Warfire (Sons of Olympus Book 3) Sam

Burns
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 WARFIRE
SONS OF OLYMPUS
BOOK 3

SAM BURNS
W.M. FAWKES
 Copyright © 2024 by FlickerFox Books.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other
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noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Content Warning: this book is intended for adult audiences only, and contains graphic violence, swearing, graphic sex scenes, alcohol abuse, implied child neglect and abuse.

Cover art © 2022 by Natasha Snow Designs; www.natashasnowdesigns.com

Editing by Clause & Effect
 CONTENTS

Cast & Glossary

1. Adrian
2. Ares
3. Adrian
4. Ares
5. Adrian
6. Euryale
7. Ares
8. Adrian
9. Ares
10. Adrian
11. Ares
12. Adrian
13. Ares
14. Adrian
15. Ares
16. Adrian
17. Ares
18. Adrian
19. Ares
20. Adrian
21. Ares
22. Adrian
23. Ares
24. Euryale
25. Adrian
26. Ares
27. Adrian
28. Ares
29. Adrian
30. Ares
31. Adrian
32. Ares
33. Adrian
34. Ares
35. Adrian
36. Ares
37. Adrian
38. Ares
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Acknowledgments
Sneak Peek at Trickster
Also by Sam Burns & W.M. Fawkes
Also by Sam Burns
Also by W.M. Fawkes
About Sam Burns
About W.M. Fawkes
 CAST & GLOSSARY

Ares: God of war. Son of Zeus and Hera.

Adrian Wanger: Hunstman of the New York Vampire Hunt.

Gods

Aphrodite: Goddess of love and beauty.

Apollo: God of medicine & music. Twin brother of Artemis. Son of Zeus.
Anteros: God of reciprocated love. Son of Poseidon and Nerites.
Artemis: Goddess of the hunt. Twin sister of Apollo. Daughter of Zeus.
Athena (Dean Woods): Goddess of Wisdom and Strategy. Daughter of Zeus. Dean of the Banneker College of Magic.
Atlas: Titan. Cronus’s general. Deceased.
Cronus: Titan god of time.
Dionysus: God of wine and theater. Son of Zeus.
Hades: God of the underworld
Harmonia: Goddess of the peace and concord. Daughter of Ares and Aphrodite.
Hebe: Goddess of youth. Daughter of Zeus and Hera.
Helios: Titan god of the sun.
Hera: Goddess of marriage. Queen of Olympus.
Hephaestus: God of fire & craftsmen. Son of Zeus and Hera.
Hermes: Messenger god. Son of Zeus. Read his story in Sons of Olympus Book One: Wildfire.
Macaria: Goddess of Blessed Death. Daughter of Hades and Persephone.
Melinoe: Goddess of Nightmares. Daughter of Hades and Persephone.
Nerites: Nereid. Anteros’s father.
Persephone: Goddess of springtime. Queen of the Underworld.
Poseidon: God of the sea. Anteros’s father.
Prometheus: Titan god of forethought. Read his story in Lords of the Underworld Book Two: Prisoner of Shadows
Thanatos: God of merciful death. Read his story in Lords of the Underworld Book Three: Patron of Mercy.
Typhon: Father of monsters. Ally of Cronus. Deceased.
Zeus: God of the sky. King of Olympus.
 ADRIAN

