He nodded. “I did a certain job for as long as I could. Once it got to a point where I should have started looking like I aged, I’d move on. There was a lot to do. By the time it started getting hard to find jobs here, I’d already saved up and bought the buildings I wanted.”
“What was your favorite time?” I asked him.
He looked like he was thinking. “I liked the early twentieth century a lot. The city was really starting to become something. And I liked it when I first spawned, when it was nothing more than a fort surrounded by wilderness. Watching all the people start flooding into the city over time was interesting.” He shifted his glance to me. “But my favorite time is right now.”
“What’s so great about now? Things are falling apart. The city’s in decline. We have raging immortals causing trouble.”
“You’re in my life now,” he said, voice low.
I shook my head. “I never knew you were so smooth,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee, trying to cover the fact that I was about to start freaking swooning over him. I am not a swooner.
Not usually, anyway.
He was watching me. “Well I’m hoping to get laid eventually,” he said, and I laughed. He reached across the table and took my hand. “I wish we’d had the chance to do shit like this more often before.”
I squeezed his hand. “Well, we’re both here now,” I said, meeting his eyes.
Satisfaction flowed from him. “We are.” He pressed a kiss to my wrist. “And I’m supposed to be giving you time and space to figure shit out.”
“You are. This is okay,” I said. “Better than okay.”
He kissed my wrist again, then released my hand. “Eventually we’ll have to remind ourselves just how better than okay we are together.”
“Horny demon,” I muttered.
We stood up and he helped me into my coat, then wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Your fault,” he murmured against my ear. He squeezed my waist firmly, then released me.
I took a deep breath and shook my head. He took my hand and we walked back out of the building. “I’m supposed to meet with some of the shifter leaders this morning to update them about your house and what we’ve learned about Strife,” he said. “Which sucks because I really don’t want this to end.”
“Me neither. But I probably should go out looking for Strife anyway.” My body was in complete disagreement with what I should do next, but I ignored it. Nain opened the passenger door of his truck for me and I climbed in. He got in and started the car, started driving back toward the loft. At some point, he rested his hand on my thigh, and in certain ways, in little things like that, it was as if we’d never been apart at all. And the fact that I could feel that way freaked me out a little. He’d lied to me. Destroyed me. I’d been messed around on, gone through hell. Was this just me wanting safety and comfort? Was it me rebounding from Brennan? And if I loved Brennan, how could Nain and I feel so right?
Was I the way Aphrodite had accused me of being? Was I just one of those women who now bounced from one lover to another? I sat in silence as Nain drove, and when he pulled into the garage at the loft, I still was wondering if maybe I wasn’t losing my mind, starting up with him again. He turned the engine off and turned to me. “Where’d you go?”
“Hm?”
“I lost you a little on the drive back. Your whole posture changed. What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Just wondering if this is a good idea,” I said.
He was watching me. “You know what I think about that.” He looked away. “Is it because of Brennan?”
“Meaning?”
“Do you want him back?” he asked, not looking at me.
“No. I don’t. But I’m wondering if what is happening between us is just me rebounding from Brennan. That would really suck.”
“I think what we have is bigger than that,” he said, and I could feel the irritation coming off of him, the frustration. We got out of the truck and walked toward the elevator. He put his hand on my lower back as we stepped into the elevator, started absent-mindedly rubbing up and down my spine.
I sighed and rested my head against his chest.
“I hope it is,” I said, and he squeezed me against his body.
He was about to say something when I felt someone freaking out in the loft. I pulled away from him. “Something’s wrong with Ada,” I said. The elevator stopped and we both charged off of it, heading into the loft.
When we stepped into the loft, we were met with chaos. Ada’s terror. The reason behind it was evident almost immediately. Brennan and Stone were there, both of them bloody and bruised, sitting on stools in the kitchen as Ada tried bandaging them up.
Asclepias, come if you can, I thought as loudly as I could. I glanced at Bash and Dahael. “See if you can find the healer. I have no idea if he can even hear me or not.”
They thumped their fists to their chests and took off. I headed toward the kitchen. Nain was already there. Ada was stitching up a huge cut across Stone’s neck.
“Looks worse than it is,” she said to me, though her voice shook and her hand was trembling so badly I was amazed she could even hold the needle.
Brennan was holding a towel to his side, and I tried to pull it aside so I could see. He held it tighter, and I looked up and met his eyes.
“Bren. Let me see it.”
“It’ll be fine.”
“Let me see.”
He still held it there.
“Or do you not trust me anymore?”
We watched each other. I could feel anger coming off of him. Pain. Sadness, and that was mostly because of me.
“Bren,” I said softly, aware of Nain watching us as he helped Ada with Stone.
He took a deep breath, nodded. This time, when I tried to pull the blood-soaked towel away, he let me. I kind of wished he hadn’t. The cut there was deep, ragged, the wound flayed wide open. No wonder he was so pale, trembling.
“You should by lying down,” I said. “Let me help you.”
“That’s really not your problem anymore,” he grunted.
