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legs eating up the space, his blond surfer hair blowing around his face as he moved. “Got tied up with business. Humans are always causing trouble, dumping crap and chemicals in my waters. Not to mention the creatures that need to be regulated, the storms that have to be redirected. Overseeing the world’s oceans isn’t as easy as, say—“he turned his blinding blue gaze Hades’s way—“simply sorting souls.”
    Venom built in Hades’s veins. The same raging fury he always felt when he was face-to-face with his pissant brothers. His condescending, kiss-my-ass brothers who’d taken the best parts of the earth and tossed him what was left: the fucking Underworld.
    He tamped down the resentment, knowing he needed to stay focused so he could get this meet-and-greet over and move on to more important matters.
    “Perhaps, brother,” he said, glancing at his long fingers against the mahogany armrest, “humans wouldn’t shit in your home if you took your dick out of those sea nymphs long enough to pay attention to what they’re doing.”
    Poseidon’s blue eyes turned icy, and a vein pulsed in his temple. “Why you little piece of—”
    “Boys, boys, boys.” Zeus sighed. “I didn’t call you both here so you could get into a pissing match. We have a serious matter to discuss.”
    The King of the Gods waited until both Poseidon and Hades redirected their attention his way. “The queen of Argolea has the Orb of Krónos and two of the four elements she needs to release our father from Tartarus. I don’t have to tell you what that kind of power, in the hands of someone so inexperienced and simple, would do to the balance of the world.”
    It’d fuck you over good .
    Hades kept the thought to himself while Poseidon dropped into the chair to his right. Though Hades didn’t want to see the Orb controlled by an Argolean, the thought of the Little Queen pulling one over on his good-for-nothing brothers made him want to smile.
    “We need to get to the other two elements before they do,” Zeus went on. “It’s time we put aside history and our petty differences and unite our powers.”
    What the fuck? Hades’s gaze narrowed on Zeus. The King of the Gods never did anything unless it directly benefited him alone. Hades wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the look that passed between that Siren and Zeus.
    “Even if we find the last two elements,” Poseidon said, “how do you plan to get the Orb? You just said the Argoleans already have it.”
    Zeus pushed out of his chair and crossed to the wide window that looked out over Olympus, a frown line forming between his brows. The Orb of Krónos was their father’s get-out-of-jail-free card. During the Titanomachy, the war between the Olympians and the Titans, their father, Krónos, had ordered Prometheus to craft the Orb in the event he was captured. Prometheus, a Titan himself, had used the power of the four classic elements and created a disk-shaped object that held the strength to release Krónos from his prison. But Prometheus had never used it. Not after the Olympians had won and they’d locked their father in the pits of Tartarus. Not even after all these thousands of years.
    No, Prometheus had always had a soft spot for humans and was afraid of what Krónos would do to the world in retaliation. So instead of handing the Orb over to the Olympians for safekeeping, the bastard had scattered the elements over the earth then hidden the Orb in Argolea—the one realm the Olympian gods couldn’t cross into.
    Hades had to admire the smart play. Though Zeus had created the realm of Argolea for his son Heracles and his descendants, he’d blocked the Olympians from entry, mostly to keep the Argonauts safe from Hera’s vengeance. But he’d also done it as an act of good faith—so his son and all Argoleans could rule themselves. But now that detail had backfired big-time on the King of the Gods. Hades agreed that the power of the Orb couldn’t be trusted in the hands of any