“T his isIt was

it?” Adrian turned the small gold band around between his thumb and forefinger.
plain, unadorned—honestly, nothing like he’d expected from Hephaestus. Of course, Adrian didn’t know what
the hell he should have expected from the god of the forge.
Gods were, by and large, baffling.
Julian looked at him over a heap of papers on his desk, his dark brow raised. “You don’t trust me?”
If Adrian didn’t know him so well, he’d have missed the thread of amusement in his voice. Truth told, Julian had saved him
from banishment. Moreover, he’d given him a chance. Guidance.
Adrian had needed it.
Becoming a vampire at twenty-one was a whole-ass trip, and the last year had proven he wasn’t half as invincible as he’d
assumed. Hard as it was to justify feeling like he could never die, he had been turned after what would’ve been a fatal
accident. An EMT—a vampire EMT—had saved him, in a manner of speaking.
Okay, so the guy had technically killed him, but he’d saved him in the balance. Vampires could do that—they could give
you more in the very second you stood to lose everything. But they were secretive, holed up in the Hunt Building, and they
didn’t let the world in.
The world was scared of them, but Adrian knew there was more to vampires than people thought. He wanted to share it.
And, okay, using the hashtag slay on Insta was doubly funny as a vampire, right?
“Yes, okay, you know I trust you. It just looks . . . ” Adrian lifted it, squinting through one eye at the band of gold.
“Normal.”
Julian chuckled, turning back to his paperwork.
Adrian tried to sense something from the ring. There was a faint tingle that ran up from his fingers, but he honestly couldn’t
tell if that was an enchantment or his own anticipation of standing in the sun for the first time in a decade.
He slid it onto the first finger of his left hand, and . . . nothing happened.
He didn’t suddenly start to glow. He didn’t feel like he could unhinge his jaw and eat the sun. He just felt normal.
“I guess we’ll see,” he muttered to himself, glancing toward the doors that opened on the rooftop patio. The sun was up,
blocked out by transparent shades. Julian had been less worried about the sun, lately. He wasn’t obvious about it or anything,
but Adrian had caught him walking past open doors without flinching, without carefully sidestepping the sneaking rays of the
sun.
He’d taken to wearing a ring of his own, but so had Prometheus, so Adrian thought it was something for the two of them and
didn’t have anything to do with magic. Maybe it was more than that, but Adrian had a sneaking suspicion that something else
had given Julian his invulnerability.
“Don’t worry,” Prometheus said from the couch. “Hephaestus would never give me an unfinished project. He is certain it
will work.”
 Adrian smiled at him. Honestly, it was hard not to smile at Prometheus, who was such an optimist that he shone in the Hunt
Building.
The last few months had pulled back the shadows that’d hung over Jim and all the other vampires who’d seen so many
years of violence and disappointment. It wasn’t all Prometheus. They also had a purpose now. They knew what they’d been
made for, and it wasn’t just to feed on people and stalk the shadows. Vampires had been molded by a goddess. It was fucking
cool. Too bad Adrian couldn’t tell anyone about it. No one had said exactly that, but when he’d mentioned telling his followers
about it, the silence and stares had said all he’d needed to know. His fellow vampires thought it was a terrible idea.
Vampires might be common knowledge, but a pantheon of all-powerful gods? Yeah, no.
“I’m going to have food delivered,” Adrian said, pulling out his phone and picking a restaurant they hadn’t tried yet. “You
want something?”
Prometheus always did—he wanted to try every single thing this world had to offer—and he lit up to look at the screen and
scroll through dozens of options he’d never imagined tasting. He delighted in the ingenuity of people, and he never seemed to
notice that Adrian and Julian rarely ordered anything for themselves. They’d learned all too quickly that Prometheus would
