Goddess of Love (31 page)

“You stand witness to the recommitment of our marriage.”

With the rest of the crowd, Venus gasped with shock at the interruption. She looked around the enormous room until she caught sight of Vulcan's tall figure making his way toward her. Surely she'd misunderstood his words. She looked up at him as he joined her before the thrones of his parents.

“Vulcan, what are you talking about?” She kept her voice low for his ears alone.

He smiled at her, but instead of answering he faced his parents and bowed to them.

“Zeus, Hera,” he said. “Thank you for hearing our petition today, and forgive me for being late.”

“That's quite all right, son,” Hera said, beaming a smile at her favorite child. “Go ahead with your request. Your father and I are ready to hear it.”

“Venus was quite right. We started our relationship together in a loveless way. But now I would like to rectify that. If Venus will agree, I want to recommit to our marriage, and this time it will be a real marriage.”

He ignored the disbelieving whispers and the sarcastic laughter that was the response of the watching immortals and turned to Venus. Then he further shocked her by taking her in his arms. When he spoke he didn't lower his voice. The entire Hall could hear what he was saying, but his words were confidently spoken and they seemed to brush her soul with the depth of their passion.

“Who knew Love could be intimate with loneliness?”

“What? I—I don't understand, Vulcan,” she whispered.

Again he spoke from his heart to her, but he made no attempt to speak quietly. “You've been lonely, wife.”

Numbly, not understanding what was happening, she automatically replied the same words she'd spoken days earlier during a bizarrely similar conversation. “I have. We should have never married. We've both been unbearably sad. Friendship can only be an addition to, not a substitute for, true love.” Venus held her breath, hoping against all reason that she knew what his next words would be.

“And neither is waiting and searching. Is there any way we can reconcile? How can we make this better for both of us?”

When she heard the familiar response, from the night of the masquerade party, Venus began to tremble. And suddenly the Great Hall seemed to fade around them, and it was replaced by an Oklahoma night when the man who looked into her eyes had been wearing a different kind of mask.

“Is it you? How did this happen?” she whispered.

And then he did lower his voice so that Venus alone could hear him. “It's easy, my goddess. I found the courage to accept your love.”

With a glad cry Venus threw her arms around Griffin's neck and melted against him as he lowered his mouth hungrily to hers, and Vulcan, God of Fire, formally and officially, possessed Venus, Goddess of Love, with Mount Olympus as his witness. The Great Hall exploded in pandemonium. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Venus realized that the noise around her was made up of joyful shouts and cheers as the Olympians acknowledged the glimpse they had been given of true love. But that was something she would consider and be glad of later. Just then she was too busy feeling her soul leap in joyful acknowledgment that it had been granted the miracle of living for eternity with its mate.

One year later

“Darling, you don't have any lamb. Would you mind terribly if
I zapped up a succulent young leg of lamb for the grill? I have such a taste for it.” Venus was peering into Pea's refrigerator as if she actually expected to find a freshly butchered carcass of lamb hiding between the milk and orange juice.

“Venus, we're having buffalo steaks. I've been marinating them since last night. They'll be delicious—trust me on this. Plus they have less fat and cholesterol than beef, let alone lamb.” Venus's beautiful face was a total question mark. Pea rolled her eyes. “Buffalo is better for you.”

The goddess thought for a moment and then her expression changed so that she looked like she had just taken a large bite of something distasteful. “You mean it's
healthy
?”

Pea laughed.

“Are you terrorizing the immortals again, little one?”

Venus watched Vulcan (
no, Griffin.
Sometimes it was still hard to remember she must always call him Griffin) walk slowly to his wife. His leg was getting better, she thought. The wound had been dreadful. His entire left leg had been crushed. Venus remembered how during one of her numerous visits to Pea in the months following the accident and the bizarre exchange of their lovers' souls, her mortal friend had talked about the doctors and their opinion that Vulcan (who was now living the mortal Griffin's life) would never walk again. Pea and Venus had shared secret smiles over that. They knew the doctors had underestimated the soul within the mortal shell. He still walked carefully and slowly, but he walked.

Pea was laughing again and telling her husband that terrorizing immortals was one of her favorite pastimes, when the God of Fire materialized in the kitchen. Pea let out a little shriek and pressed her hand to the very pregnant swell of her belly.

“I don't know why I can't get used to that,” she said, under her breath.

