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Assistant: Title: who could call you wrong?
        Author: Notthevibe Notthevibe 
        Chapter: 3/14 
        Summary: There is sort of an airbrushed quality to her; a sort of divine beauty uncommon among gods and unheard of in demigods. And she is only just a girl, but there had been younger brides in ancient days, and all he can think is that she is his, already.His fingers twitch towards her, to take, to stake some half-baked claim. They are fate-bound, and he cannot bear the idea of leaving her to the world and the way it treats pretty girls. He understands them; Zeus and Hades and Dionysus. And he imagines something along the same lines, stowing the demigoddess away in his palace, where only he could have her.
        Contents: Chapter 3: buried and a burning flame
    

    

        
          
          
            It nearly knocks the breath out of him, the sight of her. She’d always been pretty, had always been composed of a promise of greater beauty still, and yet he thought she’d grown lethally exquisite as of late. She looks unearthly in the glowing moonlight, all long blinks that showed off longer lashes, pouty pink lips, and sharp angles that contrasted with the softness of her cheeks.
          
        

      
        
          
          (See the end of the chapter for  notes.)
          
      
  

  
  
    
    
  “I
   know your secret,” Apollo announces. 

  Hermes tenses, his back straightening and nearly seizing with the force of it. 
  
    Andy, 
  
  he thinks, frazzled. 
  
    No–he can’t. 
  
  If Apollo knew, then the rest would soon find out, and interest would be raised at the same time that Poseidon would try and kill him. Prime time for someone to get 
  
    too 
  
  curious or to seek some revenge. His hands twitch, mind spinning with ways to keep Apollo quiet, ways to protect Andy; a half-botched plan of simply absconding with the girl spinning to the forefront of it all. 
  
    She wouldn’t like that, 
  
  whispers the part of him who knew her, who liked the way she smiled and laughs, the part of him that wanted her to be young and happy and carefree, the part of him who knew she 
  
    deserved
  
   that. 
  
    It doesn’t matter, 
  
  answers a darker, deeper, more possessive side of him, who cares little for happiness; only the claim he had on the girl. 

  “You expanded your cabin.”

  He manages to calm himself enough to deliver a dry, “Really, I should’ve done that a while ago. I won’t have 
  
    my
  
   kids sleeping in the rafters because 
  
    you’re 
  
  too lazy to claim yours.”

  Apollo’s nose scrunches, ill@strious and golden and beautiful as ever. “I’m not 
  
    too lazy, 
  
  I’m just waiting for them to prove themselves. I won’t honor mediocrity.”

  “You sired them,” he says, perhaps a bit too snippily. Andy and Luke flash to the forefront of his mind. His son–a traitor because of his brethren’s lack of common decency towards their own children. His ‘
  
    dromeda
  
  –bitter and angry already, all because of a difficult life Poseidon should have been able to prevent. “You ought to 
  
    at least 
  
  claim them.”

  “Your traitor really got to you, huh?” Apollo says, with the cruel accuracy of the god of truths, laughing that same snooty, sun-filled laugh that had made him the perfect companion for eons, that only makes Hermes want to punch him now, watch golden blood drip from his perfect nose and make an indent in his perfect face. “I guess even our pride-and-joys can turn out all 
  
    wrong
  
  . No wonder you’d so easily celebrate the average.”

  Hermes grits his teeth, “He has a name.”

  “Yes,” Apollo says. “
  
    Luke Castellan. 
  
  Pretty boy–shame he turned out the way he did.” There’s something snakelike in the way he smirks, the way he squeezes up against all of Hermes’ most painful wounds with ease. 

  “He is my son,” Hermes says. 

  “Like you have not f@ck@d my children.”

  The thought of Apollo’s progeny would usually appeal to him. They were often beautiful, perfect like their father. Hermes had found hazy pleasure with many a golden daughter or shining son. But nowadays he often finds himself shamefully searching out raven curls or green eyes, always daughters, always young, always with soft, pliant forms. “I just do not want to hear of him. Not now.”

  Apollo softens and sighs. “Poseidon applauds the expansion idea.”

  “Of course he does,” Hermes says, hoping his irritation did not bleed through and that if it did, Apollo would blame it on leftover bitterness from Luke instead of annoyance from the way that his brother always managed to bring up topics–
  
    people
  
  –that Hermes was desperate to avoid discussion of. “He adores his children.”

  “The Jackson twins,” Apollo says, dreamily, with a breathy sigh. “Kaos, I grow impatient of simply hoping to run across them.”

  “I must admit my intrigue as well,” Hermes says, even though he does not care to meet Percy Jackson and has seen Andy Jackson at least once a week ever since that scorpion bite. It’s half-true, enough for the god of lies to be able to twist into something that the god of truth would accept. He will always be interested in Andy. 

  She will be his wife, after all. 