pick out more than enough to feed them and half the Hunt besides.
“What’s boba?” Prometheus asked, blinking at him.
Adrian grinned. “Oh no, man. I’m not going to ruin the surprise. Pick a few that look good.”
Prometheus frowned down at the screen, so Adrian took pity on him.
“I like papaya milk tea.”
The titan brightened, his head bobbing as he added that to the list.
They were breaking for lunch—Julian the only one of them who kept working through it. When Adrian’s phone buzzed to let
them know the food was there, Prometheus hopped up first.
“I’ll fetch it.”
Normally, he had to when the sun was up, and maybe it was just habit, but Adrian wasn’t about to ask to step out in the sun.
He wasn’t ready to test Hephaestus’s new ring. Instead, he turned his camera to the front of his phone and checked his hair.
Boba selfie, then lunch—Adrian had his priorities, and none of them included risking becoming a giant fireball.
Only . . . it was taking too long for Prometheus to come back. Julian looked up, scowling, but he didn’t say anything. He
kept his worries bottled up, which helped approximately no one.
But hey, that was what Adrian was there for.
“Want to go check on h⁠—”
A crash and a rumble from downstairs had them both darting out of their seats. They rushed down the stairs, flying all the
way from the top in a matter of seconds. No elevator was faster than a vampire, especially in a crisis.
They were getting too damn used to crises.
Julian sprinted past the Hunt doors, right into the sun, because Prometheus was there, on his back, light and fire swirling in
a mass around him.
The guy pushing him into the pavement was big. When he looked up, his eyes were golden, slitted, and when he opened his
mouth wide, he spat a gout of flame in Prometheus’s face that would’ve melted a mortal.
Or a vampire.
Julian crashed into the man with a sound of marble hitting steel. He threw the attacker to the side. Not a titan—couldn’t be,
right? But scales rippled over his skin when he snarled, pulling himself to his feet while Julian gathered Prometheus off the
ground. Pale. Afraid.
It took a fucking lot to take down a titan.
And still, Adrian stood in the shadows while the assailant stalked toward them. Prometheus’s shoulders heaved, the skin of
his face reddened, blistered, because whatever unholy fire this guy spat was too much for him, even if he was already healing
before Adrian’s eyes.
He watched in horror as the assailant blinked his slitted eyes and marched through the remnants of their food, spread across
the street in the chaos, tapioca pearls tossed over the pavement like marbles, soaked in a pale orange mess.
Now or never. He—sunlight or no, he couldn’t stand by and do nothing while this creature attacked Julian and Prometheus.
The Hunt couldn’t lose either of them, not when they knew war was coming.
“Crawled up out of Tartarus,” the creature snarled, fingers spread and curled in vicious claws, “and started bootlicking.
Where’s your spine? Where’s your sense of justice?”
Prometheus tried to push Julian back. The beast lunged for them both.
And Adrian dashed out of the front door onto the sun-soaked pavement. His hand shot forward, fingers straight, to pierce
right through the beast’s neck from the side. The only reason he managed was that the monster hadn’t looked at him. No one
ever did, when there was a soldier like Julian and a damn titan standing in front of them.
The sound the creature made when Adrian pierced its neck was wet and rasping. Adrian clenched his fist, gripping the
windpipe and ripping out the front of the creature’s throat.
 The creature clutched his neck for only a second before he fell, and—and went up in flames.
Adrian jumped back, dropping the viscera clenched in his palm.
He stared as that blew away in ash too. What the fuck kind of creature could spit fire and then disintegrate when it died?
Prometheus was shaken, standing there in the middle of the street, his skin already healed but his face pale and eyes wide.
As soon as he realized they weren’t in danger anymore, Julian wrapped an arm around him.
Adrian stared, shocked as the rest.
And then it hit him.
“I guess the ring works?”
 ARES

