“I didn’t do it,” I replied, heading toward Theo and Hannah to make my escape.
“No kidding.” Kai blocked me. “I meant going there in the first place.” He glanced at the chain around my neck. Quickly, he tugged the pendant out.
I slapped his hand away and placed the stone back against my chest.
“You couldn’t pull off poisoning a god,” he said.
I batted my eyelashes at him sweetly. “You’re right. Silly little me would have no clue. But you would.”
“Sophie,” Theo hissed in warning. “Shut up.”
I ignored him. “And here’s an interesting fact. Right before Hades choked, I smelled this distinct aroma. Similar to bitter coffee? Funny enough, I smelled the same thing when I was murdered. Who would use an identical poison on both Hades and me? Maybe a guy who hates his dad and flirts with other girls when his girlfriend comes back from the dead?” I shoved Kai out of the way.
“You’re not my girlfriend,” he replied.
“No kidding. Since I’m breaking up with you on behalf of Persephone. There. Now you’re my ex.”
Theo shook his head. “Here we go again,” he muttered.
Kai stepped in close to me. “You think because you have her powers, you’re her?” He laughed, mirthlessly. “You don’t have the faintest clue.”
“Fact. I don’t need my memories back to know how much I dislike you. Some things are just bone deep,” I shot back.
“Fact,” Kai mimicked, “if I’d murdered you, I’d have stuck around to make sure I did the job properly the first time. Although practice makes perfect.”
“You guys are better than cable,” Hannah exclaimed, entranced.
“I’m outta here,” I announced.
“God, no. Me first, please,” Theo begged, trying to get ahead of me in my flight to the door.
Kai got to the door before I could, slammed it shut and leaned against it. “No one is going anywhere until we get a few things straight.”
“That would be ‘straight’ according to your agenda, would it?” asked Theo.
“You really wanna go there, Prometheus, then let’s do this. Why don’t you tell Persephone—”
“Sophie” I interjected.
“Who summoned her to the gold chamber that day?”
I looked at Theo, confused. “What’s he talking about?”
“He’s off his head,” Theo retorted.
“I heard you,” Kai insisted. “You told her to meet you there.”
I turned hurt eyes to Theo. I couldn’t believe it.
“It wasn’t me,” Theo vowed. “Not the attack.”
“Why were you the one who found me? Don’t tell me it was coincidence.” I wasn’t going to let this go.
Hannah was seated on Ms. Keeper’s desk, following the whole exchange, rapt.
Theo stayed mum.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“I was supposed to meet Demeter. I wanted you to see her. But she didn’t show and there you were.”
That was about the last thing I expected to hear. Kai too, from the stunned look on his face.
“No way,” he refuted. “She couldn’t have gotten into the Underworld back then.With Hades all freaked that Persephone would be stolen back? He had that place on lockdown. No ally of Zeus’ would have been able to enter.”
“She was pretty convinced she’d be able to. I figured she had inside help.”
“Don’t look at me,” Kai retorted. “She’s the last person I’d have wanted down there.”
“Oh, I believe you, bro,” Theo replied. “Can’t imagine you wanted a face-to-face with Demeter after stealing her kid.”
“Could you have been the one helping Demeter?” This from Hannah. Three pairs of eyes swung my way. “She is your mom.”
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient little amnesia scam you’ve got going,” Kai muttered.
“Aw. You figured it out. One dash of no freaking clue who I am, add stupid guys I can’t trust and presto. Super evil scam to take over the world. Gonna need a lair though.”
“The kitchen,” Hannah suggested cheerfully. “Definitely an evil vibe there.”
“Hey!” Theo was still stuck on my “stupid guys” remark. “You can trust me.”
Kai snorted.
“Jerk,” Theo scoffed. “If you hadn’t cocked this all up because you couldn’t keep it in your pants, we wouldn’t be in this trouble.”
“Exactly,” I echoed.
Kai turned on me. “Poor little human. Stolen kiss in the moonlight. Pretty exciting for you, huh?”
“I am willing to break all kinds of immortality laws to take this dickhead out,” Hannah said to me.
“He’s right, Soph,” Theo said. “You can’t compare. Kai’s a real god. Banging everything in sight these past sixteen years. Just like his dad.”
Kai swung around with a look of surprise. Theo smirked. “Yeah, even I heard about your exploits. Doing the old man proud, are we?”
“Take it back,” Kai said in a low voice.
“Make me,” Theo challenged.
In a burst of inhuman speed, Kai grabbed Theo by the neck in a chokehold. “Just one little snap. Humans break so easily. Can’t imagine why you’d want to become one.”
Theo wedged one hand between his neck and Kai’s arm to keep an airway. With the other, he reached down and snapped off the chain holding his wallet to his pants. Immediately it began to glow with a hot white light as it doubled in length.
My eyes widened as Theo whipped the chain around Kai’s arm and spun himself free, retracting the chain with a snap. I could smell the burning flesh. Theo took several steps back, faced Kai and wrapped one end of the chain around his fist for a better grip.
“That had to hurt,” Hannah whispered.
