Chapter 2

The linen tore like butterfly wings. My body, bound and hidden for seventeen years, broke free and stood naked in the twilight, bare to his eyes, to the fading sunlight, to the wind.

I gasped. Tried to move back, but my feet wouldn't obey.

His gaze dropped to my chest. His pupils flared. His amber eyes filled with something I didn't understand, something hungry and wild, like a man who'd been walking through a desert for a thousand years and finally found water.

"Teya," he said, his voice gone rough. "You were right. This body really is cursed."

He paused, bent his head, and brought his nose within a breath of my collarbone.

"Cursed by me."

He inhaled. The warmth of his breath hit my skin, setting off a ripple of goosebumps down my neck, my arms, my spine.

"You smell like..." His lips brushed my earlobe. "Spring."

I shoved him.

I don't know where the strength came from, but my palms hit his chest solid. I felt his heartbeat, loud and fast, just like a mortal man's. I staggered back, stumbling over shards of the broken jug. Blood welled from my foot, but I didn't feel it.

"Don't touch me!" I screamed.

Ares didn't follow. He stood there, watching me flee, watching my hair whip in the wind, watching my bare shoulders disappear into the trees. Then he bent down and picked up the torn strip of linen, still warm from my skin. He lifted it to his nose.

"Thena," he said, like a spell.

The sound followed me through the olive grove, through the laurel trees, through the dying light. It sank into my bones.

That night, every nymph in the grove heard me crying.

I curled up in the darkest corner of the moon temple, moonlight falling cold through the high windows. I tried to wrap my chest again with the torn cloth, but my fingers shook too badly to tie the knots. Tears soaked my knees, my dress, the stone floor.

Teya found me. The marks from Ares's fingers were still fresh on her cheek, purple and swollen. She looked down at me with eyes that held nothing but disgust.

"You think you can run from this?" Her voice echoed off the temple walls. "When a god like Ares wants something, no one stops him. No one."

I looked up through my tears.

She bent down, close enough that her lips almost touched my ear. "I heard Ares was badly wounded at Troy. A spear went through his thigh. Right through the tendon."

She didn't finish. She didn't need to.

A god who couldn't perform.

"Lucky you," she said, her voice turning light, almost cheerful. "Better a broken god than a beast. At least you won't have to bear children."

She patted my cheek. "Besides, they say men who can't do it in bed make up for it in other ways."

"I don't want to marry him..."

"Don't want?" Teya's face went dark. "Who do you think you are? A bastard with no father. Ares wants you, that's more than you deserve. If it weren't for that body of yours, that slut's body, a war god wouldn't even look at you."

She spat the word slut like it was poison.

I cried again.

That night I dreamed. Ares's hands moved up my legs, and everywhere he touched, my skin caught fire. His lips pressed against my stomach, and I heard his voice, low and shaking, like the ground opening up beneath me: "Thena. You can't escape me."

I woke soaked in sweat. My hair was plastered to my face, my neck. The blanket had slid to the floor. Between my legs, a heat I'd never felt before, spreading through me like spring floods breaking through ice.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood. Shame shook me down to my bones.

Outside, the moon hung cold in the sky.