The Goddess Test Boxed Set: Goddess Interrupted\The Goddess Inheritance\The Goddess Legacy (88 page)

I open and shut my mouth, speechless. What am I supposed to
say? What does he expect me to do? Up and leave this place just because he found
me and tricked me into caring about him? “Nothing's changed, you know,” I say in
a shaky voice that betrays me. “I still love Ares.”

“Even though Ares loves himself more than he could ever love
you?”

I recoil. “You have no idea how much Ares loves me.”

“I know he left you alone with your baby son,” says Hephaestus.
“I know he's been gone long enough for you to feel lonely and betrayed.”

“You don't know that,” I mutter.

“I saw how you looked at him when he came back. If you truly
loved him the way you claim, it would have been an entirely different look,” he
says. “You can love more than one person, you know.”

“I love Ares.
Just
Ares.” I say
this more forcefully, as if I'm trying to convince both of us. He frowns, and I
know he hears it, too.

“Love isn't just passion and noise and lust,” he says. “Love is
the way you feel for Eros. Love is the way I feel for you, the way you fill
something inside me whenever you so much as walk into the same room. Sometimes
love is quiet, lingering in the background until you least expect it. But love
is always there for you. Ares hasn't been.”

It's my turn to look away now. The way he talks about my
relationship with Ares as if it's only temporary, as if it isn't the best I
could have—I don't know how to swallow that.

“Aphrodite,” says Hephaestus, and he reaches for my hand. His
fingertips graze my knuckles before I pull away. “Love is an action, not a
word.”

“I don't need a lecture on what love is.” I hiccup. I'm crying
now. “I'm the goddess of love. I know what it is better than anyone else.”

“Then prove it,” he says. “Come with me. Or tell Ares he isn't
welcome anymore. We can stay on Olympus, we can stay here, or—or if it's what
you want, I will leave you in peace. Just don't let him do this to you. He's
hurt you enough already, and you deserve better. You
are
better.”

My vision blurs, and I can barely make out his face anymore.
Just those piercing gray eyes that aren't really his. “I'm not,” I whisper.
“This is my home. Ares is my home.”

“Your home is love,” he says. “I could be that love if you'd
let me. I want to be there for you and Eros. Not when I feel like it, but every
moment of every day for as long as you'll both have me. Let me love you.
Please.”

I hiccup. I must look like a disaster, but Hephaestus's focus
hasn't shifted. If I do look awful, he doesn't care. “I can't choose,” I
whisper. “Please don't make me.”

He takes my hand again. This time I let him. “If he matters
that much to you, then with me, you would never have to choose. As long as it's
what you truly want and as long as he never hurts you again, you're free to love
him as much as you'd like.”

I don't understand what he means. No, I do understand—I
understand what he
thinks
he means. But Hephaestus
is Hera's son through and through. Going into the kind of relationship he's
talking about—the kind where I could still love Ares and Hephaestus wouldn't
mind—will be too much for him after a while. Maybe immediately. Maybe a few
years. Maybe a few centuries or eons. But one day, Hephaestus will wake up and
realize he doesn't want to share me. Or he'll give me the option of seeing
others in the hope he'll be enough.

“For me—” I hesitate. “For me, love isn't something you only
give once, and then it's gone. Love is everywhere. Love is everything.”

He raises my hand to his mouth and kisses my knuckles. “I know.
I have no interest in stifling you or loving a version of you that isn't real,
and to ask you to commit to me and only me…” He shakes his head. “It would go
against your very nature, and I'm all right with that. More than all right. It's
part of what I love about you. As long as you're happy, I'll still be there for
you regardless of who else you choose to love.”

I swallow. It seems impossible, but maybe he does understand.
Maybe that's the difference between him and Ares. After all, it was Ares who
left me for what he thought were adventures more exciting than our life
together, while Hephaestus scoured the earth trying to find me. If I left this
island, would Ares do that? Would he search until he found me, no matter how
long it took? Would he exchange his immortal form for pain and hunger and thirst
just to have a chance of being with me?