odern humanity’s ability to ignore a war was profound and shocking.

M Ares had lived through thousands of years, and thousands of wars. Humans were starting a new one every time he
turned around. For land, or power, or money, or quibbling over the subtlest of differences in their strange modern
beliefs. So many of them were exhausting and pointless that even he tired of it.
For generations, he’d gone to where the fighting was thickest, most passionate, and tried to help those humans who were
fighting for their lives. Those who’d been wronged, or oppressed, or had their lives and freedom stolen.
Because as the years passed, it got easier and easier for the people in power to forget those people.
Much like Zeus and Hera high on Olympus, looking down at the tiny ants crawling in the muck, and judging themselves
higher and finer than anything on the earth below, mortal rulers thought of soldiers as nothing compared to themselves. They
moved entire groups of them like pieces on a game board, ignoring that they were people. That they lived and hurt and bled and
died, and deserved for someone to give a fuck about that.
It was how things had always been for Ares, too.
He was the most hateful of all the gods who held Olympus, or at least, that was what his own father said. The others, Zeus’s
golden children who could do no wrong—Artemis, Athena, Apollo—all of them were favored both by Zeus and by humanity.
They had grand and glorious stories sung in their honor, stories about their cleverness and victories.
Ares had the trenches.
And that was fine.
He’d never had much use for Olympus, with all its sterile immaculate whiteness and unsmudged perfection. He didn’t want
pristine magnificence, all crenelated columns and marble floors and alabaster statuary.
He would always have a special place in his heart for Rome, because the peak of their empire had been when people
understood him. He’d have been the last man to call himself perfect, or even admirable, but they’d seen him for what he was:
one of them. Just another man, marching beside them, fighting at their flank, bleeding and hurting right along with them.
He didn’t die like they did, but as a society, they had understood and accepted him more than any other.
And yes, they had done some awful things. Some of them in his name. Some of those horrors, he’d reveled in at the time. He
was the last man to claim that he was flawless, and maybe that was what made his brethren hate him so. He’d never tried to be
some perfect, gilded god on high.
He was always Ares. Only Ares. And he would not pretend otherwise.
But now they needed him, so for this moment in time, he would be accepted. Welcomed occasionally, for a change. Mostly,
presumed upon.
Athena had informed him that she had Washington “under control,” despite the fact that she’d relied on a very mortal human
to defeat Typhon. No shade to the kid—he’d done a damn fine job, and Ares couldn’t have done better himself. But that was
Athena. Never in the trenches next to the soldiers. Always the tactician on high, moving pieces on a board. They were always
cold, dead things, Athena’s wars. Polished and shiny just like Olympus, and little more than thought puzzles for her, proving her
ability to outthink an opponent.
The mess in the street in front of the vampire Hunt Building in New York showed the problem with that.
Who, what titan or titan-servant, had caused the disaster? They didn’t even know. The news had called it “a golden
monster.” One reporter had called it a “snake man.” Since Typhon was dead, Ares hadn’t the slightest idea who it might have
been.
The gods didn’t care. It hadn’t been Cronus himself, or one of his generals, so they had decided it didn’t matter. New York
wasn’t “tactically important,” they said, despite it being one of the biggest cities in the world, teeming with humans and wolves
and vampires and other creatures. The gods themselves did not live there, so they didn’t find it relevant.
Given the blood spatter still painted across the road, Ares thought the people of New York didn’t have that luxury. Still, the
people of New York weren’t talking about the war between the gods and titans.
Ares wasn’t even sure they knew about it.