  “You’re late,” Andy tells him, when he finally makes an appearance. She turns from where she’d been facing the window, and the subtle glow of the night sky bathes her in a gentle luminescence. He enjoys the idea of it; his moonlit maiden, eternally eager, awaiting his return. 

  “You have a brother,” He says. “I’m sure you know how demanding they can get.”

  Andy grimaces. “Ares?”

  She isn’t a fan of his war-mongering brother, doesn’t know that he isn’t a fan either—he speaks little of his siblings, unwilling to summon them by name alone. Unwilling to endanger his sweet soulmate in such an errant manner, “You 
  
    really 
  
  shouldn’t say names, ‘dromeda. They have power.”

  “How does that work, exactly?” 

  “It tugs on our consciousness. It doesn’t matter so much when a mortal says it, or even a lesser half-blood. But with you…”

  “I am no lesser half-blood,” she declares. She doesn’t look quite happy about it. Hermes wonders if Poseidon had any clue what little fondness his youngest–and only, for all intents and purposes–daughter held for him. The sea god had made no moves to impress his fondness for his children upon his daughter. 

  “You’ve proved that well enough.” Ares had once been right to call her only leverage on Percy Jackson; she was not naturally inclined for battle like her brother was. Every hint of progress she’d made with a sword had to be coaxed out of her, and though she could wield divine power with an ease that startled even him, Andy had possessed no clue about what she was capable of on that quest. But that was no longer true. She’d done a lot of growing in the past months; something obvious, even on a surface level. While her body had retained some of it’s softness, there was now a layer of rigid muscle that curled just under the surface of her skin. She was more alert, wary, with reflexes as sharp as a cat’s. She was quicker on her feet, her movements light and graceful. And there was something more, a subtle aura that lingered, bubbling up underneath her skin, with a potency that only the divine had. She was growing powerful enough to back up that temper he remembered fearing so vividly, and even that had begun to shift and temper with age and experience. Andy Jackson was…a little too young, a little too gentle, a little too naive for him still. But she was growing, and growing fast. 

  “And I’ll keep proving it,” she says, with a determined grimace that he thinks mars the serene beauty she often displayed. “Are they asleep?”

  He reaches out strands of his consciousness–not too much, nothing that would alarm them if they were awake and nothing that would seep into their unconscious thoughts. He wouldn’t be so careful with many others, but Percy Jackson was a son of Poseidon, and Sally Jackson was…perceptive, to say the least. He senses their heartbeats, their breaths. Slow, steady, and restful. “They’re asleep,” he says. “Are you sure 
  
    you 
  
  shouldn’t be?” 

  Hermes finds himself watching her with a frequency he would’ve described as alarming a year prior. He justifies it to himself, of course, calls it 
  
    protection, 
  
  or rationalizes it as 
  
    keeping her company
  
  . He had noted dark circles under her eyes and a drooping head in the mornings after he visited her, an ailment that often made his heart pang with sympathy and regret. 

  “I’ll survive,” Andy says. “I mean–it’s kinda between a few hours of sleep and the ability to protect myself.”

  The idea of her having to protect herself grates on him. In a perfect world, no one would ever lay a finger upon her. In another, he’d be allowed, encouraged, and able to eviscerate anyone or anything that dared try. But he’d thought himself able to protect May and Luke, and neither of them were pretty daughters of the sea god or heroes of a doomed prophecy. “...yes,” he says. “Come on, then. I’ve got a deal to fulfill.”

  He extends his hand, and notes that whatever hesitancy she’d once had was now long gone. He can’t help but take a strange sort of exhilaration from it. 
 
  —
 
  Of course there was guilt involved in his visits to May Castellan. But until nine months ago, it had been all 
  
    I’m sorry your life is ruined, sorry I cannot protect him, sorry I did not protect you. 
  
  That’s still there now, but it’s taken on a deeper flavor, because Luke’s well and truly gone and he’d wanted to 
  
    marry 
  
  May Castellan, but he visits a thirteen-year-old girl every week and forgets more and more about the both of them with every moment he spends in his soulmate’s captivating presence. 

  He would wed Andromeda Jackson, and Luke and May Castellan would fade into dusty, painful memories that he’d ignore in favor of his beautiful wife and the green-eyed children he’d undoubtedly sire. There was little he could do to prevent it, and even less that he’d even dare to attempt. Hermes could not bring himself to stray far from her side. 

  May isn’t entirely 
  
    gone 
  
  when he arrives–something he’d have rejoiced over a year ago, and something he dreads now. Even a half-lucid May, swimming in bouts of occasional insanity, would be more perceptive than most. Hermes is half-sure she’d be able to tell, that she’d just be able to 
  
    sense 
  
  Andy Jackson, that the girl’s aura would roll off him in waves that betrayed all of his dreams and desires.

