He looks good. Of course he looks good. He always does, even when he’s obviously been missing sleep. His dark-brown skin is warm in the early afternoon light, but there are exhaustion lines around his eyes. He doesn’t smile. It’s fine. I don’t deserve his smiles any longer, but I still mourn the loss. “Adonis,” I say softly. “What are you doing here?”
“I was invited.” I belatedly register that he’s wearing a perfectly tailored pale-gray suit. He always dresses well, but this is clearly event clothing.
I didn’t invite him. I have plenty of capacity for cruelty, but I don’t level it at those I care about. At those I…love. I swallow past the awful sensation in my throat. “You shouldn’t have come.”
He doesn’t deny it. Instead, he seems to drink in the sight of me. “It should have been me, Eris.”
He’s the only person outside my family who uses the name I was born with instead of my title. It used to feel like a secret just between us, but now he might as well have pulled out a knife and stabbed me. Gods, why does this hurt so much? “It was never going to be you.” Pain makes my voice harsh. “My brother never would have allowed it.” Except that’s a cop-out. Zeus didn’t force me to marry Hephaestus. I decided on this course of action. I square my shoulders. “I never would have allowed it.”
If I could marry for love, I would have married Adonis without a second thought. Our relationship has never been particularly smooth, but it has been consistent in its inconsistency. He makes me laugh more than any other person in this city, and he makes me feel seen, even if he doesn’t always like my more chaotic impulses.
But I am Aphrodite, formerly Eris Kasios, daughter of one Zeus and sister to another. My fate was written the moment I was born.
Adonis’s jaw goes tight. “Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me,” Adonis repeats. He holds out a broad hand. “I’ve already bribed Triton. We just have to get to the boundary and he’ll see us through. You don’t have to do this, Eris. We can leave. We can start a life somewhere outside this fucking city and be happy.”
The space behind my eyes burns, but I am a Kasios and I learned from a very young age to control my tears. I will not cry now, even if it feels like the broken shards of my heart are grinding to dust against each other. “No.”
He doesn’t drop his hand. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
How can I love him even more now, knowing that he would sacrifice everything for me, even though I would never have asked it of him?
I shake my head slowly. “No,” I repeat. “We had something special, Adonis. Don’t ruin it with theatrics.” The words are cruel, intentionally so. I swallow hard and push through. If I have to hurt him to keep him safe, then I will.
This is why we could never be endgame. Adonis insists on seeing the best of me, without acknowledging the depths I will descend to in order to keep my people and my city safe. He will always balk about doing what needs to be done, and I don’t have the luxury of hesitation.
“Eris—”
“Aphrodite.” My grip goes white-knuckled on the door. “I am Aphrodite, and you’d damn well better remember it. I chose this, Adonis. I chose…him.”
“Don’t lie to me. You hate him.”
“I would rather take a knife to his throat than slip his ring on my finger.”
He flinches. “Then why?”
“You know why.” I have to pause and lower my voice. “Your parents didn’t raise a fool, so stop playing the innocent. Minos has a foothold in the Thirteen now; he isn’t going to stop. What happens if we tuck tail and flee, leaving everyone else to pay the price of his ambitions?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. Neither is you showing up here and asking something from me that we both know I can’t give.” My chest aches so much, I can barely draw a full breath. I refuse to let it show on my face. “What I do, I do to protect this city and everyone in it. Including you.”
This marriage is the only way. Friends close and enemies closer and all that. I want Hephaestus to pay, and the best way to ensure that happens is if we’re sharing a life, a home, a bed. He and his little fucked-up family won’t be able to slither about unnoticed when we’re in such close quarters. He’ll slip up, and when he does, I’ll be there to gather all the information I need to ensure Minos doesn’t succeed.