It was a relief to be alone with her thoughts, though they had taken an odd, dark path that she couldn't fully understand. Heading to the bathroom, she ran her brush through her hair and had been heading for her bedroom when she stopped, a slight movement catching her attention. There was a man standing in the doorway to the balcony, his back to her.
He had silver-grey hair that stuck out in wild angles that looked as though he ran his hands through it a lot. He was wearing a toga that left his torso bare and he was enormously muscled. Feet clad in leather sandals and a quiver strung from his hip filled with not arrows, but bolts of lightning told her exactly who he was.
"Zeus?" she asked, genuinely surprised to see him. She had never met him before, but he was one of the most well-known and powerful beings in either world.
Turning to look at her, she was surprised at just how young he looked, perhaps in his thirties, with a hard face and pale grey, almost white eyes.
"Hello little Goddess," he said, his voice deeper than it should have been for one of his appearance.
It was such an odd and unexpected situation to be in that she could only gape at him for a moment before she shook her head and finally, she made a vague motion towards her bedroom.
"Would you excuse me for a moment?" she asked and when he nodded, she slipped into her room to get dressed, pulling on a simple grey silk dress and then heading back out.
He was still standing at the balcony, and she approached him slowly, confused by what he could possibly need from her.
As she approached, he held out his hand to her, and she accepted it, allowing him to draw her out onto the balcony and into the dying light of sunset.
"You're more beautiful than anyone said," he said almost accusingly as he cupped her jaw in one large, very rough hand.
She didn't know what to say so that, so she simply smiled slightly, and her heart sank at that same contraction of his pupils that everyone went through around her. It would seem that even he was not safe from her magic, and he wasn't even vaguely afraid of her.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked, unable to think of another way to ask him what he wanted without being rude. The man had an explosive temper from all reports, and she wasn't keen to be on the receiving end of it.
"I only came to meet you," he said, but she caught a slight twitch of his lips as he said it and she immediately became wary at the lie. It was becoming more and more common for the rules of Faerie to be disproven when more of them learnt how to lie.
"Whatever for?" she asked, watching his lips, though her eyes were focused on his.
"I recently found out about you," 'True'. She thought. "And I always make an effort to meet the newest Gods" 'lie...'
"It's an honour to finally get to meet you," she said, and his face softened slightly as he released her jaw and with his hand still on hers, he drew her over to one of the day beds to sit down with him.
"I have heard many things about you, and I had hoped you might be able to provide some insights," he said. She thought it was likely true, his hands fumbling at his lap and she was amused to see him pulling two mugs from inside the quiver along with a skin of some liquid. Some rumours weren't lies, he was indeed a drinker.
"I'd be delighted," she said, and she watched the red liquid, her eyes going back up to him.
"This world is so beautiful," he said as his eyes moved past her, and she looked around at the sunset.
"Indeed, it is," she said gently and turned back to him, accepting the mug.
He lifted his to his lips and took a healthy swig but as she did the same, she noted it had an odd smell she didn't recognise, and she looked at it curiously.
"What is this?" she asked, glancing up at his red stained lips to confirm that yes, he had drunk it so it likely wasn't poisoned.
"I don't know what the humans call it, but it's delicious. Don't worry, I'm not trying to kill you," truth again.
She nodded and took a cautious sip of what seemed to be non-alcoholic wine, at least it didn't have the usual strange aftertaste of alcohol and his laugh was loud.
"Don't be a sissy, you're a God, act like it."
Not to be outdone, she gulped it down and made a face at the unpleasant taste of the stuff and then looked down at the mug, an oily residue lingering on the mug walls.
"That's terrible," she said, but he only laughed again and took the mug back from her, tucking both and the skin back into the quiver.
The drink had left an unpleasant taste in her mouth and she licked her lips, realising with a note of alarm that her tongue had gone numb. Running her tongue over the inside of her mouth, she found most of it was numb and when she swallowed, her throat had the same issue. He had dosed her with something.
"What was in that mug?" she demanded, but he only laughed, his grey eyes dancing as he shifted his hand to her wrist, clenching it hard.
Moving on instinct, she drove her fist into his chest, and he went flying through the glass doors and into her room, her being pulled with him when he refused to let go of her wrist.
Swallowing hard to try and ease the numbness, she wriggled herself free of the shattered table and yelped as his fingers caught her hair, jerking her head painfully as he twisted his fist in the long strands and get a solid grip on her.