  (
  
    A thousand years from now, you will scarcely recall my name
  
  , May had told him once, a lifetime ago. Hermes had never wanted to admit she was right)

  “Hermes,” she greets, making no effort to move. He doesn’t blame her. Action often makes her lucidity pass more quickly, and he has no intentions of forcing delirium upon her. “It has begun.”

  He doesn’t bother pretending he doesn’t know exactly what she’s speaking of as he takes a seat on the opposite side of the couch. May’s feet knock gently against his thighs, but neither of them make any effort to move. “I tried,” he says, letting the heavy words wash over the two of them. Hermes had once delighted in the way his son’s fingers wrapped around his hand and now he dreaded the skill Luke had with his hands wrapped about a sword. 

  May sounds bitter, exhausted. “There was no preventing it. I know that. You know I know that.”

  He thinks of Andy Jackson, of the way he circled her now; a predatory bird, ready to swoop down and take its prize. Fate chained her to him, but it was he that chased and pursued and refused to stop orbiting her. He thinks of the improvements he’d made to his cabin, the children he’d claimed and all of their grateful prayers. He thinks of every deliberate choice he’d made and every half-hearted justification he’d given. 

  “Inevitable because I made it so,” He tells her, laying a gentle hand on her ankle. He turns to her, taking her in like he hadn’t before, not in years. Age and insanity had not been kind to her, turning once cornsilk blond hair into a wispy gray mess, forming deep creases around laugh and frown lines, and turning once clear blue eyes foggy. She is still beautiful to him, but there had never been a contrast so steep between them; her, weathered by decades of murky visions, and he, the eternally youthful golden god. It unsettles him to think of what they had once been, of how far they were from it now (twenty years should’ve been nothing to an Olympian such as himself, and yet it feels like a lifetime previous). “I’m so sorry, May.”

  She smiles at him, gentle as ever. He can’t help but think of Andy, of his apology to her. The girl had been gentle while ripping him apart, a steel bat wrapped in a bow. May would never be so harsh. He’s proven right when she says only, “It is more my fault than yours. I was so convinced it was my 
  
    fate
  
  .”

  Some cold realization seeps down his spine, old words echoing through his core; 
  
    y
  
  
    ou will see soon enough, godling, 
  
  Atropos had said. The moment he had laid eyes upon Andy Jackson he had thought her the answer, and perhaps she was a part of it. 

  Anger coils, low and red-hot, in his stomach, winding him up until he has no choice but to stand.  “That’s because it was,” he says, with dreadful certainty and godly rage. It reverberates within him, looking for an outlet and only growing stronger with every passing second. If he is not careful, he will burst out of his human form and into his pure divine one. “I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  He is within sight of the fates within moments. The sisters are neither alarmed or frightened, and he feels himself grow only more wrathful at the sight of it. “Hermes,” Clotho says in greeting, collected as ever. 

  “
  
    You did it purposefully
  
  ,” He snarls out. 

  “To care for the child properly, you’d have to love its mother,” Lacheseis interrupts them both with a shrug. “This war will teach many lessons. It will be better for all, godling, if you remember them.”

  “You made me love her. You drew her towards her own doom, put the idea in her head that she was 
  
    special, 
  
  that fate itself called to her, that she’d be safe. 
  
    You could’ve used another
  
  –”

  “It had to be someone you truly loved, godling,” Lacheseis says. “This has to hurt.”

  When May had gone mad, Hermes had nearly gone off the ledge with her. He had grieved for years as if she was dead, shed tears like a 
  
    mortal, 
  
  watched painstakingly as their son marched towards his fate. All to find out that they’d drawn her to insanity purposefully, solely so that the inevitable war would 
  
    hurt
  
  . “
  
    B@llsh@t,
  
  ” he growls. “What did I do to offend you so grievously that you’d drive my only love to insanity and doom our child?”

  “You were fairly compensated,” Clotho says, with glittering eyes. “You would find it difficult to make it up to your soulmate if you’d married your traitor’s mother.”

  The truth of the statement burns, but not as much as the mention of 
  
    Andy, 
  
  as the idea of her being his 
  
    compensation, 
  
  just another p@wn on the fates’ chessboard. “
  
    Do not speak of her
  
  .”

  “We bound her to you,” Atropos says. “It seems your little wife pleases you. I will hear of nothing but thanks.”

  “You drove May Castellan to insanity, you turned Luke from me, just to 
  
    get my attention
  
  –the war could’ve happened as it was supposed to with another.”

  “And yet, it didn’t. You will learn from pain, Hermes,” Clotho says. “This path cannot be taken back. This war will be fought. If you do not learn, it will happen again and again. Perhaps your wife will turn the tides.”

  
    Your wife, 
  
  Clotho says, and Hermes thinks of is poor May Castellan and how much he’d wanted to have her forever. He’d give up a great deal of things to have her back, to keep her by his side. He just isn’t sure–in a terribly guilt inducing way–if he’d give up his soulmate.