No, they were calling the incident with the golden snake man—or whatever in the name of Tartarus he’d been—a singular
incident. The attack of a lone monster. They hadn’t put together the facts and realized yet that it was part of a pattern.
Ares glanced up from the crater the city workers were trying to fill in, to find Artemis and Apollo staring at him from
across the divide. They stood in front of the Hunt Building, framed by the ultramodern glass and chrome doors, looking like
nothing so much as a modern television advertisement for something expensive. Booze or perfume, probably. Or knowing
Apollo, both.
The sneer on his brother’s lips was nothing new. Nothing profound. The look on Artemis’s face was something else, though.
Something unfamiliar. Was it . . . relief?
The doors opened next to her, and an unremarkable man stepped out, with wavy brown hair and brown eyes, average in
almost every aspect . . . except the aura of magic that surrounded him.
He ignored the golden favored children of Zeus, and headed straight across the street toward Ares.
Prometheus.
As much as Ares hardly remembered the titan, he also couldn’t forget him. It had been millennia since he’d seen him, but
Ares had never forgotten him.
His brothers had always despised the titan as the creature who had turned their father against them. Prometheus had once
told Zeus that one of his sons would kill him, and all too predictably, Zeus had shoved his sons away from him.
All but Ares. Zeus had never wanted a damned thing to do with Ares to begin with, so the widening of the rift had meant
nothing to either of them.
No, that hadn’t been why Ares remembered the titan so well. Neither had it been how he’d used trickery more than plain,
straightforward fighting during the titanomachy. Fighting in a war took many guises, and Ares had no disdain for any face of a
warrior. No soldier, no spy, no child who tried to hide their bruises with stories of walking into a door was beneath Ares.
All warriors were warriors, regardless of how or who they fought.
No, Ares would never forget Prometheus because he’d taught him the first, most important lesson in how to survive his
family: Zeus was not always right, no matter what everyone else thought.
No, Ares had never had the fucking iron balls of Prometheus, to openly defy his father like that. But the realization had left
an indelible mark in his psyche nonetheless. Because if Zeus could be wrong about magic, then perhaps, he was wrong about
anything. Perhaps he was wrong about Athena being better than Ares in every way.
“Ares,” Prometheus said, his voice just as soft as Ares remembered from all those centuries ago. “You’re welcome in the
Hunt Building.”
Even having this man to thank for nearly every shred of hope he’d ever felt in his life, Ares felt his lips tighten in response.
Hadn’t he just been thinking that? Of course he was welcome when they needed him. He didn’t let that show on his face. It was
his eternal rule: never let them see how they affect you. Instead, he nodded. “A new titanomachy. I imagine it’s the last thing
you expected when you were freed.”
Prometheus smiled, and it was a soft, kind sort of expression that Ares had rarely seen in his life, let alone directed at him.
“No, Ares. You’re not welcome because of the war. You’re just . . . welcome. Come in. Have some tea.”
And that? Ares had no idea what the hell to do with that. So he followed Prometheus into the Hunt Building, accepted a
temporary pass from an excited young person named Jordan, and went to have tea with a titan. His brother and sister followed
along like puppies after Prometheus, as though they hadn’t spent millennia ordering humans about.
Well, Apollo was an especially rabid sort of puppy but still. Puppies.
Ares wasn’t sure if it was a very bad sign, that the children of Zeus were unprepared for conflict, or . . . something
completely new. Either way, Prometheus was already managing to surprise him yet again. Maybe he could learn another lesson
here. He must keep his mind open to it, he decided as the titan unhesitatingly handed him a delicate teacup that barely fit in his
huge callused hands.
Paying attention to Prometheus had been more than worth the effort last time. He would not miss another opportunity.
 ADRIAN

