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Amphitrite considered herself a patient goddess.
She wasn’t like Hera, who thrived on spite and loathed all of Zeus’ lovers to the point of insanity. She wasn’t like Persephone, who was bitter and liked groveling from her husband after his affairs.
She wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t been absolutely thrilled when her husband and his brothers had sworn not to have anymore half-blood children (even if that left nymphs and other goddesses, mortals were by far the most common of her husband’s indiscretions) but she hadn’t exactly been surprised when he had broken it. She was impressed it had taken him that long.
She let Poseidon have his little affairs, because she knew he would ultimately come back to her.
Or at least, she had known before this. Before Sally and Perseus Jackson.
It wasn’t even his former lover who was the problem. Poseidon talked of her with a deep, desperate fondness, but he knew better than to ever go back to her, and she was a woman of integrity who was married. She would die, and he would mourn, but he would forget her in a century or so.
But the son. Perseus Jackson. Poseidon’s so-called favourite child, and oh, hadn’t Triton’s tantrum at that been fun to handle. Poseidon loved him. In a way that unsettled her, that threatened her.
Not to mention the fact that the boy had been offered immortality and then Amphitrite would’ve had to deal with her husband’s bastard for eternity. Thankfully, he had refused.
But the utter devastation that had wreaked on Poseidon had surprised her. He’d always been fond of his demigod offshoots, but Perseus Jackson was different. When he’d fallen in Tartarus, Poseidon had been weak and frail in a way he’d only ever been when his domain was being destroyed. That he was so attached to a mortal. . . .
Amphitrite worried, but she hated and raged and envied more. What was so special about this little mortal boy?
She studied him critically from across the street. He was sitting at a table outside a café, peering at something on his laptop. He was good-looking, she supposed, as well as mortals who were made of tears, sweat, drool and urine could look. But that was only because of his connection to divinity, that he looked so much like Poseidon.
Not to mention her husband was not romantically or sexually attracted to his son.
The fact that she was busy thinking was the only reason it was able to happen. Perseus held a sword to her throat, face cold, eyes steely. How much that reminded her of Poseidon made her mind go blank for a second.
“What are you?” The demigod asked harshly. “And what do you want?”
She let the mortal disguise fade a little, enough to reveal she was a goddess. He took a step back, capping the sword into a pen, but the hostility remained on his face. “What does a god want with me?”
She smiled sharply. “To meet her stepson, of course.”
He blinked, raising his eyebrows. “Lady Amphitrite?” He didn’t give her a chance to reply. “Is Dad okay? Kym?”
She pressed her lips together to conceal her anger at the flippant nickname her most dangerous child had been given. “They are well,” she said coolly. “And if they were not, I would hardly come to a half-blood for help.”
“Then why are you here?”
They stared at one another for a long moment. “How did you know I was here?” She asked finally.
He looked annoyed but answered. “I could feel your aura.” His face softened, and his gaze became dreamy. “It was like the sea, and divinity.”
“Then why did you believe I meant you harm?”
He actually blushed. Amphitrite got a thrill she didn’t understand watching pink bloom on his throat, down the chest covered by a button-up. “Monsters sometimes do that, disguise by making themselves. . . . appealing.”
Oh. He’d liked her presence so much he’d decided it was a trap.
“Your turn.” His face was closed off again. “Why are you here?”
“Curiosity, I suppose,” she considered him, tilting her head. “About what makes you so important to my husband.”
Perseus frowned. “I’m his son.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes. His favourite son.” She didn’t bother hiding her derision. “He always cares for his mortal children, but he has never favoured them before the way he does you.”
“Favour me?” Perseus asked in disbelief. “I haven’t seen him since the Gigantomachy.”
“Your not seeing him,” Amphitrite said slowly, wondering how on earth mortals coped with being so stupid, “Does not mean he hasn’t been watching or helping.”
Perseus’ mouth opened and closed. He was apparently speechless. She waited patiently. “Okay, now you’ve met me,” he replied finally, apparently deciding not to continue with that topic. “Happy?”
“Hardly,” she said dryly, and she saw him smile a little, and to her own surprise, she smiled back. “None of my questions have been answered. I do not see why he considers you worth anything.”
“Ouch,” he said lazily. “So what are you going to do?”
She answered this by disappearing.
“Hey!” Perseus yelled, looking around wildly. “You can’t just follow me around invisibly!”
