The Sea Queen (The Dark Queens Book 1) by Jovee Winters Page B

sensual curves.
    While I didn’t exactly look ready to go cook and clean, I was beautiful. And that counted for far more.
    My stomach dived. “I fear I have developed an infatuation with the beast, my darling.”
    Infatuations end, Calypso. Linx spoke as she nudged the last apple back into her bowl with the tip of her nose. Ride this out, and I’m sure you’ll be back to your old self in no time. Have sex. Make babies. Have fun. And for the love of Rhea, stop overthinking everything so much.
    “It’s not exactly overthinking. Do you know he killed Persephone?”
    Beautiful, horsy eyes widened. He did? I thought you said it wasn’t—
    I flicked my wrist. “Well, I’m not sure he killed her, but he knows what happened to her. They’ll come for him, no doubt. They’ll take him from me.”
    You sound displeased by that.
    There were no words for me to say to that. But they stayed with me throughout the rest of the day.

Chapter 10
    Hades
    I’d been to Zeus’s temple, the palace in the clouds, the crown jewel of all of Olympus. A shining, majestic place crafted of the finest white marble, nestled upon a fluffy bank of clouds thicker than a marshmallow topping, where sunlight never faded and wine flowed freely.
    My own Elysian fields were another wonder, a verdant Eden of blooms and greenery, where the faithful frolicked and reveled throughout all eternity.
    Demeter’s vast fields of wheat.
    Dite’s love temple dripping with the sensuous fragrances of myrrh and nubile, ripe women who lived only to worship their mistress.
    All of them beautiful, but none of them quite as enchanting to me as the sea garden Nimue—King Consort— and Calypso took me too.
    It was an underwater oasis, rolling green hills surrounded by jeweled strands of blue and green kelp that grew up from the ocean floor, where tiny and colorful fish swam through. A waterfall cascaded from the cliff face of a massive mountain range several yards before us.
    Bird fish flew through the azure, tropical waters, singing as they dived for their own meals.
    I rested my weight against an alabaster rock poking up from the ground, simply watching them.
    Nimue was pale with dark hair and eyes. She was ripe with child, her figure lush and enticing. But she paled in comparison to the maiden fussing beside her.
    My enchantress was yet again in Janita form, though today she’d broadened her hips just slightly, making an already delectable rear positively mouthwatering. Her breasts had likewise grown in mass, so that if I palmed them, I could not cup them entirely.
    Calypso had failed to introduce me to Nimue, so the Consort had had to do it on her own. But I could tell many things from studying them now.
    The first was that Nimue was of far greater significance to Calypso than she’d initially let on. The second was that though Calypso disguised herself, Nimue knew who she really was, though the goddess herself seemed completely unaware of that fact.
    “Tut tut, ye sit here, now, out of the burning sun,” Caly murmured tenderly, pointing at a spot on the blanket she’d tucked beneath a large overhang of rock so that, indeed, Nimue would be out of the noonday sun that wasn’t really sun at all.
    “Janita, honestly, I’m fin—”
    “Sit.” Calypso brooked no argument, pushing the Consort down with a firm shove.
    The consort dropped, casting me a grumpy frown that soon turned into an exasperated sort of forbearance.
    “As you wish, Janita. Though I really do wish you’d stop fussing over me. I’m a woman.”
    “Ye’re naught but a child.” Janita fluffed up the consort’s skirts. Then, with a final gentle pat to her knee, she turned and headed toward the basket of foods she’d left packed in the carriage some yards back.
    “Come here,” Nimue commanded to me when Janita had moved off.
    Grinning at being commanded so, I decided to oblige her. The woman was precious to Calypso, so I could do no less.
    Taking a seat on the opposite corner, I nocked a