After leaving the smoking ruins of Vaucresson, Eron and Diana decided to ignore Steve Trevor's orders and the pleas of the Allies. They were not soldiers; they were tourists in a museum of horrors and pleasures. Eron wanted to see what men had built to replace the gods, and Diana wanted to feel the freedom the island had denied her.
They headed for Paris, the "City of Lights," which now survived under the gray shadow of the occupation.
Paris was wounded, but it still pulsed. For Eron, the Nazi occupation was the perfect backdrop. He liked the silent fear that hung over the avenues, the way German soldiers tried to act like owners of a world that did not belong to them.
They settled into a luxury hotel requisitioned by high-ranking officers. Eron needed no documents or money; a simple snap of his fingers, an arc of electricity dancing between his knuckles, and a gaze that promised death were enough for the manager to hand over the best suite, trembling from head to toe.
— Look at them, Diana — Eron said, pouring himself an expensive wine the officers kept for special occasions. He stood on the balcony, watching the patrols below. — They think iron and discipline make them superior. But one thunderclap of mine is enough to remind them they are just flesh.
Diana approached, wearing a black silk dress they had "acquired" from a closed haute couture shop. The fabric hugged her curves in a way Amazonian armor never would. She looked like an earthly deity, a blend of danger and beauty that made the air in the room grow heavy.
— This world is strange, Eron — she murmured, tasting the wine. — There is so much beauty suffocated by this metal. People here live in fear of tomorrow. On the island, tomorrow was always the same. Here, everything can end in a second.
Eron smiled, pulling her close. The heat emanating from him was constant, a reminder of the fire of Zeus.
— That is what makes the conquest more savory. Their ephemerality.
That night, they went down to one of the clandestine cabarets operating in the outskirts. Tobacco smoke filled the air, and jazz music, forbidden by the occupiers, played low, heavy with melancholy and sin.
Eron sat at a central table, his presence drawing every eye. The men looked away, instinctively intimidated; the women, however, could not help but stare at his raw beauty and the danger he exuded. And Eron returned those looks with a silent promise of the lust his blood demanded.
Diana noticed. She saw how the women desired him and how Eron fed on that adoration. She did not feel jealousy like mortal women; she was his Queen, his equal. But his desire awakened her own.
— Ares is everywhere here, isn't he? — Diana asked, observing a German officer arguing violently in a corner.
— He is in their hatred, in their hunger for power, and even in the way they touch each other desperately before returning to the front lines — Eron replied, his eyes glowing with a bluish light. — But he is hidden. He is the coward who feeds on scraps. We are the ones who bring the real storm.
Eron stood and pulled Diana to the center of the hall. While the world outside tore itself apart in bombings and genocides, the two danced among the shadows of mortals. Eron held her with a strength that told everyone she was his, while his thoughts already soared toward the moment they would find Ares and rip away the iron throne he had built upon the bones of Europe.
To Eron, Paris was not a city to be liberated. It was his first ballroom before the entire world would kneel.