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“Achilles.” When he finally falls silent, it’s everything I can do to gather my wits. If she says she’s okay with what happened, then I have to take her at her word. But that means it’s time to unpack the rest of the issues plaguing us. “Helen, he’s right. We need to talk.”
“We’re talking right now.”
I give her the look that statement deserves. Good gods, what have I gotten myself into? “If you’re seeing this through, you’ll be staying in our room until the tournament is over.”
“So you can guard my body.”
I try to ignore the barbs in those words. She’s right, though. We’re shitty bodyguards right now. Anyone could have walked into the suite while we were fucking, and while Achilles has excellent situational awareness, I can’t guarantee he would have reacted quickly enough in the event of another attack. I sure as fuck wouldn’t have. “He saved you last night.”
“Yes, well, even a broken clock is right twice a day.” She rises to her feet. Achilles shifts but Helen holds up her hand. “You’re both right about us needing to talk, but I’m not having a serious conversation while covered in bodily fluids. I’m going to take a shower.”
This time, neither of us stop her as she steps over Achilles’s outstretched legs and walks into the bathroom. The door shutting sounds unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet. Achilles sighs and lets his head fall back against the bed. “Well, that was unexpected.”
“Was it?” I don’t disagree exactly, but something about Helen feels inevitable. This isn’t forever, but I’m drawn to her in a way I don’t understand. Maybe this was always going to happen, even if I didn’t account for it. It makes me wonder what else I haven’t accounted for. “Achilles…”
“Don’t apologize.” He doesn’t look at me. “Don’t you dare fucking apologize. I don’t care if you fucked her because you wanted to hurt me or if things just got out of control. I’m the one who started this anyway. She was into it this morning, so you can take that off the list of things you feel guilty about.”
“And you?”
He turns his head just enough to look at me. “What part of what just happened makes you think I wasn’t into it?”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” But as he waits for me to elaborate, I can’t quite find the words. I don’t want to. If I ask him what he was thinking while he looked at her—at us—with that particular expression on his face, he’ll answer me honestly. I know he will.
I’m not sure I’m ready to hear that answer.
“I swear to the fucking gods, if you say some dumb shit like this being a sign that we’re on the way out with each other, I will take you onto the training mat and beat the piss out of you.”
“You’ll try,” I snap.
“Yeah. You win nearly as often as I do.” He smiles a little, though it fades far too fast. “I know shit is fucked up right now, but it won’t always be like this. Once this tournament is over, things will go back to normal. Better than normal.”
That’s the thing. They wouldn’t have gone back to normal, even if Helen wasn’t in the picture and complicating things. Achilles and I might be relatively high up the power structure beneath Athena, but we’re still just soldiers. At the end of this tournament, Achilles will become Ares. One of the thirteen most powerful people in Olympus. There is no going back to normal after that. He’ll be thrust into the spotlight with Helen at his side as his wife. No matter how much he loves me, it doesn’t change the fact that I will be shuffled back into the shadows.
The future had always held an element of dread for me because the moment he becomes Ares, I lose him. It might not happen with the snap of his fingers, but eventually he’ll outpace me once and for all, and I’ll be left behind.
That was before Helen.
Watching them move on together? Fuck, I can barely stand to think of it.
Saying as much to Achilles is just asking for a fight. He doesn’t see things my way, is so certain he can power through and mold the future to his impressive will. It’s not until he fails that he’ll finally admit I was right, at least in this. He won’t believe me that our eventually ending up on separate paths is all but inevitable. He’ll try to fight for us, to hold us closer, and it will only hurt worse in the end.
Better to focus on the problem at hand. A simple mystery that must have a solution. “Helen won’t back down, and whoever is trying to scare her off is only going to escalate.”
He gives a nearly soundless sigh but doesn’t try to haul me back to the original topic. “Next trial is going to take us from twelve to five. She’ll get knocked out then.”
