After I Became Foster Mother to the Olympian Gods, Apollo Chose to Fall

They drugged me, switched the bridal chariot, and sent me to a stranger in the mortal borderlands — while Aphrodite took my place beside Apollo on Olympus. Eight years later, Ares finds me at the edge of the world, surrounded by eight children. They want to kill every one of them. One cut per child, he says, just to make sure I remember. I take all eight cuts. What none of them know: the girl in the tree is Poseidon's only daughter. The boy bleeding in my arms carries the seal of Zeus's own bloodline. I've been waiting eight years. They just gave me every reason to stop waiting.