All the while, the fist continued to hammer.
“You can bang on the door as long as you like, but you’re not getting inside,” I called out, my voice steadier than my heartbeat. “I invoked the threshold curse.”
The pounding ceased. Silence stretched out behind it. Curious, I drifted closer to the door. Which one of them had come here to torment me? Hermes or Poseidon seemed the most likely, although I’d noticed the sharp glint in Artemis’s eyes when she’d looked at me. I pressed my fingers to the wood, flaring my nostrils.
The scent of blood and steel whispered through the door, conjuring the image of a silver-haired monarch with a vicious smile. I sucked in a breath and stepped back.
Ares had come.
Before I could think better of it, I grabbed the knob and ripped open the door. He stood in the corridor, leaning against the doorframe with his arms folded. But when he caught sight of me, he tensed. His eyes flared a more vivid red, but only briefly. So briefly, I wasn’t entirely sure I hadn’t imagined it.
“Took you long enough to answer,” he drawled, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. “May I come inside?”
“No,” I answered.
One corner of his mouth ticked up. “I haven’t come here to murder you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Now may I come inside?”
“You can ask a thousand times, but the answer won’t change. I’m never inviting you inside my rooms, Ares.”
He pushed off the doorframe, craning his head to look around me. “When did you invoke the threshold curse?”
I fought the urge to gape at him. “What? Why does that matter?”
His gaze landed back on my face, and there was something in his eyes that rattled me. It was that almost imperceptible flare of brighter crimson again, flecked with…what was that? Gold? “Just answer the question, Selene.”
“I did it the first night I was here,” I said, folding my arms. “Is that a problem?”
“So there’s no one else in there with you?”
“What?No.”
“I can hear something. A rustling.” He cocked his head, as if he was listening closer, and an incredulous look crossed his face. “Youdohave someone in there, don’t you? Who in god’s name do you have in your bed? Don’t tell me it’s your advisor.”
I scoffed. “Why is that your first assumption?”
“Well, who else would it be?”
Instead of answering, I countered with, “Why are you here, Ares?”
He frowned, still looking past me. And then he tried to step inside, clearly forgetting about the threshold curse. The magic stood, as immovable as stone, and knocked him back. Lip curling, he rubbed his chest.
“If it’s one of the monarchs, I hope you realize you’re making a terrible mistake,” he said, his voice low and insistent.
With a level stare, I started to close the door. “I think I’ve heard enough.”
He moved as close as he could without hitting the curse’s invisible wall, his hands grasping the doorframe on either side of him. “Selene, wait—”
A rush of wings filled the air. Hector soared from the safety of the bedroom in a swirling black mass. With an agitated caw, he plunged toward me and landed heavily on my shoulder. Ares angled his head, a smile stretching across his angular face.
I heaved a sigh. Wonderful.
“You don’t have anyone in your bed. It was that gods-damned raven,” he said with a chuckle. “And yet you were more than happy to pretend you had a lover in there.”
“I did no such thing. You made that assumption all on your own. Now I’d like to get some rest. It’s been a long night.”
His eyes swept down the length of me. The crimson in his eyes burned bright. “Poseidon wants to kill you.”
I stood a little taller, caught off guard by the sudden change in conversation. “I expected as much.”
