| |
Thalia
She watched Pirithous pace along the tree line as the men unloaded the bench that would become his altar. He had made her promise to stay within the shadow of the house, and because she couldn’t really do anything to help anyway, she didn’t argue.
“You sure this is where you want it?” the deliveryman asked as they set the heavy bench down on the far side of the yard, near nothing but trees.
“That will do just fine,” Thalia called from the shade. “Go ahead and pile the other stone around it. We’ll take care of the rest.”
The deliveryman grunted, giving her a once over that managed to convey both his doubt in her abilities and his admiration of her figure. “Whatever you say.”
It was a good thing Pirithous was searching the trees. She didn’t think it was jealousy, really, so much as the level of respect she should be treated with, in his opinion. Somehow, if he ogled her, it was a compliment, because he was a king, or the son of Zeus, or however he justified it, but a “common” man looking at her that way seemed to offend him.
They unloaded the pallets of rock and Thalia signed the paperwork confirming delivery. The truck had managed to rip up a few feet of grass, but hopefully it would grow back in before the wedding. If not, well. Maybe Alex would be too busy to notice.
“How are you going to get all this to the clearing in the woods and guard your back against centaurs at the same time?” she asked.
Pirithous shook his head, walking back to her. “It will have to wait until I have two good arms.”
“Are you going to let me help?”
He pressed his lips together. “It is not safe for you in the trees.”
“It isn’t safe for you either, but that isn’t stopping you from this temple-building business. Let me watch your back while you do the heavy lifting.”
“And if we are ambushed, what then?”
“Then at least I know what happened to you, and I’m not driving myself to distraction with worry, uselessly pacing back and forth inside the house. Or I could call Tom—”
“Have you no other friends that every time you would ask for help, you must call on men?”
She grinned. Maybe it was a little bit of jealousy, after all. “Unfortunately, all my other friends are also Nikki’s friends, and if I call them she’ll hear about it. The last thing we need is Nikki and Alex making a road trip to check in while we’ve got a ton of rock hanging out in the backyard.”
He nodded to the stairs, and she started up them. “I do not fear your brother, Thalia. If he comes, I will not hide from him.”
“That’s all well and good, but I’d really rather just enjoy the time we have together in relative peace, if you don’t mind.” And Alex’s methods of dissuasion—irritating under the best of circumstances—would be a nightmare for Pirithous, whether he wanted to believe it or not.
“You consider being hunted by centaurs peaceful?”
“At least they keep to the woods.” She opened the door and Pirithous held it. “Alex won’t.”
He chuckled, his good arm slipping around her waist once they were inside. “You fear your brother will keep me from your bed?” He kissed her behind the ear, then down her neck. “I swear to you, no man could stop me.”
“If Alex calls the police, we’ll have bigger concerns than your absence from my bedroom.” She closed her eyes, the touch of his lips causing her whole body to buzz. The things he could do with his mouth. “You don’t have any identification,” she managed to say. “They could take you into custody. Turn you over to ICE. You’d be sent to some detention center and deported.”
“For what offense?” He was still kissing her, his teeth grazing the skin at the curve of her neck.
“For being here—” He bit harder, his hand finding its way to the bare skin of her stomach, then below the waistband of her shorts, teasing and tickling until she squirmed, “—illegally.”
“I was sent by the gods,” he murmured, drawing her back against his body even as his hand dipped lower. She bit her lip to keep from moaning as his fingers slipped between her legs. “I am meant to be here, Thalia.”
“Mm.” She sighed, pressing his fingers deeper, where she needed him. “Here?”
He chuckled low in her ear, the sound shivering through her body. “At your pleasure.”
“Yes, please,” she breathed.
***
OF COURSE IT WASN’T until much later that she realized Pirithous hadn’t agreed to anything. Well, two could play that game, and he hadn’t said no, either.
She watched him burn what was left of the ribs in the fire, chewing on her fingernail. Her body might have been sated, but her mind wasn’t. If he didn’t come with her, there had to be some way to make him safe, or at least keep him out of trouble. Not that she’d given up entirely on persuading him. At the very least she wasn’t going to leave without making him swear not to give himself up to die at the first opportunity that presented itself. She had to convince him he could be part of the world, though how she could do that while keeping him under the radar was going to be a challenge.
