Katee Robert is getting ready to say goodbye to the Dark Olympus series, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have special gifts from the gods to still give us as the countdown begins. The beloved and absolutely scorching series is set to be completed with the upcoming 10th novel, but there’s still so many secrets to reveal as we get closer and closer to the end!
Cosmopolitan has an exclusive first look at the final two books in the Dark Olympus series: Tender Cruelty and Shattered Gods. The first book, Tender Cruelty, will be released on December 2, 2026, while Shattered Gods will come out on June 23, 2026 to bring the whole series to an end. Before we dive into a special exclusive excerpt, we’re first revealing the cover for Shattered Gods that gives us a glimpse into what we can expect from Hermes and Atalanta and Circe.
Sourcebooks Casablanca
Here’s some info about Shattered Gods from our friends at Sourcebooks Casablanca:
She was Olympus’s Queen. Its sacrifice. Its savior. Its destruction.
Long ago, Circe was Hermes’ entire heart. The two women lived on the outskirts of Olympian society, content with a quiet life away from the spotlight. Then Circe caught the eye of Zeus…and was forced into a marriage that would take her freedom, her future, and in the end, her life. In the wake of the tragedy, gossip swirled about the woman Zeus married and (allegedly) murdered…but in time, everyone forgot about beautiful, tragic Circe.
Everyone but Hermes, who vowed on that day to bring Olympus to its knees.
Now, fifteen years later, a new Zeus rules the city, a new Hades protects his people, a new hope dawns…and Hermes has begun to think there may be things about Olympus worth saving. With Atalanta by her side―and slowly rebuilding her heart―Hermes may finally be ready to set aside her fury and seek the city’s rebirth instead of its total annihilation. But there is a beautiful devil on Hermes’ other shoulder: a devil who rose, blood-soaked, from where Zeus left her for dead years ago. A devil who has waited all this time to have her revenge.
And no matter their past, no matter the desperate love they once shared, no matter the complicated triad forming between the three women, Circe will not rest until all of Olympus lays shattered at her feet…and the gods help anyone who gets in her way.
A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Hermes and Atalanta and Circe.
But before we can get to their story, we need to find out what happens to Hera and Zeus first! You can check out an exclusive excerpt from Tender Cruelty below! Just make sure to pre-order Tender Cruelty and Shattered Gods before diving in!
An Excerpt From Tender Cruelty
By Katee Robert
1
Zeus
It’s all coming apart. Tonight should have been a victory that cemented my reign as Zeus and eliminated the threat against Olympus once and for all. Instead, four out of five Aeaean ships sailed off into the night, possibly about to turn around and attack us the moment we aren’t looking—and Circe has once again slipped through our grasp.
My father must be rolling over in his grave. The bastard might have been a monster of the most dangerous variety, but he reigned as Zeus for nearly fifty years of peace. More or less. I’ve held the title for less than a year, and during that time, the assassination clause has become public knowledge, resulting in unprecedented violence against the Thirteen, we’re facing an external enemy for the first time in Olympian history, the barrier that protected our city from the outside world has come down, and I’ve staged a coup with the other legacy titles, betraying everything Zeus is supposed to be.
Truly, a spectacular failure all around.
I sit in my car in my building’s parking garage for long enough that I start getting odd looks from the guards positioned near the elevator. It doesn’t matter how long I take or how deep and slow my breathing; there’s no banishing my father’s derisive voice from my head. He might be dead, but he haunts me still, even though this is all his damn fault.
There isn’t a neat solution to the Circe problem, and she wouldn’t even be a problem if my bastard of a father hadn’t kidnapped her off the street, marched her down the aisle, and then attempted to murder her on their honeymoon. Up until very recently, we all assumed she was dead—another Hera fallen at the hands of a violent Zeus.
The worst part is that I don’t blame her for her determination to get vengeance. She was horribly mistreated by both my father and the rest of the Thirteen at the time. Not a single person tried to step in to help her.
But my father is dead and gone—at least to everyone who didn’t spend their entire lives being trained to become the next him. Of the Thirteen who held the positions when she was Hera, only three remain—Poseidon, Athena, and Hades. Even if there were more left, no one stands against Zeus. At least the Zeus my father was. She’s striving for vengeance against people who hold no blame in her pain. More than that, she’s endangering the civilians of the city.
What the fuck am I doing? I have all this power, and all I’ve managed to do with it is stumble around in the dark.
