“Fight me for her,” Griffin demands. “If I can’t best you, then it’s me you’ll take.”
My heart forgets to beat. Griffin’s sword arm flexes and lifts. He slides his blade from its sheath and then shifts his weight into a fighting stance. He looks like a force of nature. To me, he is one. Strong and brave and an earthquake in my world. But Ares is a God. One of the twelve Olympians!
Ares leaves all his weapons in his belt. His arms swing loosely at his sides. “You did well,” he tells Persephone, completely ignoring Griffin’s challenge. “They’re a good match.”
She scoffs. “Of course they’re a good match. But it would have been nice if one of youmaleshad told me you’d finally decided to point him in Cat’s direction. I thought she’d been kidnapped. Or run away.”
I blink. I had been kidnapped. Griffin did it.
“She had to figure things out on her own. Couldn’t have you influencing her,” Ares responds with a shrug.
“Oh, no.” Persephone’s sarcastic mock sincerity rivals my own. “Only you can do that.”
Ares preens, just to goad her, and Persephone looks like she’s about to attack. Ribbons of power race in circles around her dark-blue irises, brightening them from within.
She glares at the other God, her eyes terrifying. “She was impressionable when she was with you. Thank theGoddessesshe had her sister to teach her compassion.”
My pulse speeds up at the mention of Eleni. My dead sister. Not my unborn daughter. A tight, hard lump lodges in my throat, and I feel my blood drumming against it. Eleni taught me to love. And protect.
“Thank theGodsshe had me to teach her how to survive,” Ares shoots back.
He taught me to fight. And kill.
“Oh, I think her mother helped her with that.” Persephone’s tone turns biting. She looks at me, her eyes twin pools of radiant blue light. “Trial by fire.”
“It forges a heart of iron,” I whisper, echoing my words to Flynn when we argued about Jocasta taking part in the Agon Games.
She nods, her gaze still holding mine. “And sets it alight.”
I inhale sharply. I’m not sure what that means, and I can’t process riddles right now. My husband might get beaten and taken from me. And if not him, then Kaia. I can’t think about anything else. I can’t even think about that.
I reach for Griffin, but he shakes his head. “Stay back, Cat. They’re your responsibility now.”
Who? His family?
Of course, his family. There’s far too much of goodbye in his expression, and suddenly I’m drowning in open air. Little Bean’s life force bumps through me in protest, and I nearly whimper.
Griffin’s eyes turn bleak with sorrow. “Take care of our baby.”
I shake my head in useless denial, staring at him through a sheen of tears.Griffin. So fierce and loyal. So selfless. How dare he do this to us? How dare he not?
I swallow the acid flooding my throat, and it burns a path straight to my aching heart. I don’t know what to do. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life!
Ares turns his attention back to my husband but makes no move to engage Griffin in combat.
“Thanos, please!” I play on old, strong ties by using the name I’ve always called him. “Please, let it go. Just this once.”
Ares shakes his head, his thick, golden-brown hair brushing the tops of his sun-bronzed shoulders. “It doesn’t work that way, little monster. I don’t make these rules. Even though I should,” he mutters as an afterthought, throwing a truculent look toward Olympus in the north.
Selena snorts. I mean Persephone. No one is who they’re supposed to be!
Ares’s expression remains one of mild curiosity while Griffin tenses for the fight of his life. My eyes jump back and forth between them. Something feels off. Well, nothing about this could ever feelright, but there’s an odd gap, a strange discrepancy between our stark fear and heartbreak and the Gods’ prickly banter and cutting jibes. Someone I love is doomed, and neither of them seems to care!
“I haven’t fought a human in centuries,” Ares muses with some interest.
“You fought me,” I say. And knocked me senseless more than once. Usually by accident.
“Itrainedyou,” he counters, glancing at me. “That’s different.”
