eyes to the grass. His want, his love, made her feel lightheaded, and she remembered the images from Adam’s mind, of their bodies joined together. “I don’t know how to be a wife, Reu.”
He ducked his head to look into her eyes again. “I don’t know how to be a husband, either. But I’m willing to try. To love you and protect you and bring you joy. If you’ll have me.”
His eyes were dark, and his love washed over her like a river. And when he touched her, she didn’t want to pull away. When he lifted her face and brought his lips to hers, it was nothing like that first kiss from Adam. It was soft and gentle, kind and questioning.
She parted her lips in invitation, and while he kissed her, the rest of the world disappeared. All she felt was his love, his desire, his joy, feeding her own like the leaves fed the flame. And in that moment, she knew who she had been made for, and God’s plan for her life. She did not belong to Adam, for from her first moments she had been bound to Reu by his love.
Eve pressed him back into the grass, her senses filled with the warmth of his body, the touch of his skin against hers. She pressed him back and kissed him again as his arms wrapped around her, drawing her in. For the first time, the images of the man and woman, bodies joined, made her shiver with anticipation instead of dread.
Reu stroked her hair, weaving his fingers through it so gently she thought she imagined the touch. She rested her forehead against his, her heart racing in her chest. She could feel his, too, thudding hard beneath her palm.
“Will you show me, Reu?” She asked softly, remembering his words. It seemed so long ago that he had spoken them. “Show me how this is meant to be.”
Chapter Twenty-seven: 218 BC
War. The Romans never had their fill of it, and in spite of himself, Thor found himself in sympathy with Adam, an elderly advisor to the Carthaginian general, Hannibal. If it were not for the House of Lions, caught in the middle and ripe for the raiding by both sides, he would have wished them all good fortune and ignored the mess of it. As it was, he had taken the high ground of a mountain, watching the movements of any soldiers who strayed too near. Carthaginians, Romans, even Gauls and Celts, all looking for the path of least resistance across the Alps.
And not for the first time. The entire region had been in turmoil for the last forty years at least, and before it had been Adam urging Carthage to war against Rome, it had been Pyrrhus, attacking from the East. Thor was certain the only reason Pyrrhus of Epirus had done so well in his own battles was because of Eve, born as his daughter Olympias. Athena had taken pity on Thor, in spite of her own wishes, and granted the king her favor, and no matter how heavy the losses, Pyrrhus still rose triumphant in the end, keeping Olympias from falling into ruin for her father’s ambitions. Eve had even ruled for a time, before she had watched both her sons die, then she had seen Deidamia, her granddaughter, made queen, before pretending her own death and retiring west, back to her Lions. Into the heart of more war and far too near to Adam, no matter how aged they both were.
“Have you seen her?” Athena asked. He had noted the owl soaring over the marching columns, but lost track of her in the passing clouds. Of course Athena would be present, just as Tanit was sure to be present among the Carthaginians, being that city’s patron goddess, and goddess of war as well.
Thor lifted a shoulder, neither confirmation nor denial, though he would much rather have pretended a lack of understanding. Athena deserved better after everything she had done, and he would not treat her dishonestly. Not that what he had seen of Eve was worth mentioning in much detail. He did not dare show himself, or risk drawing Sif’s attention, and to have her so near, on his own lands, and be unable to know her at all.…
It was one more reason he hated this war. And he still would not speak to Sif, though he had taken care to spend time with Ullr and Thrud, bringing them both to Egypt, then Olympus. Whatever happened between himself and Sif, he would not have the children they had raised together believe he had turned from them.
“I did not even think of Adam in Carthage when she left us,” Athena confessed, coming to stand beside him on the rocky precipice. “I only hoped she would be safe enough with her family.”
“So she is,” Thor agreed. “You were kind to send me word. There are times I wish the House of Lions was not so near to the North Lands, with the Celts gossiping like Norns between us. Loki seems to hear every rumor of even the slightest events.”
“Do they know yet that Zeus granted you these lands?”
Thor shook his head. “The boundary is so ill-defined, they take no notice, assuming it is some patch of Gauls worshipping Woden and Donar.”
“And when they learn of it, what then?”
He grunted. If Rome won this war, they would expand, swallowing the Alps and driving the Celts and the Gauls north. When that day came, there would be no hiding his work so far south.
“I will do what I must to protect them, Athena. As I have sworn.”
She sighed, her gray eyes softening with something near pity. “And what will you do for yourself, Thor? Even on Olympus, we know the break in your marriage has not healed. Yet you remain Sif’s husband, still.”
He pressed his lips together. It was not as though he had not considered it. After that night in Olympus, he had returned home, ready to finish it all. But Sif had been prepared, waiting, ready, and when he had found her, she had smiled. A smug and cruel expression that made his blood run cold. Heimdall had appeared a moment later, catching Baldur at the door, and then together they had both turned to look at him, faces grim.
Baldur had shoved through the milling gods and servants to reach him, and Thor ducked his head to listen to the news his brother brought so urgently.
“Famine,” Baldur said. “Thorgrim’s fishing village starves, and what stores they had for trade were burned to the ground. Heimdall says it was Sif. He said she told the people of the village that they must pray to you if they wished for deliverance.”
Thor did not take his gaze from his wife, his vision hazing, but Sif had only smiled wider.
The message had been clear. Leave her, and she would turn all who looked to him, everything he loved and nourished, into dust. This was her warning.
Thor had left the hall without a word. He had not dared to waste a moment in seeing to the village, to Owen’s people, his own family. And when he found them, it was worse. She’d sickened them, too. Wasting diseases that lasted months, or even years, all of them miserable with suffering. And Owen’s line—every direct descendant of Eve’s son was struck down.
If he acted against her, he had no doubt that the next time, she would kill them. And the time after that, when she noticed the House of Lions, it would be the same again. He had no power to protect any people against disease, and there would be no proving Sif had acted so cruelly. Perhaps he had done the House of Lions a disservice, claiming them; were they beholden to Zeus, Sif could not harm them.
“If she loved you once, it does not seem she cares for anything but herself now,” Athena said gently, touching his arm. “You deserve better, Thor.”
“It is not so simple as what I deserve.” A god protected his people, or what good was he? He would not turn on those who looked to him, abandon them for his own gain. “The Covenant will not protect the House of Lions. I am not certain it protects even Eve, herself.”
“And if I promised you she would have my protection? That we would not let Sif or Loki harm her? I would even help your House of Lions, if you wished it, to see you made free, and I am certain Bhagavan and Ra would guard Eve as well, if it is needed.”
He met her eyes then, and brushed a stray tendril of dark hair from her pale cheek. He could never have
