“You keep asking me this, and it makes me wonder what you know that I don’t, little bird.” He said the words gently, but I heard the slight irritation behind them. That was when I knew he was just as clueless as I was when it came to my story.
I shrugged as I dragged my fingers through the dirt, idly doodling a sketch without much thought behind it. “Just something Mother keeps telling me.”
His brows twitched. “Tell me.”
The words sounded like a command from a god, yet I suspected that if I refused, he would not begrudge me my secret either. I knew I should not involve myself with him, that I should not allow such liberties. That letting him in deeper was a fool’s errand, but I couldn’t deny the burgeoning thrill I felt whenever he was near.
Ares was a male who wasn’t easy to forget or let go of. One would have thought I had learned my lesson after the disaster that was Percy, but a part of me still craved companionship, a deeper connection to the world and peoples around me. Once, the isolation hadn’t bothered me, but it had been quite some years now that my feelings of longing were becoming incapable of ignoring or shoving aside into a dark and deep corner of my mind.
Against my better judgment, I decided that just once more, I would learn to trust. Percy was an anomaly, not the norm, surely. Not all men were terrible, and I didn’t have to look far to know it was so. Father’s great love for Mother was enough to show me there were good men out there.
I took a deep breath. “When I was born, Mother took me to the oracle.”
He nodded sagely. “Of course. All half-breeds must have their fortune told before they’re given the right to life.”
I flicked a glance at my hand, still idly scribbling in the dirt, realizing an image was actually coming to life, though I’d not planned it so. The very idea that the Olympians had such control and power over us wasn’t pleasant. Ares acted like nothing he’d just said was out of the norm, but it prickled at my conscience that he could be so blasé about life. And yet… if I were an Olympian, I, too, would crave that control over my own life. The war with the Titans had been messy, and though history proclaimed otherwise, the Olympians had won by the skin of their teeth. This world could be a very different place if Hermes had been caught before he could deliver his message. Therefore it only made sense that Zeus had designed his rules as he had. Power was rarely attained through peace so much as through a rigid and unyielding set of rules that, at the end of the day, weren’t completely unfair.
“You do not like that rule, I take it?” His deep voice shivered through my body like dark silk, and a tiny puff of air escaped me when I looked up into his wise and intelligent eyes.
I frowned. “I hate it,” I answered honestly, “but I understand its necessity as well.”
His head cocked, and I felt his study of me like a tangible thing. “You try to see both sides of any situation, do you not, little bird? You understand that in order for us to keep our reign on Olympus, we cannot allow anyone to live who would wish us harm enough to topple our might.”
Pressing my lips together tightly, I didn’t know what to say. Because again, it wasn’t like I didn’t understand why. It was simply that I was on the wrong side of this thing, and therefore, it was far more personal for me.
He glanced down at where I still doodled in the dirt. His look was long and thoughtful. I instantly stopped my sketching, and he shook his head.
“You have great talent. I did not know you could draw. Who is that male?” He tipped his chin toward my image.
I shrugged as I studied the image of a man I’d seen in my dreams all my life but had never personally seen or witnessed before. His face was handsome, classically Roman. He had long and patrician features, with wisdom glinting in the depths of his eyes, but it was his mouth that told the true story. It was open wide, his teeth clearly showing, and his neck bulged with their veins screaming in silent agony as he gazed at what surely must be a monster.
My heart rattled in my chest as I thought of what Ares might say if he knew that this wasn’t some random male I drew but one who’d haunted my mind’s eye for as long as I could remember my dreams.
Scared to show him such a dark side of myself, I quickly scrubbed my fingers over the dirt, obliterating that face I could recall with perfect clarity whenever I closed my eyes. “No one. Nothing. Just a male. Never met him in my life.”
