Page 95 of For the Gods' Sake

Dominic let out a low breath of laughter, then brought his hand to his chin and rubbed across his jaw, looking past me to the mountains outside.

Lukas, on the other hand, bent forward to rest his forearms on his knees. His expression had grown serious. “I’m not going to be much help with that one. I don’t remember when it happened. Shit, I couldn’t even give you an estimate on how many years it’s been. It feels like a fact of life. I breathe. I’m a god. I’m in love with Daphne. It’s all the same in here,” he said, tapping his forehead with his middle finger.

He was right. That was zero fucking help. “Great, so we have anI don’t knowfrom Lukas. Dominic, anything to share?”

Dominic still looked lost in thought. Lukas had to reach over and smack his knee to get his attention. “The day I got married isn’t a helpful answer, I assume?”

“No.” Fucking hell, these two were impossible. “Especially because I know that’s not fucking true. Youalmost took Rose’s head off at your wedding.”

Dominic laughed, like that was one of his more treasured memories. “Then I can’t help with that one. I remember us fighting. But when I look back on it, I feel like I loved her during it.”

I leaned back in my chair, groaning and running my hands over my face. “You guys are no fucking help,” I said, more to the ceiling than anything.

My desire to know everything, to figure out how to solve problems, had me sitting up and trying again. “What does it feel like then?”

Lukas looked at me like I just sprouted a second head. “Pardon?”

“The love thing,” I explained. I wasn’t completely heartless. I loved the two assholes sitting in front of me like brothers. I still mourned Pine like one. I loved my family in a way that still made me feel like a child at times. But there was something different in the love I knew they shared with Rose and Daphne.

“I used to think you were quite eloquent,” Lukas joked. I shot him a hard look.

He laughed in the face of my barely concealed threat, taking a casual sip of his whiskey. I looked over to Dominic, who was back to that pensive stance.

Lukas took a deep breath, pulling my attention back to him. “It is hard to explain, I’ll give your little breakdown credit in that regard. But you’re gonna have to learn how to verbalize if you have any hope of keeping Reyna happy. Zeus knows my inability to do that fucked up a lot with Daphne.”

I’dbeen the one to tell him that. Fuck, everything just seemed so much clearer when I was solving everyone else’s problems. With my own, it felt like my head wasstuck in the sand.

“With Daph,” Lukas continued, before breaking off with a shake of his head. “She’s my favorite person. Let alone the fact that she is the single most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life, I can’t imagine a moment where I wouldn’t want her with me. Even when she bickers with me like she’s doing it just to rile me up…I’m in love with her.” Lukas shrugged. “It always comes back to that.”

It felt childish, but I had an urge to disagree with him.

Daphne was objectively pretty.

But it felt like treason to accept that anyone other than Reyna was the most beautiful person I’d seen. But his other points…those made sense. A lot of sense.

“Dom?” I all but croaked out, the panic still churning. “Care to share?”

He was historically a man of few words. I was half expecting him to just grunt and mumbleI love herand for that to be the end of it.

Dominic looked away from the window then said, “To answer your first question, I think I first knew it when I realized I was hurting her. I don’t think I’ve hated myself as much as I did in that moment. It was this insistent need to make sure I never hurt her again—that no one ever did for that matter. And yes, it’s because she cares so deeply and I can’t stand the thought of anything damaging that. But also because I’m a selfish bastard to my core and I absolutely refuse to live life without her. I couldn’t even tell you how I was doing it before her.”

I raised an eyebrow. Dominic had lived almost thirty years doing just fine without Rose. Or maybe I’d justgotten used tojust fineequating to happiness.

“Actually,” Dominic continued, twisting his wedding ring over his finger. “I’m pretty sure it was because I spent half my time antagonizing her. She was always there, I just finally got my shit together and realized that it was far more productive to marry her than spend the rest of my life locked in awho can insult the other betterwar.” He leaned back in his chair, resting his ankle on his knee. Then his hard expression seemed to soften. “And there’s the fact that I devote a good bit of mental energy devising ways to get her naked. But Lukas doesn’t need to hear that. It offends his delicate sensibilities.”

Lukas shivered, cringing away from Dominic. “I’m still not over that.”

“Do I even want to know?” I asked, right as Lukas shook his head to shake out some memory.

“No,” Lukas barked, at the same time Dominic said, “Lukas was being nosy and had to learn the hard way what happens between husband and wife after a date.”

I let out an incredulous laugh. “You walked in on them?”

“Fuck no,” Lukas said, running his hand through his shoulder length hair. “I’m pretty sure Dom would kill me if that happened. Loretta did, then absolutely assaulted me with her panic after the fact.”

Dominic didn’t even look remotely phased by the idea that one a Lukas's generals, a literal dolphin, had stumbled upon him and his wife. In fact, he looked proud. “Fucking hell, how am I just now hearing about this?” I asked through a laugh.

“Oh no,” Lukas said, cutting off Dominic’s move to answer. “You’re not getting out of this unscathed.We both answered. Answer the question—please share your feelings about your wife with the group.”

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