I sigh. I’m not going to solve this problem by sitting in my car and berating myself in my late father’s voice. There will be no peace up in the penthouse either, not with my Hera swishing about, plotting my death. She wasn’t successful in her most recent plans, but she’s not a woman to give up easily. Sleeping peacefully at her side should be out of the question.
And yet it’s the only time I get any rest these days.
I shove out of the car and stalk past the guards, forcing myself to nod at them in greeting, and take the elevator up to the penthouse. It’s late enough that dawn is a short time away, so I don’t expect Hera to be awake. I sure as fuck don’t expect her to have company.
But as I walk through the door, there’s a deep voice intertwined with her more musical tones.
One of the first lessons my father taught me was that emotional reactions are handing a weapon to your enemy and exposing your throat. He was the enemy back then, but the lesson remains. No matter how Hera strives to incite my fury, I don’t react. I will notbe my father and terrorize those in my household. The more my wife acts out, the thicker the ice I use to keep my temper under control.
I find her sitting on the couch with Ixion, one of the new guards who follow her everywhere. She acquired him and the other two from Ares at some point in the last two months. I approve of her keeping herself safe. I sure as fuck do not approve of the way Ixion allows his thigh to press to hers.
They look up as I stop in the doorway. Hera gives me nothing, but that’s to be expected. People accuse me of being an ice king, but she’s all blades and no softness. She has one reaction to any given situation—strike first. She leans back and crosses one long leg over the other, which is right around the time I realize she’s wearing a robe and nothing else. Her dark hair is mussed a bit, too; she must have run her fingers through it recently.
Or Ixion ran his fingers through it.
Ixion gives me a smirk as if he has a better claim to the woman I married than I do. The fact that he might be right nearly has me reaching for the gun in my shoulder holster. I can even see what she finds attractive about him—he’s a white man with short blond hair, a neatly trimmed mustache, and the kind of muscular body that one gets from a life of work. The mustache alone should write him off, but he’s a handsome fucker and charming enough to make it work for him.
I hold his gaze for long enough that a bright pink takes up residence in his cheeks. Only then do I speak. “Get out.”
Ixion doesn’t immediately obey. He looks to her first, waiting for her nod, then rising easily to his feet. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Bright and early.” She even manages a smile for him, which is more than I ever get from her. “Have a good night.”
“You too.” He doesn’t shoulder check me as he walks past, but he clearly wants to. I let him have my back as I listen to him walk down the hall to the door. When Hera acquired her trio, I had Apollo look into them. They all held exemplary records with Athena before they resigned and came to Hera. There was literally nothing to criticize, no good reason to step in and demand she retain the guards I handpicked for her instead.
It irritates me deeply.
“Zeus.” I hadn’t realized there was warmth in her tone for him until there’s none for me. “You’re home late.”
If I were a better man, I wouldn’t relish the thread of jealousy beneath her question. It’s faint enough that I’m not entirely certain it’s real, but I want it to be real. I want Hera to care enough to worry about whose bed I might be spending time in. Because of that weakness, I can’t bring myself to address it directly. “And you had Ixion here late.” I make a show of looking at my watch. “He must be costing a fortune in overtime.”
“You have no idea.” Her hazel eyes flash. “Take a shower. You’re not coming straight from someone else’s bed to mine.”
“You first, Wife.”
“Gladly.” She’s off the couch and across the room in seconds, disappearing through the doorway leading deeper into the penthouse.
Hera represents another failure in my year as Zeus. Marrying her accomplished my goal of getting Demeter and her formidable alliances on my side, but if I had tentative hopes of this marriage being a true partnership—let alone something more—they died on my wedding night. My home has since turned into a battleground again, each interaction another fight in an ongoing war. Sharing a bed? It’s just another facet of that.
I should deny her. She’s actively trying to orchestrate my death and I highly doubt that the most recent failure will set her back for long. Letting her be close enough to access me when I sleep is foolhardy to the point of being suicidal. Having sex with her is even worse. Even knowing exactly how intensely she wants me dead, I…forget myself.
Knowing that doesn’t stop me from walking to the spare bedroom and taking a quick shower. It isn’t enough to keep me from pulling on a pair of shorts and padding barefoot across the hallway to the primary bedroom. Opening the door allows a sliver of light into the darkness. Hera has pulled the curtains already; can’t entertain even the slightest possibility that someone might see what happens in our perfect darkness.
