Chapter 3: Demigods and Divine Miracles

“Greetings, Princess of Sparta. My name is Alastair. I am here to collect you.”

A young man in a sweeping red cloak bowed respectfully before me. He had dark, striking features and a head of unruly black hair. Dressed like a hardened Greek warrior, he wore form-fitting leather pants and a sleeveless tunic that showed off his arms. He carried a lethal-looking bow and a quiver of arrows, along with a short sword sheathed in pale deerhide at his hip.

He hadn’t come alone. Alastair brought two massive horse-drawn carriages overflowing with treasure: bolts of the finest Libyan silk, masterfully forged swords and daggers inlaid with heavy gemstones, exquisite jewelry, mountains of gold coins, and even several pristine marble statues. A literal king's ransom. These were the extravagant wedding gifts from the God of War to the King of Sparta.

I offered Alastair a measured, graceful bow—playing the part of Portia perfectly. But out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of my new 'brothers and sisters.' They couldn't even pretend to hide their greedy delight at the mountain of wealth. They giggled and whispered, some of them shamelessly marching right up to the carriages to inspect the loot like kids in a candy store.

“Mind your manners—they are the God of War’s envoys!” the King of Sparta hissed, his voice trembling. He didn't spare a single glance for the unimaginable wealth. His tear-filled eyes were locked entirely on me. It was tragically clear that no amount of gold would ever replace his beloved daughter.

“What exactly is your connection to the God of War? I assumed he would come to fetch me himself,” I asked, letting Portia's sweet, innocent tone mask my irritation. I mean, if you're forcing a girl into an arranged marriage and dragging her away from her home, the least you could do is show up in person. Sending an errand boy was just rude.

The Queen of Sparta panicked, hurriedly yanking on my silk sleeve.

“Watch your words, my child. We are speaking to Ares's messenger. The Lord of Battle is an Olympian god; he would never lower his divine status or set his majestic foot on mortal soil,” she hissed under her breath, terrified of the insult.

“I am a demigod, a blood relative of the Great God Ares. I am his loyal follower and his soldier,” Alastair declared smoothly. He very deliberately ignored my pointed question about his boss's absence.

*A demigod,* I thought. I immediately recalled the chaotic, boundary-less nature of the Olympian gods. The myths were full of them sowing their wild oats absolutely everywhere—with fellow deities and unsuspecting mortals alike. The children born from those divine hookups were the demigods.

I knew the A-listers, of course: Hercules, Perseus. Alastair was probably a C-list demigod, someone whose role wasn't quite heroic enough to make the final cut in the poets’ epic verses.

The gods basically took whatever—and whoever—they wanted. Surprisingly, the women who gave birth to these divine bastards weren't exactly shunned. Quite a few of those illegitimate kids grew up to be legendary kings, powerful queens, or unstoppable war heroes.

But thinking about Ares’s notoriously brutal and heartless reputation in the ancient texts, this whole formal arrangement felt entirely off-script. The God of War could have just swooped in, kidnapped me, and used me however he pleased. Then, once I was pregnant or he simply got bored, he could have tossed me out like trash.

He was a god, after all. Mortals didn't get to defy a god's will or put them on trial for their morality. And even though Ares was arguably the most hated deity in the pantheon, he was still one of the twelve almighty rulers of Olympus.

I couldn't stop racking my brain. What possible reason would drive the Lord of Battle to court Portia in such a highly traditional, respectable manner? Sure, she was Greece's reigning beauty queen, but that didn't seem like enough to make a savage god settle down.

Looking at this so-called divine envoy standing in the Spartan throne room, a sharp wave of skepticism hit me. Were these guys actually sent by Ares? What if this was an elaborate con pulled by some bitter mortal king or rejected prince? Portia's father had turned down practically every eligible bachelor in the Mediterranean. It would be a genius move to fake a divine mandate, knowing damn well the King of Sparta would never dare defy the gods.

“Prove it,” I challenged, staring dead into Alastair’s dark eyes. “Prove that you are truly the envoys of the god Ares, and not just emissaries from some king or prince of another realm.”

Alastair’s handsome face hardened into a mask of pure ice. He clearly did not appreciate a sheltered Spartan princess questioning his authority. But I had to push him. I refused to end up in the bed of some C-list nobleman playing dress-up who wasn't a suitable match for Portia.

