“You… are so beautiful,” he echoed my words and reached for my face, admiring me like there was something godly in my visage. I knew then that my fair face and golden hair reminded him of someone else. He longed for Aphrodite, he loved her, but I didn’t believe he saw nothing of me. If he enjoyed the aspects of me that were like her, I wasn’t offended. I was honored. She was my patron, after all, and I was meant to give all of myself to my master. Here, in his bed, Hephaestus was mine.