kay, so Adrian had been elected Huntsman of the New York Hunt, but he still felt like he was crawling out of his skin
O when he joined the room full of people not just older than him, but fucking ancient.
Julian was the youngest, and he’d fought in the fucking second world war.
Adrian was thirty. Not turned at thirty, no. From birth to this horrible fucking moment, he’d circled the sun thirty total times.
Now, he was keeping company with gods.
Prometheus, he’d gotten used to, but there was something endearing about a guy who wanted to sample all the food and
share every single thing he enjoyed.
Apollo and Artemis? Well, Artemis was kind of intimidating, but Apollo was a straight-up dick, and neither of them were
half as imposing as the stranger who’d joined them.
Ares. It was fucking Ares.
He took up all the air in the room, both because he was huge and he just had a commanding presence.
After the fight, Julian had brought him up to the top of the Hunt Building. He’d been concerned—that Adrian was hurt? He
was a vampire, but sure, anything was possible.
Only, it seemed like more than that. He was watching Adrian shrewdly, waiting for something, and Adrian was too dazed to
convince him that everything was fine.
He’d killed someone. Yes, yes, he was a vampire, but he didn’t kill people all that often. Not ever, actually, before he’d
joined the hounds that spring.
He certainly didn’t punch his way through a monster’s neck and tear out his throat. He should’ve used his teeth, maybe, but
sticking your face that close to the mouth of a guy who breathed fire sounded like a terrible fucking plan.
After Julian was convinced Adrian hadn’t gotten his eyes burnt out of his head or anything crazy, they joined the others.
Adrian declined tea, but only because he was so edgy that caffeine might actually make him jittery for once. Any caffeine.
That kind of thing had barely affected him since he’d become a vampire.
“It wasn’t a titan,” Prometheus mused as Julian wandered over to his desk and sat down. Adrian perched on the edge of a
couch. While the twins stood against the wall, Prometheus and Ares were the only ones taking advantage of the more
comfortable seats.
Adrian had a feeling it was at Prometheus’s guidance. Of course, it meant that he had little choice but to share the far side
of the couch from Ares, and it was like Adrian could feel heat rolling off of him despite the wide space between them.
It wasn’t anything like just being around one of the other Olympians. Sure, they made Adrian’s hair stand on end, but this
was . . . different. This was a fire in his chest and a giddy kind of excitement that warred with his nervousness.
Gods—was it just that the war god was hot?
“But I’m . . . not sure what we’re dealing with.” Prometheus seemed embarrassed about it. How the fuck did an actual titan
make everyone else feel like they had something to offer? Wasn’t he just . . . capable of anything?
 Didn’t seem to matter. Prometheus still looked to Ares for guidance.
“There’s a gap in my—well, I don’t know all the players,” Prometheus said. His smile tightened, and though it remained
steady, there was something dark in his eyes that Adrian sometimes forgot about.
He knew the basics of the story: Prometheus had given people fire—magic, really—against Zeus’s wishes. He’d wanted
mortals to be able to defend themselves against the gods.
It was the same reason Artemis had started her hunt.
But knowing the facts and really understanding what he’d been through for millennia? Two very different things.
Weirdly, he got the idea that if anyone in the room understood the kind of darkness Prometheus had faced, it was Ares.
And the moment he let the war god cross his mind, Adrian’s eyes were drawn back to him like a lodestone. Why was that?
Yes, Ares was hot in that I’m-the-baddest-bitch kind of way, like he not only rode a motorcycle, but that he worked on it
with his own two hands. He had a low, rough voice that was meant to utter “good boy” and send people to their knees. Adrian
wasn’t blind.
All that was true, and it still didn’t make sense that he was so fixated on him. He’d just killed a fucking monster. His head
was spinning, his blood rushing, and still, he was absorbed by the god three feet away from him.
“Tell me about the fight,” Ares said.
“As soon as I stepped outside, he was on me.”
“I’m the problem, it’s me,” Adrian mumbled under his breath.
At the edge of the room, Apollo started. “Are you singing Taylor Swift?”
Adrian hadn’t realized he’d drifted off. He flashed a smile, shrugged, and Prometheus went on like nothing happened.
“He seemed angry that I was here, that I hadn’t joined the fight against Zeus, but more usefully, he spat fire. When he died,
he turned to ash. He had scales, and eyes like a lizard.”
Prometheus was frowning, but he didn’t say anything specific. He also wouldn’t look at Adrian directly.
Was there something he was holding back? Something Adrian wasn’t ready to hear?
Adrian flexed his hand. His skin still felt like he’d dipped it in lava, but it didn’t hurt. If anything, it was like a tingle. Now
that he was a vampire, alcohol, caffeine, drugs—none of it affected him very much. But Adrian had been turned when he was
twenty-one. Technically, he was thirty now. Some vampires forgot their human lives, but for him, it was still immediate.
And his hand had a loose, strange tingle that reminded him of being high and just wanting to touch things because it felt
different.
“Otherwise, he looked human?” Ares asked.
Prometheus nodded. “Despite the fact that he clearly wasn’t. Or, well, he may have started out that way, I suppose.”
“Cadmus?” Ares looked at the twins.
The name meant nothing to Adrian.
“We didn’t see him,” Artemis said. She was frowning, her arms crossed. She didn’t look pleased, exactly, but Apollo was
far edgier. He shot sidelong glances at Prometheus, and they were putting Adrian on edge. Prometheus belonged to the Hunt
now, and as huntsman, it was his job to keep him safe.
They’d had beef, and though Prometheus seemed to have let it go, apparently it wasn’t so easy for Apollo. The only reason
Adrian could bite his tongue was how calm Julian stayed, like he wasn’t concerned about the god in the slightest.
So maybe it was time for Adrian to shake it off and bring something useful to the table.
“We have CCTV.”
Adrian got up, and Julian rolled his office chair back so he could pull up the feed on the screen.
Ares came over. With one hand on the desk, he leaned in close, and Adrian swallowed hard. He chanced a look at Ares
from the corners of his eyes. Ares’s sapphire gaze narrowed at the screen, but Adrian didn’t want to watch Prometheus take the
hits the attacker gave him, or see the figure of himself zip across the screen and come to a fast stop, bloody.
When the scene was finished, Ares straightened and looked him directly in the eye. “Nice job. Not everyone can take down
a dragon so quickly.”
Adrian’s mouth gaped. A dragon?
“Thanks?” Adrian rasped. He hated the sound. It was decidedly unmanly, particularly when surrounded by people who
actually knew what they were doing.
He cleared his throat and tried again. “Thanks.”
 ARES

