Disclaimer: I do not own the Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus series. This chapter also has text pertaining to the Sword of Truth series, which I also don't own.

Aphrodite's Meddling

Perseus surveyed his bruised, beat up and exhausted students. In a blunt way of showing how hard he'd been on the girls' training, all just sat or lay on the arena floor depleted of all energy. The younger girls, who'd been in the hunt for a shorter amount of time, were practically passed out on their stomachs, tongue touching the arena floor. He did feel regretful, slightly, since they'd been at it all morning with only two hours spare to eat at noon.

Perseus rose from his meditative seated position since the conch horn would sound shortly, announcing dinner. Seeing him rise, Artemis walked towards him and looked at her worn out, bruised and beat up huntresses with pride. They had excelled greatly from the start when Perseus entered the arena; she was also greatly pleased at how Perseus had changed them. Whenever he was around, it seemed everyone took in his love for life and began to live it themselves.

Walking through camp behind Perseus was hazardous for Artemis. Everywhere she walked, she'd see multiple girls, and probably the ones less shy and stuttering since they'd trained with Perseus that morning pop out of no where and give Perseus a flirtatious wink and smile. Every one of those flirtatious girls ogling Perseus like that powered her inner stove on and began boiling her blood. In the meantime, emotions that she believed long lost seemed to flutter in her eyes every so often, but she couldn't grasp what it all meant.

Continuing toward the dining pavilion, they passed close to the Athena cabin, where they saw a girl with blond hair rummaging through a storage box outside the cabin. Another girl was standing quietly behind the crouched girl and waited patiently. The girl standing patiently had a shapely, well defined body for a child of what seemed 13 or 14. She had long lush burnt golden hair, which seemed to look and act like waves in the soft breeze.

"Ah here, try this one," The crouched girl said all the while rising and turning toward the girl with an elegant dagger. Once the girl had full spun, Artemis knew exactly who she was, Perseus' ex-girlfriend: Annabeth.

Annabeth's eyes widened when she saw the god and goddess, "Lady Artemis, Lord Perseus." She gave a small bow to them both. The other girl spun and after composing herself she also bowed.

"Hello Annabeth," Perseus smiled politely. His mouth produced a smile, anyway. His eyes, though, held no hint of a smile. It was as discordant a look as Artemis had ever seen on his face. Artemis had seen Perseus in the midst of battle; she had seen him in a lethal rage. She had also seen deadly seriousness, dance dangerously in his deep sea green eyes. In the fury of commitment and determination, Perseus was easily capable of looking frightening; enough to even make hellhounds blanch, in fear.

But no look Artemis had ever seen on his face was as terrifying to her as the one she saw now. This wasn't unbelievable rage or seriousness that gripped his eyes, or a lethal commitment. This was worst. The profoundness and extent of disinterest in that empty smile, in his eyes, was terrifying.

The only way such a look of profound disinterest could be any worst than it genuinely was at that moment, was if such a cold gaze was directed towards her. His eyes moved away from Annabeth slowly, with each small movement to the right towards the other girl. His expression seemed to soften tenfold, replacing his empty smile with one genuine.

"Hello again, and your name is?" Perseus waited politely for a name to come, but the girl seemed shocked to be before him and Artemis to respond. "Don't make me tap the side of your shoulder to bring you back to Earth again," He said disapprovingly.

The girl seemed to come out of her trance and shook her head to stop him. Albeit it seemed more as she was still dazed and needed to rock her head from side to side to wake herself completely. "Crystal," the girl managed to whisper out.

"Is there more to your name, young one," Artemis asked sympathetically.

Shifting her eyes towards Artemis, Crystal seemed to recompose herself. "Yes of course, Beach. Crystal Beach," She said confidently.

"Well it's nice to meet you Crystal," Perseus said, which Artemis nodded in confirmation. "I would have asked your name this morning in the arena, but I didn't want your sisters attacking you any more than they already did. I can still see a few scratch marks on your cheeks." Crystal nodded in thanks, with blood rising into her cheeks, making her flush.

