me to kill Alexis.” Not that I was capable of killing a fellow Liberi myself, but I’d been trying to dream up a scheme to get him killed when Steph put the kibosh on it. “She wanted him dead,” I clarified at Anderson’s incredulous look. “But she didn’t want me to be involved.” I want Alexis to pay for what he did, she’d said, but not at the price of putting a black mark on your soul. She was the best big sister I ever could have hoped for.
Anderson slowly rose from his chair. I rose just as slowly, my heart pounding, my breaths shallow. My lizard brain really wanted me to get the hell out of there, away from the dangerous predator that was Anderson, but I forced myself to stay rooted in place.
“I need you to do this for me,” he said in a low growl that resonated strangely in his chest. He slowly raised his hand, threatening me with what I had dubbed his Hand of Doom. It wasn’t glowing, which is what it did when he was about to kill someone, but I didn’t much want him to touch me, either. I’d seen him use that hand against Jamaal. He’d been able to make the big, tough death-goddess descendant scream in pain with nothing more than a touch. I did not want to know how bad it had to hurt to accomplish that.
“If your plan is to torture me until I agree to do what you want, then you really are no better than Konstantin,” I said. My voice shook a little, and I was sure my eyes were wide and frightened looking. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t expect him to follow through with his threat, because I believed he was one of the good guys. But he’d never been able to see straight about anything involving Emma, and I was standing between him and his longed-for revenge. It took every scrap of courage I could gather not to run screaming from the room.
We stood there like that—Anderson’s eyes glowing, his hand halfway extended toward me while I quaked in my boots—for what felt like forever.
Then Anderson let out a whoosh of breath. His hand fell back to his side, and the glow receded from his eyes. There was still a wealth of tension in his body language and a hint of menace in his facial expression, but at least he looked short of murderous. It seemed like I’d won round one of our game of chicken.
“This isn’t over,” he told me. “But I guess we have to wait until Konstantin kills someone else before you can feel righteous about hunting him. Don’t worry. I doubt it will take long.”
He was still so angry I didn’t dare move, and I didn’t think any response was required. So I stood there like a statue as he stalked out of my sitting room and slammed the door behind him.
TWO
Having survived my verbal skirmish with Anderson, I supposed I no longer needed to work so hard at avoiding him. However, I’d already made a couple of appointments for the day to keep myself out of the house, and I saw no reason to break them. Funny how being turned into an immortal huntress and moving into a huge mansion owned by a god didn’t make the mundane cares of the world go away. I still had to go to the post office, and go grocery shopping, and get my hair cut. Ah, the glamour of it all.
The problem was the Liberi had a way of intruding on even the most mundane aspects of my life. After my haircut, I stopped by my favorite little French bistro to have a leisurely lunch while indulging in some people-watching from my seat in front of the generous picture window.
I’d been expecting to watch strangers, but before I’d even had a chance to place my order, I saw someone I knew crossing the street, headed my way.
Cyrus, the current leader of the Olympians, was Konstantin’s son, and you could see the resemblance in his olive-hued skin and coarse black curls. Cyrus, however, gave off the vibe of being an approachable human being, unlike his father, who looked exactly like you’d expect someone who calls himself a king to look. I’d met Cyrus a few times now, and he seemed like a friendly, personable kind of guy. If he weren’t an Olympian, I might almost say I liked him. But he was an Olympian,