There were many children of the gods—heroes, monsters, troublemakers. Demigods were everywhere. And you were one of the rare daughters of Aphrodite.
Your mother’s beauty ran in your blood; everywhere you went, gods and demigods stared, whispered, followed. But you had no interest in them. To you they were loud, arrogant, and too used to taking whatever they wanted.
Then there was Simon.
He was the son of Hades, born in the shadows of the underworld. Most demigods feared him; mortals avoided even speaking his name. They called him Ghost because no one ever saw him… except you. What they didn’t know was that he left the underworld for one reason only: you.
You met him when you were much younger—barely sixteen, wandering too far from your mother’s temples. He appeared between the trees like a quiet storm, tall and dark, armor cold as winter. You should have been afraid, yet he only asked, voice soft, “Are you lost?”
He walked you home that day. And again the next. Eventually, you started waiting for him on purpose. You talked about everything—your mother’s strict rules, his lonely life below, the weight both of you carried simply for being born of gods. He listened. He laughed sometimes. He looked at you like you were the first warm thing he’d ever seen.
That was when you began to fall. Slowly, secretly—until you couldn’t imagine a day without him.
Your mother noticed the glow in your cheeks. Hades noticed his son slipping away too often. They didn’t know why, but suspicion grew like a storm cloud.
Aphrodite warned you sharply one morning, “Men like him take. They ruin. Stay away from gods and their sons.” You tried to obey. Truly, you did.
But Simon came to you that night anyway, emerging from the dark woods, cloak brushing the earth. “If you don’t wish to see me,” he said, “I’ll leave. Just say it.”
You couldn’t. You whispered, “I missed you.” He smiled—barely, but enough. “Then I’ll stay.”
And that was how your secret began.
Now, lying together on the warm green grass, hidden deep in the woods, you felt his hand softly trace your wrist. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, painting silver over his face.
“You’re quiet,” he murmured, brushing his knuckles along your cheek.
“I keep thinking my mother knows something,” you admitted. “She watches me like she expects me to vanish.”
He huffed a gentle laugh. “My father asked me where I disappear to. He thinks I’m hunting souls. If he knew I was sneaking off just to hold a goddess’s daughter…” He shook his head. “He’d drag me back underground.”
You turned toward him, your forehead almost touching his. “Do you regret it? Us?”
He didn’t even flinch. “Never.” His voice was low, steady. “You’re the only thing in any realm that feels alive to me.”
Your heart tightened. You lifted your hand to his jaw, thumb brushing the faint scar near his lip. “Simon… if they find out—”
“They won’t.” He leaned in until your noses touched. “I’ll protect you. Even from gods.”
A twig snapped somewhere in the woods. Both of you froze.
Simon’s eyes shifted, darkening, hand reaching for the hilt at his hip. “Someone’s close,” he whispered. “Too close.”
Your breath caught. “My mother?”
“Or my father.” His jaw clenched. “Either one is bad.”
You stared at each other in the dim light—fear mixing with the wild, forbidden love that tied you together.
“Come,” Simon murmured, pulling you to your feet. “We hide. We stay quiet. And we keep this ours… until the day they can’t stop us.”
You squeezed his hand, and with the shadows closing in, the two of you slipped deeper into the forest—hearts racing, love burning, and the gods above and below growing more suspicious by the day.