"Well you girls might want to hurry up; dinner is starting in five minutes." Perseus interjected before beginning to depart. Both girls nodded and Annabeth handed the dagger still in her possession to Crystal.

"Why would you have to hit her shoulder? Again," Artemis asked suspiciously still behind him.

Perseus looked over his shoulder at the goddess, and saw that this would not go unnoticed. He shrugged his powerful shoulders, still moving towards the dining pavilion, "In the arena, she wouldn't stop concentrating on my stomach, instead of my lesson. So I gave her a light tap on the shoulder with the flat of my blade, and a little talking to her and the other girls. Since they were also doing the same," he chuckled.

She couldn't believe she would actually think ill of Perseus, think that he would honestly hit a young girl on purpose. He was nice, loyal, good-natured, determined... The list could go on and on, in finality he was the first guy that she could tolerate in millennia.

"But you don't just tolerate him..."A voice in her head said teasingly."Admit it you like the boy, plus his body is mhmm. No wonder all those girls just want to savour his body. "Now that Perseus and the voice mentioned his stomach, Artemis couldn't seem to stop thinking about it herself. She didn't even question the voice telling her these things, but the more she thought about his body, the more her mind seemed to come back to the days when she came to give him lessons, but he was always training. Every time she stepped in on him he always seemed to be shirtless, at least that's all she could remember from those intrusions, that he was shirtless.

Once the conch horn sounded calling campers to the dining pavilion for dinner, she was finally brought out of her pondering thoughts. She hadn't even realised that both Perseus and her were already in the dining pavilion, just a few steps away from the main table. Stepping over the bench, she sat herself beside Perseus, since Grover seemed content in pressing himself to her.

With most of the campers now at their cabin tables, nymphs began emerging from the woods with platters of food. After setting food on their plates, campers began to rise to give a portion of their food as an offering to the gods and goddesses. A soft breeze loomed by their table and Artemis new exactly what it meant.

She gave a sour expression towards the campers and turned to Perseus who was smiling with a glint in his eyes. Just that smile seemed to lighten every camper up and give them more heart and courage, Artemis felt exactly the same. Of course that changed when she saw him take a large intake of the sea spray breeze. The sudden deep intake of air jolted her mind.

"So Perseus what are your 'heroes' sacrificing to you?" Artemis said with a hint of bitterness. Perseus instantly registered the bitterness in her voice; he turned towards her and gave her a questioning facial expression. Artemis huffed in annoyance at his expression and turned to look at all the teenage girls at the braziers, still expecting an acceptable answer.

"Most are simply dropping some of their food as a sacrifice to me as they would their godly parent, since I'm the god of heroes. Others like those girls are thanking me," Perseus said looking towards the girls. "I taught them valuable skills in sword combat and they seem to appreciate it, also..."

Artemis removed her glare from the teenage girls; turning to Perseus she raised an eyebrow. "Their enthusiastically loving the sight of me." Perseus said obviously embarrassed and wove his hands through his hair in exasperation.

Well she couldn't argue with the Aphrodite girls, she herself would find herself looking at him when he wasn't paying attention. She would be at times transfixed by him; he was everything she believed had been lost in all men.

The weeks continued on the same at Camp Half-Blood, Perseus would train the designated group early in the morning, followed by training the hunters with a few hard working campers in the afternoon. Two weeks and three days had passed, since Artemis' little dispute in the dining pavilion.

"Great job, another well disserved dinner," Perseus called to his tired student, which comprised of the hunters and a few overachieving campers. Of course in those overachievers there was non-other than Annabeth Chase. Although he didn't really mind that she was there with her best friend Crystal Beach, since he had no connection to her anymore. She was simply irrelevant to him.

With that said the party began to make there way towards the dinning pavilion. Artemis bounded up on Perseus with a sour look. "Perseus," She exclaimed as if remembering something life threatening. "You've been training everyone so hard, that I forgot about our initial deal. After we eat I'll meet you at the archery range."

Perseus groaned and let out a sigh of devastating displeasure. But he finally agreed with a nod, this would be a long and painful night. Not only did archery make him miserable because he was so bad at it, but he didn't enjoy seeing her shake her head disapprovingly when he did something incorrectly.

