He was the new guy. A Drakkon enforcer among a bunch of half-gods, gorgons, and…whatever those triplets technically counted as. Joining a team meant understanding their dynamics, learning how they worked, and figuring out how not to accidentally terrify them. Or incinerate something valuable.
He still didn’t understand how Eros expected him to fit into this project, but the god of desire had made it sound almost noble. Purpose. Redemption. A chance to do something worthwhile.
And maybe to stop thinking about the future he’d lost.
So Hektor stayed in his chair, jaw tight, reminding himself for the hundredth time:
You chose this. You agreed to this. Don’t run.
His tailbone had gone numb over an hour ago. And Perseus insisted on using color-coded sticky notes, which Hektor was convinced were designed by the gods to test his sanity.
He exhaled slowly.
This was necessary.
That was the only reason he wasn’t clawing his way out through the nearest window.
As an enforcer back home, he didn’t need meetings. He needed orders. Clear, simple, ideally involving action and not talking about hypothetical action for eight hours straight. But joining this team, Eros’s ridiculous, chaotic, surprisingly earnest project, meant learning their process. Understanding their roles. Figuring out where he fits.
Preferably in a position that required very little conversation.
Zara sat across from him, explaining something about emotional threads or resonance mapping. He’d stopped keeping track around hour six, but her voice had a strange grounding quality. He didn’t mind listening to her. It made the room feel…less suffocating.
When he let his gaze drift across the table, she glanced up at the same moment, her lips parting slightly in question.
Something tight and unfamiliar thumped behind his ribs.
He ignored it.
He failed. Again.
“Alright, team,” Perseus returned to the front of the room with yet another stack of notes, gods help him, and said, “Let’s go through the action plan from the top.”
Hektor resisted the urge to groan aloud. Hours. They had been here for hours. Necessary, he reminded himself grimly.
But when Zara smiled faintly as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, something eased in his chest.
Maybe not…unbearable.
He wasn’t sure he liked what that implied.
Medusa stretched her arms over her head, bracelets clinking softly, and the sound alone made something in Hektor’s shoulders finally loosen.
“Okay,” she said, and he caught the relief beneath the word, “I think we’re finally at a good place. We just need to narrow down which territories to hit first and then work out scheduling.”
He watched her glance around the room, that warm smile in place as if the last nine hours hadn’t been spent watching color-coded sticky notes multiply like weeds.
“Thank you all for your hard work today,” she added. “I have a really good feeling about this team.”
Hektor grunted. It was either that or accidentally say something actual and sincere. Absolutely not.
Hektor forced his expression to stay flat, locking everything down. He was working; he couldn’t afford another slip like he’d had the other day, letting someone read him too easily. He tightened the shields in his mind, smoothing out every flicker of emotion before she could catch it.
Luckily, Liora swooped in before anyone could interpret his noise as a contribution.
“Yeah,” she said brightly, swinging a foot up to rest on the empty chair beside her. “No one cried, yelled, or threw a marker. That’s basically a miracle. We should put it on a sticker.”
Elian snorted into his iced coffee. Zara hid a small smile behind her hand.