  He finds himself in Andy’s room, only feeling half-lucid, tugged by that same connection between them. Hermes usually has a plan in place before visiting her–usually makes sure Sally and Percy Jackson are asleep, or at least away. He has not even a hint of such a plan tonight, just is 
  
    hurt
  
   and just knows she’ll dull it. It’s late, luckily, and everyone in their apartment is asleep.

  Wrath finds no home in the sleeping presence of Andy Jackson; every violent feeling slows and dulls the moment his eyes rake over her sleeping form. She faces away from him, curled up and encapsulated by a mass of blankets. A fan of raven ringlets fans out in a pillow behind her, and through gaps in her hair he notes a sliver of bare shoulder. Suddenly, he can’t bear the idea of waking her, of taking her from her peaceful slumber. It would be enough for him, enough for eons, enough until she gave him more, to simply keep vigil over her limp form–admiring as always. 

  Andy has other ideas, stirring within moments and slowly rolling to face him. It nearly knocks the breath out of him, the sight of her. She’d always been pretty, had always been composed of a promise of greater beauty still, and yet he thought she’d grown lethally exquisite as of late. She looks unearthly in the glowing moonlight, all long blinks that showed off longer lashes, pouty pink lips, and sharp angles that contrasted with the softness of her cheeks. 

  (He lets himself–if only for a moment lose himself in fantasies of a future where she woke, bleary in his bed, soft form curled around his own, those loose curls tickling his nose)

  Her lack of panic–bleary blinking and his whispered name seems the extent of her actions–is a testament to their bond. She lazily props herself up on her elbow, exhaustion seeping throughout every movement. Despite that, she sees through all of his pretenses within moments. “What’s wrong?” She asks, sweet and soft; tamed by brutal exhaustion. 

  “I loved his mother, y'know,” he manages to say, forgetting every learned instinct that should’ve kept him from upsetting her with mentions of another woman. “That’s why it had to be him.”

  She moves slowly yet fluidly as she rights herself. “Luke?” She questions, and her hands close around the edge of her bed. “His mother?”

  “Yes,” he confirms. Andy’s eyes flash with something–maybe it’s sympathy. Maybe it’s something else, something deeper. They draw him in, dark pools shining in the dim moonlight. Hermes could swim in them, could drown himself within her. He wants to; exist only within the depths of her; suffocate within her. “She went mad. I think it was purposeful. This war is supposed to 
  
    teach me
  
  .”

  If there had been anything darker before, it was gone now, replaced by sympathy. “I don’t have kids,” Andy says, and he’s suddenly drawn to the idea of it, dark-haired boys with his blue eyes, green-eyed daughters with his brunette ringlets. His eyes move to her flat stomach, as if envisioning it round with his child. (
  
    Young, 
  
  he remembers with a start, 
  
    so, so young) 
  
  “And I’ve never been 
  
    in love
  
  . So I don’t really understand what you’re feeling. But I’m sorry, Hermes, truly I am.”

  He doesn’t say anything; responses measured in the way he surveys the girl he will marry. She had been nothing but fight and fury when he’d first met her, but whatever trust lingered between the two of them had illuminated a sweetness reserved only for those closest to her. He desperately wants to preserve it, and he’ll end up corrupting it. 

  “You could sit,” she murmurs, so softly he almost cannot hear her. “I know company helps.” 

  He had always come to her–for the past nine months–under the pretense of wanting something, of having a message to deliver, a promise to fulfill, a curiosity to sate. It is no longer the case, startlingly obvious as he sits next to her on her own bed. It hadn’t been the case since he’d just 
  
    come 
  
  to her for no reason other than his own distress. 

  Her calf presses gently against his own, the only contact between the two of them. Neither of them make any effort to move. “I said I made Ares leave out of pettiness, when I first met you,” he says, breaking his silence. To her credit, the subject change doesn’t startle Andy. She simply hums, gently, in acknowledgement. “I was lying.” 

  He could tell her; of the bonds tying them together. Of the way he’d nearly locked her away, just for him. Of how his hands shook, restraining themselves even now. He wants to; tired of keeping it a secret, tired of moving secretly about her, tired of pretending their friendship is fueled by curiosity and pettiness. 

  “Then why did you make him leave?”

  If she told anyone, if word got out it would intensify the target painted so cleanly on her back. If Poseidon found out…he loved his daughter in that possessive, bright-hot way gods loved. Either Hermes would take her and Poseidon would declare war or Poseidon would take her and Hermes…Hermes thinks of the itch that settles deep in his ichor when they part for too long, of the comfort she brings him, of the pain she dulls. 

  He would raze the earth; the seas; the skies to get her back. 

  “I 
  
    was
  
   curious,” he says, “that much was not a lie.” Hermes is the trickster, the god of lies, the silver-tongued Olympian. Andy; for all that she is 
  
    too
  
   powerful and 
  
    too
  
   divine and 
  
    too
  
   quick a study, does not yet know him well enough to discern all of his half-truths and well written lies. Not when he is their god and master, not when falsehoods leave his lips more easily than truths. He speaks them into existence now, just enough of the truth to balance out his lies of omission. Just enough of a solid front to hide the illusion behind it. “I thought you…You were…I wanted to become acquainted with you.”

