The future had always held an element of dread for me because the moment he becomes Ares, I lose him. It might not happen with the snap of his fingers, but eventually he’ll outpace me once and for all, and I’ll be left behind.
That was before Helen.
Watching them move on together? Fuck, I can barely stand to think of it.
Saying as much to Achilles is just asking for a fight. He doesn’t see things my way, is so certain he can power through and mold the future to his impressive will. It’s not until he fails that he’ll finally admit I was right, at least in this. He won’t believe me that our eventually ending up on separate paths is all but inevitable. He’ll try to fight for us, to hold us closer, and it will only hurt worse in the end.
Better to focus on the problem at hand. A simple mystery that must have a solution. “Helen won’t back down, and whoever is trying to scare her off is only going to escalate.”
He gives a nearly soundless sigh but doesn’t try to haul me back to the original topic. “Next trial is going to take us from twelve to five. She’ll get knocked out then.”
I wish I had his confidence. Helen has surprised us again and again. The odds might be against her, but they have been from the start. “And if she’s not?”
He shakes his head. “She will be. We just have to keep her cute little ass safe until that point, and then Zeus will sweep in and toss her in some ivory tower until the tournament is over.”
I finally move, leveraging myself to my feet. I can’t look at the bed, the chair, the floor. The memory of what we’ve done is imprinted over all of it. I can’t believe things got so out of control, but this feels as inevitable as everything else surrounding this situation. “This can’t happen again. You and me and her.”
Achilles, the bastard, laughs. “Sure. Whatever you say.”
He doesn’t believe that any more than I do.
18
Helen
It takes all of two minutes in the shower for reality to catch up with me. I just had sex with Patroclus and Achilles. I lean my forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall and try very hard not to make a liar out of myself by regretting it. Truth be told, I don’t regret the sex. It was outstanding and then when Achilles stopped giving orders and joined in…
I shiver.
Actually, outstanding doesn’t begin to cover it.
But the fact remains that I just slept with Achilles again, and I don’t like him. I think. Probably. Mostly.
I sigh. Okay, it’s time to be honest, at least with myself. I might keep saying I don’t like the big man, but it hasn’t felt like the truth since… I’m actually not sure when things shifted so much, but the fact remains that they have. It’s not even that Achilles is sexy as fuck—though he is. It’s not even that he saved me last night.
I can’t entirely discount a little hero worship because of it, though. The man basically broke down my door and fought my attacker, who had a fucking knife. Sure, Achilles is special forces and more than capable of handling a single person, but that is beside the point. He didn’t have to do that. He could have turned away and left me to my fate and simplified his life. If I’m gone, so are a lot of complications in his future. He wouldn’t be to blame, either, so it’s not like my brother could do anything about it.
People die in this tournament. Bellerophon said it themselves. Sure, this wasn’t during a trial, but Perseus’s hands would be tied. At best, he could duke it out with Athena, but that would still spare Achilles the fallout. He didn’t hold the knife, after all.
He did, however, hold me while I tried not to fall apart in the aftermath. That’s the crux of it, the point where I tipped right out of hating him and into…something else. Anyone else would have used that moment of weakness to manipulate me. Helen, honey, this just proves that you shouldn’t be in this tournament. You should go back to your penthouse where it’s safe and wait for someone else to be declared the winner. Someone stronger. Someone who wasn’t helpless in the face of a single attacker.
Achilles didn’t use my fear as a weapon against me. He barely used words at all. He simply wrapped me up in his big body and held me until the shaking stopped. I didn’t expect gentleness from him, though if he’d asked me if I wanted a hug, I would have told him to fuck off. That’s the thing about Achilles; he seems more an “easier to ask for forgiveness than permission” kind of guy. He decided I needed to be held, so he picked me up and deposited me on his lap.
He never even posed the question of me resigning from the tournament. He simply took it as fact that I wouldn’t. That I’d set myself on this path and he respected me enough to respect that choice. How novel.
Not to mention, I kind of like bickering with him. I’m so used to the veiled insults that a person doesn’t feel until minutes or hours later that Achilles’s blunt crassness is a relief. No matter how much he snarls, there’s no real venom behind the words.
Damn it. I like the big jerk.
I push off the wall and duck back beneath the scalding spray of the water. Ultimately, my feelings don’t change anything. Achilles wants what I want, which means we are opposing forces. Patroclus, too, because no matter how much he wants me, his heart belongs to that beautiful fool. My time with him—with them—was only ever going to be temporary.
I knew that going in. Honestly, it was a perk. I’m only able to give so much. It’s not as if they’ll want to keep fucking after I ruin Achilles’s chance of realizing his dream. I’ll probably never see them again once the tournament is over, aside from official business.
There’s no reason at all for that knowledge to sting now.
Showering any longer would translate to hiding, so I shut off the water and take a few minutes to dry off, lotion up, and braid my hair back from my face. I stare at myself in the mirror. I look exactly like I always have. Too pretty, even when I attempt to downplay it, even when I’m tired and there are faint smudges beneath my eyes. The face of a woman people see as a prize, have always seen as a prize. They only care about the surface until what’s underneath inconveniences them, and then they drop me like yesterday’s trash. Or, worse, try to change me. Yeah, this face has brought me nothing but trouble.
Still, it’s the only one I have.
I sigh, straighten my spine, and walk out of the bathroom. The first thing I notice is that someone—probably Patroclus—changed the sheets and made the bed. The memory of why that’s necessary hits me hard enough to make every muscle in my body clench. Gods, that orgasm was good. The second one was even better, albeit in a different way. My entire body aches faintly from what the three of us did, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want more.
I just can’t be sure why I want more. To keep hiding from the uncomfortable reality that I am in over my head for real this time? Or simply because I’m in lust with two men I most certainly shouldn’t be indulging with? Neither option is particularly flattering. Both will bite me in the ass before this is over.