“I most certainly can,” Amphitrite answered, affronted, leaning far too close to his ear and making him jump and blush, for whatever reason.
And so she did. Not all the time – she had better things to do, and she did respect the privacy of even people she didn’t like – but she enjoyed going up there and seeing him.
He intrigued her. She didn’t understand why Poseidon loved him so much, but she could see why so many gods took an interest in him.
Perseus lived in a small, dilapidated three-room apartment with Annabeth Chase and sometimes his younger half-sister. Watching him play with the tiny six-year-old mortal made her feel things she didn’t understand.
He worked in marine rescue and coached his sister’s swim team as well. Eventually, she began helping him along on his job: making waves, controlling the winds, letting his team swim faster. He never seemed to suspect.
Perhaps mortals were both stupider and less useless than she’d thought.
She finally showed herself to him again in the same café they’d met in the first time, after he’d gotten himself thrown out for defending a waitress against some drunks who were harassing her.
The waitress kissed Perseus and walked back inside, making him smile in an embarrassedly pleased way that angered her, for some reason.
“Perseus,” she said curtly, making herself visible.
He did not look at all surprised as he turned. “My lady. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“You know I’ve been following you,” she realized out loud.
He merely shrugged. “Like I said, your aura. . .” He was blushing again. “It’s very noticeable. And distinct.”
She stepped closer, watching him swallow. “So you can sense me whenever I am around you,” she mused. “And yet you have done nothing.”
“What can I do about a goddess following me around?” He asked, looking defiant.
“You could have prayed to your father,” she pointed out. “He would be furious with me for daring to interfere in his beloved child’s life. Perhaps even restrain me from leaving the undersea.”
“He can do that?” Perseus blinked.
“He is my lord,” Amphitrite answered levelly.
“Still,” he put his hands in his pockets as he walked – on the way to his apartment, she realized. “That’s pretty messed up.”
“Who do you think you are to comment on our relationships, demigod?” She scathed, but without the intensity she would have had only a few weeks ago.
“Your stepson,” he smiled crookedly and it caused something to flip in her stomach. “If you had done anything other than watch from a distance, I would have called on him. But you didn’t.” He sounded curious. “Why not? Hera took Jason away from his mom and tried to get Thalia killed.”
“I am not like Hera,” Amphitrite pointed out. “Your mother lives, does she not?”
He stopped, stiffening, turning to glare at her. She was not easily intimidated, and yet this mere mortal sent shivers down her back. He had inherited Poseidon’s wrath in addition to his sheer power. She could feel the shaking of the ground and the pounding of waves in his aura, and it caused reactions no one but her husband had ever elicited from her. “Don’t talk about my Mom.” He warned lowly. “Stay away from my family.”
Amphitrite was too unsettled by these unfamiliar feelings to respond. She remembered the twist in her stomach when Perseus had kissed the waitress.
She looked at him, cataloguing his features. He was so mortal, so banal. Other than the features he had inherited from Poseidon, there was nothing worth looking at.
Why did he make her feel like this? What was going on?
Amphitrite didn’t take lovers very often, and when she did, they were merpeople. She had only fallen for a mortal twice before, and they had been both extremely light and not fraught with complications.
For instance, they had never been one of Poseidon’s children.
“Lady Amphitrite?” Perseus raised his eyebrows.
“If I wanted your family dead, they would be, Perseus,” she said. “I can assure you they will come to no harm from me, if only to avoid my husband’s wrath.”
He considered her sharply, and then relaxed. “So. Why appear now after all these weeks?”
“To tell you I have concluded my observations,” she decided. “I am leaving you to your devices, with a warning that I am not the only deity sometimes watching you. You are a subject of great interest on Olympus.”
“Wait,” he said, puzzled. “You’ve – understood then? Why Dad. . .” His voice trailed off, and she wondered why he hadn’t asked about which other gods she had noticed watching him.
“No,” she lied. “But I have better things to do. Your quaint mortal life was entertaining for some time, but I am returning home.” Some manifestation of her had always been there, of course, but the primary one had been up here.
Perseus looked torn between anger, relief and sadness. “My lady.”
He turned and walked away, leaving Amphitrite feeling bereft, for some reason.
Amphitrite hadn’t thought she would miss the upper world – and Perseus – so much.
At random times she would wonder what animal Perseus had rescued, whether he was making cookies for his sister again, if he had visited that café again, if he had attended Annabeth Chase’s workplace gala.