I don't know. I can't think. Everything spins around me until I
have to squeeze my eyes shut, and even in the darkness, I can see Hephaestus's
face. I can't do this. I can't choose. No matter what Hephaestus says, one day
he'll grow jealous. It's natural. Even if he wouldn't on his own, Hera will
poison him against me, and our days would be numbered. And Ares—with him, I
don't even have the illusion of choice. But at least he loves me. At least he
came back to me.

After years away without a second thought, while Hephaestus
searched endlessly just for a chance to tell me he loves me.

Dammit. I bite my lip, and in my arms, Eros lets out another
soft cry. That's enough to draw me back down to earth. He's my sun, my rock, my
world, not Ares. Not Hephaestus. He's the thing I love most in this world. And
no matter what choice I make, I will always have him.

That doesn't make it any easier, though.

“Please go,” I whisper after an eternity passes. “I need to be
alone.”

My eyes are shut, but I feel the heat of Hephaestus's palm
hovering over my cheek. He doesn't touch me, and I'm grateful for it, but I
still feel a keen wrench of loss when he pulls away. “I'll always be here for
you and Eros, no matter who you choose,” he says. “Never forget that.”

I'm quiet as his uneven footsteps echo through the cavern, and
at last it's silent, save for the crackle of the fire. I sink into the nest of
pillows and hold Eros tight. He seems to understand my turmoil, and he wraps his
pudgy arms around me. I sigh into his hair. What am I supposed to do?

“I see he's gone.”

My eyes open. Ares stands beside the fireplace, warming his
hands. He stills wears his armor. What good he thinks it'll do him here, I have
no idea.

“I'm not surprised you didn't recognize Hephaestus,” he says.
“I didn't until he punched me. He has a slight twist to his roundhouse—a sort of
signature. Took me a moment, but I caught on soon enough. Ridiculous, isn't it?
Bastard must be desperate, barging in while I'm gone, trying to wreck our life
together.”

I snort. “What life together?”

The words are out before I can stop them, and Ares looks as if
I've slapped him.

“What do you mean?” he says in a cautious voice, the one that
means he's seconds from flying into a rage.

“I mean—” My voice breaks, and I clear my throat. “I mean you
haven't been here. In the past two years, you haven't even bothered to check in
on us, to visit Eros to make sure he knows who you are—none of that. You left
me. You left
us
.”

He gapes at me, and the silence between us is so heavy that I
think it's going to suffocate me. At last he clenches his hands, his face
growing redder by the moment. “I have duties. I don't abandon them.”

“Are you saying I've abandoned mine?”

“Of course not.” His jaw is clenched now, too. “I came back to
you.”

“For how long? Another three days? A year? Two? How long before
you leave us again? And how long will you be gone next time? Two years? Ten? A
century?”

He slams his fist into the rock wall so hard that the earth
around us trembles. Eros starts to sob, and I cradle him.

“If that's the way you want to see it, Aphrodite, then be my
guest. But don't you dare act like I'm the villain. I wasn't the one who kissed
my husband's brother.”

“You—” My voice shakes. “You're not my husband.”

“I would have been. I wanted to be. I came back to propose, you
know. To tell you we were going to face Father and make him see that together,
we're undefeatable. Apparently I was wrong.”

He storms out of the grotto, once again leaving Eros and me. I
don't call after him. I'm too stunned for that. Was he really coming back to
marry me? To have a life together, one I'd always dreamed about?

Or did he say that in the heat of the moment to make me feel
even worse than I already do?

I hate myself for second-guessing him. I hate myself for
thinking he's capable of that kind of emotional brutality. But I've seen the
blood on his armor, and the sword isn't his only weapon. Ares always wins his
battles, no matter the cost.

I spend the rest of the night crying silently. Ares doesn't
come back, nor does Hephaestus. I don't expect them to, not really, but part of
me hopes they will. A very large part of me. I can't decide who I want to see
more though, and that's the part that hurts the most.