Kai didn’t even look at his burned arm. He narrowed his eyes at the chain and then smiled like he was pleased to see it. Whatever turned his crank.
Theo shot him a cocky grin. “Just because I’m human doesn’t make me stupid.” He snapped the chain at Kai. “Come closer if you want, but she’s a nasty bit of business. Forged by order of Zeus himself. The master at inflicting pain.”
“It’s the chain that was used to bind him to the rock,” Hannah gasped.
“Quit it. Both of—” I tried to interject but had to grab Hannah and scramble out of the way as Kai blasted Theo with a black light that somehow seemed to come to a point. Like a really nasty sword that wouldn’t just play nice and pierce you to death. The light seemed to have depth and a very creepy, well, wriggliness to it.
Theo deflected it with the chain like it was a solid object and Kai’s light struck Ms. Keeper’s desk.
The spot in which Hannah had been seated seconds ago was instantly incinerated into a pile of smoking ash.
It looked toxic. I gingerly reached out a toe to poke at it—
“Sophie!” Theo snapped.
Guess it was toxic. I pulled my foot back.
“He can’t do that!” Hannah sputtered, swiveling her head between the Hazmat waste on the floor and the boys fighting with impossible weapons.
“Which one?” I asked.
“Either!”
Apparently, this had all just been foreplay for the boys because that’s when their fight began in earnest. Hannah and I were trapped across the room from the door, taking refuge behind a filing cabinet. Until Theo split it in two with his chain like slicing a giant pat of butter.
We jumped behind the sofa. That didn’t last long either as Theo jumped on it for a better angle to attack Kai and Kai blasted him. Theo survived. The sofa didn’t.
As the debris flew, Hannah and I sprinted to our last refuge; the bookcase. We frantically pulled i
t far enough away from the wall so that we could squeeze ourselves in behind it.
“Can’t you do anything?” Hannah asked.
“Oh, yeah! I can.”
Hannah glared at me.
“Don’t be all huffy. I’m still getting used to it.” I stepped out from behind the bookcase, taking care to avoid all ash piles.
It was no holds barred between Theo and Kai. Both were bleeding, not from hits but from blasted furniture fallout.
For a human, Theo was amazing. But Kai was a blur, his speed and strength giving him the edge. He was a fighting machine, seemingly completely relaxed and yet not missing a single step. The way his eyes were glinting made me think he was getting off on this.
I kept from dwelling on how hot he was by reminding myself that the last thing Kai needed was another groupie. I hated him. My ex. I’d never had an ex but I was glad it was him because—
Kai spun and I tilted my head to get a better look at his very fine butt.
“Sophie!” Hannah nudged me sharply with an elbow.
“Right.” I had a job to do. Not that that kept me from looking twice.
I aimed one hand at each of the guys and shot out ribbons of light to wrap around their ankles. I lifted them up and dangled them in mid-air. That stopped them.
“Light really shouldn’t behave like that,” Hannah said.
“I know, right?” It was way cool. Back to the boys. “Now that I have your attention,” I began.
Theo apparently didn’t care that he was hanging upside down. He snapped his chain at Kai. I panicked and managed to drop my hold on Kai, sending him crashing to the ground.
Theo’s chain missed him entirely and smashed into a window. Oddly, no glass rained down on us.
“That was unexpected.” I lowered Theo to the ground and pointed to the row of three windows. In the centre one, where there should have been a gaping hole to the outside, was a perfect square of blue light.
I put my hand up to it.
Kai snatched me back before I made contact. “Do you touch hot stoves, too?”
“It’s a window frame,” I said.
“That could have some kind of trigger around it. You’re lucky your hand wasn’t cut off. Or worse.”
“He’s right,” Theo agreed. “That was fairly daft.” Holding tight to one end, Theo flung his chain toward the square of blue.
We all watched as Theo’s chain crashed and rebounded off an invisible barrier right at the window frame.
For a second, nothing more happened, then suddenly there was a loud WHUMP noise and a flurry of motion as a bevy of arrows shot across from right side of the frame to embed themselves in the left.
I waited for Kai to gloat.
“Too easy,” he said.
“Like your standards, dating Bethany?” I murmured.
“Jealous, are we?”
Please. As. If. He and I were so ancient history. “Whatever.”
Theo peered at the window frame. “It’s warded,” he said.
I groaned. “Great. We’ll never get through.”
Kai slanted a look my way. “Why not?”
“Intention to harm? We’ll never bypass it.”
“You really forgot everything, didn’t you?”
I crossed my arms, disliking his tone. “Enlighten me.”
Kai crossed his arms and shot me a “why should I?” look.
I re-crossed my arms right back at him and shot him a “because you need me” smile.
“Just tell us already,” Hannah said.
I got the feeling that our fight was not over, just kind of put on hold. But Kai did explain.
“There are different types of wards. Some, like the one Theo has at Hope Park, are based on intention to harm.”
“Figured that out, did you?” Theo muttered.
Kai shot him a cool look. “Wasn’t too hard after Sophie nearly killed herself going after a Pyrosim.”