Without breaking eye contact, Alastair slowly raised his right hand. A heavy fluttering sound echoed through the hall, and a massive, ugly vulture swooped in from behind the entourage, landing directly at my feet. Alastair reached into his pouch and pulled out a strange, glowing purple fruit that looked like a mutated strawberry. He tossed it to the scavenger, which swallowed it whole in a single gulp.

What happened next made my jaw drop. The entire palace hall bore witness to an impossible spectacle. The vulture began to violently tremble, throwing its dark wings wide. It unleashed an ear-piercing screech, looking like it had just been injected with a lethal dose of adrenaline. Thick, pulsating cords of muscle and swollen veins ripped through its skin, highly visible even beneath its coarse feathers. Right before our eyes, the creature’s body rapidly ballooned, mutating until it was nearly the size of a fully grown horse.

The vulture, now an absolute giant, shrieked again. It haughtily snapped its massive wings, generating a localized hurricane that sent objects flying across the room. Satisfied with the chaos, the beast hopped back to Alastair's side, its beady, lethal eyes locked onto me like I was its next meal.

The Spartans were utterly paralyzed by shock. They had just witnessed a literal divine miracle. Within seconds, every single person in the hall dropped to their knees in trembling worship. I knew from my research that the vulture was one of Ares’s sacred pets. Watching this impossible, monstrous transformation, I finally had to concede: they weren't fakes. They truly were Ares’s messengers.

Back in New York, I was about as close to an atheist as you could get. I usually identified as an agnostic, perfectly content not believing in any religion. To me, the sprawling epics of ancient Greek mythology were nothing more than pure nonsense. But having my soul miraculously shoved into the body of a Spartan girl named Portia had inevitably forced a major re-evaluation of my worldview. And now, I had just watched a bird turn into a giant with my own two eyes—a phenomenon I couldn't logically explain. Was this what they called magic?

*I’ll prove for myself whether the Olympians are real gods or not.*

My resolve hardened as I reached out to take Alastair’s waiting hand, letting him guide me toward the carriage.

As I walked, I couldn't stop the skepticism from creeping back in. Back in my own era, we had master illusionists. I had literally seen David Copperfield’s show firsthand, watching the man fly around a theater inside a bubble without a single safety harness. This whole giant vulture thing? It could very well be an incredibly sophisticated magic trick.

To these ancient Greeks, a flashy parlor trick or two was easily enough to amaze them, making them worship the magician as a deity. But it wasn’t going to be that simple for me.

Pausing, I flashed my best, most perfectly cinematic smile at Portia’s parents and family one last time. Then, I stepped up into the dark, heavily carved agarwood horse-drawn carriage.

The God of War’s massive, mighty horses instantly broke into a thunderous gallop, tearing away from the palace grounds. They moved with terrifying, impossible speed. By the time the King of Sparta and his troops snapped out of their stupor and tried to give chase, Ares’s entourage had already vanished without a trace.

Chapter 4: Ares and Aphrodite

*Portia! Portia! If you’re still in here, answer me!* I shouted in the echoing silence of my own mind, desperately trying to contact the original owner of the body I’d somehow hijacked.

Nothing. Absolute silence. Portia’s soul never answered, no matter how hard I tried to reach her. Had the real Portia actually died from that venomous snake bite? Was my soul completely alone now, trapped behind the steering wheel of a dead girl's body?

I let out a heavy sigh. By now, Ares’s divine entourage had left the stone walls of Sparta far behind. Even though I hadn’t slept a single wink during the journey, I barely noticed when our carriage plunged into a dense, oppressive forest. The ancient trees grew so thick that the canopy swallowed almost every drop of sunlight, plunging us into a cool, eerie twilight.

The carriage moved with an impossible, ghostly speed. Even as we tore over jagged, rocky terrain, I didn't feel a single bump or vibration. Back in my world, if you drove a million-dollar sports car over a pebble on freshly paved asphalt, you’d still feel it in your teeth. This was definitely magic.

No mortals had been allowed to accompany me. I’d parted ways with Portia’s weeping family carrying practically nothing but the clothes on my back. Alastair, the brooding demigod, had informed me that we were heading straight for the Palace of Ares, nestled high in the treacherous peaks of Mount Olympus.