He looked at me as though unsure whether to believe me, and I gave him a wimpy smile. “Mother calls my art macabre. It… it shames me that you saw th—”
My fingers were fluttering like broken moths’ wings as I stuttered my way through those painful words, but he gripped my wrist and gently stroked the meat of my palm with his thumb. “Do not be ashamed of the art that pours out of you. I am the god of war, Medusa. The macabre does not bother me.”
A breath I’d not realized I’d been holding slipped out of me, and I was suddenly ten times aware of the burn of his hand upon mine and the heat that he transferred through me, the way my blood roared and my pulse pounded in my ears. I swallowed hard, my stomach a nest of nerves.
“Oh” was all I could say.
He released me, and I wanted to pout. I didn’t want him to let me go. I wanted him to keep holding my hand, to keep making me feel alive and aware of these feelings I’d never known before.
“Anyway”—he shook his head—“you were saying, about the prophecy?”
I blinked, needing a second to remember what in the Underworld we’d been talking about before he’d held my hand and my world had come alive with hot rays of sunlight. “Um. Uh.” I shook my head. “Right. The prophecy. Yes.”
His lips twitched, and I hoped he didn’t know how discombobulated he made me. What a mortification that would be.
Wetting my lips, I shrugged one shoulder and dug my fingers into my skirts, bunching the fabric up nervously. “There’s not much more to tell, honestly. Mother learned something. I am here. I exist, so whatever she learned meant I pose no threat to you.”
His brows twitched. “Not necessarily, Medusa. There are times when Father allows a child to live if there is a chance of redemption.”
Shocked didn’t even begin to describe how I felt in that moment. “Zeus? Your father? He is the one who makes final verdict?”
He chuckled, but the sound was full of curiosity. “Yes. Did you expect another?”
“Well, yes.” I giggled nervously. “Themis, for one. She is the goddess of blind justice, is she not? I would have expected that she’d—”
“Themis sees to matters amongst the gods themselves. She does not concern herself with the affairs of mortals.”
“The Fates, then? They’ve the sight. Wouldn’t it seem more likely that—”
He snorted and brought one of his knees up, causing his pleated knee-high tunic to shift. I couldn’t help myself and peeked, but he was hidden in shadow. I was relieved. Or at least, I should have been. The truth was, I was sorely disappointed. I’d only ever once seen a male’s body nude, and that had been Percy’s and very briefly. We’d been coming out of the ocean after a long day of swimming, and his garment had shifted up around his hips. He’d quickly adjusted himself, but I’d caught a glimpse of a part of his anatomy wildly different from my own. I couldn’t help wondering whether the gods, too, had that type of anatomy.
“—he’s odd, it’s true.”
I startled, quickly realizing that while I’d been ogling the god, he’d been talking. Clearing my throat, I shifted on my seat and hoped he didn’t see my blazing cheeks. Having no idea what he’d said, I pretended I did and nodded, anyway. “Makes sense, I suppose.”
He gave me a look as though I’d gone mad, and I pressed my lips together, my heart banging like a drum in my chest. “Um… or not.”
“Are you well today, little bird?” His words were kind and his voice gentle, but he sounded genuinely upset by the fact that I’d clearly said the wrong thing. And I couldn’t help wondering what he’d confessed.
I coughed an
d gave him a weak grin. “Right as rain.” Then I glanced at the sky, noting the position of the sun. I’d been out here with him almost two hours. I jerked and jumped to my feet. “Will you look at the time? I should be getting back now before they miss me and report me to Mother.”
I was a fluttery mess of nerves. He wasn’t acting like he hadn’t noticed, but gods above, what was wrong with me, staring at him in that way? “It was good seeing you again, Ares. Don’t be a stranger.”
I blinked and froze for half a second. Had I really just said that? “Don’t be a stranger?”
Oh gods.
He moved smoothly to his feet and nodded. “All right. I won’t.”
I blinked again and made to turn, desperate to get away from him.
“Before you go, though, should you ever wish to see my body, you merely need to ask, little bird. I thought your eyes virgin, which was why I draped myself in shadow. But…” His grin was almost arrogant, and my eyes practically bulged out of my head.
