This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(47)

…and so knows what it means to be alive more passionately than any other immortal could.

He moves closer, almost touching me, and my body yearns for him to close the final breadth of distance between us. “I only want,” he murmurs, “for you to be safe.”

A god who thrives on chaos…

…whose wildness can be tamed only by me.

He wraps a lock of my hair around his fingers, gently tilting my face up to his.

A god who can’t know love, when all he knows is suffering.

He came when he saw the storm above Olympus, not because he was worried about anyone else, only me. He stayed, despite his promise of more war, for me.

The snakes on his breastplate stare back at me, malevolent, their embossed eyes catching the silvered light with a crafty glint.

I know why I should resist, why I should tell him to go. It isn’t just his disregard for Hephaestus. It’s everything I know about the two of us. This can’t end in anything other than disaster.

But it doesn’t have to end yet. Just one more night, while we can still walk away.

“I’ll bolt the door,” I tell him.

The ichor in my veins is hot, surging like molten gold, racing through my body and melting away my doubts in a fiery dazzle.

He follows me through the drapes, his hands on my shoulders, sliding down my arms as I drag the heavy bolt across. When the nymphs return, they won’t interrupt. And they don’t need to know who was in here with me.

I turn to him, his arms closing behind my back. This time I take his face between my hands. I can see the fire in his eyes; how he’s burning for this, for me.

I pull his head down to me and kiss him. The heat of his mouth against mine, the way he tightens his hold around me, obliterates the last of my thoughts, the ones still telling me this is unwise. I don’t wield a thunderbolt, but I know that I’m the only one among all the gods who can harness this lightning and not let it burn me to ashes.

I break the kiss, stepping back, finding the straps to unhook his armor. His breath is coming fast and ragged. I push the metal away, letting it fall with a crash, and run my hands across the soft, worn leather beneath, as warm and supple as skin. The earthy, smoky scent of him floods my senses as he grips my shoulder, unclasping the brooch that holds my dress, so that it slips down my body to the tiled floor. Outside, the moon slides from the cover of wispy clouds and light spills over us, casting our shadows onto the wall.

I watch them merge together into one.



* * *



—

“Did you really abandon your war just for me?” I stretch luxuriously in the softness of the bed, my skin still tingling.

His eyes gleam in the gray half-light. “Who says I’ve abandoned it?”

“Hmm.” I press myself closer to his body, sliding one leg around him, my thigh warm against his. His heart beats underneath my palm, slowing back down to a steady rhythm. I trace circles on his chest, idly twisting my fingers in the fine dark scattering of hair, drifting down toward the sculpted planes of his abdomen. “Well, you’re here. You didn’t come back to Olympus for anything else, did you?”

He slips his finger under my chin, tilting my face toward his. “There’s nothing else I want here. Only you.”

My hand pauses. “So you won’t go into battle now.”

His lips brush mine, warm and eager. “Not immediately,” he mumbles into the kiss.

“But you won’t call your warriors home either. You’ll still let them fight.”

He pulls back a fraction. “How would I stop them?”

A laugh bubbles in my throat. “You’re their god.”

“So I’ll fight alongside them,” he says.

“But—”

“I told you that I’d never want to change you.” He pushes a strand of hair out of my face, hooking it behind my ear. “Do you really want me to be something different to what I am?”

“Maybe I want the world to be different,” I whisper.

He kisses me again, deeper, with more intent. “Maybe one day it will be.”

He rolls over, flipping me onto my back so that he’s above me, his hips pressing into mine so that I’m deliciously imprisoned, the rest of our conversation lost entirely. I don’t think of Hephaestus or Eris, or of where he’ll go after this. As his lips trail down my neck and I arch against him, and he moves lower and I gasp, it feels as though there will never be anything but this again. Us, unraveling together, shattering into stars and everything else forgotten like it never existed at all.

I wish it could last forever, but, when the night gives way to the rosy light of dawn, he rises to dress, strapping his armor back on.

“Go to Mount Haemus.” He smiles back at me. “You could wait for me there.”

“While you’re at war?” I sigh, exasperated. “I don’t think so.”

I want him to stay. I want him to take me in his arms again; I want to feel the reassuring heat and strength of his body against mine, something solid and dependable to hold on to.

But if that’s what I want, the God of War was a bad choice.

“Forget about Hephaestus,” he says.

“It’s not that easy,” I say. “Not for me.”

He hesitates. “You will come back to Thrace, though, won’t you?” He’s standing, framed in the light spilling through the drapes, his helmet dangling from his hand. He rubs the stiff bristles of the plume between his thumb and finger, waiting for my answer.