According to him, the gods had erected a massive, invisible barrier. Only immortals, ancient Titans, demigods, and mythical creatures—like satyrs, centaurs, and nymphs—could pass through. It wasn't the entire mountain range that was restricted, just the elite, divine real estate where the gods actually lived.

“If mortals could reach the gods too easily, they’d constantly bother us with their endless, petty requests,” Alastair had deadpanned when I’d asked about the magical border control.

Fair enough. Humans could be pretty greedy and exhausting. The gods couldn't exactly play a 24/7 wishing well for millions of prayers. Alastair had explained that the Olympians usually offered their divine intervention from a comfortable distance.

For instance, if a circle of priests sacrificed enough to beg for rain, Zeus might secretly manipulate the weather fronts to send a storm. If an army prayed for victory on the battlefield, Ares or Athena would typically deploy their mortal followers or demigods to tip the scales, rather than getting their own divine hands dirty.

The Olympians acted more like untouchable VIPs. They didn’t hear every single prayer, and they only granted the ones that entertained them or served their political agendas. Listening to him, I quickly realized that the power of these gods had actual limits. They weren't omnipotent; it wasn’t just a matter of snapping their fingers and yelling *abracadabra*.

“Tell me, Alastair, what is Ares actually like? How am I supposed to act when I finally meet him?” I asked, leaning forward with genuine curiosity.

“He is a fierce, unyielding warrior, but a remarkably generous lord,” Alastair replied without a second of hesitation. It was obvious the guy totally hero-worshipped his boss.

“And what kind of women is he into? Does he prefer the quiet, obedient type, or someone with a pulse who actually talks back?” I probed. If I wanted to survive this insane arranged marriage, I needed to figure out how to play my part flawlessly.

“He likes beautiful women,” Alastair stated dryly.

“And do you think I’m beautiful?” I teased, flashing him a slow, perfectly calculated Hollywood smile, just to test his reaction.

“Of course you are, Princess of Sparta. You are the most beautiful woman in all of Greece,” Alastair said with absolute, unwavering certainty.

I let out a soft, breathy chuckle.

“So Ares won’t be disappointed when he unwraps his new toy? Since this is our first time meeting, I’m feeling just a little bit nervous,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“Hmm… not quite,” Alastair corrected smoothly. “Ares has met you before.”

*When?* I scoured through the fractured shards of Portia’s residual memories, but there was absolutely zero trace of an encounter with the God of War. Had the sheltered Spartan princess secretly crossed paths with a murderous Olympian, or was Alastair just terribly misinformed?

***

“Ares… you truly are my greatest lover,” Aphrodite purred, pressing her impossibly flawless body against the hard, muscular expanse of Ares’s chest.

The Goddess of Love and Beauty trailed her slender, delicate fingers along the thick cords of his neck, her every movement dripping with calculated seduction.

The divine lovers had spent the entire night tangled in the sheets. As was her habit, Aphrodite had slipped away to Ares’s luxurious palace while her lawful husband, Hephaestus, remained isolated in his sweltering workshop, obsessively forging tools and weapons of war.

Their scandalous affair was the worst-kept secret on Olympus. Aphrodite felt absolutely no shame in flaunting her numerous conquests. Ares wasn't her only distraction; she frequently entertained tragically handsome mortal lovers, like Adonis. To her, her lame, soot-stained husband was virtually nonexistent—a bitter consequence of a marriage forced upon her by the King of the Gods.

Zeus, terrified that the other gods would tear Olympus apart warring over her beauty, had tied her down. He had forced her into an eternity with Hephaestus, the crippled god of the forge.

It was a cruel irony. Why Hephaestus? Why not bind her to one of his stronger sons, like Ares? Even though the Lord of Battle was widely considered a brutal outcast among the heavenly elite, he was infinitely more desirable than the blacksmith.

That seething resentment fueled her chronic infidelity. She was the Goddess of Love and Beauty; it was her divine right to share her affections and her body with whomever she pleased. No man—mortal or immortal—had the right to cage her or claim exclusive ownership of her perfection.