“Brennan, don’t be an asshole,” I said, and he laughed, just a little, and it made him grimace. I helped him to the floor and pushed his shirt out of the way. I dug my knife out of my pocket.
“Don’t freak out,” I said, remembering the way Nain had reacted when I’d done this with him.
“I don’t want your blood,” he said, realizing what I was about to do. He pushed my hands away.
“It can heal you.”
“I know. I don’t want it.”
“Why are you being so stupid about this? I’ve used my blood to heal you before.”
“Without me knowing,” he said with a grimace. “Don’t.”
“So what? You’re just gonna bleed out and leave Sean an orphan? Don’t be stupid.”
He waved me away, turned and looked away from me. I was about to start telling his ass off when Asclepias popped into the loft.
He leaned down and started looking at Brennan, and I stood up and walked toward Nain, who was still standing near Ada and Stone. He reached over and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I listened as Stone talked about what happened. They had been on patrol and come up against a group similar to the one E and I had run up against. This was apparently what they could do when they came up against a couple of non-immortals.
“They injured Bren so bad he couldn’t shift back for a while, but I think that was for the best since he’s a little stronger in that form,” Stone said, and I nodded. “We did all right, kid. Six to two and we ended up kicking ass, huh?” he called over to Brennan, and Brennan gave him a weak thumbs-up from his spot on the floor. Asclepias was running his hands over Brennan’s wounds, and I could feel the healer’s power coursing through the loft. Artemis came rushing in just then and she was a mass of anger and worry. She crouched beside Brennan and started talking to him, then Sean started crying and she picked him up and took him to Brennan’s room.
“This is insane. We can’t pat
rol anymore without getting jumped? It’s like they know where we’re going to be,” Ada said. “That night with you and E, they knew you’d be there. Today Bren and Stone were doing a patrol near Mack and they run into them? There’s no way this is random.” She tied off another stitch, her face close to Stone’s. I watched the two of them as I thought about what Ada had said. Stone looked at Ada with complete adoration, and when she glanced up at his face, I could feel how much she loved him. She reached one hand up and ran it gently along first one side of his white mustache, then the other. It was beautiful, and the strength in that one glance between the two of them had me on the verge of tears.
My god I am getting sappy.
I focused my thoughts back to the immediate problem.
“Well we know Strife’s organizing them. We know they have demons and just about everything else.”
“Can Strife read minds?” Ada asked me.
“No.”
“No. So how do they know where we’re going to be?”
“You think we have a traitor?” Nain asked.
Ada glanced at me, and I sensed nervousness from her. Anger. “How do we know that thing inside Molly isn’t communicating with her somehow?”
“I’d know,” I said quietly.
“Would you? You didn’t know she had control of you that night until you saw yourself on TV,” she shot back. Then she took a breath, reached over and took my hand. “I’m sorry. I love you honey. I’m just saying… how do you know for sure?”
“This happened a little while ago. Molly hasn’t seen the patrol schedule, and she’s been with me since they showed up right before dawn. It’s not her,” Nain said.
“In your totally objective opinion, boss man,” Ada said gently. “The alternative is that someone who lives here is selling us out. Who would it be? Me? Levitt? Artemis? Who?”
“Could be Artemis. I don’t know her,” Nain said. “I only let her live here because of Brennan and Sean.”
“And I’m the one that got hurt today, and she’s my grandmother. It wasn’t her,” Brennan said. Asclepias was still working on him.
“You sure? Maybe she wanted to raise that kid herself,” Nain said.
“Fuck off Nain. It wasn’t her,” Brennan said.
“It wasn’t,” I said, agreeing with him.
“Heph knows our patrol schedule. So does Levitt. Shanti. E,” Nain said. “And there’s not a chance in hell it’s Shanti.”
“Or E,” I said. “Or Levitt.”
“You don’t know that about Levitt. He’s always been private.”
“He’s mine. He wouldn’t do that,” I said, glaring at him.
“Levitt’s trustworthy,” Brennan said. “It wasn’t him.”
“It wasn’t Heph either,” I said.
“He wouldn’t mind hurting me,” Brennan said.
“It wasn’t him,” I argued.
“The problem really is all the blasted immortals around here,” Stone said. Then he glanced at me. “No offense, kiddo.”
“None taken. I think,” I said, and he grinned at me, threw a wink my way, Ada had finished stitching him up and was applying gauze to his wound.
“I’m saying, the way you all can do that thing where you just appear out of nowhere. And Ada’s wards don’t work against that, or Asclepias and your father never would have been able to get in here in the first place. Right?”
I stared at him. I’d never even thought of that. I’d just assumed Ada’s wards kept us safe from everything, but he was right. My dad had just showed up without an invitation or anything else the first time I’d met him, when he’d appeared after I’d prayed to Asclepias.
“Thanks, man. You just gave me a whole new thing to stress out about,” I told Stone, and he guffawed. “You’re right.”
“Shit,” Nain groaned. “So it could be any of them, is that what you’re saying?”
“Wouldn’t we feel them, though?” Brennan asked. “Or wouldn’t Artemis or Heph feel them at the very least?”
