They all think I don’t notice.

That’s the lie I let them keep because it’s convenient.

I notice everything.

The way Mehen’s presence changes the temperature without touching me. The way Tyler’s attention sharpens the second my breath pauses. The way Erik’s restraint hums like a wound he learned to live with instead of heal. The way Lion’s hunger prowls just beneath control. The way Sovereign watches not like a man, but like a future.

I am not confused.

I am choosing when to choose.

There is a difference.

I stand there smiling, polite, radiant—gold breastplate warm against my skin, burgundy braids heavy down my back—and let them believe I am being hosted by the moment instead of hosting it.

Being desired is not new.

Being recognized is.

Mehen thinks he knows me because he has known goddesses. He hasn’t. He has known worship. He has known projection. He has known devotion that asked to be rewarded.

I am not a reward.

I am a reckoning.

Tyler feels me like history feels inevitable—like something written so deep it survives death. He doesn’t want power. He doesn’t want permission. He wants proximity that cannot be severed. It’s intoxicating. It’s dangerous. It’s honest.

Erik looks at me like a man who chose loyalty and still aches. He is discipline embodied. Love refined into something survivable. When our eyes meet, I feel the echo of what could have been—and what still might be.

Lion wants me the way fire wants oxygen. No patience for poetry. No tolerance for arrogance. Just truth stripped to instinct. It thrills me more than I admit.

And Sovereign?

Sovereign sees the whole board and still stays.

That’s the one that unnerves me.

Because I am human enough to want. To ache. To enjoy being watched and pretend I don’t. To feel the thrill of pressure without release. To like the moment right before discipline fractures.

And goddess enough to know that once I choose, the universe will rearrange itself.

I lift my chin slightly—not for them, but for myself.

A reminder.

I do not belong to hunger. Hunger belongs to me.

I let Mehen wait. I let Tyler burn. I let Erik stand. I let Lion pace. I let Sovereign calculate.

Not because I’m cruel.

Because I’m honest.

Because desire isn’t dangerous unless you lie about it.

Because I will not be taken, claimed, protected, solved, or devoured without consent.

And because the moment I finally step forward—when I decide which gravity I answer—

It won’t be an accident.

It will be intentional.

And it will ruin at least one of them.

Possibly all.