Chapter Seven Ares #2
Ares had stormed out of the council meeting, not bothering to stay for Dionysus’s rambling plea about something called Fyre Festival.
Anger pounded through his veins with each heartbeat.
Why did he bother showing up to these meetings when his family ignored him?
He should follow Hades’s example and stay away.
He started down the path with long, tense strides.
The Olympians’ private villas were scattered over the island, all made of bright white plaster, with curved archways and high ceilings.
Ares saw his own villa in the distance and quickened his steps, only to nearly collide with a figure running from the main house.
“Sorry.” Ares reflexively put his hands on Aphrodite’s shoulders to steady her. She was wearing a dress with thin straps, her skin warm beneath his palms. He quickly let go.
“Thank you,” he added gruffly, “for being the only one who supported me in there.”
“You made a compelling argument,” Aphrodite replied. As if she knew it was precisely what he needed to hear.
Ares let out an angry breath and stared at the ocean. Gulls whooped and soared over its deep blue surface. “I hate these meetings. My opinion never matters.”
“Nor does mine,” Aphrodite murmured. “The other goddesses all hate me.”
Ares should have probably made some kind of polite protest, but they would both have known it for a lie. The other goddesses did despise Aphrodite, probably because they were all jealous. Ares felt a surprising beat of kinship with his sister-in-law in that moment. No one understood them.
“You’re still angry.” Aphrodite tilted her head toward the beach in an alluring movement. “Come on, I’ll show you where I go when I’m upset.”
Ares followed her to a small crescent of beach past the dunes. The air was cool, but the sand still felt warm from the day’s sun. The ocean was gentler here, its waves broken by rock formations a hundred feet from shore, creating tidepools of shells and starfish that glittered like gemstones.
“See? It’s impossible not to feel calm here.
” Aphrodite leaned back on a blanket that she’d conjured out of nowhere and closed her eyes.
Her hair fell around her shoulders in a soft curtain.
Ares was acutely aware of all her bare, tanned skin, of how low her dress skimmed over her body.
She opened her eyes, her lashes startlingly dark, and patted the blanket next to her. “Come on,” she purred. “Sit with me.”
Ares realized what she was doing—what she was offering. The air seemed to swirl around him in a perfumed cloud, tugging him toward her perfect body.
Later, when the family would gossip about what had happened, they would all proclaim that Ares slept with Aphrodite because he’d been pissed off at Hephaestus.
But Ares had barely thought of his brother, except perhaps to acknowledge that this would hurt Hephaestus if he found out.
He won’t find out, Ares told himself now, or perhaps he no longer cared.
The only sensation pounding through his veins was white-hot desire.
He wanted Aphrodite more than he’d ever wanted anything in his immortal life. He wanted her with a hunger that felt all-consuming, a hunger so combustible that he felt certain he must have her, right now, or he would die.
They fell back together onto the blanket, drowning in a vortex of lust and longing.
If only Hephaestus hadn’t known that this inlet was Aphrodite’s favorite spot. They might have been able to pretend this whole thing had never happened, to add it to the long list of secrets the Olympians kept from one another.
But Hephaestus did find them. And roared like some wild, wounded animal.
Ares hadn’t known that his brother, normally so self-contained, could make such a sound.
Dozens of gods gathered around within moments, staring at the titillating sight of Ares and Aphrodite, who both hurried to put their clothes on.
Hephaestus turned to Zeus as if waiting for his judgment. The silence was deafening.
Ares also looked at his father, the most notoriously unfaithful god of all. To his relief, Zeus’s eyes were crinkled with unmistakable amusement.
“Oh, Ares,” Hera cried out, aghast. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “What have you done?”
At his wife’s words, Zeus hurried to give a stern frown. “I’m disappointed in both of you,” he began, but Hephaestus stepped forward, red-faced and imposing.
