He’s pressing his hips against mine when someone clears their throat. I’m so lost in Ares that the sound makes me jump, and I push him off me. In the half second before I turn to the gauzy curtain that separates my room from the hall, I silently will it to be anyone but Daddy. I’d even take Hera right now. Or Hephaestus.
Shudder. Maybe Daddy would be a better option, after all.
My heart sinks. Standing in the archway, his arms folded across his chest, is my father. His blue eyes are narrowed, his expression stony, and in that moment I’m sure he’s going to smite one or both of us. I can only imagine what I must look like—cheeks flushed, hair mussed, lips swollen from the way Ares claimed them. Terrific.
“Hi, Daddy,” I say, hugging a pillow. He says nothing. “Er, you’re back early.”
Still nothing. I look at Ares for help, but he’s leaning back against the pillows with a shit-eating grin that makes me want to smack him. Apparently he’s rubbing off on me, and not in the way I want him to.
It’s amazing how slowly time can move sometimes, and I sit there, waiting—for what, I don’t know. For anything. At last another figure appears on the other side of the gauzy curtain. For a moment, my hopes rise; but the instant Hephaestus limps through the curtain to stand beside Daddy, they burst. Could this possibly get any worse?
No, I take it back. No use tempting the Fates.
“Father,” says Hephaestus. He’s tall, taller than Daddy, and his arms are thick with muscles from forging. He would be cute if it wasn’t for his twisted legs.
Not that I hold it against him, of course. But a girl has to have some standards. Besides, I saw the way he looked at me even before Daddy promised me to him, and I see the way he looks at me now. It isn’t as consuming as Ares’s gaze, but that love is still there. Gentler, easier, kinder. The sorts of things I don’t need when I have his brother.
“Go back to the throne room, Hephaestus.” Daddy clenches his fists. Hephaestus has the uncanny ability to make him squirm, something no one else on the council—no one else in the world, probably—can do. Usually Hephaestus takes great pains to stay away from Daddy for that very reason, but apparently today is the exception.
“Ares and Aphrodite weren’t doing anything wrong,” he says. A truth if I’ve ever heard one. Maybe he’s finally accepted that I don’t want to marry him. “He was teaching her how to defend herself. How to wrestle.”
I have to bite my cheek to keep my mouth from dropping open. Accepting the fact that I don’t want to be with him is one thing, but actually lying for me?
Daddy might have blinders on when it comes to me—most of the time, anyway—but his mouth forms a thin line. He doesn’t even bother looking at Hephaestus. “Aphrodite knows how I feel about her having relations with your brother,” he says, as if Ares and I aren’t here. As if we aren’t staring straight at him.
“And why is that, Father?” says Ares. “Why am I not allowed to see her when you spend half your time with mortal women and minor goddesses?”
Daddy grits his teeth. “What I do is none of your concern—”
“Of course it is, when you’re upsetting Mother.” Ares stands and goes nose to nose with Daddy. He’s not as tall as him, but he’s physically stronger, and they both know it. “You stop seeing other women, and I’ll stop teaching Aphrodite how to wrestle.”
The seconds tick by as Ares and Daddy glare at each other. I hug myself, my eyes wide as I wait for someone to blink. Daddy has never treated his sons as well as he treats me, but he’s never thrown a punch or a bolt of lightning at them, either. And he can’t now—not over me, not over this. It isn’t okay.
“Daddy, please,” I say, but my plea falls on deaf ears. At last Hephaestus touches their shoulders, as if he thinks his calloused hands are enough to stop them from raging at each other.
“Enough,” he says quietly. “This is my battle, Father, not yours, and I choose not to fight.”
Ares scoffs. “Coward.”
Faster than lightning, Daddy hits him across the mouth. Ares stares at him, stunned, and if time was going slowly before, now it stops completely.
They really are going to fight because of me. Maybe even war. I don’t see why Daddy should care so much—Ares has a point, after all. Fidelity hasn’t exactly been Daddy’s strongest attribute, and it’s not as if I’m married to Hephaestus yet. For whatever reason, though, Daddy does care, and this isn’t making things better.
But before I can try to stop them, Ares storms out of my room, and that jagged shard of loss burrows itself within me. Not just the loss of his physical presence, but because I know that look on Daddy’s face. What little relief I get from this near miss evaporates.
“Aphrodite.” His voice wavers, the only sign of how angry he is. “Come with me.”
I sigh and stand. Telling him no would only make the situation worse. Daddy walks briskly down the hall, not giving me a chance to catch up with him, but I know where he’s going. Before I leave, I pause. “Thanks,” I mutter to Hephaestus. “For covering for me, I mean.”
He shrugs and brushes his fingertips against my elbow. There’s something shy about him, something quiet I don’t understand. “It was nothing,” he says, and his touch is gone as soon as I register it. All for the better, really. Ares is excitement, passion, fire all rolled into one, while Hephaestus is—
I’m not too sure what he is, but it isn’t passion. If Ares wasn’t here, maybe I could stomach the thought of marrying Hephaestus, but being forced to settle for subpar when I have perfection right under my nose is cruel.
Without glancing back at Hephaestus, I follow Daddy, taking my time. No point in hurrying toward another talking-to. I’ve only been in Olympus for a hundred years, but I’m not completely ignorant. When Daddy holds meetings in his office, they’re never good.
By the time I catch up with him, the heat in my face is gone. His office is on the other side of Olympus, and in the time it’s taken me to get there, I’ve prepared what I want to say. What I’m going to say this time instead of letting Daddy walk all over me. It’s my life, not his.
Daddy’s sitting behind his desk, gazing into the portal that lets him see what’s happening on earth. He’s focused on a beach I don’t recognize, with tall cliffs in the background. In the seconds before he realizes I’m there, I think I see Hera, but I can’t be sure.
“Aphrodite.” The portal disappears. “Please, sit.”
“I’d rather stand.” I’m never rude to him, at least not on purpose, but today I can’t find it in myself to hold back. “Why are you doing this to me?”
As soon as I say it, my eyes well up. Perfect. Now he’s never going to take me seriously.
Sometimes crying helps though, and at least his expression softens. But this isn’t how I want to win. I want him to love me enough to care more about my happiness than he does his war with Hera. “My dear,” he murmurs, and he moves out from behind his desk to embrace me. I let him. He smells like smoke and river water, and I don’t want to know why.
“Just—” I hiccup. “I love Ares, Daddy. I really, really love him, and he loves me, too.”
“Are you sure about that?” he says, and I pull back in horror.
“Of course he does. How can you even say something like that?”
He tries to pull me in close again, but I resist. “I only mean that he didn’t