  In the dark, he can only imagine the glimmer of amusement he’s sure resonates within her eyes. “And you couldn’t do that with Ares around.” 

  “I’m possessive of my friends.” 

  “That sounds like pettiness.”

  “They’re very different. Especially for Olympians.” That much is true. They were all petty, in every breath that they took, with every move that they made. It was starkly different from raw possessiveness–the tingling urge in his fingers to reach out and take, the way staying away from her made his very soul itch, the primal rage that courses through him when any god made mention of his Andy, the way he thought he’d go to war for her, even now. 

  She doesn’t say anything. He wonders idly if he’d frightened her with his admission, if he’d toed too far over the line and he’d wake to the tips of her father’s trident at his neck. And then she does. “Percy’s going after him this summer,” she whispers. The statement is tinged with heartbreaking fear; soft, scared, sweet. He knows why she’s so scared. He remembers the paralyzing fear that had coursed through him when she’d been attacked, the utter relief he’d felt when Poseidon had waved his hand over his daughter’s forehead and dulled the poison enough to where she could be saved, the starkly different girl he’d been confronted with afterwards–weak, scared, so childlike it burnt. “He wants revenge.”

  If anyone else had touched a hair on her head, Hermes would’ve hunted them down himself. He would’ve made them scream and cry and beg for mercy. He would have torn their heart from their chest and made them eat it. He would’ve killed them, and he would have stood there; a god of the Underworld, as their soul was eternally judged and given his own command. He would have smiled with bloodstained teeth as they begged again for divine mercy. He would’ve said 
  
    you offered my Andromeda no mercy, 
  
  and he would’ve guided their spirit to eternal agony. 

  And he would’ve 
  
    relished 
  
  in it. 

  Luke is different. His son, his pride and joy. 
  
    May’s 
  
  son. May’s only child. Hermes thinks Luke could rip Olympus to shreds and he would not be able to bring himself to kill him. He does not often find himself grateful for Andy’s brother, but there is a certain relief for the vengeance he’d bestow. Andy will have her rightful vengeance, and Hermes can lay the blame for the death of his favored son–
  
    May’s only child
  
  –at the feet of another. He could curse and scream and smite and yet Andy would be avenged and he would not have to look at Luke’s face as he did it himself. 

  (Andy would hate him if he touched a hair on her brother’s head. She would have eons to forget, and eons still to forgive)

  “Good,” Hermes says softly. 

  “I didn’t think you’d approve.”

  “You deserve to be avenged,” he murmurs. “You nearly died–you were on the brink. I could feel it, days later, mostly healed. He nearly killed you. He 
  
    wanted 
  
  to.”

  “I know,” Andy says. “Better than most.” She flexes her hand, and even in the dim lighting he can see the stark white scar–the only physical remnant of what his 
  
    prodigal 
  
  son had done to her. His hand reaches out of its own accord and he takes her hand in his own, thumb tracing over the white line. 

  “I’m so sorry for that, ‘dromeda.” 

  “I understood him,” she says slowly, with wide, frightened eyes. “That was the worst part. He was going to kill me, and I understood it. I’d never join Kronos. I know that. But I 
  
    knew 
  
  what he was talking about.”

  “If it had been anyone else,” Hermes says, hesitantly. “Even amongst my own children…I think I would’ve hunted them down, stopped the threat before it could grow too large. Kaos, I would’ve done it for 
  
    you
  
  .”

  “You still love him,” Andy murmurs, her shoulders slumping. “And I still understand him.”

  He doesn’t say anything back; can’t, past the lump in his throat and the stinging tears and every regret and half-based excuse he’d ever used. Luke had deserved more than Hermes could ever and would ever give him, and he’d either destroy Olympus or die for it. 

  “Percy’s going after him,” Andy says softly, finally. Her calf, still pressed to his, seems to brand him with its warmth. He still cannot bring himself to pull away. Let her mark him. He is hers already. “I won’t let him go alone. I 
  
    can’t
  
  .”

  Hermes knows what she means–that she’d have to go up against Luke, that she’d never let Percy die just so Luke could live, that she would protect her brother. “Do what you must.” He considers saying, 
  
    I won’t blame you for it, 
  
  but it wouldn’t be true. He’d have to blame whoever killed Luke. It would be the only way he’d ever recover. But he wouldn’t kill her for it. “I won’t punish you for it.”

  “I’m going to try and talk to him,” Andy says; brave and hopeful and still so obviously petrified. Of what Luke 
  
    had 
  
  done, of what he could and would do. “Maybe…maybe all hope is lost. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe I can convince him that Kronos will only make things worse.”

