Daphne finally turned his way, her soft green eyes no longer tormented by the past, but filled with a thousand questions. Questions that made his belly tingle. “But she was your soul mate. Silas said—”
Gods, she was gorgeous. More gorgeous than she probably knew. And he had no right being anywhere near her. He looked back at the fire so he didn’t do something stupid. Like grab her and never let go. “Silas likes to romanticize the entire thing. I think it makes him feel better about choosing to stay here with me.”
She stared at him, eyes wide and curious, waiting for more. And though he didn’t look at her, though he knew he shouldn’t go on, that he had no reason to tell her any of this, for the first time in forever he found himself wanting someone to know the truth.
“Silas told you I found her on one of my missions in the human realm, didn’t he?”
She nodded.
“And that she was injured?”
“Yes.”
“When I came across her, her dress was ripped to the thigh, her leg scraped and bleeding. She begged me to help her. Told me Zeus had been chasing her. That she was trying to get away. I believed her. Took her back to Argolea, knowing she’d be safe from him there, and tended her wounds. Penelopei was...” He watched a flame devour a branch and couldn’t help but see the similarity in the way Penelopei had devoured him. “She was like wildfire, consuming everything in her path. When she wanted something, she didn’t let consequences influence her desires.”
Disgust rushed through him when he remembered how he’d dropped everything for the female, even his duty. How he’d so easily walked away from his family. He shook his head. “As thanks for saving her, she seduced me. It was then I realized she was my soul mate. This may sound silly but sex is a powerful medium. Every Argonaut in the history of Argonauts has found his soul mate that way. What I should have keyed into, though, was the fact a soul mate is a curse, not a blessing.”
“You’re talking to a nymph,” Daphne said softly. “I know how powerful sex can be. I’ve seen it firsthand. Zeus’s desire for it destroyed my village.”
And Ari’s desire had destroyed not only his life, but his son’s as well.
Guilt crept in. A guilt he’d tried so long to ignore, but it was there. It was always there, hovering in the background, telling him there was no way he could ever make up for the pain he’d caused his son because of his blinding desire for Penelopei. For a soul mate who’d never truly seen him as anything other than a pit stop.
“Penelopei quickly grew bored of me and life in Argolea,” he went on, “and when Zeus’s Sirens showed up to take her back to the god, she was more than willing to go. To her it was all a game. Jumping from one male’s bed to the next.”
He sounded bitter. And maybe part of him still was. Because thanks to Penelopei, his whole world had shifted. Not because he’d loved her and lost her but because a stupid curse had made him crave a manipulative and shallow female.
“When the Sirens arrived at my home outside the capitol city of Tiyrns,” he went on, “I wasn’t willing to let her go. I was blinded by the soul mate connection and convinced if I could just get her to stay, everything would work out. A standoff resulted. The Argonauts came to my aid. But she didn’t want to stay and struggled against my hold. The Sirens thought I was going to harm her. Before any of us could stop it, a battle broke out. In the chaos, Penelopei was killed.”
And there was the crux of the rest of his guilt. Knowing that because he hadn’t been able to control his desire, not only had he abandoned his son, but a female had died. “It wasn’t my blade that struck her,” he finished, “but I killed her just the same. If I’d let her go, she’d still be alive.”
“Maybe.” Daphne looked back at the fire. “If I hadn’t gone to the creek that day, maybe my parents would still be alive too. Then again, maybe not. We’ll both never know. And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re not meant to know. When I was a child, my mother told me that life was a series of events that make zero sense at the time, but which come together to reveal a greater good in the end. I forgot that until just now. Maybe what happened to you stopped Penelopei from tormenting another male. Maybe Zeus’s fascination with her—and you—stopped him from ruining another family’s life, like he ruined mine. Maybe everything happens for a reason.”
He turned to look at her, at her profile set against the flickering flames. There was strength inside her. A strength he wasn’t sure she knew was there. There was also simplicity. Something he craved in his confusing, fucked up, crazy world. “Are you saying you believe in some unseen Fates pushing us around like pawns on a chessboard?”