A thought struck me, and I felt my stomach turn. Please don’t be true. Please don’t be true.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I knew it would hurt. Didn’t matter. I knew where my dad was just then, and I needed to see him. I visualized the hotel room he’d been staying in, and materialized there.
Hades was snoring in the big bed, and I clapped my hands together.
“Wake up, dad,” I said.
He jumped up and stared at me.
“What’s going on?”
“Tell me you’re not responsible for telling Strife’s people where we’re patrolling,” I snarled.
“What? Why in the world would I do that. Why would I put you in danger?” he asked, getting out of bed.
Okay. I could have done without seeing my dad all au natural. Gross. I looked away as I waited for him to get dressed.
“Someone’s responsible for spilling the beans about where we’re patrolling. Bren and Stone got ambushed today, and it’s not the first time.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” I heard him moving around, zippers being zipped.
“Has to be an immortal who can rematerialize, because it’s not anyone on our team,” I said.
“Again, why would it be me?”
“And not be detected when they appeared. So someone who has something like, oh… I don’t know. An invisibility helmet that hides not just his appearance but also his power signature.” I chanced looking back at Hades then, wanting to see his expression.
He was staring at me, and anger rolled off of him.
“Well I’m so glad you assume your own father is the one selling you out,” he snarled.
“Who else could it be?”
“Hephaestus made the damned thing. Did you ever think maybe he made another one? How do you know I’m the only one who has one?”
“Because Heph never makes the same thing twice,” I said, recalling one of my many conversations with him. “He gets bored. Where is it?”
“I don’t have it,” he finally said, crossing his arms and watching me.
“Where. Is. It?”
“Don’t threaten me, little girl,” he growled, his power heightening, swirling around the room in response to the threat I posed, and I was reminded again of just how scary my father is.
But I’m just as scary.
“Didn’t you learn anything the last time we went through this? You can trust me. Why won’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because you were never there, my entire life, and then when you did meet me you fucking lied to me about who my father was.”
“To keep you safe!”
I let out a shriek. “I am so tired of people lying to me to keep me safe.”
He stared at me, held his hands out in a soothing gesture. “Okay. All right. Fair point. I’m sorry.”
I just watched him, swiped at my bleeding nose. I was getting so tired of this.
“I haven’t seen that damn thing in years,” he said. “Last time I used it was shortly after you were born, and I came to see you before Tis put her enchantments on you. Then I put it in its safe in my bedchambers at my house. I don’t need it very often.”
“Persephone?” I asked quietly.
“You want it to be her,” he said.
I sighed. “No. I don’t. I don’t want it to be anyone. Believe it or not, I don’t just want to go around kicking people’s asses all the time. I would rather not have to believe that the people in my life are selling me out. And to be honest, I actually kind of like Persephone. But she’s your wife and it’s entirely possible she has access to your safe. Yes?”
“It wasn’t her.”
I rolled my eyes, shook my head and looked up at the celling. Okay. Right that second I did kind of want to destroy something or someone. I wasn’t picky.
“Who else?”
“The only other one who had access was our house demon, Elsoloth. But he serves you now.”
“Can you go see if it’s ev
en still there, please?”
“Very well.” Hades disappeared and I sat on the bed. It was obvious that my father thought I was barking up the wrong tree, but I had to know. Whether it was there or not really didn’t solve anything. Whoever had used it could very well have just put it back when they were done with it.
And Heph could have made another one. Please, don’t be that, I begged the universe or whoever the hell someone like me could ask for help at times like this.
A few minutes later, Hades rematerialized, and the first thing I felt was his rage.
“It’s gone,” he said, stalking back and forth across the room. “It wasn’t me. I’m telling you that right now.”
“Where’s Persephone?”
“With her mother. I’m going to her next.” I could feel his nervousness, his doubts. His guilt.
“What do you feel guilty about?” I asked him, and he glared at me.
“If she did this, it’s still my fault. I trusted her. And I hurt her. I hurt her with Tisiphone, and I’ve hurt her many times since, every time she has to see me and Tis or me and you together.”
“I’ll check in with Elsoloth,” I said gently. “It could have been him.”
“Persephone has issues with you. Me. And we’re not together anymore,” he finished, and I stared at him in shock.
“Uh. You broke up?”
He nodded. “She made me break my bond to her. She said she couldn’t take it anymore.” He leaned on the windowsill, looked out over the city. “She caught me and Tisiphone. We were just holding hands, but it was enough. It was right after we realized Nether was in you and we were talking. She was upset and I took her hand to comfort her. You know how that works,” he said, glancing back at me, and I nodded. It was the same way Nain was able to soothe me with his touch. Creatures of the Nether could do that for one another. “Anyway, she saw, and that did it. Tisiphone said the amount of pain coming off of Persephone when she saw us was almost too much to bear. I did that to her, after everything else I’ve put her through.” Hurt, guilt, anger rolled off of him.
“Dad… “ I said. “Maybe it wasn’t her. I can talk to Elsoloth first, if you want.”
He looked at me. “What reason would Elsoloth have to want to hurt you? Let’s be logical here, daughter.”
Strife: Hidden Book Four Page 16
