Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(14)

“How could I not know this?” I asked, facing Ares again.

“We swore we’d never speak of it,” my father said. He walked over to a wooden swing that hung from an oak tree by two thick cords of rope. With a tug, he tested their might, then sat. The bough moaned, but held. I almost laughed at the sight of this hulking man, this legendary warrior, perched on a child’s plaything. Almost. “I’m surprised that after the amount of time he spent with Harmonia, he never broke that promise.”

He pondered this curious show of integrity for a moment, gazing off at the rose hedge near the fence, then fixed me with a serious stare.

“Hephaestus fell in love with your mother upon first sight and courted her for years. She wanted nothing to do with him, of course, Hephaestus being lame from birth and constantly smelling of the forge. He was never your mother’s type.”

He gave a wry laugh, but I wasn’t amused. I had always detested how the upper gods insisted on branding Hephaestus as lame. He’d had a withered leg at birth but had forged himself a brace that allowed him to walk just like any other god (this, a part of his history he had shared with Harmonia and me). It was Zeus’s fault that he was now confined to a wheelchair. He had flung Hephaestus to Earth so many times he’d shattered his legs irreparably.

“How did he win her, then?” I asked.

There was a glint in my father’s eye as he answered this. “He forged a belt for her, made of gold and jewels. No one had ever seen anything like it. And you know your mother. She’s easily distracted by anything”—he twiddled his fingers, searching for the word— “shimmery.”

Now I did laugh. “That was all it took?”

“That was all it took,” he said, tearing a bloom off a low branch on the dogwood and holding it between two fingers with a delicacy I didn’t know he possessed. “They were married the following dawn. And they were happy. For a time.”

“Until you came along?” I surmised.

My father stared at the flower, the deep pink at the center fading to white near the edges of the petals. “Yes. Until I came along. Your mother and I fell deeply in love with each other, but she didn’t want to leave Hephaestus. She didn’t want to break her vows. Then, one day, he . . . caught us together in their bed.”

He crushed the flower in his mighty fist, and my stomach turned. “I think I might actually be sick.”

“He had suspected something was going on and had set a trap—a golden net that no one, not even I, could tear through. It fell upon your mother and me and held us fast against the sheets. Then, while we were struggling to break free, Hephaestus gathered every god and goddess he could find—including Zeus, who had approved their match—and brought them to witness our shame.”

My hand was at my throat. “That’s . . . awful.”

My father opened his fingers and looked down at the flattened bloom as if he’d forgotten it was there. He turned his palm sideways, and a stiff breeze tore the sticky, creased petals from his skin.

“We fled to Mount Etna for a time, and that’s where we had the boys. I’ve always wondered if the reason they are the way they are is because of where they were conceived.”

My older brothers, Deimos and Phobos, were the Gods of Fear and Panic, and the most paranoid, miserable, tetchy gods on Mount Olympus.

“We waited to return to the Mount before having you girls,” he finished. “Which might be why you are the way you are.”

He smiled slightly, and I detected a hint of pride in his eyes. As if that was even possible. The God of War had long made it known how little respect he had for the work my mother and I did. And I couldn’t imagine he had any softer feelings for Harmonia, who was the Goddess of Communal Harmony. Her work directly rebutted his.

“Your mother was always wary of the friendship your sister formed with Hephaestus, concerned he might try to use her in some way to get back at us for our betrayal,” my father continued. “She was never able to rest well until the day Zeus finally banished him to Earth for good. Which is why I was shocked to see him sitting so comfortably at your kitchen table. I’m surprised your mother even allowed him to enter your home.”

“Well, as she said, he’s been invaluable to us,” I said. “Before he arrived, we could scarcely dress ourselves. If it wasn’t for his intervention, I might not have made my first match.”

“But you seem to have your footing now,” my father said, rising. “What reason is there to keep him around?”

My jaw dropped. “Oh, I don’t know . . . loyalty, gratitude, friendship?”

“Friendship? Loyalty? Have you heard anything I’ve just said? Or was your mind off in the clouds again, as always?” my father thundered. “Why can you never simply focus, Eros? The man cannot be trusted.”

I felt as if I’d been slapped. “I am focused. I’m focused on finishing my mission! A mission I wouldn’t be succeeding at if not for Hephaestus. A mission I wouldn’t even be saddled with if not for you! You really think you’re the god who should be telling me who to trust?”

“I am not responsible for you being here,” he replied tersely. “It was your own bad judgment that got you into this mess.”

I felt the sting of this and looked at the ground. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I should have gone straight to Zeus when I realized I loved Orion and asked him for his blessing—”