Page 43 of Prometheus' Priestess

Aphrodite simply leaned back, raising her hands to the heavens as if she was presenting herself as the gift. Athena put two and two together.

“You managed to circuit break your little parlourtrick.”

“Thankfully, or we would be in a mess now would wenot?”

Athena took a sip of wine, humming in agreement. While she could be a sore loser, in this instance she was grateful. There was hope yet. “I thank the Fates that they allowed you to play a part I ... had not given enough consideration.”

Aphrodite tilted her head slightly, taking the acknowledgement gracefully. After a moment’s pause, Athena came to ask the question she was actually here for.

“Are you certain it willwork?”

Aphrodite smiled coyly.

“You are not to worry that heavy head of yours with more burdens,” she nodded, pointing at Athena’s helmet made of gold that curved at a point on her forehead and gave the resemblance of a beak, a homage to Zeus’ eagle. “You are not the only one the Moirai consults with. It is all taken care of. Welcome back, sister, to the winning team.”

CHAPTER XXI

Seeing her standing in the doorway, safe and somewhat annoyed, if the little furrow between her eyebrows was anything to go by, Prometheus felt the punch to his solar plexus knock the wind right out of him. He hadmissedher.

He had always known Aphrodite was cruel, but he had no idea she could be so ruthless when it came to getting what she wanted. And what the goddesses wanted, as Prometheus had well and truly learnt these past few months, was to get their way ... no matter the cost to those involved. No matter who ithurt.

“What are you doing here?” Amara demanded, setting the mop against the wall and stalking out from behind thecounter.

“You’re dripping wet,” she muttered.

He suddenly noticed he had dripped water droplets all over the freshly mopped floor. The heavens had opened just before he arrived, a bout of summer showers soakinghim.

Amara pulled out a chair and insisted he sit, before taking a seat opposite him. She can’t help it, he thought, hostessing was in her nature. The table, the one closest to the door and smack bang in the middle of the café floor, seemed to be her version of a firm barrier between them. Prometheus realised she wasn’t just annoyed; she was angry.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around since we last saw each other,” he began.

“It’s fine.It’s not like I needed babysitting,” Amara bit back immediately, followed by a roll of her eyes and a muttered string of French under her breath, where she implied he liked to rescue damsels in distress or those with daddy issues, for which he was a bastard.

She didn’t know he spoke the language fluently.

Rain continued to lightly trickle against the windows in a tapping pattern that was both soothing and irritating in equal measure. Demeter was sobbing. Her daughter was due to leave for the underworld soon, and she had begun her grieving period on the Earth early it would seem. Autumn was still a while away yet. But that was no matter to Prometheus at present. He was far more concerned with the anger of the woman sitting opposite him.

Amara wouldn’t look him in the eyes, her body turned towards the door in such a way that suggested he leave immediately. It also only gave him a side profile of her face. But she’d told him to sit down, and he saw the tear brimming at the edge before she managed to blink it back.

So she wasn’t angry. She was hurt. She needed reassurance.

He couldn’t blame her. Knowing her history, her longing to belong, the abandonment wound she held, he wished he had some explanation that wasn’t the ludicrousness of the fact that he had handled the situation wrong. That he hadn’t known what to do because he hadn’t told anyone he had fallen in love with them in … centuries. Not since his wife, Hesione, and, well, that hadn’t worked out. Clearly.

“There is something rather distasteful, I find, about the men who prey on the women craving their father’s love. Says rather a lot about his character, I’m afraid,”Prometheussaid.

He got a look of pure loathing for his efforts at a joke. Humour really was not hisforte.

“Amara,” he tried again, gently but firmly.

“So you can speak French? What else don’t I know about you?” The words were clipped, the tone sharp. The words of a defensive woman, a woman who had been vulnerable and then not been given safety in exchange. The eyes, ah the eyes, gave her away. They were agonisingly scared of the answer he might give.

He tried something he would never have imagined himself daringto.

Reaching across the table, he took her hand in his and then gently began to stroke the inside of her wrist with his calloused thumb. Her dainty hand felt tiny cupped in his big, bronzed one, her flesh soft. He imagined she must keep hand cream by her bedside, rub it in every night. The images that followed sent an inappropriate jolt through him and back into the present moment.

She sucked in a breath, but she didn’t break the contact as he’d expected her to.

“I had no intention of abandoning you.” He put it bluntly. It was the only way he knew how.

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