Out of Excuses Aphrodite (The Goddess Chronicles Book 8) Read online

  Table of Contents

  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

  Out of Excuses Aphrodite

  S.E. Babin

  Copyright © 2017 by S.E. Babin

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  To my puppy, Gracie. I haven’t been able to work in my office for weeks because I’m too busy chasing you around. So…thanks for that.

  Contents

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  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

  About the Author

  Also by S.E. Babin

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  Chapter 1

  My mother showed up just as I had finally stopped grieving. Not to say I’d ever fully stop, but I had finally managed to start getting out of bed each day and not choke up every time I spoke or thought her name. After she sacrificed herself to save my life, I thought I was okay. We hadn’t had a lot of time to get to know each other. In fact, for the majority of my life I didn’t think I had any parents.

  To suddenly have two thrust upon me all of a sudden was way more than I could handle. Toss in a bunch of brand new magic, murder, and mayhem and you had the perfect recipe for a complete nervous breakdown.

  Oh, and the pregnancy. Try slapping that cherry on top and see if you walked out unscathed.

  Anyhow, during the games where I had to fight to save myself, Hecate (aka Mom) sacrificed herself to save my life after I took a mortal blow from Uranus. That’s my dad. Weird that he’d try to murder me like that, right?? Well...unfortunately for him (and me) he had been taken captive by Zeus and was under the influence of some pretty dark magic. Magic that we still hadn’t figured out where it came from. But I digress. Cue the storm of the century, magical lightning bolts, and total freaking chaos, and you can see how there might have been a casualty or two.

  Or a few hundred in our case. Hecate had used every bit of her magic up to save my life and she’d died in my arms on the stadium field. This naturally led to a wee bit of anger on my part, and I’d ended up murdering Zeus with my bare hands and my magic. Which sounded super cool, but I’d had some time to think about it lately, and I remained unconvinced that I did that all by myself. Less than minutes earlier I’d been close to death and then all of a sudden I’m superwoman taking out the former ruler of the gods? Sounded suspicious even with my newfound and strange magic. I’d only begun to learn how to use it.

  I suspected I’d been deftly manipulated by someone, but I still didn’t know by whom.

  Regardless of all that, I’d lost my mom, and once I’d finally sat down and had some time to recover, the grief hit me like a speeding bullet train.

  But even in death, we weren’t always truly dead. Especially not if you were engaged to the Lord of the Underworld. As evidenced by the woman herself sitting right in front of me wearing a disappointed expression and sipping a cup of tea.

  After my frantic inhale of breath, I blinked at her several times, trying to convince myself I was hallucinating.

  “Oh knock it off,” my mother said. “Of course I’m here. I can’t even believe you’re surprised. You’re marrying the Lord of the Underworld and you’d never thought you’d see me again?”

  I gaped at her. That was what I’d thought.

  She rolled her eyes once she realized I’d truly thought I’d never see her again, but her face softened at my stricken look.

  “It isn’t common, child,” she said, her voice a little less snappish. “Your god pulled some strings to get me back, but there are some…” she paused and sighed. “Limitations.”

  “Okay,” I answered, still dumbstruck. “What kind of limitations?”

  “I can’t leave the Underworld. If I do. Poof.” She waved her hand up in the air. “Soul gone. Somewhere even Hades wouldn’t be able to find me.”

  I knew Hades was all powerful. Sometimes his power scared even me. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to know he could bring my mother back, but I wondered what he had done to make it so, and if it would come back to bite us.

  “Relax,” Hecate said. “The bargain is struck. The terms were not too high. Here I am. Enjoy me.”

  I sighed. I hadn’t exactly enjoyed her while she was alive. Most of the the time we were together she harped on me about things. Lots of things. Mainly my lack of talent when it came to mastering the magic she’d unlocked inside of me. Sometimes my relationship status.

  I bit back a smile. She couldn’t say much about that. I was about to get hitched to the man of my dreams. And...I was super knocked up. Never should a mother be more happy than when those two things come to fruition.

  As if she knew exactly what I was thinking, my mother’s expression sharpened. “So,” she drawled, "who's planning this shindig?"

  My heart briefly stopped. I would play dumb. That's what I would do. Totally ignorant and she'd let this whole thing drop. "Shindig?" I asked, my tone innocent and my eyes as wide and guileless as I could make them.