She wondered about other people she had seen on her visits there as well. Perseus’ neighbours, his colleagues.
She could perhaps understand why so many of her family were enamoured with mortals. They were so puny, so inconsequential, so powerless, and yet they forged on and did everything to be happy and grew in ways gods hadn’t managed to in millennia.
Perhaps she understood more now that she couldn’t stop thinking about Perseus.
And it seemed it was true the other way around as well.
She didn’t have to wonder what he was doing after a while because he started praying to her. Random, short spurts of how good his breakfast was, how annoying Annabeth’s colleagues were, how sad he was about the state of the ocean, how much fun he had at the Argo II reunion. The only things he didn’t talk about were his parents and sister.
He was clearly still worried about her hurting his family, despite her reassurances.
Amphitrite tapped the armrest of her throne thoughtfully. Being infatuated with her husband’s son was not a good situation to be in.
And yet. How much would it bewilder and hurt Poseidon to know she had seduced his favourite child?
The appeal of getting one over her husband, of showing him how much affairs hurt was very strong.
Judging by the number and quality of his prayers, Perseus was fairly comfortable with her and thought of her as well. She had behaved too scornfully, too distantly for him to view as a motherly figure.
Seducing him wouldn’t be easy – stepmother was far too close to incest for mortals’ little ethics – but it was doable.
Her husband’s bastard could be of some use besides distracting her.
Thus settled, she sent a secondary manifestation of herself to Perseus’ place of work.
She considered her shirtless stepson. It certainly helped that he wasn’t unattractive by any means. Definitely not by mortal standards, and somewhat by godly standards as well.
He turned only moments after she appeared, gaping. She smiled at him, deliberately trying to soften it. His eyes fell to her specially chosen dress – more specifically her bodice and breasts – and he blinked, eyes flicking between it and her face.
Good. It was working.
“Damn, Perce,” one of his colleagues muttered. “Who’s the babe?”
Perseus choked. “Don’t call her that,” he said with harsh panic, but Amphitrite simply smirked, waving him over. “I thought you were done stalking me.” He sounded resentful.
“I am. I’m simply here to ask my stepson to have dinner with me.” She smiled slightly as he began to gape again.
“Dinner?”
“I do have better things to do than follow you around, but my investigation can continue like this anyway,” she continued airily, pretending not to know the connotations to ‘dinner’.
Perseus looked reluctant, but sighed, crossing his arms. She admired the definition of his biceps. “Fine. Where? I have to text Annabeth.”
A flare of jealousy went through her at the demigod’s name. Amphitrite was aware the two weren’t romantically involved anymore – hadn’t been since they were teenagers – but they were still exceptionally close.
“Put on a shirt and I’ll take you there,” she replied coolly, disappearing and smiling when she heard him swear.
Dinner went well. Perseus seemed to enjoy learning about undersea and godly customs, and he was animated about how much he loved teaching his sister’s swim class and how much he hated what humans were doing to the environment. His best friend was a Lord of the Wild, after all.
They agreed to do this again, and Perseus stared at her as she left after flashing him home.
Triton frowned at her, tails swishing uneasily. “You’ve been preoccupied, Mother.”
Amphitrite considered her son. Telling him she was spending time with his mortal half-brother was of course out of the question, so the best thing to do would be to make him drop the line of questioning through guilt or discomfort. “And why would you notice this, Triton?”
Her son dropped his gaze. “I assure you—”
“Because Lord Fain informed me that you deserted training last week,” she said disapprovingly. “Your father did not put you in charge of training the young of the court for you to not fulfill your duties to the best of your abilities.”
“I know, Mother,” he sounded abashed. Good. “I can promise I am fulfilling my duties.”
“Make sure you keep that,” she narrowed her eyes at him. “Now, did you meet up with the court ladies like I told you to?”
Triton groaned.
The next time she saw Perseus was only three days after that. After one of his prayers describing the beauty of the city at night, she had to go there. It was too late to eat, but they spent a while together. She carefully chose her words and postures in ways that made him stare and his breath hitch and heart beat faster.
“What of you and Athena’s daughter?” She asked the question burning into her mind for the past couple weeks. “You seem close.”
“We are,” he said casually.
“Do you still have romantic inclinations for her?” She rolled her eyes impatiently.
“Nah. She’s been with Reyna for – what, four years now?”