“Sorry, Pea.” The god looked chagrined. He bent to kiss Pea's plump cheek, then the two men greeted each other. “It's still weird,” said the immortal, who used to be mortal.

“I believe it will always been disconcerting,” said the mortal man who used to be God of Fire.

Venus noticed that, as always, they shook hands warmly. The two men honestly liked and respected each other. That, the Goddess of Love thought, proved that there was something intrinsically honorable and good about each man's soul. Then her husband walked around the table to her. By Circe's huge tits, she loved him! Venus didn't think she would ever tire of the unique spirit that sparkled in his dark eyes or of the way he made her body sing beneath his hands. He was incredibly strong and powerful, and during the past year that Griffin had resided within Vulcan's immortal frame, the God of Fire had completely lost the limp that had caused him so much anguish for eons. Ironic, really, that the wound followed the man's soul more than his body. Then Venus could only think about how warm his lips were as she pressed herself against him, returning his kiss.

“Hey there, my goddess,” he whispered. “Did you miss me?”

“Oh, jeesh, you two. Please. She's only been here for one day without you,” Pea said, shaking her head good-naturedly at them.

“I would miss you if you were gone for a day.” Vulcan bent to nuzzle Pea's neck, which made her giggle and shiver.

“Stop that! We don't have time. Your sisters will be here any second, and I still have lots to do so that we can eat and be ready to leave for the grand opening of Fabio's boutique.” She turned her stern look on Venus. “You know he'll be crushed if you're late.”

“Darling, remind me what he decided to call his little shop,” Venus said.

“Fit for a Goddess.”
Pea grinned. “He said you inspired the title.”

“Of course I did.”

“Want me to light the charcoal for the grill?” Vulcan asked her.

“You know that I could very easily do that for you,” the new God of Fire said.

“Thanks, but I still like to start a fire or two every once in a while.” Vulcan lifted his now mortal hands and wiggled his fingers, doing an excellent impression of how Venus liked to zap things into being. “Even if these don't work so well for me anymore.”

Venus snorted at him, but secretly she thought that mortality had been good for his sense of humor.

“Well, God of Fire, if you want to make yourself useful, you can get a box for me from the pantry. It's on the very top shelf, and I'm not feeling like climbing the step stool right now. I think I put a bag of special mesquite wood chips in it, and I want y'all to add it to the charcoal as more seasoning for the steaks.”

“She's feeding us healthy food….” Venus muttered.

“I heard that,” Pea said.

“No problem.” Griffin grabbed the box from the pantry and put it on the kitchen table.

“Venus, would you get the chips out of there for me?”

“Yes, darling, as long as you don't try to make me eat them,” Venus said sweetly.

“Very funny.” Pea went back to chopping celery for the potato salad while Venus searched through the box.

“Pea, darling, isn't this the book you used to summon my aid?”

Pea turned. “Yep, that's it. Wonder how it got in that box?”

“So this is what started it all.” Griffin took the ornately bound leather book from Venus. “
Discover the Goddess Within—Unleash Venus and Open Your Life to Love
by Juno Panhellenius. Now that's a mouthful.”

As if someone had punched her in the stomach, all of the air left Venus's body.

“What?!” She and Vulcan gasped the word together.

He hobbled over to the table and took the book from Griffin. Venus was shaking her head over and over and over. “I had no idea. Absolutely no idea.”

“You'd never seen the book until now?” Vulcan asked her.

“Never. Pea was reciting the invocation from memory. I simply can't believe this.”

“What is it?” Concerned, Pea had joined them at the table. “What's wrong?”

Venus looked at her mortal friend. “It's the author. I know her.” She faltered and added, “And him.”

“We know them,” Vulcan said. “Actually Griffin knows them now, too.”

“What are you two talking about?” asked Griffin.

Venus pointed at the name, printed in beautiful raised metallic script across the cover of the book. “Juno is one of the many names Hera uses. And Panhellenius means ‘God of all the Greeks.' It's one of Zeus's epithets.”

“The old manipulators! They were behind this all along,” Vulcan said incredulously.

“We've had their blessing this whole time, and we didn't realize it,” Venus said.

Pea looked at her beloved husband, who had gone through so much to find his happiness. “That means they love you, they still love you, very, very much,” Pea said.

“Actually,” Venus added, wrapping her arm around her mortal friend's shoulder. “It means they love all of us, and that we all have the blessing of the king and queen of the Olympians.”

And as the four friends smiled at one another, thunder rolled playfully across the cloudless Oklahoma sky.