  One of her eyebrows arched. "Yes. Shindig."

  At my intentional blank stare, she rolled her eyes. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

  "What am I doing?"

  Hecate snorted. "I'm your mother. Somewhere there is a law written that I am required to help in the wedding planning."

  I shook my head. "No. No law that I know if. In fact, I think there's a law fr
owning on it. We wouldn't want the gods to frown at us, now would we?"

  Her lips twitched. "I'm helping," she said with finality.

  Inside my head I was screaming like the first victim of a horror movie. Outside, I slapped on a grimace of a smile. "Well," I said, "isn't that nice."

  "I'm thinking I could use skulls for lights instead of those fairy lights that humans seem to be so fond of. I could have the bulb shining right out through the mouth." She was staring at me intently. "I mean the mouth is open for good reason you know, especially when you die. It would make the perfect opening to have some soft ambient light pouring from it. Wouldn't it?"

  I swallowed hard. "Help me," I whispered.

  Chapter 2

  The Lord of the Underworld, aka Hades, aka my handsome fiance, was staring at me helplessly. "Instead of thanking me for bringing her back to life, you want me to ask her to butt out?" Hades sighed. "Abby, she's just come back from the dead. I think you're overreacting."

  My arms flailed above my head. "But she wants -" I stopped and pinched the area between my brow. "Skulls," I whispered. "Skull lights."

  Instead of commiserating with me, he chuckled. "I think that sounds awesome."

  "No. No dead people lights. We are having fairy lights strung up on every available surface. The light is soft. It makes my hair glow and it makes everything look like a fairy tale." I couldn't help the screechiness in my voice. I'd never had a mother getting involved in my life, and I didn't know her well enough to know if she was genuinely serious about the skull lights or not. But if she was I needed to do everything within my power to stop the madness.

  Hades blinked at me. There was a pause and he finally sighed and patted his lap. "Sit."

  I went willingly because sitting in Hades' lap was the best thing ever.

  But I was still annoyed.

  He wrapped his arms around me and buried his head into the crook of my neck. I loved it when he smelled me, even if it was a bit weird. I threaded my arms around his neck and bent my head on top of his. "Fairy lights," I insisted.

  "How about we forget about this for a little while?" he murmured.

  "But our wedding is in thirty days," I wailed.

  I could feel his grin against my neck. "Yes and regardless of what the lights look like, we will still be married."

  I sighed. "I really hate it when you put things into perspective for me."

  "I know you do," he admitted. "But at the end of the day, it's just lights. Not us. Not how we feel about each other."

  "Are you cleverly suggesting I let my mother have her way?"

  He chuckled and gently lifted his head. My blue eyes met his silvery icy ones. "Yes."

  "I hate you," I muttered.

  His hand wrapped around the back of my neck and he pulled me in for a searing kiss.

  "No, I don't," I said after I recovered my breath.

  "I know," Hades said.

  We sat there for awhile lost in each other's eyes before my female brain got the best of me. Napkins, tablecloths, the minister, the dress, the makeup. Who was going to do my hair?!

  Hades broke out into laughter and released me. I slid from his lap.

  "So many things to do!" I shouted as I ran from the room.

  I slipped into our bedroom and quickly dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a cute orange and white off the shoulder top. I slid on a pair of metallic white sandals, whipped my hair up in a messy bun and bent underneath the bed to retrieve my book.

  The book.

  The book I never showed anyone. Not even Artie. The book filled with hundreds of clippings of wedding dresses and hairstyles and tiny finger foods and tuxes and wedding locations and all of the other wedding items I'd collected over the thousands of years I'd been living. Of course, I had to clean it out numerous times because well, beehives were no longer in style, bell sleeves were frowned upon, no one rode horses anymore, and now you couldn't just hitch up, say you were married and everyone took you at your word.

  We were civilized now. Whatever that meant.

  I flipped the book open to the current year and couldn't help the flush of pleasure I had at the first dress that popped up. It was a Vera Wang, a delightful confection that was a cross between a Disney Princess and English royalty. It. Was. Everything.

  Alas, I was trying to be less materialistic these days, and I was succeeding. Mostly.

  The dress had a $15,000 price tag on it. A hefty amount to be sure. I should have taken the picture out of the book and burned it, but I was obsessed with the dress.

  Ob. Sessed.