Dinner passed in a blur and soon Perseus was taking a deep breath before entering the archery range, knowing it would be a while before he left. Readying himself, Perseus made his way towards Artemis where she stood before a target a distance off. One end of a strung bow sat on the ground before her; Artemis' both hands lazily rested on the other end of the bow. A quiver of arrows waited patiently on the ground not far from the bow and Artemis.

Once Artemis saw him she smiled and lifted the strung bow for him. Smiling back he took the bow from her possession and knelt to get the quiver of arrows. "Start shooting at the target," Artemis told him. "I'll be teaching you something altogether new in this lesson. Then I'll come back to your hand and feet placement since it's been quite a long time."

Nodding Perseus took aim at the target with a notched arrow, about everything he was doing was wrong, resulting in the arrow going several feet away from the intended target. Albeit how he was obviously doing it incorrectly, Artemis didn't look at that.

After a few terrible shots, Artemis reached up, while he had the draw string to his ear and she tickled his side. With the unexpected tickle to his rib, Perseus stopped short as he giggled. He dropped his notched arrow, as he tried to remove her hands from his side to stop her from tickling him.

Turning around, Perseus looked at Artemis with a questioning frown. Seeing him frown, Artemis couldn't hold the quick smirk from appearing on her lips. Perseus' frown was soon replaced by a scowl.

"And what was that for, might I ask," Perseus said unamused. "I can't shoot an arrow if you're tickling me."

She put her fists onto her hips, "you have to be able to."

Perseus looked at her with a doubtful expression, "what do you mean?"

"In addition to being able to hit what you want, you must be able to do it no matter what is happening. If you can't shot while you're laughing, how will you do it when you're afraid? It is but you and the target, nothing else matters. You must be able to block everything else around you, to fully concentrate on the task at hand."

Perseus complained like a young child, "but I can't even hit the target..."

"Ah stop whining Perseus, now nock an arrow and I'll talk you threw it." Artemis scold

Perseus sighed in defeat; he picked up his fallen arrow and took aim again. She watched him pull the bowstring again, but before he could let it fly, Artemis approached from behind and stood behind him. Reaching around him, she adjusted his hand on the bow and using her feet she pushed his into the correct position.

"Here. Do this," Artemis pushed on his drawn arm ready to release the arrow. "You can't get any power or stability holding the arrow with your thumb and the knuckle of your first finger."

Artemis pressed harder against his back as she reached for his hand. Once she hand his hand in hers she spoke again, "Hold the bowstring back and not the arrow. Pull it back with your first three fingers, like this, and have the arrow nest between your first two fingers."

Even as Perseus understood everything he was doing and what she was saying, he was immensely distracted. He could just feel her firm breasts squashed against his back, with her arms around him, and her hand over his. Totally embarrassed by feeling the maiden goddess in such a way he accidently dropped his bow.

Nervously Perseus stepped out of Artemis' hold and turned towards her. Backing slowly outward to get out of the archery range, "I'm sorry Lady Artemis, I have to get going." With that said he quickly walked out of the range, once out of sight he dashed toward the Ocean to clear his head.

Artemis stood their in the center of the archery range dumbfounded. A strung silver bow lay on the ground, with a still notched arrow. A rustling in the bushes could be heard, but Artemis made no attempt for it to register. She was lost in thought of what had just happened moments ago.

"You love him don't you?" A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Huh," Artemis said distractedly as she spun to look at her lieutenant. "What Thalia? Why did he leave all of a sudden?" Thalia smirked; her lady hadn't even reprimanded or asked if she'd been eavesdropping the whole time.

"Shrink down to sixteen years old and take aim on the target," Thalia said all the while approaching the goddess.

Even if Artemis didn't understand why she was doing it, she picked the strung bow up with the arrow. Taking aim she finally sensed Thalia close behind her. Thalia began reciting exactly what she had said to Perseus.