Aphrodite arched her elegant back with a feline stretch, flicking her heavy waves of blonde hair—strands as soft and luminescent as spun gold. She ran her fingers through the silky locks before gracefully smoothing down her sheer gown, intricately embroidered with celestial silver thread. The goddess was preparing to slip back to her own palace, back to the dreary existence with her gloomy husband.

“I am taking a wife, Aphrodite,” Ares announced. His massive, scarred, and nearly naked body lay sprawled lazily across the rumpled bedsheets. A single, faint beam of moonlight sliced through the high arched window, casting severe shadows over his perfectly sculpted, lethally powerful physique.

“Excuse me?” Aphrodite gasped, spinning around in sheer shock.

Her perfect features twisted into a mask of ugly displeasure. “Who is it?”

“The Princess of Sparta,” Ares replied, his deep voice maddeningly flat and unbothered.

“You mean the mortal rumored to be the most beautiful woman in Greece?” Aphrodite’s eyes flashed with a dangerous, volatile fury.

“Yes. And consider this a warning, Aphrodite,” Ares growled, the lazy demeanor vanishing as he sat up. His burning, dark gaze locked onto his lover’s eyes. “Do not even entertain the thought of tormenting her the way you did Psyche. I chose this union.” He knew her temper well; her past jealousy over Psyche’s legendary beauty had driven her to concoct a series of vicious, deadly trials to ruin the poor mortal.

“Why on earth are you playing these pathetic, romantic games with a fragile human?” Aphrodite snapped, her voice trembling with raw emotion. “Just take her to your bed! Sleep with her until the novelty wears off, and then throw her away, exactly as you’ve done with all your other mortal playthings!”

“That is my business, Aphrodite. Not yours,” Ares countered, his tone as hard and unyielding as iron.

The Goddess of Beauty looked utterly unglued, her flawless face flushing with a mix of rage and genuine insult. She didn't actually love Ares, not in the truest sense, but she had always relished the absolute certainty that—despite his other dalliances—he belonged to *her*. He worshipped *her*. Realizing that the God of War was willfully defying her for a mortal bride stung her colossal ego.

Seeing the wounded distress cracking her perfect facade, the rough edge in Ares softened. He reached out, gently wrapping his massive hand around her slender arm, and drew her close. He pressed a surprisingly tender kiss to the back of her hand.

“My beloved Aphrodite…” Ares coaxed, his deep, rumbling voice dropping to a hypnotic, masculine purr. “I am marrying the girl because she may prove highly useful to my plans. Circumstances have forced my hand in taking her as a wife. But you must believe me—as it has always been, you will remain my greatest desire. My primary lover.”

Instantly melted by his rough, possessive reassurances, Aphrodite sighed, abandoning her jealousy as she threw herself back into the God of War’s muscular embrace.

“Just promise me one thing,” Aphrodite whispered softly against his ear, her tone laced with a lingering, poisonous edge. “Do not fall in love with her.”

Ares remained silent for a long moment, his heavy hand slowly stroking his mistress’s bare spine. “I do not know, Aphrodite,” he finally murmured, his gaze drifting back to the moonlit window. “No one can truly know the future.”

Chapter 5: Ares and Athena

By his calculations, his new fiancée would arrive by high noon. To pass the time, Ares had gathered a handful of his demigod and Titan followers for a morning hunt in the sprawling, untamed forests of Olympus. He fully intended to catch a fitting welcome gift for the Princess of Sparta.

He carried his favorite spear and a heavy, custom-forged titanium shield. Every piece of his hunting gear had been masterfully crafted by his brother, Hephaestus. But thousands of years had passed since the blacksmith had last been willing to forge a single blade for him. Their relationship had completely shattered the day Helios, the Sun God, had caught Ares tangled in the sheets with Aphrodite.

Consumed by a bitter rage, Hephaestus had successfully humiliated them both, ensnaring Ares and the Goddess of Beauty in a complex, mechanical net rigged directly to their golden bed.

The scandalous affair had sent Zeus into a hypocritical fury, resulting in Ares’s banishment from Olympus for several decades. Ares still couldn't wrap his head around the sheer audacity of it. Didn’t Zeus himself, as his father, practically write the manual on divine infidelity? There wasn't a number high enough to count the mortal women who had fallen victim to the King of the Gods' insatiable lust.

