CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVI

Prometheus had forgotten how wonderfully complex he had made them, the humans. Amara was such a walking contradiction in her human flesh. When he had met her in Olympus, she’d been polite, reserved, respectful, with a steel backbone underneath it all. All the things you would expect of a priestess. But now, that heart of wildfire only occasionally peeked out from behind a veneer of innocent vulnerability. She still possessed all the same qualities, but it was like they had melded together differently this time as they had grown with her human skin. And yet being around her was the most exhilarated he had felt around humans ineons.

When he had realised who Amara was, his first thought had been to tell her who he was, who she was. But every time he went to say it, the words sounded like the ramblings of a mad man. Instead, he’d decided to remain on Earth to support her. Zeus be damned. The challenges the goddesses had set would not be easy to complete and it was clear Amara would need all the help she could get.

If Prometheus was a betting man − and when his friend Tyche wasn’t around, he was − he would have sworn that the goddesses had sent gluttonous Adephagia to visit Amara as one of the first of her challenges.

Adephagia was a robust goddess and that was putting it nicely. She consumed whatever was put in her path, her appetite never sated, her demeanour always one of dissatisfaction. If the goddesses had sent Adephagia to aid them, and she was the cause for Amara’s indulgence at the bistro the other day, then the repercussions would be a purging. Amara would be called to purge everything in her life that did not serve her. The goddesses’ plan would be for Amara to purge the fear. But from what Prometheus had seen, when Amara didn’t know he was watching her, she still clung to the fear tightly, like a safety blanket made of pins that hurt her, even though she believed they protected her.

Amara had recovered from her gluttonous intake. Twelve days had passed since their dinner and they had met several times since. They were to meet tonight to celebrate the fact she had secured a job at the very bistro he’d taken her to. The spring air was getting warmer and warmer, and so he settled for walking to pick Amara up before taking her back to the pub that was underneath the rooms he always stayed in when he was in Edinburgh. Even though the evenings were getting lighter, and while her confidence grew with every day, he knew she still didn’t like to walkalone.

She was waiting for him outside when he arrived though, which surprised him. He had expected her to wait, watching by the window until she saw him. Tonight, though, she opened her arms and offered him a hug. Her grip around his waist was fiercely tight, albeit brief, and Prometheus barely resisted the urge to crush her to him and keep her there. Reluctantly releasing her, his eyes scanned down herbody.

She wasn’t wearing baggy clothes tonight and, for the first time, he saw who she had been before her rape, which she’d finally confided in him the night after he’d sent her soup. A woman confident in her body, she wore black jeans that curved perfectly around her hips and a matching black denim jacket, a grey camisole underneath it. She’d paired the outfit with a tartan scarf and a brooch of a playful fox chasing its tail.

“I recognise that tartan,” he murmured, reaching out and playing the fabric through his calloused fingers.

“You do?” Her eyes widened as she looked athim.

“Is it significant toyou?”

Amara hesitated a moment before telling him. Her vulnerability broke his heart wide open.

“It was the scarf I was wrapped in as ababy.”

“Ah,” Prometheus said, realisation dawning, his eyes turning softly towards hers. “And that is why you ventured here.”

Amaranodded.

He didn’t know what made him say what he said next − that broken look of vulnerability on her face or the lava coursing through his veins when it came to her.

“I know where you can find more of this cloth. Perhaps they would have more knowledge of the lineage itholds?”

If she figured it out for herself, he reasoned, then she would not think him a madman.

Amara stared at him in astoundment. “Are you serious?”

“Something I’m often accused of, but in this case yes.” He chuckled in confirmation. “I’ll take you nextweek?”

“I’d appreciate that,” she said quietly. Then, she slipped her hand in his and they began walking.

“I like your fox,” he said after a few moments of silence and pointed to the brooch.

“You don’t think it’s silly?” She sent him an uncertain look.

“No, sweetheart. I genuinely likeit.”

When Amara didn’t say anything, and they just kept walking, Prometheus cursed himself. He had taken the change of clothing style as a sign that she was becoming more confident. But clearly his attempt at playfulness needed finesse. He wasn’t a playful man by nature, he acknowledged. He liked logic, puzzles, solving things, fixing things. Confidence wasn’t something he knew how to fix. Eventually he settled on what he knew she’dlike.

“Have you heard the tale of Laelaps and the Teumessian fox?”

Amara shook her head. Her wild curls bounced around and Prometheus resisted the urge to curl them behind her ear.

“They’re the constellations Canis Major andMinor.”

Amara sent him a warmsmile.

“Oh?”

“The Teumessian fox was destined never to be caught.”

“Why?” It was less a question and more a demand from her lips, as if desperate that he reveal the heart of the story now. He loved the fiery impatience of her, even as he knew she secretly loved how the story unfolded more.

“Dionysus, God of Wine, sent it to the city of Thebes. They’d slighted him somehow, but it got blown up into an unpardonable crime.”

He checked to see she was still listening. She sent him an impatient look in turn. He smiled.

“The regent of the city … I forget his name … well he asked for the use of one of Artemis’ hounds, Laelaps, to capture the fox causing havoc in the farmers’ fields.”

Amara scrunched up her nose. “I should know that name.”

“She’s the hound destined to catch whatever prey sheseeks.”

“Who won?” Amara stopped dead, turned and faced him square on and folded her arms across her chest. He couldn’t help it. He laughed and picked her up, swooping her around.

“You are a bad-tempered witchtoday.”

“Only because you are deliberately dragging out the story,” she replied, but she didn’t tell him to let her go. Something deep within him growled in delight.

“Zeus didn’t like the paradox it created. Two creatures designed to forever chase each other? It seemed to defeat the purpose. He turned them both to stone and set them in thestars.”

“And you call me bad tempered.”

Prometheus laughed again. He loved this side of her. And his arm was now casually around her shoulders and still she didn’t shrug him off.

“Isn’t that what humans do though?” Amaraasked.

“In whatsense?”

“Well, we’re always chasing something forever, aren’t we?” Her tone held a wistful note and Prometheus briefly thought of why she had come to Edinburgh in the first place. How she hadn’t found the answers she sought. He wondered how much it ate at her. Unanswered puzzles drove him to distraction.

“Women who chase men, men who chase careers, those who chase freedom,” she mused, warming to her theme.

“Crumbling struggles,

toils to betoyed,

grappling withgrace.

Perhaps that is the curse of the humanrace.

Oh I blessed you with foresight,

But I burdened you with it too.”

Amara stopped, looking at him with an inscrutable look in her eyes.

“Prometheus?” Amara hazarded aguess.

“Yes?” He momentarily forgot himself. Luckily, Amara took his tone as surprise.

“I have been listening you know,” she nudged him with her shoulder playfully.

He shook his head clear. “Of course youhave.”

“What made you think of thatpoem?”

“I think that’s why humans chase freedom,” he answered quietly. “I think they know something better awaits them. It causes them to stop enjoying the moment and forces them into a perpetual loop of becoming better. It makes them the greatest creators of all time. And it steals the magic of their lives in the process.”

Amara stopped once again and really looked at him then. Prometheus saw the pain in his own eyes reflected in her much younger ones. He went to tell her then, who he really was, why she was here, but then she stole his breath. Rising on tiptoe, she kissed his lips gently until he tentatively returned it. Then, burying his hands in her wild mane of hair, he kissed her back like a man drowning. It was a desperation that had both of them wanting more, until Amara’s fingers curled into the grooves of his wool sweater and all he wanted was her hands on his skin. Eventually, Prometheus released her lips and allowed them to both catch their breath.