  Could I afford it? Well...yes. Should I was a better question. In the past, I would have jumped all over that boat like a randy sailor. I was trying to be the kinder, gentler Aphrodite. One who did not blow inordinate sums of money on something I was only going to wear once.

  I forced myself to flip to the second page, where there was another gorgeous yet moderately priced gown on sale. I wasn't sure why I had such a penchant for human designers. I'm sure someone around here could whip me up something, but I'd spent too long on Earth freaking out about all the cool clothes humans got to wear and lamenting my own forced toga.

  Until I said screw it and started dressing as the humans did.

  Much to Zeus' dismay.

  I sighed.

  Zeus.

  I, along with almost everyone else in my party, fled to the Underworld after the hot mess that was the games for my hand. I'd never found Atlas. He hadn't shown back up with the rest of my friends after Hecate's death. I needed to find a good nickname for the dude because every time things went wrong, he'd be right there pitching in, then every time it was over, I couldn't find neither hide nor hair of the guy. So I had no idea where he was. Or what he was doing. Or even if he was okay. I hoped he was.

  But most of my thoughts these days had been on two people - Artie and Hermes.

  I slammed the book shut and fell backwards across my bed. I missed my friend like I would miss a limb. She'd been dabbling with mortality a little bit but had finally decided to keep going as Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt. I was super stoked about that but had accidentally smacked her full on with a mortality spell Zeus had given me a while ago. Instead of hitting the target, ie., douchey Zeus, I hit Artemis instead.

  The Fates swept her back to their lair to see if they could assist, but Clotho wasn't certain if they could. The spell was gradual, meaning Artie was still holding on to the vestiges of her immortality. She still had her magic, her beauty, her affinity with animals, but day by day it was slowly being diminished. Eventually she would be just human. She’d have a mortal lifespan, bills, a human fertility cycle, human emotions.

  Periods. I shuddered.

  But all of this was my fault. She would be mortal because of me, and there wasn't a single thing I could do about it. Unless the Fates were able to intervene in a huge way, Artie appeared to be destined for the human life all the way. It was painful to sit by and watch it happen. Although I wasn't exactly watching it because she hadn't spoken to me since I'd accidentally lobbed the spell at her.

  My heart broke every single day over it. But I would wait for her. When she was ready. I just hoped when she was ready, she was ready to forgive me.

  Even though I probably didn't deserve it.

  I flipped to the next page and a small smile tilted my mouth upwards and lifted my heart. Mason jars. Mason jars everywhere. It was the new southern wedding obsession. Cute little tea lights in adorable little mason jars filled with fairy lights and hanging from every available tree limb.

  I tapped my chin.

  I’d never seen any trees in the Underworld.

  Maybe Hades could make me some.

  I snorted in amusement, flipped idly through the book again and closed it a little while later and flipped onto my back to stare at the scorched ceiling. So far everyone had been too polite to ask what was up with all the burned ceilings around here, but I had a feeling they knew. I could occasionally hear snickers in the kitchens and
see knowing looks aimed at me when they thought I wasn't paying attention.

  It was embarrassing, yes, but I didn't see anyone else around here blowing the roof off by having incredible sex, now did I?

  I closed my eyes, my cheeks slightly burning with those memories, and eventually drifted off.

  Pregnancy took a lot out of me, even if the days had been idle since the games had ended.

  Let's just hope it stayed that way.

  Chapter 3

  Like most things in my life, it didn't stay that way, and the first sign of trouble arrived via the River Styx wearing a crown of laurel, golden skin, and deeply shadowed whiskey colored eyes. I felt the now familiar tingling of a new soul in the Underworld and scrambled downstairs to see who it was. Dead people felt different than immortals did. And whoever this was sent off a familiar power signal.

  I stood at the edge of the pier watching my former lover, now friend, being paddled closer to me by the ancient tollman, Charon. The tollman and I didn't know each other that well, but Hades trusted him. He weirded me out a little bit, but basically everything down here weirded me out, so that was nothing knew. I nodded to him and he pierced me with his ancient gaze, the one that saw right through me. My skin prickled at his stare and I couldn't help but cross my arms against my chest as I broke eye contact with him.

  Hermes smiled at me though it was grim. I extended a hand out and he grasped it gently. I knew he didn't need my help getting out but maybe the touch of a friend would ease some of the grief and stress from his face.