She steps out of the bathroom, a silk robe wrapped around her lithe body. She meets my gaze boldly and reaches without looking to shut off the light. My breathing feels unnaturally loud as I move unerringly toward the bed. Toward Hera. The faint slither of her robe dropping down her body to the floor makes me so hard it’s difficult to think. It’s always like this. No matter how cold we are in the daylight hours, no matter what violence her plots entail, in the dark all I can think about is the feel of her, the way she tastes on my tongue.
It’s because of that desperation that I hold back. That I have to hold back. I have to be sure. “Hera.”
“Gods, you are unbearable.”
I ignore that. “Say yes.”
“I’m naked and waiting in your bed, you utter bastard. Get over here and do your husbandly duties so I can get some sleep.”
When we were married, we signed a contract explicitly spelling out that an heir and a spare are required, but she demanded a full twelve months before actively attempting to get pregnant. I was more than happy to oblige that particular demand. Hades already has an heir on the way, which creates pressure for me to do the same, but there are few horrors I can imagine beyond forcing a pregnancy on a person, so even after the year is up, I’ll wait for Hera to decide for herself that she’s ready to stop taking her birth control.
That year should mean we aren’t fucking, but that small detail got lost somewhere in translation. Every single night, when the lights go out, we find each other in the dark. And every single night, I refuse to touch her before getting verbal consent. “Say yes.”
She curses. “Yes.”
Hera. My queen. The person in Olympus who hates me the most.
But when my fingers brush her hip, she grabs my wrist and pulls me down to her. No hesitation. No ice. Just a heat so intense I’m certain it will burn us both away to nothingness. She’s not sharp as I pull her close and kiss her. She’s soft and fiery and full of need. Her fingers dig into my hips, urging me to line up with her, to get this over with.
Despite everything, stress and rage and a deep sense that I’m fucking things up beyond all repair in every facet of my life, I smile against her lips. “Say yes.”
“I hate you.”
It’s the truth. But not in this moment. When she’s moving against me, a battle of wills where we both win, I can almost see the partnership we could have if we’d just get out of our own ways. If she wasn’t Hera, determined to stand apart from her predecessors and survive. If I wasn’t Zeus, trapped in a long shadow of all those who have held the title before me. We would be unstoppable. We might even be happy.
But we are Zeus and Hera, and I can’t afford to forget that. I drag my mouth along her jaw to speak directly in her ear, as soft as a secret. “Say yes, Hera. Spread your thighs and let me taste you.”
Her nails prick my hips, but when she speaks, she’s the same cold creature I married. “I already said yes, Zeus. Don’t be a bastard and try to make me beg. You’ll fail.”
We both know that’s a lie, but I allow her the illusion that it’s not. She always begs in the end—for me to go harder, deeper, to not stop. Tonight, I don’t test the limits of her patience. I never do. Instead, I kiss my way down her body and settle between her thighs.
Here is where Hera is sweetest, and she proves that to be true yet again at the first slow drag of my tongue through her folds. Instantly, her legs fall wide open. She laces her fingers through my hair and lifts her hips to meet my mouth.
These stolen moments of peace never last. They’re a fantasy I can’t help engaging with, an alternate reality that I only allow myself to entertain when there is nothing to illuminate the lie. Dawn will come soon enough to pierce the illusion that I have a wife who actually wants me.
But for now, we have this.
2Hera
I hate Zeus. I’ve hated Zeus since I was a little girl and realized exactly how much power he holds over Olympus—over my family. It doesn’t matter that this Zeus and that one are two different men. Zeus may be a title passed down from parent to child since the beginning of Olympus, but they’re all monsters.
This particular monster currently has two fingers inside me and is licking my clit in a rhythm that has my toes curling almost painfully.
It only makes me hate him more, yet it doesn’t matter how little I like the man between my thighs. When the lights go out, I can almost pretend he’s someone else, someone whose pleasure I can accept without choking on it.
It’s unfortunate I’ve never been all that good at playing pretend.
Zeus crooks his fingers inside me again and again, driving me into an orgasm so strong it almost wipes away the bitter taste of failure. If I’d gotten my way, I’d be a widow by now, my husband crushed in a truly unfortunate accident in that eyesore he calls a workplace. Instead, I’m shoving him onto his back and straddling him, taking his ridiculously large cock into me.