"Let go!" she shouted, but her words were a slur and as she tried to stand, the world tilted violently sideways.
"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you if you just play nicely," he said, and she looked up, her fist connecting with his jaw and his head snapped back.
He swore, yanking hard on her hair and pulling her closer to him, his free hand gripping her throat.
He smiled when he saw her struggling to focus on him, blinking hard, but that only made it worse, and she pulled at his fingers, but they were tangled in her hair.
"Good girl, stop fighting," he said when she swayed, but instead she smiled and raked her nails across his cheek.
He screamed in pain as she flicked his blood out onto the wall with the swing of her arm. She wasn't going to be able to stop him from taking her, but she could give the others a hint of who had taken her and she accepted his retaliation with that thought in mind.
His first was massive as it approached her face, and she closed her eyes, the pain snuffing out as her world went black.
***
When she woke, she expected them to be somewhere else, not still in her room and she looked around at the cleaned room, the God cursing under his breath as he tried to repair the damage their scuffle had caused.
Looking down, she found her hands had been bound by rope that had been intertwined with gold cord and she frowned, realising she had been gagged as well.
Trying to push the gag out with her tongue, she found it was too tight, and she realised she had to do something to ensure he didn't hide all the evidence. It appeared he had wiped the walls and floor clean of blood along with the table.
Her hands had been bound in a way that made her unable to use her fingers, but her feet were unbound, and she smiled at his mistake.
Shifting, she used the nail of one toe to cut into the underside of another and she drew a quick 'z' on the floor under her chair, his turning to her having her freezing before she could finish the name.
"Good, now I don't have to carry you," he growled as he approached.
He didn't notice her actions as he pulled her to her feet and glared up at him, kicking him hard on the shin to keep his attention on her instead of the room.
He yelled and snarled, fingers curling in her hair as he dragged her from the room and into a small storage room across from her own. Why they were in there, she was quick to find out.
His breath was hot on her ear as he wrapped one arm around her and the other gripped her jaw, forcing her to look out of the thin gaps in the door to see her own room.
Daemon and Versalis arrived within a half hour, and it took Versalis only half a second to realise something was wrong.
"Daemon, someone's been in here," Versalis said.
Daemon didn't question it. "Etani?" he called,
They heard the doors inside her suite being thrown open.
"There's blood! It's not hers."
"Where?" Daemon snarled, and they spoke quietly, but her heart had clenched, straining to see them though Zeus' grip on her only tightened, ensuring she couldn't move.
"Look, under the chair," Daemon said, and the chair was dragged back. "What is that? An n? Z? A squiggle?"
Zeus sucked in a breath and she laughed silently as he realised, she had done something.
His fingers tightened on her jaw until it began to ache, and she found she couldn't laugh or cry out at all.
"Hey, have you seen Etani?" Kai asked as he approached, as silent as a cat. "What are you doing?"
"She's gone. She might have been taken," Daemon raged, and she whimpered, trying to reach for them, but she couldn't move at all.
Kai disappeared into the room and she could imagine him prowling around in search of evidence.
"Is that a z?" Kai asked, sounding tense.
"No idea," Daemon said.
"That's her blood though, there's a few spots on the wall that isn't hers. I don't know what species it is. Someone should go get Vincent if he's still here."
That someone was Kai, and she felt his loss keenly, wishing he could be there with her.
"Had enough?" Zeus whispered in her ear, but she shook her head as much as possible given his grip on her.
She needed to see, she had to know that her clues were enough.
Dirdos, Kai, Jaia, and Vincent arrived ten minutes later, and she silently screamed at Dirdos, but no one heard her, had Zeus enchanted the room?
"What's going on?" Dirdos growled. "Where is she?"
"Vincent, can you tell this blood?" Daemon demanded, ignoring the question.
There was a quiet, uneven pace and then silence for several seconds.
"I don't know that blood. It's Fae of some sort, hers is the n over there."
"I thought it was a z," Kai said.
"Looks like a z to me," Jaia agreed.
"That could mean anything, even if it is actually a letter and not a scuff," Dirdos said, and her heart sank.
A soft chuckle came from the God and he dug his fingers into her side. "I think that's enough for one day," he purred, and she opened her eyes to get only a brief hint of her room before the room vanished into a flash of white light.