“Come on, Silver,” Cas said, rolling his eyes like I was being unreasonable. “Surely you see what that was about?”
I honestly had no clue.
“You were raised byZeus,” he stated. “He raped everything with tits—or pretty balls—and arranged marriages to suit his own purposes, dangling Aphrodite’s hand to anyone who could get Hera out of a trap. A goodhalfof the female Olympians opted out of sex. It had more to do with the men around them than with any fervent desire for chastity.”
Oh.
Oh.
That made far too much sense.
“You’ve become someone different than who you were in your first life because you were raised in another time, by other parents,” Apollo agreed. “But it doesn’t change the fact you’re Artemis.”
I was still unsure.
Cas offered me his hand, and I frowned at it, confused.
“Don’t be a coward, doll,” he taunted me.
So of course, I had no choice but to fall for it. I took his hands. Instantly, images flooded my mind.
I watched him look past a woman, small—reaching the shoulders of the dark-haired, gray-eyed woman with whom she was playing chess, and the chest of the blond man who liked to tease her.
More visions flew by, all of them glimpses. I could tell he—Ares—barely paid any attention to her.
To me.
Artemis, the original huntress, with her bow and hounds, her half-moon crown, her chariot and stag, had my face, my eyes, though her hair was black as night.
She wasme.
26
CAS
The return trip was considerably easier, given that there were several portals to Midgard on Bilskirnir.
“Why can’t Zeus just come here and travel to Earth this way?” Silver wondered.
I smirked. “He can’t access my keep without invitation, and he has no clue I have a portal to the mortal worlds.”
She frowned. “But you managed to get to Highvale. I don’t get why he can’t.”
She had so many questions. Finally able to answer them without risking a kick to the balls, I explained, “I—Thor, that is—always was welcome on Midgard. That’s why I was chosen for surveillance here. No other Olympian can reach it without a direct invitation. Even so, the trip was fucking painful. I don’t want to repeat it.”
We took the portal to Paris again, riding the RER B in silence until we reached the private airport where the Guard’s jet still awaited us.
Silver was silent the whole time, processing the events of the last day. I didn’t doubt she’d have a plethora of questions soon.
Gideon met us at the airfield, south of the vale, shouting threats and demanding to know why we hadn’t been in touch.
“Twelve hours off schedule without any contact, Silver!” he yelled in her face.
I moved instinctively, only meaning to block him, but I ended up pushing him back several yards. “Sorry,” I managed between clenched teeth. “She’s hurt. Give her space.”
Silver’s eyebrows rose a little as she stared at me questioningly.
Maybe I was a little too protective, but sue me. I saw her with a pole through the gut, bleeding out on the pavement.