“I will deal with Aphrodite. This is a private matter.” Hephaestus’s voice rang out like a hammer striking metal. Then he turned to Ares. Power lifted his hair from his head, as if he were caught in an inferno of his own making. “As for my brother, he must leave. Now.”
Ares blinked. “I swear, I didn’t—”
“Leave,” his brother boomed. “You claim to be a man of honor, yet you are the most despicable of all of us. Leave, Ares, and don’t come back.”
· · ·
Of course, Ares couldn’t explain any of this to Julia. He couldn’t tell her about the year he’d spent after leaving Olympus, how lost and alone and pissed off he’d felt. First he’d headed to the Middle East, thinking he might as well focus on the thing he was best at. He would go to war.
Except modern warfare had no place for him.
The type of battle that Ares relished was an honorable one, both sides fighting for what they considered a noble truth.
A fight where champions challenged each other in single combat, where soldiers held to an irrefutable code of honor, even among enemies.
Now wars were fought from behind screens, as with everything in this modern world. They were fought with drones and bombs, by harming civilians and ignoring treaties. I deserve this, Ares had thought, I’m as dishonorable as these men bombing hospitals. The notion left a sour taste in his mouth.
After a while he’d moved on, roaming his way through India and then East Asia. He scaled mountains, went skydiving, climbed into underwater cages where sharks bit at him beneath the surface. Eventually, he’d found himself in New Zealand, and met Julia.
She was like no one he’d ever met, mortal or divine.
Julia made him feel like he’d been lost his whole life and had finally come home.
Perhaps it was her confidence, or her intelligence: not bookish like his sister Athena’s, but quick-witted and clever.
Her ideas shot into the world as fast as a hail of arrows.
Or perhaps it was the simple joy that emanated from her.
Each time she grabbed his hand and pointed at a sunset, or gave a little moan of delight as she tasted fresh gelato, or tilted her head back and laughed, he would think anew how much he loved her.
Be careful, he imagined his mother saying. Hera always warned her children not to get too close to mortals. They are so vibrant, so very alive, and then before you know it they are gone.
Ares had no intention of letting that happen to Julia.
He longed to tell her everything: his real identity, his history with Aphrodite, the truth about his family.
But he didn’t dare. Ares knew too many gods who had revealed themselves to mortals they loved, only for the humans to run off.
Then Mnemosyne would have to chase down the human in question and wipe the entire relationship from their memory.
The gods’ secrets must be protected at any cost.
As hard as it was to live with this fiction, he had to keep letting Julia think his relatives were just a bunch of judgmental billionaires. It would be far more painful for Ares to watch her forget that she’d ever known him.
“Who was she?” Julia asked quietly. “The ex-girlfriend Dylan was talking about?”
Ares revealed as much of the truth as he dared. “She wasn’t an ex-girlfriend. She was someone I got involved with very briefly, before I left home, and it caused problems with my family.”
Julia blew out a breath, wisps of dark hair catching around her face. “Because she wasn’t rich, and they disapproved of her?”
Ares winced. “They disapproved, but it had nothing to do with her background. And they were right to be angry with me about her. The whole thing was a mistake.”
“It’s hard not to feel like I’m a mistake, too,” Julia said quietly. “How can we have any kind of future if I’ve never met your family? If you keep this huge piece of your life separate from me?”
Ares leaned his head back against the couch cushions. He was starting to get a feeling he rarely experienced, one he’d had a time or two in the sparring ring. The sensation that he was about to lose.
“You really want to go?” he asked Julia.
The change in her was instantaneous. She lit up, turning to Ares and pulling him close.
“Yes,” she said emphatically. “Please, let’s go.
And if it’s hard on you, if you hate it, we can leave,” she promised, tilting her head onto his shoulder.
“But I’ll be right there with you, every step of the way. ”
“All right. Let’s go,” Ares heard himself say.
He was going to regret this. Taking Julia to Olympus?
He might as well toss her straight into the lion’s den.