Alexis Kakos came out of the water looking like the Greek god he was. Well, demigod, if she was going to be rigid about it. Diana made no pretense of ignoring him as he strode naked to a lounge chair and picked up a fluffy white towel. He was beautiful—having the chiseled, beautiful features of his Greek mother and the piercing blue eyes of the Olympian who had fathered him.

“Diana, daughter of Delphiana,” Alexis murmured as he wrapped the towel around his waist, more she assumed to protect his glorious ass than to demonstrate any sort of modesty. He dropped down in the lounger next to her and quirked one dark eyebrow at her. “What can I do for you?”

“Alexis, son of Zeus. I was told the island was unoccupied for the month,” Diana admitted as she poured a puddle of skin oil into one hand and started to rub it onto her breasts. “Aren’t you supposed to be on Lemuria playing god-in-charge?”

Alexis smirked at her, and with a wave of his hand, a pitcher of juice and two glasses appeared on the table between them. He poured for them both and sighed. “I’m on vacation. I don’t know why I let Bastiaan talk me into assuming such a position.”

“Poor you,” Diana said with a laugh as she sipped the juice. “A few hundred years playing the hot Greek lover and now you’re being all responsible. It’s a wondrous time to be alive.”

He sent her a mild glare and sighed. “It’s been three years, Diana. I would think, at this point, I would’ve proven myself even to you. I take my leadership of Lemuria seriously and have since I accepted the protectorship.”

She hummed under her breath and let her gaze travel over the bright blue water of the Ionian Sea. The island was roughly a hundred and fifty miles off the coast of Greece. Invisible to the humans who were forever spreading out over the world they unknowingly shared with a group of peoples they’d probably never fully understand. “I have no doubts about your ability to act as the Triton of Lemuria. You served Atlantis faithfully for over a hundred years and more than twenty-two acting as my mother’s Captain of the Guard in Nereidia before that. Not once in all the time that I’ve known you have you failed to act in the defense of our covenant.”

“Good to know,” Alexis said, amused. He pulled the towel loose and spread it out underneath him before grabbing the oil she’d left on the table. “My mother was a beautiful woman…she adored the sun. I can’t see a warm, beautiful day like this without thinking of her and of how she died. She never told me who my father was, you know. Never invoked his name when she became ill. That was three hundred years ago, so there was little to be done for her. I lived as a human until I’d passed my thirtieth year and realized I wasn’t growing any older.”

“She died of some sort of cancer?”

“Skin cancer,” Alexis confirmed. “Of course, it would be many years before I would know that.” He rubbed the oil on his stomach and let his hand trail negligently down his thigh, ignoring his half-hard cock. She had to wonder if he was teasing himself or demonstrating some sort of respect for her presence. “The day that Zeus came for me, when he touched me with his light and revealed to me that I was a demigod, I punched him in the face.”

Diana choked on her juice and started to laugh when he half-rose out of the chair to help her. She waved him off. “I’ve never heard that story.”

“No?” Alexis laughed. “It’s one of Bastiaan’s favorite stories. I was so angry in that moment—furious that I had lived all those years as a bastard because my mother took an Olympian for a lover for a mere week. So, I played around, slept with women and men indiscriminately. Seducing humans is so easy, you know.”

Diana smiled at that. It was certainly true. She’d never had a problem gaining the attention of humans when it suited her. “Have you mastered your sea-shape?”

Alexis sighed, clearly put out that she would mention it. Olympians were adept shape-shifters, but he was only half, and like a few of his siblings, he had to work hard to both reveal his shape and master it.

“Yes, some years ago,” Alexis said dryly. “The attention you pay me, dear Diana, does wonders for my ego.”

“Your ego needs no help up from me.” Diana shifted in the lounger and held out her hand for more oil. “The sun dries out my skin so fast.”

“Want some help with that?” Alexis asked lazily. “Would hate for all that lovely skin to burn.”

“I don’t burn,” Diana scoffed, but she used the lever on the side of the lounge to lower it.

Like all of her sisters, she had inherited the darker skin tone of their mother. She herself was a lovely brown, darker than some of her siblings but still quite nice if she had to say so herself. Her tail, when she displayed it, was jade green to match her eyes. A sweet twist of genetics no matter how often people accused her of charming Zeus into changing her eyes to match her tail.

“Still, I’m more than willing to sacrifice my time and energy in making sure every inch of you is properly moisturized.”

“Do you suppose I’ll let you have me?” Diana asked with an amused laugh.

Alexis grinned and finally wrapped one big hand around his cock. He stroked himself a few times and lifted his hips just a little into his own hand. “You did show up naked on my beach…one might take such action as a sacrificial offering.”

”Your beach?” Diana asked as he rolled to his feet and sat down on the side of her lounger.

“Well, I did make the original purchase a hundred twenty-six years ago so that our peoples would have a land retreat. I expend my own energies in protecting, hiding it from the humans. So, yes, my island.”

“And my virtue is the price I must pay?” Diana asked, amused.

Alexis laughed. “Virtue? Oh, dear one, I would swear it to anyone that you have no virtues left to sacrifice, but what you do have to offer is so very attractive.”