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“That’s not what happened,” Harry asserted, anger polluting his words.
“You don’t have to worry about me coming between you and Ares, I suspect you’ve done enough to damage that relationship yourself. Your other boy…”
Something much darker and malevolent crept into his voice. The dramatic change drew her attention to him. The air that had attracted her interest in the dining room was no longer magnetic, in fact it was the opposite. The blackness of it repelled her gaze and, for the first time, gave her a real sense of how dangerous the man could be.
Then it was Harry’s turn to laugh. “You’d never get near him.”
“Underestimating me cost you before,” Zeus said, still shrouded in malice. “Don’t let hubris be responsible for you losing someone else you love.”
Harry actually stepped forward, like he expected to leap through the screen to take Zeus down. Garrick got in front of him to block his way. Maybe her father just expected to rip the screen from the wall for quick-fix relief. Not smart or a long-term solution. The bad blood between the men was dangerous and threatened to trump good sense.
“We shouldn’t be attacking each other,” Byron said, speaking up for the first time. “We have to be professionals.”
“Yes,” Zeus said. “Everyone here is willing to do that. I suggest you take some time to decide if you want to do the same. We progress as allies, or we destroy each other as enemies… We pledged ourselves to Olympus. Destroying ourselves, destroys the mission.”
The decision to assassinate Zeus wouldn’t have been taken lightly. But if the man had thought himself above everyone else before that decision, he’d be worse after recovering Olympus.
Garrick inhaled. “Ulysses—”
“Take some time to think about it,” Zeus said. “We’ll be in touch.”
The screen went black. Just like that, in a blink, they were gone.
Byron and Hugo switched their attention to the man behind her seat.
“What do you think?” Byron asked.
“That they’re going to do a lot of talking… and a lot of shouting over the next few days.”
“Ares didn’t say a word,” Hugo said.
There was a pause before Zeus spoke. “That worries you… He is who you are most afraid of.” Apparently, the principal didn’t share their concerns. “His loyalty is to Olympus. We don’t have to worry about Ares doing what’s right.”
“Providing he believes you are what’s right,” Byron said. “Hades’ men are loyal to the one who sweats with them. Harry protects them, he’s nurtured them, but Ares is the one they look to in the field. The one at their side when the bullets are flying and adrenaline’s high.”
Everyone was so sure that the Olympus men would march in time to Harry’s beat. What Byron was saying made perfect sense too. Some of the men, maybe not all of them, would be inclined to look to her Heart for direction, for permission to do whatever needed to be done.
“Ares is no pushover,” she said before even realizing the words were going to come out of her mouth.
“You don’t think he’ll do what’s best for Olympus?” Zeus asked.
“That’s not what I said,” Tess said, looking up at the man who strolled by to put himself in front of the TV. “I think assuming he’ll automatically follow your lead is shortsighted.”
“She’s right,” Byron said. “You were sure he blamed Hades for how things went down, but he didn’t come to you, he went to the man he sees as his father.”
“Ares was in the wind for almost a year,” Zeus said like that somehow corroborated his belief. “He tracked down Pandora.”
Everyone knew that, though didn’t know the chain of events. Did they think he literally found her one day and took her to her father the next?
“Because no one else would’ve been capable,” Hugo said. “That’s what you said.”
“We don’t know why he did it,” Zeus said. “We also shouldn’t assume he’s at his father’s side out of loyalty.”
“You think he has a larger play going?” Byron said. “Something that will hurt Hades?”
Zeus just shrugged.
The implication disgusted her. “This isn’t about getting everyone together for the good of Olympus,” she said. “It’s about ensuring you’re in the perfect place to take over after others do your dirty work.”