The next day, Eros and I play on the beach, and this time, when
sunset comes, we don't go back to the grotto. I gather him up in my arms, and
staring into the rosy sky, I push myself upward toward Olympus. Toward home.

I don't know who I'll see or what I'll find, but I do know one
thing for sure: this has to end. And before it can, I have to make the hardest
decision of my life.

* * *

I land in the middle of chaos.

On the floor, Ares and Hephaestus are locked together in battle
while the council all shout over one another, forming a symphony of noise. Hera
is the most vocal, despite her recent shaming and demotion, and she stands
beside her throne, yelling so hard that her entire body glows with power.

Though she looks back at Zeus every few sentences, the majority
of her anger's directed toward Ares and Hephaestus. The sunset floor is cracked,
and Ares throws punches faster than I can follow. Hephaestus, on the other hand,
is only acting defensively, covering his face and eventually wrapping his thick
arms around his brother. At first I don't understand why he'd want to embrace
Ares in the middle of an epic fight, but when Ares flails, unable to hit him, I
get it.

“Stop it!” I cry, and at the sound of my voice, both of them
look at me. Hephaestus turns red, clearly embarrassed to be caught, but Ares
only narrows his eyes.

“Let me go,” growls Ares.

Hephaestus hesitates. “I will let you go if you promise to do
as Aphrodite says.”

Clearly Hephaestus doesn't believe it'll actually happen, but
Ares nods, and reluctantly Hephaestus releases him. For a moment, we all hold
our breath, waiting for Ares to strike again, but instead he stumbles to his
feet and trudges to his throne. Hephaestus takes a moment to recover on the
ground, and he slowly follows. His eyes never leave me.

As they're getting settled, Hera whirls around to face me. Her
entire being burns with fury, and my heart races. I've never been so afraid of
anyone in my entire life. “How dare you set foot in Olympus after what you've
done,” she snarls. I take a step back toward my throne, on the other side of
Daddy. My stomach turns. Maybe I made a mistake, after all. It isn't too late to
return to my island, but the way Hephaestus watches me—I can't go, not now.

“What did I do?” I say, cradling Eros as I perch on my seashell
throne.

“Were you not paying attention just now?” she hisses, and
before she can lay into me even more, Daddy interrupts.

“My sons have destroyed a significant portion of the palace in
order to settle a tiff that you apparently caused.” His voice is as empty as his
expression, and that twists the knife in my stomach. Couldn't he at least
pretend to care?

“Not to mention put them both in danger,” says Hera. I see it
now, the fear in her eyes—I hear it in her voice, as well. It isn't all anger. I
hug Eros tighter.

“They're immortal,” I say. “Any damage wouldn't be
permanent.”

Hera glances at Hephaestus, and I know what she's thinking.
Once upon a time, immortality didn't protect him. Who's to say it wouldn't
happen again? I don't know the whole story—no one but Hera does, and she's never
bothered to talk to me about it. But I know it had to do with a fall to the
earth. And if they've really destroyed part of Olympus…of course she's upset.
Any mother would be.

“I'm sorry,” I say. “I was just trying to help him—”

“It's my fault,” says Hephaestus. “I tricked her into thinking
I was someone else.”

“Did you trick her into falling in love with you, as well?”
growls Ares, and the two glare at each other.

“You should've never returned,” says Hera. “You've never been
anything but trouble, and the pain you've put my sons through—”

“Hera,” says Daddy in that commanding voice of his, the one
none of us can ignore. “Leave us. The rest of you, as well.”

The other members of the council grumble, but one by one, they
leave. As Artemis passes me, she touches my elbow. At first I think it's a sign
of affection—maybe someone's missed me, after all. Instead she leans toward me
until her mouth is next to my ear. “Honestly, Aphrodite. How can you call
yourself the goddess of love if you can't even make up your mind?”

I bristle. As if she knows the first thing about love. “You can
love more than one person, you know,” I snap, echoing the same words Hephaestus
said to me the night before.

She sniffs haughtily, and I'm about to tell her where she can
shove her attitude when Daddy says, “Artemis. Go.”