Ash lifted Sunshine's hand and sniffed her skin.
Talon had already caught a whiff of the strange spicy orange scent that seemed to permeate Sunshine's body.
Ash turned to Vane and Fang. "Would you guys mind waiting for us downstairs?"
Vane inclined his head. "We'll do another sweep of the building to make sure there aren't any more Daimons hiding out."
He led his brother from the room.
Talon cradled Sunshine against his chest, grateful to have her again, but concerned over what had been done to her. He had also noticed how strangely Ash was behaving; the man was much weirder than normal. "What's wrong with her?"
Ash let out a long, tired breath. "She's on a drug called Eycharistisi." At Talon's frown, he defined the unfamiliar word. "Pleasure."
"Come again?"
"It's a very potent aphrodisiac. It floods the body with endorphins and destroys any and all inhibitions. One hit and all the user can think about is finding someone to stimulate them to orgasm."
Rage descended as Talon thought about why someone would give her such a thing. "You think Camulus had sex with her?"
"No, I think someone else did it as a message to me and a warning to you."
"How so?"
Ash's cheeks were mottled with red-something that only happened when the man became truly angry. In fifteen hundred years, Talon had only seen Ash's skin mottled three times.
"Pleasure was the drug du jour in Atlantis and hasn't been produced since the entire continent sank to the bottom of the Aegean."
A bad feeling settled in Talon's gut. This wasn't just about Sunshine and him.
He narrowed his eyes on Acheron. "What's going on, T-Rex? First someone is messing with me who looks like you but isn't you. And now someone has access to a drug that vanished eleven thousand years ago along with your homeland, and he's fed it to Sunshine who was kidnapped by Camulus. What's the deal?"
"Offhand, I would say Camulus has teamed up with someone else."
"Who?"
As expected, Acheron didn't answer. "I need you to stay out of this."
"It's rather hard for me to stay out of it when this person keeps dragging me into it. And I won't stay out of it so long as Sunshine is threatened."
"You'll do as I tell you, Talon."
"I'm not your boy, Ash. You better take another tone with me. Quick."
Ash's cheeks turned even redder. "Are you questioning my authority?"
"No, I'm questioning your judgment. I want you to come clean with me about who and what we're dealing with and why this man gave Sunshine this drug."
"I don't owe you an explanation, Celt. All you need to know is that I have an old enemy pretending to be me."
"Why?"
"Well, it obviously isn't to be nice to me and win over my friends, now is it?"
Talon growled at Acheron's inability to tell anyone jack about his past. Why was the man so damn secretive?
"Is he a shapeshifter or a demigod?"
"Last I checked, he was human."