The Lovestruck Goddess

The Lovestruck Goddess
Aimee Carter

‘When I’m with him, I feel alive, not just immortal.’Flighty, capricious Ava thinks she isn’t suited to life as a Greek goddess. Their world is ruled by jealousy and war but Ava cares more for matters of the heart – and two boys specifically! But could discovering which one is her true love be Ava’s greatest weapon…‘Our favourite author of the year,’ – Teen Now. A GODDESS SERIES STORY

Select Praise forAimée Carter’sThe Goddess Test series

“The narrative is well executed, and Kate is a heroine better equipped than most to confront and cope with the inexplicable.”

–Publishers Weekly on The Goddess Test

“Carter’s writing is a delight to read–succinct, clean, descriptive. Goddess Interrupted is definitely a page-turner, one full of suspense, heartbreak, confusion, frustration and yes, romance.” –YA Reads on Goddess Interrupted

Also byAimée Carter

The Goddess Test Novelsin reading order:

THE GODDESS TEST

“The Goddess Hunt” (ebook)

GODDESS INTERRUPTED

and the upcoming

THE GODDESS INHERITANCE

The

Lovestruck

Goddess

Aimée Carter

www.miraink.co.uk (http://www.miraink.co.uk)

For Carrie Harris, who is one of a kind,

brilliantly hilarious,

and knows just what to say to vanquish the crazies.

JUICES.

GUIDE OF GODS

I like secrets. Daddy’s a walking cliché and says that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I think the secrets people keep are the real way to see who they are.

See, secrets mean someone wants to keep something hidden, and the things people keep hidden are usually the most interesting parts of who they are. Afraid of the ocean? Totally telling. Six toes? All kinds of brilliant. Lusting after your niece? Majorly creepy.

Here’s a secret—I failed my test.

I’ve never told anyone. Daddy knows—he’s the one who caught me in a compromising position with a shepherd’s son—but he’s never said a word about it, either. Technically all the members of the council who aren’t the original six siblings have to pass this ridiculous trial that tests our virtues, else we can’t be a member of the council, but I think that’s crap. Who wants to be ruled over by a bunch of self-important gods who think they’re better than everyone just because they could bottle up their natural impulses for a little while?

And why are virtues so important anyway? I mean, I get not being greedy or selfish or too proud, but practically every member of the council’s like that anyway, especially the six siblings. And I’ve never seen a more envious group of people in my life. Someone gets something, and suddenly they all hate that person because they got lucky or worked hard or whatever. Why can’t everyone just love everyone else? That’s what a ruler should do. Rule with love, not fear or intimidation. I love Daddy, but he’d have a lot easier time of it if he bothered to care about other people every once in a while.

He loves me though, so I can’t complain too much.

Speaking of love and virtues, why is lust such a bad thing? Everyone acts like doing what our bodies are designed to do is such a horrible thing. Well, no, not everyone. Mostly just Hera. And she’s the root of everything, really—she’s the reason everyone’s so miserable all the time, she’s the reason we keep secrets and she’s the reason I failed my test. Most important, she’s the one who made up these ridiculous virtues we’re all tested on in the first place, as if she’s followed every single one of them herself (hello, pride), and she’s the reason Daddy had to lie to get me a seat on the council.

That takes me to my second secret. My biggest secret. Who is currently trying to force-feed me grapes.

“No!” I bat Ares’s hand away and giggle. We’re curled up in a nest of silk pillows on my bedroom floor, and the sunlight that pours in from the balcony gives everything a golden glow. I love the way the sunset swirls around my feet, but I love the way Ares traces invisible patterns on my back even more.

“You need to keep your energy up,” he says. I brush a lock of dark hair from his eyes. He’s beautiful, muscles rippling underneath every square inch of skin, and he looks at me with such intensity that I think his fire will burn me. I’m not so sure I would mind.

“Mmm, but we don’t have much longer, and I don’t want to waste any more time eating,” I murmur. Every place he touches me seems to sizzle, as if just being near each other is enough to spark a blaze. I’ve never loved someone so much in my life.

No, love isn’t the right word. I mean, it is, but it’s more than that. He consumes me. I’m constantly aware of him when he’s nearby, even when I’m trying to focus on something else, and he has no problem exploiting it. That’s how we wound up in my bedroom in the middle of the day, minutes before Daddy’s supposed to come home.

Sometimes I think Ares does it on purpose.

“Well,” he says in that husky voice of his, eternally scratchy from his battle cries. “Then we should get down to business, shouldn’t we?”

He kisses me, his lips bruising against mine, and our mouths are a tangle of teeth and tongue. I’ve kissed a lot of boys before, and none of them affect me the way he does. When I’m with him, I feel alive, not just immortal. And believe me, there’s a difference. It’s easy to be immortal—all you have to do is sit there. But the world passes you by that way, and I don’t see the point of existing for eternity if we don’t feel it.

Being alive, that’s the hard part. That’s when my heart beats, my eyes are open and I see and smell and feel and taste and hear everything. It’s heat, it’s fire, it’s the crash of the waves and the rumble of thunder. It’s an awareness mortals take for granted. I never do though, especially when I’m with Ares.

He’s pressing his hips against mine when someone clears their throat. I’m so lost in Ares that the sound makes me jump, and I push him off me. In the half second before I turn to the gauzy curtain that separates my room from the hall, I silently will it to be anyone but Daddy. I’d even take Hera right now. Or Hephaestus.

Shudder. Maybe Daddy would be a better option, after all.

My heart sinks. Standing in the archway, his arms folded across his chest, is my father. His blue eyes are narrowed, his expression stony, and in that moment I’m sure he’s going to smite one or both of us. I can only imagine what I must look like—cheeks flushed, hair mussed, lips swollen from the way Ares claimed them. Terrific.

“Hi, Daddy,” I say, hugging a pillow. He says nothing. “Er, you’re back early.”

Still nothing. I look at Ares for help, but he’s leaning back against the pillows with a shit-eating grin that makes me want to smack him. Apparently he’s rubbing off on me, and not in the way I want him to.

It’s amazing how slowly time can move sometimes, and I sit there, waiting—for what, I don’t know. For anything. At last another figure appears on the other side of the gauzy curtain. For a moment, my hopes rise; but the instant Hephaestus limps through the curtain to stand beside Daddy, they burst. Could this possibly get any worse?

No, I take it back. No use tempting the Fates.

“Father,” says Hephaestus. He’s tall, taller than Daddy, and his arms are thick with muscles from forging. He would be cute if it wasn’t for his twisted legs.

Not that I hold it against him, of course. But a girl has to have some standards. Besides, I saw the way he looked at me even before Daddy promised me to him, and I see the way he looks at me now. It isn’t as consuming as Ares’s gaze, but that love is still there. Gentler, easier, kinder. The sorts of things I don’t need when I have his brother.

“Go back to the throne room, Hephaestus.” Daddy clenches his fists. Hephaestus has the uncanny ability to make him squirm, something no one else on the council—no one else in the world, probably—can do. Usually Hephaestus takes great pains to stay away from Daddy for that very reason, but apparently today is the exception.

“Ares and Aphrodite weren’t doing anything wrong,” he says. A truth if I’ve ever heard one. Maybe he’s finally accepted that I don’t want to marry him. “He was teaching her how to defend herself. How to wrestle.”