Page 26 of Prometheus' Priestess

He knew what humans would do if they found out she was essentially teaching them witchcraft again. Now humans didn’t burn what they didn’t know; they ridiculed it. It was an insidious, black, crawling thing that covered them like slick hair gel, the fear. It spread until it silenced anyone they didn’t understand with mocking laughter and dismissive tones. The mouths of laughter opened like caverns and unless you knew how to fight it, the fear that bubbled in those caverns would swallow you whole until there was a black vortex, an empty space, a void where your soul had been that denoted complete and utter annihilation. If they were to discover the priestess’ true nature, they wouldn’t burn her. They’d destroy her. Turn her into a shell of a woman, with no heart, no connection to her soul, no sense of purpose other than to serve the fear that drove them all. And because she was technically immortal, she would live out that reality for eternity, whatever form her bodytook.

Prometheus didn’t understand why Athena and the others would place that burden on only one pair of shoulders. What did the Fates think was going to happen? That one priestess could change it all? What act of humanity could be saved by one woman?

“Excuseme?”

He turned his face and torso towards the voice, his arms still crossed against his chest, when he was hit by the sheer beauty of her. Cat-like green eyes watchedhim. They turned sharply inwards to a thin nose, with lush rosebud lips that rested underneath it. Her cheekbones were as sharp as her nose but softened by a speckling of freckles. Her hair was tied up into a messy bun, the few curls that had managed to escape were bouncing around her like drunken bumblebees. She was wearing a baggy green parka that swamped her, and black jeans that tailored her legs into brown boots with a small kitten heel.

She looked vaguely familiar, but then he’d known many humans. Sometimes he liked to play a game with himself to try and pinpoint the lineage between the human in front of him and the originals he’d created. A fun game if nothing else to puzzle himself over. He liked puzzles. But he couldn’t quite placeher.

“Yes?” he answered.

She pulled an embarrassed face, a light blush dusting her cheekbones.

“Would you mind pretending that we know each other?”

Prometheus’ hacklesrose.

“There’s a man over there … um … and I think I may know him and I would really like to not be alone with him ... if it ishim.”

She was rambling now, unable to meet Prometheus’ eyes. He reached out slowly and clasped a hand around her shoulder. She was so small that his hand covered the entirety of her rotator cuff. She flinched at the contact.

“It’s ok,” he said, his tone deep and slow and calming, for she looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. “But you need to pretend like you knowme.”

She gave a stiff nod and inched closer, though her body language continued to screamstay the fuck away from me.Prometheus’ brow darkened at why she would have felt the need to approach a stranger she clearly wasn’t comfortable with. Noted, too, the steel of herspine.

“Do you see this?” Prometheus took his hand from her shoulder and pointed to a collection of stars that looked like twoboulders.

“Yes.” Her eyes lit up, her breath hitched in her chest, but she was breathing slowly and she was listening to him.

“That’s the Titan who holds up the Earth, Atlas.”

Amara traced his fingers with her eyes, her eyelashes brushing lightly over her cheeks when she blinked.

“And there, where the ‘Y’ seems to shoot up into a star, that’s Aquila, Zeus’ eagle. He placed the image of his eagle in the sky to commemorate all his bird had done for him.”

“You speak as if you knowhim.”

“I suppose I do.” Prometheus chuckled heavily, scratching at his three-day-old stubble. He glanced at Amara who was giving him a funny look.

“How do you know so much about the Greekgods?”

Prometheus shrugged. “Spent a lot of time studying them.”

She continued to eye himwarily.

“Why are you being so nice tome?”

Her cheeks flushed again, as if she was aware of how uncourteous it was to demand a stranger’s time, their protection by association, and then furtheranswers.

“Because you asked me to be,” he saidquietly.

She started to open her mouth, then shut it again.

“I’m …” he went to tell her his name but realised she wouldn’t believe him if he told her, so he settled for a varnished version of the truth.

“Theo, by the way. So you don’t feel like you’re talking to a stranger.” At her wide-eyed look, he knew instinctively what she was panicking about. “You’re under no obligation to give meyours.”

She took a noticeable sigh and nodded back; her hands remained firmly tucked into the pockets of her parka. Prometheus most certainly wasn’t getting a handshake. Perhaps, if he had, he’d have realised that warmth radiating through him wasn’t his usual protective love for his creations coming to the fore, but something much more tinged with Aphrodite’s mark.

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