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He was taking a little walk to the beach, looking for relief from all his royal duties, passing through the forest behind the palace, when a hand suddenly yanked him to the ground. Now pinned beneath the young prince, a man with sun-tanned skin and big obsidian eyes looked down at him with a mischievous grin.
Telemachus's frown deepened as that same hand moved toward his chin.
“Fancy seeing you here,” said Antinous in his annoyingly sexy voice, purring, “Princess.”
Telemachus was utterly mortified. The suitor he admired disliked the most was acting… strange. His obsidian eyes sparkled, and his normally brutish, detestable face was red with a blush. Thinking the suitor had been drinking and confused him with a woman, Telemachus shoved him aside.
“What the heck is your problem, Antinous? If you’re going to drink until your brain cells are dead enough to be kind to me, at least go bother someone else and stop pestering me.”
“Aww, my princess is jealous?”
That single sentence sent a shiver through the prince’s body. This had to be a terrible joke—or a pitiful nightmare. Yet Antinous dragged him back to the ground by the wrist, now sitting on his torso, giggling like an idiot while the prince half-panicked.
Little did they know: Antinous hadn’t been drinking at all. The goddess of love was watching from Olympus, smiling at her little mischief, stirring internal conflict inside Telemachus.
Back in Ithaca, the suitor tried everything in his arsenal to seduce the prince—touching, talking, kissing, purring, and more.
“Aren’t you the most beautiful creature in existence?”
Telemachus definitely wasn’t falling for the sweet talk—but, to be fair, he was a little distracted by the tenderness and pure affection the suitor was showing. Still, he couldn’t ignore Antinous’s ambition, his blatant disrespect, and the hunger for power he had displayed since the moment he stepped into the palace.
Yet... that face. That body.
It was a beautiful, toxic, and tempting pleasure.
Telemachus was starting to lose his determination to stay indifferent.
In the middle of the mingling of their bodies, dangerously close in some parts, a far too familiar female voice startled them both.
“Telemachus! Telemachus, where are you?”
Spooked by the queen’s voice, Telemachus abruptly stood up, crushing the suitor in the process as he scrambled to run at the call of his mother—leaving behind a shocked, flushed, and curious Antinous.
At night, Ithaca felt unbearably heavy. The halls, the whispers, the weight of expectations—everything pressed down on Telemachus like armor he no longer wished to wear.
Telemachus has just left the dinner hall where the suitors were eating like some starved beasts.
“Come with me,” Antinous whispered, grabbing his hand with a smile that for once held no mockery, no lust, just… something terrifyingly gentle.
“Why?” Telemachus asked, but didn’t pull away.
“Because you need to breathe. And maybe... so do I.”
Without another word, they ran—past the columns of the palace, across the fields bathed in moonlight, into the woods, and out toward the crashing waves. Sand clung to their feet, their clothes. The salt in the wind kissed their lips.
Telemachus fell to his knees by the water, laughing breathlessly. “We’re insane,” he muttered.
Antinous sat beside him, silent for a moment. “Maybe. But if madness means feeling this free with you, I’ll gladly lose my mind.”
Telemachus turned to look at him baffled—and for the first time, Antinous wasn’t smirking. He looked real. Vulnerable. Beautiful.
“Are you going to kiss me or steal my crown?” Telemachus asked, voice barely above the waves.
“I’m not sure anymore,” Antinous whispered. “Maybe I already stole something more valuable.”
The prince blinked confused.
“Your heart,” Antinous said.
Telemachus punched him in the shoulder. With an amused expression he said. “That was terrible.”
Antinous grinned. “But you didn’t say I was wrong.”
A silence fell, soft and uncertain, broken only by the sound of the sea.
From above, Aphrodite watched the two boys under the stars, her smile bittersweet. Love was never easy—but oh, how delicious it was when it struck where it shouldn’t.
And in that moment, Telemachus didn’t know if he was being ruined… or loved. Confused by the displayed affection, but the past actions still stuck in his mind.
High above the mortal world, on the golden heights of Olympus, the goddess of love reclined on a throne made of seafoam and rose petals. Her eyes, glowing with eternal beauty, remained fixed on the beach of Ithaca, where two boys dared to blur the line between hatred and devotion.
Aphrodite’s smile was soft… and dangerous.
“Such a lovely entanglement,” she murmured, swirling the image of Telemachus and Antinous in the water like mist in her palm. “Let’s see how long it lasts before it breaks him.”
Behind her, a shadow stirred. A stern figure with grey eyes and a helmet of wisdom stepped into the light.
“Aphrodite,” said Athena coldly, “you promised not to interfere with the boy. His path is vital for Ithaca.”
“Oh, Athena,” Aphrodite replied, lounging back. “I’m not interfering. I’m helping.”
She raised a brow. “You gave him reason. I gave him... passion.”
Athena frowned. “You cursed Antinous, didn’t you?”
“I gifted him,” the goddess corrected. “With clarity. He now sees the boy not as a prize to mock or a rival to defeat… but as something precious. Something worth surrendering to.”
“And what about Telemachus?”
Aphrodite’s smile turned bittersweet. “That is the test. If he loves Antinous in return, he risks destroying his throne. But if he denies him… his heart will rot in silence.”
She closed her hand, the mist vanishing. “Either way, he will understand love—raw, painful, real.”
Meanwhile, on the shore, Telemachus couldn’t sleep.
Antinous had left him with a grin and a stupid line, but there was something behind that grin—something heavy and aching. Something real.
He shouldn’t care. He couldn’t care.
But the prince’s heart felt like it was being pulled in two directions: the one his father forged—duty, war, honor—and the one Aphrodite whispered into his soul—desire, chaos, and something dangerously close to joy.
Then he heard it.
A voice. Not spoken aloud, but deep inside him, like a secret someone had placed under his skin.
“Would you still love him if it meant losing everything?”
He spun around, heart racing. No one was there. Only the wind, the sea, the stars.
“Would you still kiss him… if it meant your people would never kneel to you?”
He fell to his knees, clutching his chest.
“Get out of my head,” he muttered. “You’re not real.”
But the goddess was real. She would always be there, watching his tricks on display.
Looking forward to how the warrior of Athena will answer to her test.