  “Maybe,” Hermes says. He wonders if he sounds as doubtful as he feels. “If anyone…” He wants to say 
  
    it would be you, 
  
  but it wouldn’t be. Not Andy; claimed so soon into camp, who’s father had aided her along her quest, who succeeded in her quest, whose father had saved her as she lay dying. “If someone at least 
  
    tried
  
  .” They would fail, undoubtedly, but then Hermes would know for sure that Luke was beyond redemption, beyond him. 

  “I’ll do my best,” she murmurs. Her hands twitch, still encapsulated in his own, and he traces the thin white scar again in a manner he hopes is comforting. 

  “That’s all I could ever ask,” he responds. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

  “Don’t be,” Andy says. She smiles at him, a weak thing, and disconnects their hands, laying back down. Her leg still brushes gently against him; purposeful, he notes. “You looked like you needed to talk to someone.” 

  He lays a hand over her ankle. “And you look like you could use some sleep.”

  “I could,” she says, shamelessly blunt, endlessly amused. 

  He chuckles, low in his throat, mindful of the way Sally and Percy Jackson were never far away. “I’ve smited demigods for less disrespect.”

  “You could never hurt me,” she says, entirely teasing, entirely spot on. He would do a great number of things before he laid a harsh hand on her. The thought made his stomach turn. The intensity of it all stuns him speechless. He doesn’t respond until minutes later when her heartbeat had slowed, dimming in sleep. It was comforting, the gentle lull of it. He thought he might be content like that forever; gentle hand on her ankle, listening to the even thrumming of her heart. 

  “I could never hurt you,” he whispers, affirming. He adjusts her blankets, tucking her in. 

  And he leaves her to her slumber. 
 
  ___



  If one was to guess the most perceptive of the gods, they might choose Apollo; god of truths, or Zeus; keeper of oaths. They would be wrong. The most perceptive amongst them was Aphrodite; goddess of love and lust and beauty. 

  Hermes had done his best to avoid her for close to a year–not that unusual, not for Olympians who’d lived for eons and would live for eternity more, but strange enough that she whispers of it to Apollo, strange enough that his half-brother takes her with him the next time they meet for dinner. 

  He thinks about fleeing the moment he lays eyes on her and notes that she no longer looks anything like May Castellan. Aphrodite had always been viciously curious when it came to her own domain, and there was no chance she didn’t recognize–at the very least–that cornsilk blond hair had turned to raven curls, pale blue eyes to sea green ones, red lips to soft pink ones, features now awash in some divine glow she’d been without the last time he’d seen her. But he thinks running would rid himself of any defense, and it would certainly expose his secret to not only Aphrodite but Apollo–the biggest gossip amongst them. 

  And so he sits through lunch, trying desperately to ignore the suspicion in Aphrodite’s stare and the melodic, honeyed voice he recognizes all too well. The moment Apollo is gone, she is upon him, her nails digging harshly into his arm. ”Why do I look like Rhea Ourania?” she demands.

  Hermes had nearly forgotten Andy’s similarities to the Titan Queen; the way rumors had dictated her the mortal incarnate of Rhea herself. “Perhaps I have simply recalled the great beauty of the Queen Mother,” he drawls, smirking. 

  Aphrodite glares at him “No. You were in love with May Castellan. Rhea wouldn’t comp…” she trails off, and then smirks at him, realization glittering in those sea-green eyes. “
  
    Andromeda Jackson
  
  .”

  Hermes laughs, cruel and heavy and dismissive, despite the way his mind spins with terror and apprehension, plotting ways to keep and protect. He shrugs her off his arm with a slow, purposeful roll. “I’ve never even 
  
    met 
  
  Poseidon’s newest brat.”

  “No?” Aphrodite’s eyes–so starkly different from Andy’s, despite the way they were identical now–glimmer. “Then how could you possibly be 
  
    in love with her
  
  ?”

  “I have simply grown to admire the beauty of your dear half-sister,” He sighs, airily. “Rhea Ourania is one of the greatest beauties of all time. I dreamt of marrying her in ancient times,” 
  
    Lie, 
  
  Hermes had never yearned for the bonds of marriage. But falsehoods are the foundation of his divinity, and he breathes them into existence with practiced ease. His eyes rake up Aphrodite’s form (
  
    Andy’s form—aged, but hers nonetheless)
  
  ; lecherous in a way that half makes him sick with the disrespect and half delights him—for this was an indulgence he did not allow himself with his young bride. “Or at least f@ck@ng her,” he says crudely. “There have been many reminders of the Titan Queen lately.” He pauses for a moment, stares hungrily at Aphrodite. “By Kaos, you may as well be her.” 

  There had never been any throwing Aphrodite off the trail when it came to her own domain. She was a deadly force to be reckoned with, fierce and unstoppable. She’d eat your heart wearing the face of the one you loved most, and she’d call to you in the voice of your love while she did so. She was cruel and vicious just in the way love itself often was, and she was so beautiful that most forgot it until it was too late. 

