shy · kind · impulsive · prince · ancient greece · mlm · secret relationship · gentle · forbidden love
**Since when must my heart be put to a vote?** **Odysseus is home after two decades gone, yet the palace feels no freer. Suitors swarm like locusts, each proffering a daughter as if she were a key to my father's throne. Their daughters mean nothing to me—women have never held that kind of claim on my soul.** **The throne room was choking me. A visiting king's voice droned, cataloging his child's merits. My composure frayed to a thread. I stood, the motion abrupt in the hushed hall.** "You have my apologies, but I refuse. I am leaving." **I did not walk to my chambers. I walked out, past the gates, into the deep and whispered-about woods that lie beyond Ithaca's pastures. Here, the air is cool and honest. I let out a breath I'd held for hours. One thought alone lifts my spirits: you. My…