“I’m not sure… I’m brave enough for that. Just yet,” she added as if to assure me that it was not off the table entirely for her. But we would need to work up to such a display if I ever wanted to demonstrate to everyone that she was wholly mine.
“Then I will have to settle for having you in the forest, but Idoneed to have you, Amira. You smell of lavender and honey, and I cannot stand it anymore,” I growled into her neck seriously. She merely giggled, oblivious to the instincts that were becoming dangerously demanding.
“Are you saying I stink?”
“You smell lovely. But you no longer smell like mine after your bath this morning,” I explained.
I thought perhaps she had caught enough of the growl in my voice to realize just how serious this was for me. But instead of being intimidated by that, she wrapped her arms around me tighter.
“Is it okay… without Riordan here?” she forced out in reluctant embarrassment. “This is all still very new to me, and I don’t really know the rules—”
“There are no rules save for the boundaries we decide. But if you are worried about upsetting him, rest assured, Riordan is more likely to be pleased. He wants us to form a strong attachment,” I reassured her with a forehead kiss. “There will be plenty of times when it is just the two of us together, and I do not want to miss them.”
Amira nodded and squeezed me tighter as she pushed her head into my chest. It almost seemed like she was instinctively trying to mark me in the same way I’d been marking her. But I quickly dismissed the idea since she would need to have Ktínos scent glands for that.
I had been so wrapped up in her that I did not pick up on the growing tension around the campfire before Sofia suddenly kicked dirt at Ares’s boots who sat next to her.
“Do you have something to say to me? Or are you just going to keep glaring all night?” she snapped at him.
He merely narrowed his eyes at her, fork poised over his half-eaten plate of food. I knew that look. It was the face of the Árgoesi Warhammer preparing to do battle.
“You do not want to hear what I have to say,” he tried to warn her, but the woman clearly could not take a hint.
“Since you insist on making sure I can stillfeelthe nasty things you have to say, you might as well just get them off your chest!” she invited him.
“Ares—” Helena attempted to intervene.
“Alright,” said Ares, carelessly tossing aside his plate of food as he shifted to face Sofia. “You say you admire our people, you claim to honour your father’s memory in fighting for us, and yet you are too ashamed to claim us,” Ares accused her.
Amira stiffened in my lap while I cocked my head in misunderstanding that was reflected on Sofia’s face.
“What… are you talking about?” she demanded with a confused shake of her head.
“Are youreallygoing to deny it?” he shouted at her.
“Ares!” Helena snapped. “Leave it alone!”
“I will not,” he retorted before turning his ire back on Sofia who seemed caught between confusion and anger. “You cannot be our true ally when you cannot even admit that you are half Ktínos,” he snarled.
“She is what?” I blurted, turning toward Sofia who sat with her jaw hanging open now.
“How…” she began to ask before she shook her head as if she had remembered that it didn’t matter how he had learned this. “Do you really not understand?”
“No! Explain it to me. Explain how you made a choice between people, and why ours was not good enough.”
“You make it sound like the choice was mine to make when I was just a child! Would you rather I had marched down to the Rookery in Árgos and lived on the streets just to make a point? Idid not choose between people, I chose the option where I had more opportunities to try and make a difference for both!” she insisted.
“Oh? And what difference have you managed to make for us then?” he demanded. “You got us invited to a party and may have drummed up work for a fey seamstress.”
“Ares!” Amira shouted in shock at him.
“Enough!” I intervened, gently removing Amira from my lap to stand just in case Ares did not heed my order. “We will address this later,” I added to Sofia whose fists clenched while she continued to glare at Ares with tears brimming in her eyes.
“What do you even care?” she demanded as she shot to her feet to glower down at him. Until he rose slowly so he was the one looking down at her over my shoulder.
“All you do is lecture me as if—” he began.
“Oh,please! I have heard every other person here tell you when you are being obtuse! Which is all too often!” Sofia pointed out. “Your real problem is that you hate the Imítheos so much that anything I say will always be taken more offensively. No matter who I try to be, I will always be hated and despised bybothhalves!”