I squirmed under Theo’s stare. “I may have forgotten to fill you in about that.”
Theo swung his gaze back to Kai. “Convenient of you to happen to be there.”
“Doing my part to keep Sophie safe.”
Theo didn’t bother to respond to that whopper.
I didn’t either.
Kai continued. “Some wards are like a closed door. The person warding it doesn’t really expect anyone to follow so they don’t deadbolt it. Just close it. Maybe booby-trap it. But if you know how to open it and avoid the trap? Instant access.”
“She’d hidden the passageway behind the window and figured anyone who managed to find it would be killed by the arrows,” Hannah said.
Kai inclined his head. “Exactly.”
“So how do we get inside?”
“Give me a minute,” Theo muttered, examining the frame.
Hannah looked around at the mess that had been made of the room. “What happens if we touch the ash?”
Kai glanced down at a pile. “Nothing, now that it’s cooled off.”
Hannah nodded. “Back in a sec.” She left, shutting the office door behind her.
With Theo focused on the ward, that left Kai and me staring at each other. A contest of wills. As I gazed into his fathomless eyes, it occurred to me that this was one staring contest I wasn’t going to win. “Guess you didn’t take that long to get over me,” I said, hoping for a sneak blink attack.
It worked. Ha ha. “All those other females to plug,” he replied. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.
“So much for ‘you’re my universe,’” I muttered, then caught myself, startled at the memory.
“You were.” He sounded equally startled.
An openly hostile fight I could deal with this. Whatever this was, I couldn’t. Because however Kai felt about me, it was too loaded a discussion to get into right now. Or was the problem what he didn’t feel about me, Sophie, but had felt about me, Persephone? How was a girl supposed to compete with herself?
Either way, it was time for a new topic of conversation. “I’m sorry about your dad. Even though he’s a son-of-a-bitch.”
Kai laughed; a bitter sound. “Remember that much, do you?”
“One thing I can’t remember. Did we ever go to Olympus? Or were we always in Hades?”
“We couldn’t go to Olympus. I wouldn’t have been safe there.”
“But I was safe in the Underworld?”
“Long as I was around, you were.”
“Where’d you go, then? When I was attacked.” I tried for nonchalant.
I failed.
“Hades had sent me on an errand.” He seemed kind of evasive.
“Doing what?”
Kai avoided my eyes. “Stealing Zeus’ thunderbolt.”
Theo turned with raised eyebrows at that. I motioned for him to focus back on the window frame.
“Bold move there, son,” I told Kai.
He glanced at me, surprised. “You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be mad?”
“He is your dad.”
“Of whom I have very little memory. Don’t forget, he sent a Gold Crusher to take me out. Not so much on the family fuzzies.”
Hannah returned with cheap plastic gloves, a few pairs of tweezers, and a wad of sealable plastic bags.
I raised an eyebrow. “Holy CSI, Batman.”
Hannah handed me the gloves. “Anything that seems like a promising clue to explain the ward? Or anything else out of the ordinary? Use the tweezers to pick it up. Then bag it. Even slivers. I can put them under the microscope later.”
She held one pair of tweezers to Kai who ignored it until Hannah was forced to give it to me, instead. “Ever seen an Inland Taipan snake?” she aske
d him, threateningly.
“You do get that I’m immortal, right?” Kai retorted.
“Immortal is not the same thing as unkillable,” she replied sweetly.
Theo chuckled.
I combed gingerly through the ash for a plausible clue. “How’d you do it?” I asked. “Steal the thunderbolt.”
Kai gave me a rueful smile. “I didn’t. We’d heard that Zeus was headed to see Poseidon for a secret meeting. I was supposed to steal it from him there. But it was an ambush.”
“You weren’t even in Hades when I was attacked.” My relief was overwhelming.
“Yeah, he was,” Theo chimed in, arching his back to stretch it out. “I saw him minutes before I found you.”
My stomach dropped. I was never going to get to the truth of the matter.
“I had just gotten back,” Kai said defensively. “And Pers—Sophie, was supposed to be on earth.”
“Why’s that?” Theo mused.
“None of your business,” Kai replied.
“It’s my business,” I said, bagging what appeared to be a broken fingernail.
“Yup. And when you remember it, you’ll know.”
“You’re particularly infuriating, you know that?”
Anything else I was going to say was cut short by Hannah’s excited squeal. “Check it out,” she enthused. She held up an indigo iridescent scale about three inches in diameter. “Wonder what it’s from? Theo?” She noted his pale look. “You’re not scared of reptiles are you?”
“I am when they’re that.”
“Dragon,” Kai said grimly. “One’s come to Hope Park.”
9
A dead minion tells no tales
θ’
“Dragon? Tell me that means ‘fluffy kitten’ in Greek.”
Kai shot me a look of disgust.
“So that’s what’s taken Cassie and Bethany?”
“Maybe.” Theo didn’t sound certain.
I stomped my foot and pointed at the blue light inside the empty window frame. “Cassie and Bethany could be in there right now. In danger.”
My Ex From Hell (The Blooming Goddess Trilogy) Page 13
