Chapter 29: The Feast of the Gods (Part 1)
Dawn on Olympus was not an event; it was a state of being. A perpetual and warm golden glow that bathed everything in a light of eternal perfection. In Aphrodite's chambers, that light filtered through the silk curtains, painting golden stripes over a landscape of hedonistic devastation.
The orgy had died.
What remained was the hangover of the gods. A sea of sleeping bodies, divine and mortal limbs intertwined in an embrace of exhaustion. Satyrs snored with their heads resting on the bellies of nymphs, priestesses lay curled up against the flanks of minor gods.
The air, previously an intoxicating perfume of lust, was now thick and stale. It smelled of spilled wine, cooling sweat, and the musky, lingering scent of countless climaxes.
In the middle of that battlefield of satisfied pleasure, there was only one truly alert consciousness.
Lykaon.
He stood up silently from the center of the circular bed, his colossal wolf form a mountain of solid night amidst the carnage of silk and skin. Aphrodite slept at his feet, a beautiful and smiling mess, her body covered in his essence and Ares'. The god of war snored in a corner, his muscular body a fortress at rest.
Lykaon watched them, not with satisfaction, nor with disdain. With boredom. The feast was over. The hunt had concluded. The prey were broken and satisfied. The game, for him, had become predictable.
'Noisy. Fragile. They tire too easily.'
Without a sound, without a ripple in the air, he dissolved. His massive form did not move; it simply undid itself, collapsing into a smudge of darkness that was absorbed by the shadow cast by the bed itself. He slid through the palace's web of blackness, a current of indifference flowing under doors and through silent corridors.
He could feel the echoes of the night, the feverish dreams of minor gods, Ares' satisfied breathing in his quarters, the rhythmic pulse of the sleeping palace. They were background noise, irrelevant.
His destination was not an exit, but an exploration. He chose a shadow in the main courtyard, the one clinging to the base of a colossal marble statue of Zeus, and emerged.
The impact of Olympus at "peace" was a subtle aggression. The golden and perpetual light was a constant hum at the edge of his perception, a white noise that irritated his affinity for the silence of the night. The air was too clean, smelling of ambrosia and a purity that felt unnatural to him.
The gardens stretched before him, a landscape of a beauty so calculated it was sterile. Paths of compacted clouds that shimmered softly. Fountains carved in crystal that sang liquid melodies. Flowers that did not grow, but existed, every petal perfect, every color vibrant, glowing with their own light.
It was a golden cage of perfection. A work of art without a soul.
'No chaos. No struggle. No hunger. This place is dead.'
He walked, his shadow paws leaving no footprints on the clouds. He was a walking blasphemy in their perfect paradise, a smudge of night moving through an eternal dawn. He compared this place with the other territories he had claimed. The grotto in Greece had held the brutal honesty of nature. The court of Egypt, the calculated decadence of ambition.
This... this was simply boring.
He stopped by a fountain from which nectar sprouted, the thick golden liquid flowing over statues of satyrs and nymphs. He watched his own distorted reflection in the shimmering surface: a silhouette of darkness, a form that did not belong in this place.
He hadn't come here to join their party. He hadn't come to be their equal. He had come as he came to all places. As a predator.
And a predator, upon entering new territory, does not join the pack.
First, he measures the other alphas.
His exploration was not a walk. It was a reconnaissance. He was mapping the terrain, identifying sources of power, cataloging weaknesses. The orgy had been a simple data collection on their basest instincts. Now, he needed to see the true nature of their power.
'I have played with the cubs,' he thought, his ember eyes sweeping the golden towers in the distance. 'It is time to find the true lions.'
His first target was obvious. The one who sat on the highest throne, the one who smelled of storm and pride.
He had entered the territory of another pack. And it was time to measure the alpha.
My exploration of Olympus was not an aimless walk. It was a mapping of power. And in any territory, the first law is to identify and measure the alpha.
I left behind the gardens of sterile perfection and followed the trail of the densest power. It was not a scent, but a pressure in the air, a concentration of authority and energy so immense that it made the rest of Olympus seem like a simple playground. The trail led me upward, to the highest peaks of the sacred mountain, to a citadel of marble and gold floating above everything else.
I slipped through the shadows of colossal pillars, a stream of night flowing through the architecture of the gods. The guards in golden armor flanking the corridors did not see me. Their mortal eyes, though divine, were not tuned to the frequency of my existence. They were blind to true darkness.
