He huffed, but his voice was level and calm, as close to tender as he ever got, when he replied, “We are gathering information to give to Hades, and therefore his sons. That is enough.”
It wasn’t enough for her.
She twisted onto her feet and swept her onyx hair back from her face, battling a fierce wave of nerves.
“You seem restless, sister.” Ares planted his backside against the wooden sideboard and crossed his legs at his ankles, his gaze narrowing on her as he studied her closely.
“I think I have stayed inside too long today. I need some air.” She smiled and crushed her nerves, aware he would sense them if she allowed them to keep running rampant. He would know what she was going to do.
As it was, his eyes narrowed further, drilling into her. “I hope you do not intend to leave Olympus.”
She was quick to shake her head, keeping her features schooled as she said, “Not at all. I was going to take a turn in the garden. The lilacs are blooming and you know how much I love them.”
Suspicion glimmered in his blue irises.
She canted her head. “Besides, I believe I hear your aides returning, and I am sure you have many other tasks you wish to discuss with them.”
The twist of his lips and the banked heat that shimmered in his gaze said that he did.
He waved her away. “No further than the garden.”
She dipped her head and swept away from him, past the four females as they bustled into the room, not drawing a single breath until she cleared the tall white columns that supported the roof and broke out onto the grand terrace that overlooked the southern slope of the mountain, a view that stretched all the way to the glittering azure sea.
She paused and focused behind her on Ares, reassuring herself that he was suitably occupied before she hurried to her right. She crossed the patio, dipping her head to the two guards who stood to attention, and reached the olive trees that formed a lush wall between the terrace and the garden.
Enyo followed her favourite path deep into the garden, to a smaller terrace with a pergola covered in lilac blooms. She stopped at the ornate marble balustrade and pressed her palms against it as she stared into the distance, west towards the point near the shore where the gate between Olympus and the Underworld stood.
A gate she had used countless times over the centuries.
A gate she hadn’t passed through for two hundred years.
She ached for those halcyon days, wished with all her heart that she could bring them back again, even when she knew that was impossible. Everything had changed two hundred years ago, and there was no way to put things back to how they had been.
But she could patch them up, and hopefully it would be enough to set her back on the path she had wanted to take in her life.
She focused and teleported, disappearing in a swirl of white-blue smoke.
Slammed into something solid as she reappeared and sent it toppling forwards.
“Godsdammit,” Marek snarled and jerked his left shoulder backwards, dislodging her. He pivoted to face her, his handsome face etched with darkness that reigned in his earthy eyes too. When he saw it was her, he huffed and shoved his unruly brown hair out of his face. “I really don’t need this.”
Enyo scowled at him. She hadn’t failed to notice that over the last few months, Marek had become increasingly less respectful towards her.
She opened her mouth to pick him up on it and warn him to show her more respect, as she normally did, but snapped it closed when Marek turned his back on her again and bent over.
And she noticed he was packing.
He carefully layered clothes into a suitcase on his double bed, along with some other personal items.
She backed up a step and looked around the spacious main living area of the Spanish villa. His books were gone from the coffee table and there was no sign of his female.
“You are leaving?” she said with a glance at him.
He shut the lid on the suitcase and zipped it closed. “Moving into Tokyo. It was Daimon’s idea. Things are getting… It’s better we’re all in one place together.”
Enyo didn’t like the sound of that. “Esher has returned?”
Marek looked over his shoulder at her and slowly straightened, coming to face her. “No. You know about him?”
She nodded. “Brother told me.”
Before he could ask her something else, such as requesting she leave him alone as he normally did, she continued.
“Ares tells me that we will not be allowed to participate in the coming war. Hades forbids it.”
Marek’s face darkened and he grunted, “Sounds like Father.”
Enyo lifted her hand, stopped herself from reaching for Marek’s arm and flexed her fingers.
“Is there nothing you can do…” She swallowed and steeled her nerves. “Keras can do… to change Hades’s mind?”
Marek’s rich brown eyes warmed. Because she had dared to speak of Keras for once rather than dancing around things? She was tired of trying to suppress her feelings, tired of letting her fear control her. She needed to know he was going to be all right.
Marek shrugged, shoved the suitcase aside and dragged an empty one across the bed to him. “I doubt it. You know our father. Hades is set in his ways and his word is absolute.”
That worried her. If Keras couldn’t convince Hades to allow Olympians to participate in the war, he
