The peacock emerged from between two fallen columns, its tail dragging behind it in a sweep of emerald and sapphire. Its eyes fixed on me with an intelligence that had nothing to do with a bird’s simple consciousness.
I knelt slowly, extending one hand. The peacock approached without hesitation, pressing its jeweled head against my palm. Its feathers were impossibly soft, catching the light in patterns that seemed to shift and change. Greens bled into blues, then purples, then colors that had no name.
“Did Mother send you?” I whispered. “Or did you come on your own?”
The peacock tilted its head, regarding me with those ancient eyes. Then it opened its beak and released a single, piercing cry. The sound echoed off the ruins and sent chills racing down my spine. It wasn’t the simple screech of a bird. It was a warning.
Immediately, my hand stilled on the bird’s iridescent plumage, every muscle in my body going taut. I turned around, knowing I was no longer alone.
Orion Maris stood at the edge of the ruins, backlit by the lowering sun. He wore simple linen rather than his usual impeccable suits, the fabric moving in the sea breeze like water itself. Even dressed down, he carried himself with that particular quality I’d noticed on the yacht. It was a stillness that suggested vast depths beneath a calm surface.
“Lord Maris.” I straightened slowly, keeping my voice level even as my pulse kicked up. “It’s a surprise to see you here. What brings you to the shores of House Hera?”
He’d seen me drunk, reckless, stumbling into a stranger’s bed with all the grace of a drowning woman grasping at driftwood. And then he’d used his Olympian talents to pull me from the water. After everything that had happened, I had no idea how I felt about him.
“Miss Cross.” He inclined his head, the gesture somehow managing to convey both respect and apology. “I’m sorry for interrupting. I assure you I didn’t mean to disturb. I merely came here to give thanks to the Mother Goddess.”
I watched him approach the altar, tension coiling tighter in my chest. “Thanks?” The word came out sharper than I’d intended. “What are you thanking her for?”
Orion knelt before the altar with fluid grace, drawing something from his pocket. “It is an ancient practice from our House, hailing from the time of Odysseus.”
He placed his offering on the weathered stone. The delicate flowers were unlike any I’d seen on land, their petals translucent and faintly luminous. Sea flowers, no doubt, ones that bloomed in impossible places where pressure should have crushed them into nothing.
“Did you know, Miss Cross,” he continued, “my ancestor never blamed Hera for severing the bond between him and Penelope? He was thankful to her for giving his Omega her freedom.”
I stared at the flowers, at the way they seemed to pulse with their own inner light.
“We of House Poseidon keep to that pact,” Orion said softly. “To honor freedom.”
Something hot and bitter rose in my throat. “And yet you guard the borders of this shore.” I gestured toward the invisible barrier I’d encountered in the water. The one that had trapped me as surely as any physical wall. “The bars of a cage.”
Orion’s laugh was quiet, almost sad. He rose to his feet, brushing stone dust from his linen pants. “I told you on theOdyssey, Miss Cross.” His sea-dark eyes met mine, and in them I saw something that looked like genuine regret. “Politics is often the one storm I can’t control.”
The peacock stirred between us, its tail feathers rustling like whispered secrets.
“You’re worrying about the wrong storm, Orion.”
Alexander’s voice cut through the air like a blade. I felt it in my chest before I even turned to see him. He stood at the head of the stone path, and his eyes locked on Orion with an intensity that made the air itself feel charged.
The peacock shrieked, a sound of pure alarm that pierced straight through my skull. Its wings exploded outward in a riot of color before it bolted between the columns, disappearing into the olive grove in a flash of panic.
Smart bird.
The temperature dropped. Or maybe it just felt that way. The scent of ozone thickened around us, mixing with something deeper—salt and endless depths. Two Alpha scents colliding, each trying to dominate the space, to claim territory on sacred ground.
I couldn’t breathe. My lungs felt compressed, my skin too tight, every nerve ending screaming contradictions. I was angry at Alexander for being here, for existing, for the way his presence alone made my thoughts scatter. I was even angrier that I still craved him, that the temporary mark on my neck burned hot enough to make my eyes water.
Orion gave Alexander a smile, but there was nothing warm in it. “Alexander, I have no reason to be worried. After all, what use is an Alpha who can’t even protect his own Omega?”
The words hung in the air like a thrown gauntlet.
The sky darkened overhead. Clouds manifested into existence from nothing, rolling across the previously clear horizon in seconds. Lightning webbed between them, crackling and branching, each strike closer than the last.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. This was it. This was the chaos that followed him everywhere, the destruction written into his bloodline, the reason I’d—
Alexander closed his eyes.
The lightning stopped mid-strike, frozen in the clouds like tree roots suspended in amber. The wind died. The pressure in the air released all at once.