  “I know my domain, Hermes,” Aphrodite says, with narrowed eyes (
  
    Andy’s eyes; focused and determined in that way she got when she was concentrating especially hard)
  
  . “Do not insult me.”

  “I do not intend to,” He says. 

  “Then do not lie. You are in love with Poseidon’s daughter, and yet none of us were supposed to have even encountered her,” She arches her eyebrow in the same way Andy did when she was daring him to argue with her, but where Andy’s stance usually held a little uncertainty born of a girl challenging a god, Aphrodite was as overtly confident as an Olympian should be. He tries fruitlessly to cling to the small changes, differentiate the two of them as well as he can bear to. It’s 
  
    uncanny–
  
  Andromeda’s face stretched atop Aphrodite’s divine form. It’s 
  
    unsettling
  
  . It makes him feel as if the goddess had peeled away every layer of protection he’d cast, every layer of secrecy he’d entrenched them in. 

  He would hate her for it, if she wasn’t wearing the skin of his soulmate. If she didn’t speak like her, if she didn’t mirror her mannerisms, if she didn’t have those godsdamned eyes. 

  “I am not 
  
    in love with her
  
  ,” Hermes argues. He isn’t. Andy’s just so unbearably young
  
    , 
  
  and he still has lingering feelings for May Castellan and considerably more complicated feelings about Luke Castellan. He thought it might be some sort of betrayal to be 
  
    in love 
  
  with Andromeda already, even if he knew of the inevitability of it all. But he had paused before he’d spoken, let the idea linger too long, stopped dead in his tracks by the sight of her face. Aphrodite grins with sharp teeth, a bloodhound who’d sniffed out the first drop of blood. 

  “I won’t harm the poor girl,” Aphrodite coos, dripping with condescension. Hermes had never heard that sound from Andy’s voice. He imagines the same sound, years from now, imagines her teasing him with that voice and running from his feigned wrath. She’d let herself get caught, in his daydreams. And that itch would finally leave him. 
  
    I’m going mad, 
  
  he thinks, and he barely cares. “I’m just curious, Hermes. Indulge me.” 

  “You 
  
    always 
  
  harm,” Hermes says. His mouth tastes faintly of ichor as he remembers eons by Apollo’s side, the ever lovesick, masochistic god, maimed time and time again by the love goddess and all of her beautiful, tragic tales. He thinks of May Castellan’s broken eyes and the way he’d sobbed into her hair. He cannot bear the thought of Andy’s life over before it could even begin–selfishly, he cannot bear the thought of her life ending before he could have her. “You think it fun.” 

  “I am no different than the rest of us,” Aphrodite smiles, disarmingly 
  
    Andy’s
  
  . “You were always cruel to mortals and to gods. Perhaps more so, trickster. You always did enjoy your ruinous laughter.” 

  She’s right. Hermes had always enjoyed mortal misfortunes. His ancient self had been especially vicious and vindictive. But he’d mellowed. Aphrodite hadn’t–love would never stop being the most vicious of afflictions, and neither would she. “I won’t have you be needlessly cruel to her,” Hermes says, and his mouth tastes acrid (like 
  
    hypocrisy) 
  
  when he says, “She’s only a girl.”

  Aphrodite’s eyes twinkle. If it were anyone else, Hermes might have believed her lighthearted and joking. “A girl you love,” she murmurs, leaning close like she was sharing a secret–and perhaps she was. 

  “I don’t–” He cuts himself off when she raises a single eyebrow. She would not leave him be, not until he gave her something she could rationalize. “Not yet. I’m fond of her. I’ll love her someday.”

  She sucks in a sharp breath. “She’s your 
  
    fated
  
  .”

  He doesn’t say anything, and his hesitancy only seals his fate. The love goddess knows. He isn’t sure how to spin this–how he will defend his visits to the Sea God. An innocent desire to see her safe? Selfless and kind hearted? They had never been selfless. They had been about the way her soul called to his divinity. They had been about the way he felt uncomfortable in his mortal form, bursting at the seams with divine power that longed for the presence of his soulmate. They had been about preserving whatever future he could scrape up with the only girl he’d ever love and marry. 

  And Poseidon would be the best of the fallout. Her new status would make her a somehow even more direct target, and curious gods would finally decide 
  
    if Hermes is allowed, I should be too.  
  

  She was stronger now, a hero, a true daughter of Poseidon. But that didn’t make her a godkiller. And his kind remained the same as ever; cruel and impatient and entitled. 

  “She and I do not lay within your domain,” Hermes tells her. Aphrodite surely needs the reminder; as irritating as it was, fate transcended them all. “You may 
  
    not 
  
  meddle.”

  “I know my bounds, trickster,” she sniffs. “Do you? Even you cannot deny the Great Prophecy–your bride lives on borrowed time.”

