CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
Dionysus traces a finger over the murals etched in panels on the wall. He must feel the raised bumps of the paint, the gold curl of the apple Atalanta reaches for. Then he surveys the rest of the room.
I realize I’m holding my breath, watching him react to me.
To the world of the girl who I thought I’d lost somewhere between Theseus’s ship and the sands of Naxos, but now, with him sifting through her, I wonder if she might just be buried.
If I can get back more of what I lost than just the chitons and jewels I left behind.
‘I can’t believe you ever denied us,’ he says gently. He nods to the paintings swallowing the room. ‘This is you. Chaos and joy and beauty. I’m glad we found you.’
‘We?’ I push.
‘I,’ he amends. ‘I’m glad I found you.’
He looks back to Atalanta, reaching for that golden apple. ‘Did you draw these horns too?’
‘Yes,’ I admit – a defiant reminder of who mattered.
‘Aha! And you mock my crafts.’
‘That’s different.’
He turns back to me, stepping closer, and for a moment I think he’s going to reach for me. To hold me. From the way his hand stills at his side, maybe he thought that might happen too. ‘You, Ariadne, are just as absurd as the rest of us. You just do a far better job of hiding it.’
I can’t deny it. Dionysus has always been the one to prise a strange sort of irritation from me.
Left to my own devices, I’m as eccentric and fanciful as he is.
Is that how we would be, if I stopped trying to defend myself from the sparks of feeling that jolt me every now and then?
Is the annoyance itself just another way to fend him off?
‘And what, dear wife –’ his voice is low, and he leans towards me before his hand shoots out – ‘is this?’
Between his fingers, he holds a gold headpiece, vines twirling around clusters of grapes. The one my mother had made to follow the fashions lauded after … the advent of wine.
Dionysus’s gleeful smirk says he knows exactly what it is.
I suspect annoyance is not actually a defence, but a natural and inevitable response to this man.
‘Tacky, isn’t it? I was going to have it smelted.’
‘Well, what a lucky coincidence that you married the god of wine before you could,’ he says, raising the tiara to my head, and I try to push his hands away but it does little to deter him. I scramble backwards as he follows.
‘No! I’m not wearing that!’ I say, but the words are barely audible through my laughter as we fight one another, me pushing at his hands as he tries to worm his way around me.
The backs of my knees hit the bed and I tumble down on to it. He follows, hovering over me as he finally manages to place the crown on my head.
His face is level with mine and so very close.
I see the way each breath catches in his throat, the slow rise and fall of his chest. The memory of the kiss at the docks is fresh, burning – but there’s no one here to see, no one to perform for.
My eyes catch on his lips nonetheless and from this angle his copper curls fall forward, framing him like a halo of sunlight.
One of his hands still holds my wrist and the other fumbles at my hair but now it is more of a caress.
‘It really suits you, Ariadne,’ he says, the humour gone.
I know Dionysus is beautiful, but it’s a beauty I tend to notice when I look into his eyes or linger on his flowing waves.
It is not just the green of his eyes but the brightness – the way they shine with his every emotion.
Not just the curls but the way they move, each lock tumbling of its own accord, like even they cannot be contained.
But now, this close, I take in all the other parts of him that I do not often pause to admire.
There’s a slight groove across the bridge of his nose, like the scar from a scratch.
A scant handful of freckles shine across his cheeks.
They remind me of the diadem he cast up, the specific placement of every single dot.
And his eyes, always captivating, are no lone emerald shade but flecked like sunlight breaking through the foliage, deepening as they reach the pupils – wide and dark and watching me right back.
‘Everything suits you,’ I say softly, reaching to push his curls behind his ear. ‘Even the blasted pine cones.’
‘Don’t go complimenting me, Ariadne. I won’t know what to do with it.’
The energy between us is so palpable it sizzles in my skin, beneath my skin even – every part of me far too hot. I meet his eyes, wondering if the sun is flaring within mine once more.
‘You know exactly what to do with it.’
His hand languidly trails from my hair to stroke my cheek.
‘I thought we agreed neither of us was in a good enough place for a relationship.’
I swallow. ‘I never said anything about a relationship.’
His thumb brushes my lips, a smooth, gentle caress as he leans in closer. ‘Is this what you want?’
Is it?
There is no surging panic, no haunting memory, just one word again and again until it comes out in a breathy exhale: ‘Yes.’
He draws nearer and I close my eyes, anticipating the press of his lips.
Instead his breath is hot against my ear.
‘Seduce me, then.’
My eyes shoot open as he adjusts the tiara he’d placed on my head. He arches a brow at it while he climbs off me. ‘That’s a pretty good start.’
I should have known he’d turn this into another game. Should have known it would amuse him to deny me just like I once denied him.
The irritation is as warm in my blood as the lust was, and now they’re mingling and gods above, what is wrong with me? How is his teasing me like this making me burn for him more fervently?
As I ready myself for the evening, I let my skirt ride up my thigh as I lounge on the bed, lean over for jewels so that my chiton gapes and brush far too close to him as I move around my small room.
His chuckles tell me he knows exactly what I’m doing, though his wandering eyes and the lingering glint in them make clear it’s working regardless.
If he wants to be seduced, then very well. But I hope he’s content with his desire never being satisfied.
He comes up behind me as we’re preparing to leave, his hands closing over the ring of gold encircling my waist.
I’d been adding small red suns to my cheeks. My mother always wore them for festivals or official gatherings. Perhaps all the women of my family have worn them for such events. I hope so. It is their strength I need to borrow, after all.
Their power. I can feel my own pulse, ticking in my neck, like it is not only blood rushing through my veins.
Dionysus brings his lips back to my ear.
‘Transcendent, as always,’ he says. I hear an echoing beat – his pulse, his magic. As though it has become my magic too – and, of course, in a way, it has. We tied our stories together. So it is his renown, and his legend, but it is also mine.
Would I grow stronger as well, if my tale spread?
Despite the metal between us, I feel his hands as though the belt has become hot liquid once more.
I arch into his touch and drop my voice low. ‘Let us hope Theseus thinks so.’
‘Every single person in Knossos will think so.’
He presses a kiss into the crook where my shoulder meets my neck. I want to turn and push him back on to the bed. I also want to slap him.
Before I can see which instinct will win, I step out of his touch and pull my dress up higher.
‘Come on, no point wasting the performance of your affection.’ I push the door open. ‘Shall we?’