Perhaps he was too busy enjoying victory on Olympus to hear her. Atop the mountain, he had ambrosia and nectar to feast on, along with a dozen of his closest relatives, even if he and Ares were having a bit of a falling out at the moment.

Megara slipped off the pedestal and secured the blanket around her shoulders. "Goodbye," she whispered. It was starting to feel odd to speak to him now that she wasn't sure he was listening when she spoke.

Her cousins would be waiting for her outside. She couldn't afford to make herself obvious with this strange flirtatious dynamic she'd developed with a god. They'd never understand or forgive her for this if they had heard her partaking in it.

"Wait!"

Megara swung back around, startled, and her hair swung over her shoulder as she moved.

The Mighty Hercules sat on his pedestal, illuminating the room with his golden aura and blushing at her. "I didn't think you'd… um… That was nice."

"I didn't think you'd take such an active role in saving our city." Megara wasn't sure what to do with herself, so she dropped to one knee. "How can we ever repay you?"

"Ah, it was nothing!" Hercules beamed. His golden light shone even brighter. "But… What you did… I know you don't think it meant a lot, but… it really did!"

"Oh." His smile made her nervous. She'd never had this feeling before, and it bubbled in her stomach, ready to burst out in a giggle fit. She wasn't the kind of girl who lost control at no more than a smile. She had so much more dignity than that.

Hercules strode toward her, impossibly tall and shining like the sun. Then, a thought seemed to occur to him, and he shrank himself down. He was taller than any man in her family but no longer a walking monument. She could tilt her chin upward and look directly into his eyes. He was almost human. "I thought… when you did that, it was the sweetest thing I ever felt in my life. I really hope you'll come to see me more often, Meg." He raised his upturned palm as if inviting her to take his hand.

Should she? What should she do when a god asks her to hold his hand and praises her for a kiss? There was no proper response. She would have to go with her instincts. What did she have to lose? With a dreadful potential husband in the form of Eteocles waiting for her at home, why not dally a while longer with a god?

She placed her hand in his.

The excitement that hummed through his skin and aura was infectious. It forced the giggles out of Megara before she could clap her free hand over her mouth to restrain them.

His joy was hers.

She giggled again, this time turning away and squeezing her eyes shut, but no form of restraint had any effect.

"You don't have to hide that. It's cute," Hercules told her. "You know… I was wondering if you wouldn't mind… Now that I'm here, I mean. If you would do that again."

Megara's brows rose. "It was that good?"

"I wasn't ready that time, and I was talking to my lame uncle and my parents. I'm going to remember that… ah… tribute you gave me… forever. But maybe we should, um… try again? And if you didn't mind, I could try it on you, too."

"On me?" she gasped.

"Yeah! But… only if you want to. I thought… You gave it to me as a gift, but… I still wanted you to see how much it meant to me."

"You just saved my life and my city. If you wanted to, that's not a problem." Was she really agreeing to this? What if it was too much, and she not only giggled but cried? She'd gone so many years, mainly experiencing harsh and hostile touch or nothing. What would happen to her if the first hint of affection from a god was anything like holding hands with him? She may never see her dignity again.

"It's going to be exactly like what you gave me," he promised. "Nothing intense, and I won't ask anything more from you."

That didn't sound so bad, but she didn't trust her new, giggly self. She was someone else. "I'll go first," she told him. "But you're too tall! I can't reach you up there."

Hercules chuckled and crouched over her. "It's really nice of you to offer to do that again, Meg," he whispered. The warmth of his breath reached her, laced with a scent similar to lemons or oranges but clearly something that was all Hercules. It smelled good enough, but how would it taste?

Megara wouldn't close her eyes and risk her aim to go off course. She had to watch those sapphire eyes draw nearer, but she'd made up her mind. His aura hit her lips before they reached his skin, and the buzz rushing through it felt like it was enough to make her mind go blank. She'd never had to process so much anticipation.

Stubborn as ever, Megara pressed a kiss to his cheek.

A fresh hit of his aura was so intense that she had to pull back, giggling uncontrollably.

"So cute," Hercules whispered. He squeezed her hand, wrapped his free arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close so that he could return the gesture.

There it was. Megara's mind's eye flashed with his golden light, unable to process it without a squeal.

She didn't feel like the same person who had crept into his temple that morning. She'd been in the dark so long that so much light threatened to blind her, but she couldn't move away.

No, she wanted more of him.

She couldn't have more. That was impossible.

She was going to break her own heart on the rocks of his passion.

