fire. But there’s nothing in my mind to anchor these feelings to. There’s no validation for this. There’s no memory for this. Nothing except an eerie whisper at the back of my senses. Like it or not, despite the men’s obvious deceit, they are my blood. Outside of Mom, that’s never meant much to me. But as I stand here now, it means more than I ever expected.
Z, pretending not to notice the friction between us, waves to where Honey’s drying off glasses behind the bar. “A round of the good stuff from the back.”
“I’m fine,” I mutter, circling the table to take a seat between the two strangers.
“You will be. Soon.” Z lowers into one of the plush chairs like it’s become his personal throne. “Po. Hades. This is your nephew, Maximus. Maximus—”
“I think we’re fine with skipping the introductions,” Poseidon cuts in, though I suspect more to get to the meat of things than to rebuff his brother. He strokes his silvering blond beard, exposing some smaller braids twisted around seashells, before sweeping out his free hand. “Like the boy said, we’ve been keeping an eye on him already. His existence wasn’t exactly a secret.”
“Was news to me, actually,” Hades adds. “Not that I would have cared one way or the other.”
“Now there’s a charming first impression,” Po mutters.
Honey breaks the tension by distributing a small tumbler of dark-brown liquid to each of us. “On the house, fellas.”
Hades snickers. “They always are.”
Honey shrugs. “What can I say? I like to stay in business.”
Po and Z toss half theirs back in single gulps.
Hades takes a more conservative swallow, all the while peering at me over the glass. “You’re not drinking.”
I push the glass away. “I’m not here to drink.”
“No?” He kicks up his brows, black as raven wings, which frame his equally dark eyes. “Then you must be here to discuss the disobedience of one of my subjects.”
“Her name is Kara,” I reply through tight teeth.
Z clears this throat loudly. “Brother, I think you may be overlooking a detail there.”
“I don’t think I am. She belongs to me, and you’re all here to talk me out of taking what is rightfully mine. It’s boring, gentlemen—and frankly a little pathetic. I have better things to do.”
I ball my fists, the rest of my body tensing as I ready myself to rise and correct him, no matter what it takes.
Kara is mine.
But Z beats me to the argument. “Technically, Kara is only a little more than half your subject,” he offers matter-of-factly. “Human blood runs through her veins too, which means she’s my subject as well.”
Not an inch of my tension relaxes until I finally catch where he’s going with all this. I finally see his very interesting—and hopefully useful—point. At last, I get down a couple of calming breaths.
In the meantime, Hades is impaling my father with a dark glare. “The Valaris are mine,” he utters with lethal seriousness. “Giovani Valari may be human, but he became my subject the moment he crossed the threshold of my kingdom.” He pauses before his tone goes even lower. “I don’t get in the way of justice in your world, Z. Don’t get in the way of it in mine.”
“You misunderstand me,” Z counters. “We’re here, after all, in the middle ground. Everyone wants to sort it out.”
“There’s bound to be gray area from time to time,” Po chimes in. “That’s obviously why Z’s brought us here. I’m sure it’s not for the pleasure of your sunny company, brother.”
Hades snarls and leans forward. Po doesn’t flinch, only anxiously twists the trident in his grasp.
“This isn’t a gray area,” Hades goes on. “The word is disobedience. Lest you’ve forgotten, it means refusing to honor the rules. Neglecting authority. Disregarding your betters.”
Z releases an exasperated sigh. “Fellow deities, it seems you’ve both forgotten an important detail here.” He looks to me, but I’m unclear why. My confusion doesn’t waver his definition. “We make the rules.”
Hades shifts his scrutiny to Z. “And we’ve had thousands of years to make them. If we’re constantly challenging expectations to suit our whims, what is the point of having rules at all?”
“Tell me, then, what are the rules on sending your minions across the river to deflower half-blood demons on earth? I must have missed that in the fine print.”
Hades tightens his jaw. “Maybe you missed it while you were deflowering humans all over creation.”
Z laughs halfheartedly, avoiding my eyes. “My dear black-hearted brother, you’ve spent too much time keeping