I don’t need to fuck my husband any more. I got what I came for—an heir to take his title, a clear path into a future without him in it. I’m months along at this point and all signs indicate that the little parasite in my stomach is perfectly healthy and will continue to be until the moment they come barging into the world, no doubt to grow up to be a monster just like every Zeus before them. But they’ll be my monster.
We have no shortage of those in my family.
So, no, I don’t need to keep having sex with Zeus. Every night, I tell myself that this will be the night I’ll go sleep in the spare bedroom, or will at least resist telling him yes the way he keeps insisting before touching me.
And every night, I’m back here again, riding his cock and letting pleasure sweep over me until this entire interlude hardly feels real.
In the morning, I’ll wake up to find him gone and I’ll hate him all the more for his absence. And maybe I’ll hate myself a little for the sliver of disappointment I can’t quite banish. I’ve always had more than my fair share of hate to spread around.
He grips my hips, pulling me down in a grinding motion while he presses against the sides of my mound with his thumbs. The squeeze isn’t direct contact to my clit, but after coming so hard from his tongue, I’m sensitive to the point of pain. It’s as if Zeus has a map of my pleasure in a way that no one else ever has. He’s so fucking methodical that I think he clocked me on our wedding night. He’s only gotten better since then.
Bastard.
Through it all, he never says a word. Not even when I lose control and dig my nails into his chest. “More!”
He gives me more. He always gives me more. Until I overflow with it, my body going tight and hot and gushing all over him. Normally, it’s enough to pull him over the edge with me, to end this awful, wonderful moment where nothing makes sense. Then we’ll clean up and retreat to our respective sides of the bed and sleep. Or he sleeps. I lie there, filled with loathing for him, for this city, and for myself.
Not tonight. He rolls us and shifts back to kneel between my legs, pressing my thighs wide until I’m bent in half. Then he’s inside me again, fucking me in long, punishing strokes that rub deliciously inside me. I don’t mean to reach for him. I sure as fuck don’t mean to grab his hips and pull him deeper yet. “Harder,” I gasp.
He doesn’t hesitate to give me exactly what I ask for. It should be enough to make me feel in control, but I’m the one unraveling and he’s still the perfect ice king. He fucks me like he’s mad at me, like he’s punishing me, but that doesn’t make any sense because who punishes with pleasure?
My orgasm has barely faded and it’s already building again, even stronger this time. If I were more in control, I would shove him off and walk away, leaving him with only his hand for comfort. But I’m too greedy. Instead of pushing him away, I pull him closer and then it’s too late—I’m coming again, and this time he’s coming with me.
In this one perfect moment, my mind is still. I’m not a peaceful person by nature, but I can almost wrap my hands around the concept of it. The fact that my husband is the source of the sensation is beyond my ability to reconcile. So I don’t. I’ve lived with plenty of dichotomies in my life; what’s one more?
Zeus’s hands flex on my thighs, holding me open even as my body pulses from the strength of the orgasm, drawing me back into the present. “No more, Hera.”
I blink into the near-perfect darkness. I can’t even see his outline above me. Why is he talking to me? We don’t talk in bed. “What?”
“You’re discreet enough that not even MuseWatch has caught wind of your lover, but I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want him here.”
My…lover.
It takes my pleasure-drunk brain a beat to catch up. He means Ixion. He’s jealous of Ixion. The thought would make me laugh if I had the breath for it. I’m not fool enough to sleep with anyone except Zeus, not when the parentage of my parasite is so vital to my plans and, by extension, the safety of my family. That’s why I accepted this marriage, after all—to protect my sisters.
But admitting that Ixion and I aren’t having sex feels like giving away a piece of vital information—and power with it. Especially when I’m sure Zeus’s late nights at the office aren’t spent alone. I see the way people watch him. Even though he’s not charismatic like his father, he’s got power and that’s enough to make him attractive to a certain type of person. Ganymede missed becoming Hera and now he practically throws himself at Zeus every chance he gets. And he’s just one person. There are a dozen more young, beautiful things willing to play paramour, and those are only the ones I know about.
Not that I’m jealous. I’m not. I don’t care what my husband gets up to as long as it keeps him distracted from what I’m up to.
“Hera,” he growls. “I don’t demand much of you, but I’ll be damned before I let you make me a cuckold in my own home.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell the truth, but that’s just the endorphins from sex clouding my thinking. If Zeus believes the reason I’m sneaking around is because I’m fucking the head of my bodyguards, then he won’t be worrying about what I’m actually doing. Mainly: plotting his death.