“You stare into the flames as though you hope the gods will send a sign,” Pirithous said.
She tore her gaze from the fire to look at him. “Have they?”
“Persephone accepts my offerings, as do the others, but they give me no further assurance beyond that.” He wrapped a strip of stained material around his left hand, covering his palm. “Soon enough I will offer them the blood and bones of the centaurs. A much more kingly gift, and worth two bulls at least.”
“Why bulls?” She had learned by now not to ask to see his hand. He wouldn’t let her do anything for it, and so far the cuts he made had healed cleanly on their own. Getting him to sterilize his knife was a major concession as it was.
“I promised Persephone a full hecatomb before I realized I was no longer king.”
“How many is that?”
His jaw tightened. “One hundred.”
“A hundred bulls?”
“Bulls and cows, yes.”
She stared at him, struggling to imagine that much livestock given up in sacrifice in a time when people could barely afford to keep a horse. “You had a hundred cows hanging around to slaughter?”
He smiled, tracing the gold band on her arm. “Is it so hard for you to believe I was a rich king? Theseus and I had hordes of treasure hidden away on islands all across the sea, and in Thessaly you are not a man until you have stolen a few head of cattle from beneath the nose of your neighbor. I took my manhood very seriously.”
“I’m sure.” He pulled her hand away from her mouth and brought it to his lips, kissing her palm. She snatched her hand back before he could distract her again, though her stomach was already twisting pleasantly. “Just how much treasure did you hide, anyway?”
“Shiploads. Raids were too common to keep all our gold in one place, even inside the palace, though Theseus had less concern there, having built upon the Rock.” His eyes narrowed at something she couldn’t see. “May Menestheus rot in the pits of Tartarus for his betrayal. At least he would not have known where to find the gold.”
“But you did.”
“Of course. We kept no secrets from one another.”
She sighed. It was depressing to think about all those cultural artifacts, hidden wherever they were hidden, when she couldn’t get him to Greece to find them even if she wanted to. All those museum pieces sitting in some cave waiting to be found—Pirithous could make himself rich again, and Greece would welcome him as a hero, probably grant him citizenship too, if he unearthed boatloads of cultural treasures from the ancient world.
“I did not think you cared overmuch for gold and trinkets, Thalia,” Pirithous said, laughter in his eyes. “Especially with all the riches you have already.”
“It isn’t that,” she said, waving it away. “It’s just that there are so many things that you know and could explain. So many things you could tell us about our history. Those hoards of yours would make for an incredible museum display. Do you know what we have left of the Minoans outside of the palace on Crete? Virtually nothing! We can’t even figure out if the bull-dance was real, or just some kind of... Well, we have no idea what it was for, or where it took place.”
“It was for the gods,” he said. “Everything was for the gods. But what does it matter when your people worship another?”
“Because it’s part of our history. There are a lot of people who care about that kind of thing. If you could only see what we have—” She stopped herself. “How much longer do you think, before your shoulder is healed enough to start work on the temple?”
“A few more days.” He searched her face. “Why?”
“I could take you to New York City. The Met. You could tell me if the statues of Hercu–Heracles, I mean, look anything like him.”
He laughed. “Statues of Heracles?”
“And vases and bowls painted with Theseus and the Minotaur. And swords and armor and glass beads from Mycenae.”
“Is it a long journey?”
“We could do it in a day, if we had to, or spend the night and come back the following day. I have a friend, Steven. He’s a med student. He could look at your shoulder while we’re there, and make sure everything is healing properly.”
Pirithous grimaced. “Another man.”
She rolled her eyes. “It isn’t like I’m keeping them in the closet to make out with while your back is turned.”
He made a noise of impatience, deep in his throat. “Only half of your words make sense.”
“Kissing. Mostly, I just liked to kiss.” She grabbed up the box of matches and made for the house. “Not that it’s any of your business what I did with anyone else before you showed up.”
He wouldn’t go with her to Virginia, but he had no problem playing the jealous boyfriend. Fine. He could play by himself all he wanted. The last thing she needed was another over-protective jerk in her life telling her who she could spend time with. Not if he wasn’t going to get serious.
Ugh. Since when did she want to get serious? Maybe it was for the best that he wasn’t coming with her after all.