Thalia pushed hard with her upper shoulders onto the goddess to get her to see what she'd done. Thalia reached around Artemis and placed her right hand onto Artemis' hand. With her hand over the goddess' she began reciting, "Hold the bowstring back and not the arrow. Pull it back with your first three fingers, like this," Before continuing Thalia ground her breasts in her ladies' back, pulling her shoulders forward and backward to make her breast rub against her back. So she could feel them more against her back and to make it more obvious to her mistress. "And have the arrow nest between your first two fingers."

Finished with the reanimation, Thalia removed her hands, backed away and looked at Artemis' back waiting to see if she had understood. "Artemis," Thalia said concern eminent in her voice, simultaneously another feminine voice called Artemis disapprovingly at the same time as Thalia. Artemis turned toward the two who called her, her eyes showed the whirlpool of emotions, trying to get processed in her mind.

"Aphrodite, wh-" Artemis was interrupted by her sister.

"Well Artemis, what are you still doing here?" Aphrodite asked grudgingly. "If you don't listen to yourself, I'll be going after him for you. He's gorgeous," Aphrodite paused dreamily. "You know I'll go for you, if you don't act and go."

Something must have gone off inside Artemis' mind since she began running out of the archery range. Before exiting Artemis turned toward her sister, "Thank you, Aphrodite." Her eyes turned toward Thalia, "go back to the cabin and stay there." The order was unquestionable so Thalia gulped and nodded. Taking to long, Aphrodite lifted her right hand towards Artemis and shook it, in a shooing manner telling her to be off.

Not wasting any extra time, Artemis turned and bolted, a few moments later she heard Aphrodite yell, "Ocean." Artemis ran at unbelievable speeds in the night sky, with her full moon shining brightly overhead. Artemis stopped a reasonable length away before entering the clearing.

"Uh, flirtatious naiads, just keep it, I am not coming after you." A male voice huffed in annoyance. Silence followed for a while, until Artemis finally emerged.

Perseus sat their on the fine white sand with his knees tucked to his chest, and to Artemis' eyes he seemed to be rocking softly. With Perseus' back to her, she could make out his shirtless form on the fine sand. His powerful arms wrapped around his legs to hold his knees up, made the muscle in his upper back and well built shoulders to bulge. Making him look more than capable of holding the sky up without even breaking a sweat.

Approaching him, she practically hit a heat wave, the night was quite warm. As Artemis approached him, with the heat of the night and the shinning moon overhead, she could see Perseus glistening with sweat. Artemis' heart quickened at the sight of him, but she willed her feet to continue.

Now at his side, she sat beside him facing the ever lapping tides, the ocean and the full moon accompanied by the stars directly overhead. "I love sitting out here at night," he spoke softly. Letting go of his legs to lean back on his arms, he stretched his legs forward now becoming flat on the sand. "It relaxes me, it's one of the only places where I can be calm and think clearly."

Turning to look at him, Artemis could clearly deduce that Perseus was at peace here; his features were soft, peaceful. Looking like this without his hardened face, Artemis was in bliss. Artemis turned to sit with her back to the Ocean, facing him, close against him. His soft, smooth face was better than the view behind her by a tenfold.

The sound of his voice resonated deep inside her, making her feel weak. "I can see that," she said in a soft coy voice. She couldn't believe she was becoming attached to him so quickly, at the high speed of an unmanned train.

The gaze from his deep sea green eyes penetrated her, impaling her with their power, making her breathing quicken. Haunting sounds from the woods carried in by the wind, mingling with the easy sound of the crashing waves, of his steady breathing. She had never felt quite this way before, she felt relaxed and safe in his gaze. But to her confusion at the same moment she felt relaxed and safe, she was tense.

Her eyes wandered from his, feasting on other places on his face: the angularity of his cheeks, the shape of his nose, the sharpness of his jaw, the curvature of his chin. Her eyes stopped on his luscious lips. Suddenly she was aware of how hot it actually was.

Probing his gaze again, she withdrew his favourite fruit and took a slow, juicy bite, dragging her teeth across the meat. His eyes never wavered from hers. Fluidly, teasingly and impulsively, she put the green apple to his mouth and held it there as he took a big, wet bite. That movement of his lips made her heart weak, if only he put his lips on hers like that, Artemis thought.

