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“Perhaps it is that you need to see me before.”
“Show me.”
He took his phone out of his pocket, and very quickly pulled up the photograph. The man in the picture was unrecognizable. His brown hair was short and pushed off of his forehead, he had no beard, and he was... He was so handsome he verged on being beautiful. His blue eyes bright as gemstones, his jaw so sharp it could cut glass. His features were perfectly symmetrical.
She looked at him. His eyes.
To recognize those eyes.
“That’s you.”
“It’s me. So you can see... You can see.”
“You...”
“Be honest with me, little goddess. Do not lie.”
“You were very...beautiful.”
“I was. Understand, I was not a vain man, but I used my looks to my advantage. And when people hear my name, that is what they see. I have not shown my face to the public.”
“But they know.”
“Of course they know. They just do not know the extent of it.”
“And you thought...”
“By showing up with a wife, I am showing up at the suggestion that I have done more than simply sit in this castle for the last decade. I will have proven that I am not simply an object of pity.”
“Then we will make sure they know that. We will make a story, one that convinces everyone. One that sweeps them away. If you’re going to take control of it, then take full control. It will be a story unmatched. And there will be no way for my father to come for me, because we will be so well regarded as a couple, that my disappearance would create alarm across the world.”
“There you have it, Athena. You are indeed the goddess of war. This is what you look like riding into battle.”
She felt... Strong. Resolved. Like he had seen her. Like maybe...it did matter that she was Athena. Not a rock or a coin or a doll.
Not Naya.
She had started the day by running away. But she wasn’t running. Not now.
“And a war we shall have. But first, we will dance.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
HEDIDNOTknow how she had so effortlessly upended his control. It did not seem rational or reasonable. It did not seempossible. He had pursued her today out on the moors, and he would have said he would never pursue another person.
Already, she had forced him to contend with a lack of control that he found unacceptable.
The dog bite on his arm was... It was inconsequential. But that she had seen him face-to-face, that she had made demands of him...
He called Apollo.
“Things did not go as planned today.”
He relayed everything about Athena to his friend.
From the moment that he had carried her out of the hovel, and to being viciously attacked by the dog, to her demanding that they dance.
And of course, along with that, her seeing him.
