Chapter 34 #2
“What… are you talking about?” she demanded with a confused shake of her head.
“Are you really going to deny it?” he shouted at her.
“Ares!” Helena snapped. “Leave it alone!”
“I will not,” he retorted before turning his ire back on Sofia who seemed caught between confusion and anger. “You cannot be our true ally when you cannot even admit that you are half Ktínos,” he snarled.
“She is what?” I blurted, turning toward Sofia who sat with her jaw hanging open now.
“How…” she began to ask before she shook her head as if she had remembered that it didn’t matter how he had learned this. “Do you really not understand?”
“No! Explain it to me. Explain how you made a choice between people, and why ours was not good enough.”
“You make it sound like the choice was mine to make when I was just a child! Would you rather I had marched down to the Rookery in árgos and lived on the streets just to make a point? I did not choose between people, I chose the option where I had more opportunities to try and make a difference for both!” she insisted.
“Oh? And what difference have you managed to make for us then?” he demanded. “You got us invited to a party and may have drummed up work for a fey seamstress.”
“Ares!” Amira shouted in shock at him.
“Enough!” I intervened, gently removing Amira from my lap to stand just in case Ares did not heed my order. “We will address this later,” I added to Sofia whose fists clenched while she continued to glare at Ares with tears brimming in her eyes.
“What do you even care?” she demanded as she shot to her feet to glower down at him. Until he rose slowly so he was the one looking down at her over my shoulder.
“All you do is lecture me as if—” he began.
“Oh, please! I have heard every other person here tell you when you are being obtuse! Which is all too often!” Sofia pointed out.
“Your real problem is that you hate the Imítheos so much that anything I say will always be taken more offensively. No matter who I try to be, I will always be hated and despised by both halves!”
She narrowly missed me when she abruptly threw her plate at him.
Ares was as shocked as I was as her mashed vegetables splattered all over his gold armour before she turned to stalk out of the camp.
His expression darkened with his fury as he stepped in the direction she had gone, but I shoved him back several steps.
“You have said quite enough tonight,” I snarled.
“I will go,” said Amira, and even though I didn’t want to let her out of my sight for a second, I nodded.
“What the fuck was that?” I growled at Ares once the two women were gone.
He looked like he might opt to walk away to avoid my questioning, but Helena took up a position behind him and crossed her arms with a frown.
He refused to look at either of us, so I got close enough to put myself right in his face.
“What is the problem here? So what if she’s mixed?”
“She had a choice about who to align herself with and she chose them!” he shouted back.
“I cannot imagine why. You make such a compelling case for the Ktínos,” muttered mitéra.
“She is always saying how she is not like us—”
“Because she is not like us! She is part of two worlds that cannot touch. Can you imagine?” Helena demanded. “At least we all have each other to hold onto. She is the only one of her kind.”
“She would have had no choice, Ares. Magic is not something she could have ever hidden among our kind. Whatever Ktínos senses she possesses would be much easier to conceal among the Imítheos,” I reasoned.
I had spent more time than most other Ktínos among Imítheos, so I knew this without doubt.
Magic could also become volatile if it was not properly trained and used.
“But why continue to hide while acting like we were so beneath her?” Ares insisted.
“My guess would be fear of the very thing you proved to be reality. Being both and neither Ktínos nor Imítheos means that she is hated by both people instead of just one or the other,” Helena said sadly.
That gave Ares pause, his temper finally cooling as he considered her point more logically.
“I would not have hated her if she did not lie.”
“I doubt that,” I assured him before turning to grab a napkin to throw at him. “Clean yourself up.”
Amira
Sofia had not gone deep into the forest, just far enough that the firelight disappeared through the foliage. I could hear the occasional shout behind us, but I trusted Orion to wrangle Ares while I comforted my friend.
I found Sofia hunched over sobbing, and it broke my heart because I knew it was at least partly my fault.
“I am so sorry,” I whispered as I walked around her to pull her into my arms, and she hugged me back.
“How does he even know?”
“Your… grandfather said it last night,” I admitted.
“Gods! He is determined to ruin my life,” she snarled, shaking her head over my shoulder.
“It is my fault. I… He knew we had gone to the docks, and I was so angry that I spoke before thinking. He knew somehow that you must have told me about your mother, and he defended his actions by mentioning your heritage. And I meant to tell you about the conversation, but there hasn’t been time.
Sofia, I am so sorry! I should have just kept my stupid mouth shut about it,” I admitted in regret, growing nervous when she became quiet and tense.
I was worried she might pull away from me before she finally gave a resigned sigh and relaxed in my arms again.
“They were going to find out eventually. And I know how Castor can be with his manipulations and word traps. Not your fault. I am appreciative of what you did for my mother, and what you will do at the docks. It has become natural to hide, but it’s been a long time since I started to long for an authentic version of myself,” she admitted.