Hera—Ares’s biological mother and the fiercely proud Goddess of Marriage—was utterly powerless to leash her husband's wandering eye. Instead, she channeled her venom into ruthlessly persecuting Zeus’s lovers and his illegitimate bastards, like Hercules.

But Ares hadn’t learned a damn thing, and he had absolutely no intention of ending his affair with Aphrodite. Because of his stubbornness, securing new weaponry had become a nightmare. Swords and spears forged by lesser blacksmiths constantly shattered under his brutal strength; nothing could ever match the lethal perfection of Hephaestus’s work.

“Ares!” a female demigod shouted through the trees, signaling that she had finally tracked down their target.

The Lord of Battle and his hunting party immediately surged toward the call. Breaking through the tree line, they found it: a monstrous, three-horned bull, easily twice the size of a normal beast. Despite its terrifying, spiked appearance, the creature was currently grazing peacefully in the sun-drenched clearing.

“What do you think?” one of the Titans murmured.

“The meat is utterly useless—far too tough to chew,” Ares noted, his dark eyes fixed on the prey. “But it’s a magnificent, formidable beast. I’ll sever its head and present it as a gift to the Princess of Sparta.”

“Are you serious?” A red-haired demigod balked, giving Ares a look of pure bewilderment. “Giving a mortal woman a bloody, severed head? Don’t women usually prefer, I don't know, jewelry and gold?”

“I am the God of War and Destruction. Handing out delicate trinkets isn’t exactly my aesthetic,” Ares countered stubbornly. “Though, obviously, I still shower my lovers with ridiculous amounts of gems and sapphires.”

Without waiting for further debate, the God of War readied his spear. He moved with lethal, predatory grace, his massive frame completely silent as he stalked the oblivious monster.

Closing the distance, Ares launched himself into the air and drove his spear violently into the thick column of the bull’s neck.

A deafening, agonized bellow ripped through the clearing. The beast staggered backward, thrashing wildly in a desperate bid to stay alive. But the strike was flawless—Ares’s spear had severed the main artery. Thick, dark blood erupted from the wound, painting the vibrant green grass a slick, shining crimson.

Snorting blood, the monster gathered its final ounce of strength and tried to bolt, the heavy spear still lodged deep in its flesh. Unfazed, Ares lunged directly into its path and delivered a bone-crushing punch straight to the beast's snout, halting it in its tracks.

The massive bull collapsed to the dirt with a ground-shaking thud. Wrapping a heavily muscled arm around its horns, Ares viciously yanked the creature's neck back and ripped his spear free, accelerating the blood loss. With a final, rattling exhale, the monster finally succumbed without putting up any further resistance.

“Look at that. The mighty God of War, slaughtering a grazing bull all by himself. Truly groundbreaking.” A slow, drippingly sarcastic round of applause echoed from the edge of the clearing.

It was Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and Strategic Warfare. She was Ares’s eternal, bitter rival—the only other Olympian to hold absolute dominion over the mortal battlefields.

When humans faced the horrors of combat, they prayed to Ares for brute strength and raw courage. But they prayed to Athena for victory.

“This forest isn’t your territory, sister. What the hell are you doing here?” Ares snapped, his jaw ticking with irritation.

Like the rest of the pantheon, Athena was devastatingly beautiful. She possessed sharp, calculating features, flawless pale skin, and tight reddish curls. But unlike the other goddesses who draped themselves in luxurious silk gowns, Athena wore gleaming armor and a half-face war helmet. She looked every inch a lethal, untouchable Amazonian warrior.

“If it were me, I would have simply used a poison-tipped arrow and let the beast die a quiet, slow death,” Athena remarked, inspecting her immaculate fingernails.

“I’m not a coward who hides in the shadows, Athena,” Ares sneered. “I actually fight on the front lines.”

“You sound so emotional, brother. Are you still nursing a grudge from the Trojan War?” Athena purred, deliberately poking the bear. “Still upset about the time a mere mortal like Diomedes managed to wound you so severely?”

“A wound inflicted through your deceit and cowardly trickery doesn’t make me weak. I slaughtered Diomedes in a fair fight the second I recovered,” Ares fired back, refusing to let her condescension slide.

