Dionysus threw himself into the high-backed leather chair behind his desk, angry at the straining erection that continued to betray his hunger, his need, for her. It didn't matter that nobody else knew about it. She knew. She'd felt it. And she'd wanted it. If Chiron hadn't walked in...
Asriel. She wasn't Ariadne, granted, but she was so beautiful, and stubborn, and tender, and argumentative. Everything about her tempted him. Although, he supposed, that was what she did. She knew the deepest, darkest desires of everyone, deities and mortals alike, and if she wished, she could change her form accordingly. Asriel: Goddess. Temptress. Lover. Niece. Forbidden. Those five simple words basically summed her up in his mind, but at that very moment, 'niece' was the one that battered his brain.
" -an't imagine why Zeus chose her to be the Goddess of Temptation," Chiron was saying.
"Hmm?"
"I said, she's so belligerent. I can't imagine, for the life of me, why Zeus chose her to be the Goddess of Temptation."
His musings gave Dionysus cause to give a short chuckle. "That's because she's not trying to tempt you... If she was, you wouldn't stand a chance," he stated dryly. How true that was.
Asriel had only been a few years old when Dionysus had first met her. Being the child of Ares and Aphrodite, both full gods, she had been automatically granted the right to live on Olympus, and she'd grown up there, under the guidance of her father, of all people. As a youngster, she had been precocious, stubborn, selfish, unyielding and fiercely protective of those she loved. Dionysus, always somewhat at odds with Ares anyway (after all, who, except Aphrodite, wasn't?), had disliked the child of his older brother on sight, and had protested violently when Zeus had announced he was making Asriel the Goddess of Temptation. Zeus, of course, had carried on regardless of the discord, and Dionysus had eventually come to accept that the old man may have been right in his choice. Asriel, daughter of love and war, had all the attributes to help save Olympus when it was attacked, thus earning Dionysus's grudging respect. He didn't like her any the more, but he came to accept that she wasn't all her father's daughter, traits of her mother lingered there, too.
She'd been very young, though, when she had risen to the status of goddess, only around 1200 years old, and Dionysus had been sent away for a while, shortly after that, to watch over the creations of new theatres in Greece. When he'd returned to Olympus, the largely self-centred teenager was gone, replaced with a quick-tempered but sultry young lady whom Dionysus had had to resist falling to his knees in front of everytime she deigned to throw him a smile.
She'd taken lovers in the time he'd been away, both gods and mortals, and he still remembered now the jealousy he'd felt upon hearing that information. Being denied her body, he hadn't quite moved past those feelings, but he'd been able to ignore them with being away from her for so long. But now, here she was, thrust into his path once more, and this time, there was no Ariadne to lessen the temptation...
That damned centaur... Asriel seethed silently as she strode away from her uncle's office, unable to believe Chiron's timing. Depending on one's viewpoint, it had either been completely perfect or absolutely disastrous. From her own frustration, the goddess took it to mean it had been disastrous. And Dionysus's body had definitely appeared to be in agreement with her.
He wanted her. He'd wanted her for centuries, she knew that, but finally getting a taste of her had spurred him on. He'd never touched her like that before. He'd never even touched her before, if she was truthful. It had all been just words in the past. Intimate conversations when they'd been standing too close for what they were to one another. Hours and hours staring at his lips and then imagining how they would feel against her mouth, on her flesh. Here on earth, what they'd already done was forbidden, what they wanted to do was even more so; on Olympus, though, it wasn't: her grandfather, his father, had wed his own sister. Her own parents had taken lovers and conceived children with their own kin. But Ariadne was on Olympus, and Dionysus would never be unfaithful when his wife was close by. If Asriel wanted him, it had to be whilst she was on earth...
"Hi," said a bright voice.
The goddess glanced round, recoiling a little in surprise when she saw the creature that had addressed her. A Cyclops? How had it passed through the barrier that protected Camp Halfblood?
"Hello," she greeted cautiously.
Unlike most of his kind, the young male Cyclops was of average earthly height, scruffily, but cleanly dressed in baggy trousers and a checkered shirt. Short dirty-blond dreadlocks framed his happy, if misshapen, face.
"I'm Tyson," he announced.
"Asriel," she responded, for now ignoring the large hand he extended towards her, and continuing to stare at him with trepidation and a certain amount of intrigue. "I assume you're what Chiron needed to talk to Dionysus about so desperately?"
"The centaur? Yes, he seemed a little shocked to see me."
"I can't imagine why." A hint of sarcasm laced her words, but the Cyclops simply smiled at her. "How did you get through the barrier?"
"My father led me here," he said. "And I just walked right in."
"Your father? A Cyclops?"
"No. No, no." He hurried to reassure her. "Neither of my parents are Cyclops."
"But that means..."
"Hmm, a god and a sea nymph."
"Which god?"
"Poseidon."
"Hmm." The deity considered her newly discovered relative with even more interest.
"And who are you?"
"I'm Asriel."
"You're a goddess!"
"Yes, I am."
"How did you end up here?" he asked quickly. "If it's not too rude to ask..."
"I upset my grandfather... So, here I am until he gets over it."
"Tyson, come in, please," a voice called from along the corridor.
"Good luck," Asriel smirked, wondering exactly what Dionysus was going to make of his latest cousin. How she'd love to be a fly on the wall!