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“What’s going on?” I asked.
At the sound of my voice, Hector whipped his head toward mine. “You mean besides my brother trying to fuck your girlfriend?”
“Gods, Hector, I kissed her. That was it.”
Hector laughed, pushed his hands through his hair, and paced. “That’s it. That’s it?”
It didn’t hurt as much, hearing Paris’s confession this time. The way Hector put it implied something sinister that I would never ascribe to my friend.
And like that—I knew I could handle it.It.Him. He had kissed Leo. I got it. I wanted to kiss her. What I felt in her presence—peace, desire—Paris felt it, too.
“Dr. Ophidia has found two pieces of the seal, and her advisor has found a third. We have no idea what this means—if by way of finding the pieces the gods are getting more powerful—we don’t know. But we all agreed to the same thing. Keep the seal secret. And a pretty face appears and suddenly all of it is out the window.” His voice got louder as he went on. “You think I’m over-reacting, but I am the only one here who lost a child the last time a woman came between us. And you don’t know that pain. None of you can imagine slowly dying for a hundred thousand years, and to only have a hundred thousand more to look forward to. The pain never goes away.” He met my gaze. “It. Never. Goes. Away.”
“Why do you think Leo means the end of us?” Achilles asked quietly.
At once, a silence as thick as the fog outside descended.
“Really, Hector. Why? We’re different now, and the gods are—”
Trapped.
“I needed to think,” I said, because this was my fault for taking the first steps without talking to them. I’d acted on what I wanted.
Leo.
But if they wanted her, too, then I thought I could live with that.
“I don’t blame Paris for acting the way I did,” I explained. “I just needed to think it through.”
I thought Hector would de-escalate, but it didn’t work that way. “You don’t blame him until she decides to be with him. And suddenly, you, and Achilles, and Orestes are broken-hearted and hate each other. What then? Do we split down the middle again?”
“I wouldn’t ask that. I wouldn’tdothat,” I replied.
“You don’t know me.” Leo’s voice was like a slap in the face. As one, we faced her. She stood in the doorway, back against it to keep it open. Her face was red, and her eyes wide. Clutching her hands over her stomach, she stared at Hector. “You’ve lived hundreds of thousands of years, but things have changed, and you, Hector, seem to think that I’m some spineless creature who’ll swoon for a handsome face and forget everything else. Forget that my actions impact others. Or forget that Pollux has ties that go deeper and are stronger than the ones he may have to me.”
Hector swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a small, graceful hand. “Shut the fuck up, Hector, and listen. Stop figuring out what you want to say in response, and just listen.” Then she waited.
And waited.
The color in his face evened out, and his body sagged as he let out a breath. Eventually, he pulled out a chair and sat. Only then did Leo come inside the kitchen, letting the door swing shut behind her.
She sat as well, gazing at all of us as she did. “I have heard every word you said, and you need to understand something—I make the decisions about the way my life will go. No one controls me. No one talks me into anything I don’t want to do. So all of your planning and scheming is pointless, because you haven’t talked to me. I won’t just sign up for whatever you want unless I want to, and even then, maybe I’ll change my mind. I can do that. Iwilldo that, if I want to.”
She was a foot smaller than all of us, and her voice trembled, but she spoke like a queen. I hung, breathless, on every word out of her mouth, and a quick study of the room showed my friends did, too.
Including Hector.
Swallowing again, he tipped his chin to the ceiling and let out a breath. “I’m sorry.”
Achilles sat in a chair and the thing cracked, but it held him up. “What just happened?”
Rolling her eyes at him, Leo focused on Hector. “I accept your apology.”
It was such a difference between when she’d offered Hector an apology, he couldn’t miss the comparison. Hector had turned her down flat, and here she’d been insulted and marginalized by him, but without any hesitation, forgave him.
I went from infatuated to obsessed. This woman. This brilliant, beautiful woman had me in the palm of her hand.
If she wanted me.
