphrodite’s eye and she gasped. A hint of her own luxuriant villainy glinted in her gaze as she drew it forth. “Oh, yes,” she murmured. “Yes, this.”
Eros’ mouth went as round as his eyes. He flew over to examine it. It was golden. A miniature corona with a thousand rays. “What is that?”
She chuckled and floated the glowing treasure toward him.
When he held out his hand, it alighted on his palm. Upon experiencing the magnitude of its power and what sort of magic it produced, he sucked in a loud breath. “Oh, mother…oh my…”
“Yes, my dearest. I will leave the task of finding the chink in Klymenos’ armor to you and your darts. But for the Bringer of Blossomtime…” She floated the pretty thing up into the air to watch it dance. “Only a flower will do.”
Up Next: PUBLIC PLACES (and some private ones) - Kore catches a prowler off guard.
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