Thousands of years ago, the legendary war between Troy and Sparta had ripped the mortal world apart—the very same conflict immortalized in the bloody tales of *Helen of Troy*. In that epic clash, the Lord of Battle had heavily intervened, only to ultimately end up on the losing side, thanks entirely to Athena's meddling.

“What exactly is *fair* about that?” Athena challenged, a cold, mocking smile playing on her lips. “He was just a fragile human, and you are Ares, the almighty, immortal God of War. Honestly, aren’t you embarrassed?”

Ares inhaled sharply, grinding his teeth. He knew his sister all too well. She was a master manipulator, endlessly skilled at twisting facts and weaponizing logic to instantly sway an audience. No matter what truth he spoke, she would always find a way to make him look like a fool.

“Get out of here. I’m not in the mood to argue, and I don’t give a damn why you’re creeping around my forest. Leave before I make you leave,” Ares warned, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. The two gods had never actually fought each other in a direct, one-on-one duel, yet the entire pantheon quietly considered Athena the superior warrior. It was a simple, infuriating metric: whichever army the Goddess of Wisdom backed almost always won.

“Hermes mentioned that you’re suddenly planning to marry a mortal princess,” Athena said, finally dropping the banter. “And I’ve just learned that this particular girl happens to be a deeply devoted follower of mine. What exactly are you plotting, Ares?”

“None of your damn business,” Ares replied curtly, turning his back on her to watch his followers begin the messy work of beheading the monster bull.

“Are you trying to win Zeus’s favor?” Athena pressed, her eyes narrowing as she analyzed him. “Trying to finally make him like you?”

“Once again, keep out of my affairs, Athena.”

“I won’t let you win, Ares,” Athena promised, her voice dripping with absolute ice. “As long as I draw breath, you will remain the pathetic, brutish outcast that no one wants. And me? Well… you’ve heard the rumors, haven’t you? The people of Athens are currently erecting a statue of me the size of a mountain.”

Refusing to take the bait, Ares remained completely nonchalant. He walked away, not bothering to cast a single glance over his broad shoulder. He’d endured millennia of Athena’s arrogant intimidation tactics. He knew the rules of her game: the more he engaged, the more insufferable she became. The only way to win against the Goddess of Wisdom was to simply walk away.

Meanwhile, from the safety of the treeline, Alastair and I had accidentally witnessed the entire divine family reunion. We had just crossed into Olympus, entering Ares’s heavily guarded domain, when our carriage stumbled right onto the edge of their tense standoff, allowing us to overhear almost everything.

“I definitely didn't expect the legendary, ‘wise’ Athena to be such an absolute mean girl,” I whispered to Alastair, genuinely shocked by the venom I'd just heard.

“Ares and Athena have been bitter rivals since the dawn of time,” Alastair whispered back, his eyes glued to the scene. “She constantly tries to humiliate him and prove her intellectual superiority. Most of the time, Lord Ares simply refuses to play her games.”

I nodded slowly, the pieces clicking into place. I remembered this exact rivalry from the thick mythology scripts back in Hollywood. The ancient poets loved to pit them against each other: Ares, the unhinged villain bursting with wrath and fury, versus Athena, the flawless, wise savior. Ares, the god despised by all of Greece, and Athena, the golden child.

Clearly, the reality was way more complicated than the textbooks claimed. An unexpected, annoying flicker of pity sparked in my chest for the Lord of Battle. He seemed incredibly misunderstood. But I quickly clamped down on that emotion. His messy family drama was definitely not my business. Honestly, as I stared at his impossibly broad shoulders and lethal physique, I was just overwhelmingly grateful that the immortal god I was being forced to marry didn't look like some decrepit, wrinkled old man.

Even though I’d only caught a glimpse of him from behind, the raw, intimidating power radiating off him was undeniable. He was a terrifying, formidable warrior who clearly lived for the fight—but after witnessing him hold his temper against Athena's toxic baiting, I had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't the mindless, vicious villain the world made him out to be.

“Let us be on our way again, my lady. The Palace of Ares awaits,” Alastair murmured, motioning for the entourage to quietly resume our journey. We had deliberately halted our carriages in the shadows just to avoid interrupting the volatile clash of the Olympians, but now, it was finally time to meet my new husband face to face.