"I ought to leave," she whispered.

"Oh… I didn't mean to… was it too much?"

Megara's skin tingled with the remainder of his kiss, and it was the same that had been there when he healed her but stacked atop itself. It had been too much in a way. She couldn't process it. She was going to lose her mind! "Oh, it wasn't too much," she murmured. Acting classes had made her an excellent liar. "But it's time for me to go home, right? Because if we do too much…"

The idea of going any further with this god who overpowered her senses so thoroughly was the kind of thrill she only indulged in when she wanted to erase her circumstances completely. As much as she wanted to move on and do something so different, she forgot where she came from. She didn't think she wanted to do that as the mother of a demigod child.

"Will I see you again?" Hercules asked. He tugged her a little closer, and she went without complaint.

For a moment, she could imagine never leaving him.

"I'm sure you will."

"Have you been here all day?"

"Oh. Yes, I have."

"Did you have anything to eat?"

"No…" Was that an offer? Dared she ask?

"I thought… you've been here all day, and maybe before you go, you might have the opportunity to do whatever you want before you go home to what you've got waiting for you."

"With you?"

"Eh…" Hercules combed his hair with his fingers and scratched the back of his neck. "I… well, I wanted to take care of you."

"You've already done more than I expected. You don't have to do that on top of everything."

"What if I'd like to spend more time with you?"

"With… me?"

"You're the only person I want to spend my time with," he said, and his lashes hung low. "I'd love to get to know you more if you allow me to. If you want to, that is."

She was hungry. And she liked spending time with him, too.

"The only problem right now is that you look like a god, and everyone knows what you look like. People would bother us."

"Oh…" his face fell. "Yeah, that would be pretty annoying…"

"So you'd have to disguise yourself."

Hercules perked back up. "You'd go out with me, then?"

"Sure. I'd like any excuse not to go home."

"Why not?"

"My cousin was just here bragging about getting me married to her brother," Megara said as her smile turned queasy. "I can try to get you a better temple built, one where it's all about you and not just an offshoot of your father's. The city owes you that much, at least."

"Wait, you're going to become a queen?" His skin was gold, but Megara could swear that he was blushing. "Does that mean we couldn't go out together?"

"No, it doesn't. Marrying me off is what they want," Megara rolled her eyes. She could always run away again. "I'm a princess, so they think I have to do what they want," Megara explained. "My role is to marry whoever is best for my family, not for me. I don't want to marry who they tell me to, but I don't have a choice unless I run away. I don't know how to live out there in the world. Not yet, anyway. I know how to work with people. That's not the problem."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't want to marry that jerk. He's the guy who beat me up yesterday."

The blush she thought she saw on the god's face vanished. "He what? And then he thinks he can marry you?"

"Some members of my family understand the fine art of diplomacy, and then the rest thing diplomacy is what you do with your fists."

"Well… I won't say that doesn't work for me sometimes," Hercules said, absently massaging a bicep. "But… that's not right. He can't love you if he treats you like that."

"He's never pretended to love me. He's been hitting me since we were kids."

"Then don't marry him," Hercules said firmly. "Wait for… someone else. Maybe someone else would be nicer to you."

"I've already gone around Greece trying to make it work with any of those princes, but they hate my attitude."

"What attitude?" Hercules frowned. "You've always been sweet to me."

Oh, that was the trick. He didn't really know her.

Well, he would soon enough. She couldn't hold it back forever.

"That's because you're a god. I know better than to talk back to a divine being who could punish me for my sass. But mortals are another story. I never fail to call people out when they do things they shouldn't, and I still… Well, nobody really appreciates it when I do that."

"My uncle Hades and brother Ares don't like it when I tell them what for, either. I get it. They're all bluster, though. They want to hurt people, but they can't hurt me. So they lose their temper, and then they lose the argument."

Despite everything being different, from their stations to their mortality status, Megara wondered just how similar they might be. "I have one request. If we go out, can I get my look together? I'd like to spend time with the hottest guy in the cosmos without looking like a rat that rolled in a trash heap."

Hercules was back to blushing. "I can transport us anywhere in the world… If you want to go home and get dressed, bathe, or do whatever, all you have to do is call on me, and I'll carry you wherever you want to go."

"Deal!" Megara clasped his hand in hers. "If I'd known this was a valid way to pay for my city's safety, I would've done it a long time ago."

"You're not paying me," Hercules said, his eyes wandering her face and resting on her lips. I'm repaying you for helping me feel alive."