“I will keep my extracurricular activities outside the penthouse,” I finally manage. It’s a good idea to leave it there, but I can’t quite help myself. I grab his shoulders and pull him down until I can feel his harsh breathing against my lips. “And you will give me the same courtesy. I don’t want to find someone else’s underwear in our bedroom.”
Zeus is silent for a beat. Then he thrusts into me, his cock already hardening again. We don’t do this. We don’t have sex more than once a night. I open my mouth to remind him of that, but he kisses me before I can get the words out. He nips my bottom lip. “Are you jealous, Hera?”
“No.” And I’m not. It’s about respect, not about wanting him all for myself. I don’t want him at all. The words feel a little insubstantial, so I shove at his shoulders. “We’ve met our requirement for the night.”
Instantly, he retreats. I tell myself that there’s no regret in my traitorous body as I sit up and scoot toward the edge of the bed. “Now you got me all sweaty. I need another shower.” The words are harsh with recrimination, but I’m not sure if I’m more pissed at him…or myself.
Shutting the bathroom door between us doesn’t offer any clarity. Strategically, it makes sense to keep having sex with him. He doesn’t know I’m pregnant, and I have no intention of telling him. My parasite is the path forward into the future. One where I’m set up as regent of the Zeus title until the kid comes of age. There’s no space in that future for this Zeus. If he knew what I intended, he’d stop me. It’s best he suspects nothing.
The logic is solid enough. It’s the smart move. If I also get extreme levels of pleasure out of the bargain? Well, Zeus is a giant pain in my ass and being his wife is downright torturous most days. We essentially have a business partnership with a side of fucking, except neither one of us would have chosen the other if there were any other option.
He didn’t choose me. He was in negotiations with my mother for Psyche’s hand in marriage when that shit with Eros and Aphrodite hit the fan—two Aphrodites ago, which defies belief when titles usually shift once a generation. My sister married Eros in a truly reckless effort to live, and that left only me and Eurydice as candidates for our mother’s ambition. I couldn’t let Eurydice take that hit, so I stepped forward to do it instead. Zeus needed Demeter—and her allies—at his back, so he wasn’t in a position to refuse my offer.
I turn on the shower and step in before the water has a chance to warm up. The shock of cold clears my thoughts and shatters the strange spell Zeus wove around me in the bedroom. I duck under the spray and make myself hold that position until the persistent desire to go another round disappears. It takes longer than I want to admit.
I don’t rush through drying off and braiding my hair back. With any luck, he’ll have fallen asleep by the time I return to the bed. As the racing of my heart finally slows to something more normal, I can’t help wondering at what happened tonight to cause him to break our silent rules.
He’s been coming home later and later in the evening, and even with Ixion and the others doing their best to keep track of his whereabouts, he slips away every time. Either he’s meeting with a lover—multiple lovers, even—or he’s up to something in relation to Olympus. Possibly both. Probably both.
But I don’t know what, and so I can’t bargain that information to Circe in return for my family’s safety. I’m not even certain where she is right now, if she’s still on that ship in the bay or if she’d already moved forward with whatever her plans are. I deeply resent not knowing.
Exhaustion rolls over me in a wave. Before the parasite, I could operate on little sleep for weeks on end without issue. Now, I need to be in bed by midnight or I’m weaving on my feet. I’m well past that time tonight…or this morning, more accurately. I should have sent Ixion away and tried to get some sleep, but I can’t stand the thought of being in that big bed and being surprised by Zeus coming home unexpectedly. That’s all.
I scrub my hands over my face, apply my lotion, and pad out to the perfect darkness of our bedroom. Or near-perfect. Dawn is making itself known in between the cracks of the curtains. Really, I should skip sleeping entirely and go about my day, but my body has other ideas.
The sheets are cool against my skin, the heat from Zeus’s sleeping body not reaching my side of the bed. I settle into place, moving gingerly to avoid waking him and potentially starting another conversation I don’t have capacity to deal with right now. Or ever.
A few hours. In a few hours, I’ll be able to think again, to plan, to find the angle needed to see us through the coming conflict…
Text copyright © 2025 by Katee Robert. Reprinted by permission of Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks. All Rights Reserved.
Tender Cruelty, by Katee Robert will be released on December 2, 2025. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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Shattered Gods, by Katee Robert will be released on June 23, 2026. To preorder the book, click on the retailer of your choice:
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