“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I… I… oh gods,” I groaned, and his laughter was a great big booming sound of pleasure.
And again, that sound of his laughter was like listening to music, oddly soothing and pleasant to hear, but my face burned with humiliation. “It is not nice to tease me, you arrogant male,” I groused with a stomp of my foot, which only caused him to laugh harder.
Though I knew I should be vexed, all I could do was admire the perfect beauty of such a stern male dropping his guard.
Then as the smile faded, he looked seriously at me and gave a deep and eloquent bow, wrapping one arm around his middle while the other lifted elegantly into the sky behind him. “Until we meet again, woman,” he said deeply.
I bit my bottom lip before whispering, “Will we meet again?”
His only answer was a soft but mysterious smile. And just like last time, he faded from sight. Gone as though he’d never been.
Immediately I heard the rushing of footsteps, then I saw one of the attendants huffing and puffing, her blond hair matted to her forehead and her eyes wild. “The priestess has sent me to find you. It is time for your chores, Medusa.”
My heart hurting, though I wasn’t sure why, I nodded. “Coming.”
The girl I didn’t know well turned and hotfooted it back to the temple. I stared at the spot where Ares had been, noting the shifting of the dirt where he’d sat. The only proof that he’d actually been there and that it’d not been my imagination.
Shoulders slumping, I turned for the temple and shook my head. I would likely never see him again.
That should have been okay, and yet it felt like a blade to my soul.
Chapter 54
Ares
It’d been months since I’d last seen the little bird. My duties to home had kept me long away from her. But more than that, I also sensed that I should not allow myself to become infatuated by a human.
I saw what that had done to my father, time and again. The mess he’d made of his marriage by not keeping his damned cock in his pants.
Things with Aphrodite were at their worst, and I was trying to make things work for us. But if I was being honest, my attempts were half-hearted at best. War kept me often away from Olympus, and the rumors amongst the golden ones were that Dite and my own brother were starting to become much more than mere friends.
Mother was quite vexed at the thought of it and took any opportunity she had to let me know it. “You should go to her home right now and fuck her until she forgets his name entirely. Use all your powers at your disposal to make that girl mind to whom she belongs, Ares.”
Mother, crass as ever, was glaring at me from the corner of my room. I preferred darkness to light in my own home, enjoying the coolness of Nyx’s domain over that of Apollo. My room was decorated nearly all in black, all of it tasteful, much of it handpicked or designed by Aphrodite decades ago, though she warmed my bed less and less often these days.
And while it bothered me mightily, a side of me wasn’t sure it bothered me quite enough. “Mother, don’t be vulgar.”
She sneered. Hera was still a beautiful and powerful woman, with hair the color of richest chocolate, full of riotous curls she always pinned back. She wore a crown of stars upon her head, signifying all her children. As goddess of mothers, she had a look that always bespoke strength and the wisdom of the mother, though it was artifice. Beautiful as she was, there was none of the kindness associated with her that a good mother held in spades.
Hera was petty, spiteful, and vindictive at the best of times.
She growled in a melodious tone that again was at odds with who the woman really was. “Well, Ares, it must be said. If you won’t see to your home, then I shall be forced to step in.”
I rolled my eyes. There would be no more sleeping in for me this afternoon. I’d only just returned after a two-week sojourn on Earth, helping to battle a terrible war and turn the tide in favor of my chosen victors, the North. It’d been a bloody and brutal thing, but my arm and sword had finally given them the impetus they’d needed to hurdle the impossible.
I wished I could say my reasons for being there had been altruistic, but they’d not been. I’d been plagued by the demons of doubt these past many months. My crumbling affair with Aphrodite burned in my heart, with questions about who I was versus who I wanted to be. And then mired up in all of that was the female who, no matter how hard I tried to forget her, refused to be silenced.
She was mortal, barely even more than human. If there was one thing I’d learned watching Father, it was that a god and a human should never mix. We tended to make their lives hell when we did, even if our intentions with them were initially pure.