“If it makes you feel any better, Ares is really just an angry asshole. I would not gauge the attitudes of other Ktínos by his behaviour,” I reassured her.
“I really hope you are right,” she whispered haltingly. “But he is not wrong. What difference have I made?”
“You are one person, Sofia. The weight of the Ktínos oppression is not your burden to bear alone.”
She nodded, but I could tell she did not believe me.
Once her tears had dried, we sat huddled together for a time on a log.
But the forest was so cold and damp, it was not long before Sofia consented to return to the campfire.
She ignored the Ktínos who looked at her as she moved to her bedroll with her head down.
Ares wanted to speak, but I caught his eye with a look that promised to fry his ass if he said a word. And he wisely shut his mouth.
Before I could sit on my own cot, Orion took my hand and tugged me back toward the cold darkness of the trees with a blanket in his hand.
“Really?” I hissed at him with a glance of concern at the others who were settling down to sleep.
“Helena will manage. I gave her permission to take him over her knee if he continues behaving like a child,” Orion reassured me.
“Orion, it is so cold and wet out here,” I complained. He merely chuckled and turned to lasso me with the thick blanket around my shoulders to tug me along.
“I will keep you warm. You need not worry,” he said. Although I did feel him prodding at our bond to ensure it really was alright. If I had not sensed this was important to him, and I were not so curious, then I might have put up more of a fight. But I was content to let him lead on.
Orion did not take me far from the fire, so we could still see the glow through the trees as he hoisted me up against a trunk.
The heavy blanket covering my shoulders and back was a perfect barrier between me and the bark.
And when his massive wings formed a shield of gorgeous feathers around us to keep in our body heat, the last of my hesitation dissolved.
“I have not been able to get this mouth off my mind,” he growled before kissing me. One hand threaded into the base of my braid as he tipped my head against the trunk so he could greedily plunder my mouth.
He was not alone. Before the outburst at the campfire, all his caresses and kisses had been driving me wild with need for him. His kiss reignited that desire in an instant.
“Touch me,” he growled against my lips the moment he felt me lift my hands toward his hair and then stop.
“I don’t want to make you feel—”
“You make me feel anything but a mere tool for your amusement, Amira. Touch me,” he pleaded and reclaimed my mouth with a ruthless and undeniable vigor.
So I pushed aside my own doubts to honour his wishes and plunged both hands into those soft dark curls. And it drew a groan from him that ignited pure need within me.
Orion shifted me on his hips and reached between us, growling in frustration when his searching fingers found the cotton barrier of my underwear. He had warned me to remove them before, but there had hardly been time!
Please let me take them off. I only have a few pairs left now thanks to you and Riordan! I thought to him.
Orion grunted his agreement but did not let me down. Instead, he swept the thin cotton aside so his fingers could access my flesh. His thumb pressed down on my clit with a firm confidence that had me arching and crying out.
“Shh! Or we may as well have stayed right at the fire,” Orion smirked even as he continued the ruthless rhythm.
This was not like the night before when he had taken his sweet time to tease out my pleasure.
This was more like the ruthless demand he had made of Riordan to give up his climax. And I succumbed in a matter of moments.
Orion adjusted me up onto his stomach with just one arm so he could lift up his kilt between us with the other. And then he lowered me down onto his cock with a long groan into the crook of my neck.
“Fuck! I could spend forever buried in you,” he hissed before he began to thrust. Hard.
The sound of the trunk creaking in protest behind me should have terrified me, but as a Dowrra, I knew I was built to handle his strength.
Such a frenzied power and pace was nothing I had not experienced with Riordan before, and it was everything that I had been craving since we made camp earlier.
He was voracious and only slowed after I climaxed twice in quick succession, giving my oversensitive body a moment of reprieve. But I could easily match his reckless passion, scratch for scratch and bite for bite, until he was finally losing his rhythm and shuddering against me.
We both took a moment to catch our breath, our chests heaving together, my skin coated in sweat beneath the warmth of the blanket.
Orion shifted his face from my neck and pressed his forehead against my shoulder in that way that seemed like it was intentional as he rubbed against me. I was about to ask what he was doing but was suddenly distracted.
“Oh! What is that?” I breathed as I turned my head toward that irresistible smell that was not quite a smell. There were no words to explain it exactly, but it had my heart pounding.
“Can you sense my marking?” he verified in surprise and perhaps a little embarrassment as he raised his head.
“I think so?” I guessed, groaning as I brushed my nose over my own shoulder where that intoxicating scent was on my skin. It smelled so good that I wanted to taste it.
My lips lifted almost of their own accord, and I curved my tongue while breathing in deeply so that scent was drawn in against the roof of my mouth.
And somehow that allowed me to taste the mouthwatering heat of his passion and affections.
I had not realized his emotions could be tasted like that before, but it was beautiful.
“Look at you,” Orion whispered in awe, drawing my attention while he stared at me. “You really are mine.”