Chapter Thirteen

Aliana’s POV

“You’re little--- what now?!”

I gaped up at him, wondering if I’d heard him correctly. Sure, I knew in theory what a Muse was – if I didn’t, my father would be thoroughly disappointed in me.

I mean more than he already was…

In Greek mythology, the Muses were the nine goddesses of the arts, literature, and sciences. They were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, aka Memory. Zeus, of course, was the ruler of all the gods on Mount Olympus, the God of the Sky and Thunder.

Oh, and a womanizer, but that wasn’t an official title back then.

Mnemosyne was a Titan Goddess, the daughter of Gaia and Uranus – the earth and sky – and was the embodiment of both individual and collective memory, serving as the source of knowledge, truth, and intellectual inspiration.

So thank you for that, I guess?

The nine muses supposedly lived on Mount Helicon, where they devoted themselves to the inspirational art...

Clearly, they didn’t!

The muses loved to study and inspire people, yes! There were more than enough lore and legends around to support that. But they also liked to run around and fuck married people, so clearly they inherited both of their parents' best traits.

Yes, that was sarcasm...

“Muse,” Ani repeated--- and then didn’t offer anything else as an explanation.

Seriously?!

“Do I look like foamy beach water and go fralli-la-di-da in the forest?” I snapped more sarcastically than anything. I couldn’t sing to save my life--- hell, the only tune I had I sat on! The only thing I remotely shared with a muse was my love for the arts, but that was--- wait!

No!

No, I loved art because it was the only thing I enjoyed after being forced to spend all my childhood with my nose stuck in ancient texts and scrolls.

It had nothing to do with muses!

And denial was a wonderful river...

Once more, his lips stretched into that knowing smirk that had me on edge. But narrowing my eyes at him only had his smile grin wider. He reached out and pulled me closer, the water splashing around our bodies. I sagged against him, too tired to fight anymore. His chest was solid beneath my cheek, his heartbeat slow and steady like a song I’d longed for my entire life…

“To humans, muses were considered the source of the knowledge,” he explained, the gentleness in his tone cracked something inside me. “They were considered the embodiment of poetry, songs, and myths. But to us gods, they were... light!”

He tipped my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. Crimson fire glowed in his eyes, but it was tempered with something softer now.

Something tender…

“They guide us, temper us,” he explained, his fingers drawing lazy circles low on my back. “They ground us and are the one thing that can make eternity worth the burden we bear.”

I heard him…

I really did, but---!

“There you go again, talking like you’re some kind of god,” I chided, wondering how long I could deny that the man definitely wasn’t human – the horns were kind of a dead giveaway! So what other options were there?

Alien?

Cow?

So, why not a god?

No matter how ridiculous it might sound...

“Well, you said it yourself, I’m not human,” he replied in that mysterious aura, gesturing to his head. “I have horns.”

“Gods don’t have---!” I sighed, about to rectify him, since I’d never heard of a god who had horns.

Titans?

Yes!

Fauns?

Yes!

Gods?

Not so much, no!

But the moment I looked up, expecting to see the familiar black crown on his head, my eyes bulged out of my skull when all I saw was smooth, black hair stopping just around his shoulders.

His horns were gone!

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed, and before I could stop myself, I reached up, feeling the side of his head as if I expected them to still be there. That this was some kind of illusion magic. But my fingers easily tangled in his silky, soft hair, tingling my skin.

“I can change my appearance at will,” he chuckled, clearly humored by my reaction, and pulled my hand down. And before my very eyes, his horns grew back, lying slick along his head. “You could call it shape shifting, but in truth, it’s just a state of mind. I'm not ashamed of how I look.”

I blinked, realizing that I really didn’t have a choice anymore.

Ani was a god!

Which then meant that all those stories I’d read in the past – all those hours my father had forced me to study the ancient Greek scripts – were actual gods!

Shit!

What the hell had happened to them? How could immortal gods just disappear off the face of the earth? But then I remembered that Ani had been imprisoned, and I wondered who had done that to him. And if that had been the fate for all the late gods?

So many questions…

Still, looking at the body in front of me, his scarred chest and toned muscles, I realized that there was only one thing I wanted to know.

“What does it say?” I asked, looking up at him, his maroon eyes offering me a warmth that not even the hot water could offer. “The ink on your body. What does it say?”

The word fell between us like a spark, igniting something I didn’t understand. His face fell, but quickly – so quick that I might have imagined it – he regained his usual, neutral composure.

“They’re--- instructions,” he said, his voice a soothing rumble, and his skin was warm like sunlit stone. “The contract I entered when I took on the responsibility to be who I had to be.”

Contract?

But before I could ask more, he pulled me into him, his silent plea clear. He didn’t want to talk about it. And a strong sense of shame washed over me, surprising me. It took me a hot second, but shocked I realized that they were actually his feelings.

He was--- ashamed?

Why?

I shouldn’t be giving in to him. Not when I knew that he was a god who could manipulate his appearance and gods know what else. But while my mind still whispered warnings, I let myself sink into the warmth of his embrace, shivering. Not from the cold but from the terrifying truth that part of me didn’t want to escape him at all. Rather, I wanted to know more about him. To help him and---

Well, I guess I wanted to be his muse...

Ironic, I know!

“Please,” I whispered, the plea escaping before I could think. “Please, tell me the truth. Who are you?”

The water reflected the morning sun, sneaking in through the high windows. It lapped at our bodies, connecting us to the elements as well as each other...

“I am a primordial.”