Yeah, okay, so she wasn't up for Miss Congeniality this year, but then, neither was Zarek.
Especially not in his current mood.
Zarek's warm breath fell against her exposed cheek. "What are you?" he repeated.
Astrid decided the time for deceit was over. He deserved to know the truth, and since Artemis had already broken the agreement and sent in Thanatos, what was the point of shielding the goddess any further?
"I'm a nymph."
"I hope you just left an important syllable off that word, princess."
"Excuse me?" It took a second for her to understand what he meant. When she did her face flamed. "I am not a nympho! I'm a nymph. Nymph. No o!"
He didn't move or speak for several minutes.
Zarek let out his breath slowly as he considered the woman in front of him and tried for once to rein in his fury.
A friggin' nymph. He should have known it was something like that.
Oh, yeah, right. Like the idea of a Greek nymph in Alaska was something that should have occurred to him. Her kind usually hung around beaches, oceans, and forests or stayed on Olympus.
They didn't pop in during a blizzard and drag a wounded Dark-Hunter into their homes.
His stomach shrank as the reason for her presence slammed into him.
Someone had sent her here.
For him.
He gripped the handlebars fiercely, unwilling to let go for fear of what he might do to her. "What kind of nymph are you, princess?"
"Justice," she said quietly. "I serve Themis and I was sent here to judge you."
"Judge me?" He let out an extremely disgusted sound. "Oh, you're un-friggin-believable."
Zarek had never wanted to hurt anyone so much in his life. Getting up from the snowmachine before he yielded to his temper, he put space between them.
Was this his luck or what?
He'd finally found someone whom he thought didn't judge him and she really was a judge whose sole purpose was to pass judgment on him and the way he lived.
Oh, yeah, he really knew how to pick them.
The gods were still laughing at him. Mocking him.
All of them.
Enraged, he paced around the snowmachine so that he could watch her sitting on the seat, looking all prim and proper with her hands folded in her lap and her head down.
All ladylike.
How dare she screw with him like this! Who did she think she was?
He was tired of people messing with him. Tired of games and of lies.
A judge. Acheron had sent in a judge before they killed him. Ooo, Zarek was just tickled pink by the consideration.
Maybe he should be flattered that they even gave him a pretense of impartiality. It was a hell of a lot more than he'd gotten as an accused slave.