I reached a vast open balcony, a terrace as large as a mortal city square. It projected from the edge of the citadel, suspended over an abyss of swirling clouds. From here, one could see everything: Olympus stretching below like a golden tapestry, and beyond, through veils of shimmering mist, one could see glimpses of the mortal world, a small and distant orb of green and blue.
This was the eagle's nest. The king's throne.
And the king was there.
He was not seated on a formal throne. He was standing by the marble railing, his back to me, contemplating his creation. His form was that of a powerful man in the prime of his life, his hair and beard white as sea foam, his muscular body wrapped in a simple white tunic. But his power was a contained storm. The air around him crackled with static electricity, and small lightning bolts, thin as spider threads, danced silently between his fingers.
I did not announce myself. There was no need. He knew I was there.
I emerged from the shadow cast by a great statue of an eagle with spread wings. My colossal form solidified in the silence, a smudge of night in the brilliance of the eternal day.
Zeus did not turn immediately. He finished contemplating his view, a king savoring his dominion. Then, slowly, he turned around. His blue eyes, filled with the power of a thousand storms, settled on me. There was no surprise. There was no alarm. Only a deep and amused curiosity.
"So the Wandering Shadow has climbed up to my peak," his voice was a deep baritone, a contained thunder. "You have audacity, beast. I like that."
I remained motionless, watching him. He was an alpha. I felt it in the way his power did not shrink before mine, but swelled to match it, one pressure against another, two fundamental forces measuring each other in silence.
'It is not the empty light of the Biblical God,' I thought, my mind analyzing coldly. 'This light has weight. It has fury. It has... ego.'
"You presented yourself in my hall. You showed me your power by breaking the heroes of the earth. But here, in my nest, all beasts learn to show respect," he continued, a slight warning in his amused tone.
"Respect is earned in battle, not demanded on a throne," I replied, my voice a block of ice in the warmth of his dominion. "And I do not see a throne. Only another alpha male in a territory too small for two."
The provocation hung in the air, as palpable as the ozone crackling around him. I expected fury. I expected a lightning bolt.
Instead, he laughed.
It was the same thunderous laughter I had heard in the throne room, but here, in the solitude of his peak, it was more genuine. A laugh of pure and absolute arrogance, the laugh of a being so sure of his own power that another's challenge was not an insult, but entertainment.
"By Chaos!" he roared, his laughter vibrating the marble beneath my paws. "A wolf with more pride than a god! You are a delicious anomaly, Canis Lykaon. You have broken your creator's chains only to forge your own out of pure hubris."
He took a step toward me, his power swirling around him. "I like your strength. I like your contempt. You remind me of myself in my youth, before this throne became so... comfortable."
He stopped a few meters from me, his storm eyes meeting my void embers. "I will give you my blessing to roam my kingdom. Drink our nectar. Partake in our feasts. Take our nymphs. They are pleasures for the strong, and you have proven your strength."
He paused, and his smile faded, replaced by a seriousness as heavy as thunder. "But understand this, Shadow. This is my heaven. These are my subjects. And these are my toys."
A small lightning bolt, bright and blinding, jumped from his finger and crashed into the ground at my feet, leaving a black burn mark on the solidified clouds.
"You can play with my toys," he continued, his voice now a low and dangerous murmur. "But if you break one that I cherish... you will discover that my storms are much more absolute than your darkness."
The warning was clear. It was the alpha establishing the rules of his territory. It was not a death threat. It was a declaration of ownership.
'Powerful. Arrogant. Possessive. And predictable.' I had measured the lion. And I had found him magnificent, but, ultimately, a creature of habit.
I did not answer with words. I simply tilted my head, a minimal and almost imperceptible gesture. It was not submission. It was acknowledgment. I had heard his rules. That didn't mean I was going to follow them.
Zeus seemed to understand. His smile returned. "Good. Now that we have established the boundaries of our playground... go. Explore. Have fun. Olympus had become boring. I suspect you will make it... interesting."
With a final look of predatory amusement, he turned and went back to contemplating his kingdom, turning his back on me in the ultimate act of dominance, demonstrating that he did not consider me a threat to his rear.
I stood there for a moment, in the silence broken only by the wind of the peaks. I had measured the alpha. And I had been measured. A balance had been established. For now.
Without a sound, I dissolved back into the single small shadow on the balcony, leaving the king of the gods alone on his peak, with the mark of my challenge burned into the floor of his nest. The game could continue.
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Hello everyone.
Just stopping by to let you know that if you want to read ahead, the story is already at chapter 40+ on my Patreon.
Thanks for reading!
Mike.
@Patreon/iLikeeMikee