  Of course he knew of the Great Prophecy. It had consumed his thoughts since May had been lost. And of course he knew that it could very well be Andy’s prophecy. But he had thought long and hard about it, and he knew there were other possible children of the Prophecy. “She is not the only forbidden child,” he murmurs. “She has a twin brother, after all.” 

  “The demi-divine fall so quickly,” Aphrodite’s smile is sharp and cutting. “And Andromeda is said to love her brother. She may very well detest you for eons if you harm him.” 

  “Thalia Grace remains in stasis,” he says. “There are ways to reverse that. Father will enjoy the boost to his ego–perhaps he would even defend me from his brother.”

  “Your father will take any chance to argue with his brother,” Aphrodite says. “That is not your concern. What will you do if you cannot recruit another? If there 
  
    are
  
   no others?”

  “There are ways to keep her from aging.”

  “She cannot join the Hunt,” Aphrodite says. “Just as I cannot interfere, neither can Artemis. If you wanted to keep her from aging–”

  “I’d have to marry her,” He says. “I know.” 

  Andy had never seen marriage in a positive light. He could gather that from Gabe Ugliano. Hermes, after all, had bought the stone corpse. She would never willingly marry him–not anytime in the near future–and she would never abandon her brother to a ceaseless war. She’d have to be drug to the altar, heels digging into the ground, eyes wet with protestant tears, pleading with him to stop, to see reason.

  And she’d hate him for it for centuries, mayhaps eons. And yet he would not have to lose her. And he would 
  
    have 
  
  her, willing or unwillingly tied to his side. So long as he did not lose her, Hermes thought he could bear the undeniable weight of her hatred and latch onto the way she’d be his 
  
    wife
  
  . 

  He wonders, idly, if there’d ever be someone he could love and let go of easily, without leaving claw marks and fresh bruises on their skin. A brand declaring his inability to let go. 

  “She’s so young,” Aphrodite states, as if he did not already know. As if it didn’t weigh heavily upon his meager conscience. “I doubt she’d be especially willing.”

  “I doubt she’d be eager to die,” Hermes says. He wonders if she’d see it that way; life or death, or if she’d hate him for taking away her choice nonetheless. For declaring to the gods–to Poseidon himself–that he’d marry her as the fates themselves decreed. For following through with it, the girl willing or unwilling. He’d save her from whatever doomed fate the Great Prophecy wished to incur. Would it be worth the loss of her autonomy, at least in that of who she loved, who she spent her life entwined with? 

  If it came down to it, Hermes thought he knew the answer. 

  “And should I resign myself to losing my soulmate?” He questions. “Stand idly by as war claims her life, all so I can say she had a choice?” 

  Aphrodite frowns. “No,” she murmurs. “No, of course not. I only mean that you should take care to make her a willing bride. She could be angry for eons, you know. It would make the two of you miserable if that was the case.” 

  “Andy’s temperamental, but her moods shift quickly,” He tells the love goddess. “She’s not the type for–”

  “Grudges?” The goddess asks, with knowing eyes (
  
    Andy’s eyes
  
  . Hermes could admit that seeing those particular lips declare how his wife would hate him for eons was rather eery). “If you don’t understand the consequences of what you’re doing, reconsider exactly what you’re planning on doing to that poor girl. And make her comfortable beforehand. If she can’t escape it, it’s the least you can do.” If Aphrodite was capable of sympathy, Hermes would say it was apparent, emerging in the crease between her brow and the rare earnest cadence to her tone. 

  Her own marriage, Hermes recalled, had been something she’d had no say in. It still was something she had no say in. And Hermes recalled the way Hephaestus had rarely done anything to make her situation better. He did not even leave her to pursue her happiness with the one she clearly wanted–always interfering and embarrassing her. 

  “I won’t…” He nearly says 
  
    be like him
  
  , but that wasn’t entirely true. He cannot imagine letting her take another lover, standing idly by as the goddess he’d married gave her heart to another and flaunted it in front of the Olympian court. He thought he might chain her to his side and rip off the heads of her lovers before he allowed that. But he would not be cruel. He would help her adjust, as best as he could. He could be kind. “I won’t be purposely cruel.” 

  “And you should try…” She pauses and lets out a brief sigh–something that might have gone unnoticed if he had been a mortal man. “You should try to give her a choice. I’m not saying let her kill herself. I’m just–”

  “Try to make her happy?”

  “Don’t strive to make her miserable.”

  “Aw,” he drawls. “How sweet of you to care.”

  She rolls her eyes and sighs, brushing past the moment with practiced ease, “You will need a witness and an officiate.”

  “Are you offering your services, Dite?”

  The goddess shrugs, the movement fluid and graceful. “I have never cared much for Poseidon’s judgment. And we have gone far too long without an Olympian wedding.”



  
  

    
      
        
        
          So sorry this update took a while!!'
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