She could probably take him, he was a god now, he wasn't going to die, and her feelings towards him were only increasing. Why not? She reasoned her father would be happy that she found someone. But he could also banish Perseus, simply because she had fallen for him, a son of Poseidon. She also had her maiden oath to consider.

She ached at the thought of losing Perseus.

She pushed the apple harder on his pearl white teeth as she watch his eyes. Teasingly, she took away the apple from his mouth. Juice ran down his chin at an even pace. Slowly, purposefully, she leaned over and licked the sweet juice from his chin. Their faces were inches apart; her breaths feel in sync with his, quick and warm. She was so close to him that her eyes could scarcely focus on his.

She had to swallow the wetness which had formed in her mouth, by feelings tantalizing her with promise, rapidly gripping her with hot need.

Releasing the apple, she brought her fingers up to his mouth and watched, with her own tongue on her upper lip, as he let each finger slide into his mouth, gracefully sucking the juice off of her fingers as she offered them. The feel of the inside of his mouth, wet and warm, sent shivers up her spine.

A small moan escaped her, as she felt erotically the inside of his mouth. Her heart pounded in her ears. She ran her wet fingers down his chin, his neck, to his chest, lightly gliding them over the hills and mountains of him.

Coming to her knees above him, she placed a hand in the center of his chest as her eyes slide closed for a moment while gritting her teeth. Gently, but forcefully, she pushed him onto his back. He went easily, without complaint or protest lying in the soft sand. She leaned over him with her hand still on his chest for support. The feel did not entirely surprise her, the rigid hardness of his muscles, sheathed with velvety soft skin, the wetness of his sweat, the heat emanating from his core.

Leaving one knee pressed against his hip, she brought the other up between his legs. While looking into his eyes, her thick auburn hair cascaded down around his face as she supported herself with her hand still on his chest, not daring to move it, to lose the connection with his moist flesh.

Between her knees, the muscles in his thighs flexed, sending her pulse sky-rocketing. She had to open her mouth to get her breath. She lost herself in his penetrating eyes, eyes that sent fire raging through her.

She put her hand behind his strong neck, still holding herself up, away from him, with the other hand still on his chest. Her hand slipped into his thick messy raven black hair, tightening into a fist, holding his head to the ground.

A big, powerful hand slipped up over the tissue of her shirt, beginning to stroke the small of her back in little circles. Ever slowly, sliding up along the line of her spine, sending shivers though her, before coming to a designated stop between her shoulder blades. Artemis' eyes half closed flexed her back against his strong hand, wanting him to draw her to him. Her breathing came so fast, she was practically panting.

Little sounds could be heard escaping her with most of her breaths. His chest rose and fell with his heavy breathing against her hand. As he lay under her, she had never thought him to be so big until that moment. He towered over her small athletic build.

"I want you," she panted in a breathless whisper. She lowered her head. Her lips brushed against his.

A look of pain crossed before his eyes, "You know we cannot." Her head moved back a little. She ignored his comment, brought her lips back to his, another small moan escaped with her breath.

The hand on her back moved up over her shirt, took a fistful of her hair, gently pulling her head away from his. "Artemis please, don't do this. Look out towards the tides." He released his fistful of her hair so she could take a quick look, as a way to avert his pain filled eyes.

Bemusement filled her as she looked at the tides; they were huge approximately thrice as high as normal. She quickly looked back towards Perseus. He gave her a small smile, "You see the tides have always had a strong connection to the moon, getting pulled stronger when the moon is at her highest." He said in a philosophical tone. "But over the month and especially tonight, my willpower is continually crumbling, until my heart takes over my mind."

Artemis smiled with her eyes blurry from the threatening tears, "I don't care Perseus I love you." With that said her first tear rolled off her nose, dropping onto his cheek, before she buried herself in the grove of his neck. Strong arms wrapped themselves protectively around her.

Her hair tickled her ear by a soft whisper, "I love you, too."