“And she still lives with you?” Amphitrite asked in surprise.
“We’re best friends,” Perseus frowned. “Reyna travels a lot for work, and neither of us wants to be alone. She says she doesn’t trust me not to be dumb if she moves out anyway.” He smiled fondly.
There was clearly no reason to be jealous, and yet Amphitrite wanted to hide the man in the ocean where no one but her could get to him. She sighed.
He stood suddenly, forcing her against a wall and grabbing and pinning her wrists. She succumbed, despite the fact that she could smite him with a wave of her hand. “What’s going on?” He demanded. “Why aren’t you stopping me? Why do you want to keep meeting up? And don’t give me that connect with the stepson bullshit. Tyson says you don’t interact with him beyond necessary.”
She arched an eyebrow. “What do you think, hero?”
He pursed his lips, letting go and stepping away. Disappointment filled her – much more than what it should have been to miss an opportunity to get back at Poseidon. “You’re my stepmother.” He muttered, and her heart skipped a beat when she realized it sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Because that means so much to us,” she said amusedly. “Have you never opened a book of myths, boy?” She found herself pressed against the wall once more. A thrill shot through her as he forced his knee between her thighs.
“Was this your endgame all along?” He challenged.
She smirked. “Something like that.”
And finally, finally, his lips crashed down on hers. She moulded herself to him, drinking him in. This might be petty revenge, but she was going to get as much pleasure out of this as possible.
He pulled back, and tentatively reached for her blouse, glancing up for permission. She nodded impatiently, and he ripped it open with a fervor that indicated he’d wanted to do this for a while – just as planned. “Amphitrite,” he sighed, sounding dazed, as he stared at her seashell bra. “Gods, this is fucked up.”
“Bed, Perseus,” she snapped her fingers.
Amphitrite lay in bed, sated and practically vibrating. Now that it had actually happened, she had to admit the whole idea of seducing Perseus as revenge on his father had been ill thought of. How exactly would Poseidon find out without her children and the rest of Olympus doing so as well?
She had never particularly cared about the other gods, but she did not want them to know she’d had a one-night stand with her husband’s son either.
Not to mention the fact that she really wouldn’t mind a repeat performance.
“Well? Was that enough?” Perseus’ voice came from where he was pulling on his jeans.
“Enough for what?” She asked, sitting up and chuckling when his eyes immediately went to her breasts.
“For whatever you want to prove to dad or your kids.” He said, very matter-of-fact.
“Excuse me?” Amphitrite raised an eyebrow. What in the name of the Primordials – how did he know?
“I’m not an idiot,” he sounded extremely annoyed. “You coming to see me once, whatever. But following me around? Taking me to dinner? You had to have an ulterior motive. At first I thought you just wanted to rub it in Dad’s face by spending time with me but then you—” He trailed off, blushing. “So is this enough? Or are you going to continue this farce?”
Amphitrite, for the first time in a long time, was left speechless.
“Well?” Perseus asked testily.
“I will admit that was a motive,” she replied. “And the thought of my lord’s reaction to learning of this amuses me, certainly. But I have been doing what I have only because I want to, Perseus.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie, after all.
He blinked. “Oh.” He sounded unsure.
“We need never talk about this again if you like,” she suggested, tucking her hands behind her back, and snapping her clothes on. “You do not come down home very often – we won’t see each other much.”
Perseus hesitated. “If you want to. . .” He started slowly, and Amphitrite stared at him, hope growing. “I mean, what even is. . . You’re married. You’re my stepmother. How am I supposed to tell Mom I’m sleeping with her ex-boyfriend’s wife?”
“Marriage means less for us, as you well know,” she responded dryly, walking over to him, gently rubbing his bare shoulders. “Affairs are commonplace when you are immortal. As for family. . .” She shrugged. “I cannot imagine telling my children about having been with their mortal half-brother either.”
“We shouldn’t do this,” he said, but fingered a piece of Amphitrite’s dark brown hair. “This is seriously fucked up.”
She disregarded this, kissing him. He pulled her closer, locking his arms around her waist. “No one needs to know about this,” he warned, going back to kissing his way down her neck.
That wasn’t exactly a maintainable situation – sooner or later the truth of their affair would out.
But she was getting what she wanted, and she would get even more of what she wanted when news of this inevitably reached Poseidon and they could be together in public, so she smiled and nodded, kissing him again.
Amphitrite was a patient goddess, after all.