stand by Anderson.
“I don’t remember giving you permission to bring a guest,” Anderson said coldly.
The calculating gleam in Emma’s eyes sharpened. “Oh, but I just knew you’d want to meet Christina.”
Christina just stood there smiling, a prop rather than a person.
“Whatever it is you have to say, just say it and get the hell out,” Anderson said.
Emma pouted. “You never did have a sense of drama, did you?”
“I’m in no mood for banter. I let you come here because you said it was important, but I’d be happy to throw you and your lovely companion out on your asses. So talk.”
The look on Emma’s face said she was genuinely disappointed Anderson didn’t want to play word games with her. She was purposely drawing out the encounter as much as she could, letting the suspense build. I wondered if Anderson knew she was here to unveil her revenge, or whether he thought something more mundane was going on.
“Fine,” Emma said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll get to the point.” She turned to me. “You remember when Kerner’s jackal bit you and you came down with rabies?”
I tried not to shudder at the memory. The supernaturally enhanced rabies would have killed me permanently if it had been allowed to run its course. Instead, Anderson had killed me himself and burned my body, and the seed of immortality had generated a brand-new, virus-free body for me. It was something I’d have loved to forget.
“It rings a bell,” I said, hoping I sounded dry and casual despite the chill the reminder had given me. “What does that have to do with anything?” I glanced over at Christina, and the lump of dread in my stomach grew tighter and colder as my mind began rapidly connecting the dots.
“Anderson was so very concerned about you that he called a Liberi who had refused to join his merry band and was living in quiet anonymity out in the countryside. He needed a descendant of Apollo to examine you and figure out what was wrong with you, and she was the only one he knew who might actually help.”
I started to shake my head, as if I could somehow stop her from finishing her thought.
“What have you done?” Anderson asked in a horrified whisper, but we were both looking at Christina now, and I think we both knew what was coming.
“I never liked Erin,” Emma said to him. “And not just because she was your lover before me. She was so bitter about you dumping her it made her quite unpleasant to be around. I’m sure it was the bitterness that made her choose not to live under your roof, where she would be off-limits to Olympians.”
Anderson stood frozen in shock and horror beside me. Frankly, I wasn’t doing much better myself, and I shared Emma’s opinion about Erin’s likability.
Emma drank in Anderson’s pain, then turned to me with another of her vicious smiles. “I have you to thank for making this so easy for me. I don’t know if I could possibly have hunted her down if she hadn’t come out of hiding to treat you. When she left, I followed her home so I knew where I could get to her if I ever had a need.”
I guess I was supposed to feel guilty about that, but there was no way I was going to accept it as my fault. Although perhaps I should have thought of it when Emma left us to join the Olympians. Maybe I should have anticipated the animosity between Anderson’s ex-girlfriend and his ex-wife and constructed a new cover identity for Erin.
“I told Cyrus where she was hiding,” Emma continued, “and he sent a squad to harvest her seed. Of all the mortal Descendants in our service, Cyrus thought Christina the most deserving of elevation, so he had her do the honors.”
By which Emma meant Christina had killed Erin, thereby stealing Erin’s seed for herself. She was no longer a Descendant, but had joined the ranks of the Liberi. With an act of deliberate murder.
I swallowed hard, horrified by what Emma had done—and by the reminder that Cyrus wasn’t really a nice guy, no matter what he liked to pretend. And then I sneaked a peek at Anderson and practically stopped breathing.
He was still firmly in his mortal disguise. There was no white light leaking from his eyes, nor was any glow coming from his hands, and yet he was still incandescent with fury. Enough so that Christina had taken a