I’d already caused her enough damage. Sister Ceto, no doubt, hated my very guts, and should she discover my further attentions to her daughter, it would not be me who paid for it. If I cared for the female at all, I would leave her be.
Which was what I’d ultimately chosen to do and no doubt why I’d seen so much war lately. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not forget her smiles. Or how she challenged me. Or how much more beautiful she looked each time I went to her.
I clenched my molars tight and glared at my mother. “I can handle my own affairs. And you know as well as I do that Aphrodite belongs to no one. She is her own woman. I knew that the day I agreed to make her part of my life.”
She sneered. “Your arrogance offends me, Ares. Can’t you see the fool she and Hephaestus play you for? Do you not recall the Fates we visited at your birth who told you that you and she would bear children together? The Fates are never wrong. She is your wife. Not his. Not that lame-footed bastard’s.”
I loved Mother, because she was my mother, and I was forced to. But I’d never enjoyed her names for Hephaestus. Though she was my mother, he was my brother. “Guard your tongue, female. He is yours, too, and deserving of your respect.”
Her upper lip curled back, but she swallowed hard. Mother was not a bloodthirsty goddess, and she did not have the power to strip me of my pride, dignity, and even life, but I did have that power over her.
I would never abuse my power. But on some level, she understood the power dynamic was not hers with me and quickly tipped her head in acknowledgment.
“As you say, dear. You know I meant nothing by it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You think I’m happy that Dite has found love in the arms of my brother?” I asked Mother in all honesty. Truth was, I was as confused by my reactions concerning all of this as anybody else upon Olympus. On the one hand, I ached at the loss of my Aphrodite because I had let her into my heart and soul. I’d given her all of me a long time ago. And it was never fun when someone who held that much power over you no longer wished that type of power.
I also felt like a great fool amongst my peers. I heard their whispers, their silent jeers. There was nothing Olympians loved so well as juicy gossip, and my failed romance was the juiciest they’d heard for quite a while.
But I believed it was my pride t
hat smarted more than my heart. No one liked being rejected, and I was feeling that in spades.
“Then why do you simply lie here like a jilted lover? Fight, Ares. You and I both know she does not belong to him. He is lame. And dull. Simple. How could a vivacious creature like that not eventually become stifled by someone like him? You are doing her a service by fighting. Sometimes a woman just wants to feel important, like she matters. There are times that when we act out, it’s not so much for the attention as it is because we wish to know that we are not insignificant to our partner. That we, too, matter.”
Sometimes, mixed up in all of Mother’s nonsense, would be kernels of advice that resonated powerfully with me. I blinked. “You think she’s done this because she wishes my attentions?”
And if that was the case, I wasn’t sure how I felt about this revelation. Curious, absolutely, but also uneasy and unsure. Contrary to popular beliefs, Aphrodite was much more than merely a pretty face. Beneath the dazzling smile and unbelievable body was the kindest soul I’d ever known. I’d always imagined that in Aphrodite there was truth. That if she felt something, she would never leave me in doubt as to what that could possibly mean.
And yet, she’d not spoken to me about what was happening between her and Hephaestus. More often than not, she avoided the subject by avoiding me altogether. It’d been many weeks since we’d shared a bed.
I loved my brother, much to the everlasting shame of my father and mother. I was sure they wished I would despise him as much as they did. But Hephaestus had a sincerity that was rare amongst the gods and that I craved to be around. Unlike Mother’s protestations, Hephaestus wasn’t simple or unintelligent. He was quite witty and had the ability to see beneath the façade of others to the true hearts within. He often helped bring clarity when issues troubled me. In fact, this was just such an issue I would have sought my brother’s counsel about before. But he was part of the problem, and that made everything so much more damned confusing. Though I loved him, if I were honest, his actions with Aphrodite had wounded me deeply.
The Greek Gods of Romance Collection Page 68