he boy was stunningly beautiful.

T The video footage of the fight showed a handsome, lithe young man who moved with purpose and confidence, a
natural born warrior. Or dancer, maybe. Someone made for movement.
And now, he wasn’t quite as settled in his own skin as he’d been an hour ago.
It was understandable, really, and Ares tried to shove down his twinge of pain at the reminder of Cadmus and focus on
what needed to be done next. Nothing was served by him going maudlin.
“—doesn’t even give a fuck,” Apollo whispered to Artemis, who shot him an acidic look and shoved away from the wall,
stalking forward. Not to join the conversation, oddly. Simply because she was annoyed with her brother. For insulting Ares?
How odd.
Prometheus glanced back and forth between the twins and Ares before settling his gaze on Ares entirely. “I’m sorry, this is
obviously a difficult situation, but I have no idea who Cadmus was. A dragon?”
“He murdered my . . . my dragon, and stole his immortality,” Ares said, as simple and matter of fact as possible. “So now
your young friend carries the dragon’s fire inside himself.”
Everyone turned and looked at the young . . . vampire? Man? Dragon? Who blinked rapidly, as though he were a lightbulb
on the verge of exploding. Or going out.
It was a physical thing, the pull Ares felt to the power inside him.
The myths called the dragon the child of Ares, but Tigani hadn’t been that. He’d been . . . something else entirely. Friend
and ally and confidante and his in a way no one ever had been. Not even his lovers or his actual children.
When he’d been murdered by Cadmus on Athena’s orders, Ares had never been allowed true justice.
She was Father’s favorite, after all. She was allowed all things, so her favorites—like Cadmus—were allowed the same.
It had been the tiniest measure of relief when she’d moved on, forgotten about him as she did all her favorites eventually,
and upon death, he had been sent to Tartarus, where he belonged. Ares had never spoken to Hades of it, though he’d always
wanted to thank him.
But they didn’t do that, Hades and Ares.
They often agreed on things—tired of their families and disinterested in the politicking and dramatics of Olympus—but
discussing it would have defeated the purpose with which they lived their lives. A purpose that was largely defined by
avoiding Olympus and the Olympians whenever possible.
And now, Cadmus, the monster who had killed his friend, was truly gone. Destroyed entirely, his throat ripped out and the
dragon’s immortality drained into the beautiful young vampire who stood before Ares, his eyes wide and whole body trembling
just a bit.
“D-dragon? I can’t have a dragon in me. We—vampires, we aren’t exactly good with fire, you know. We burn easily.” He
flicked his hand, the one he’d used to rip out Cadmus’s throat, like it still had gore on it and it was bothering him, then he
turned to the other vampire in the room, the one Ares suspected was in charge of the Hunt, who’d been mostly quiet so far.
“Julian, I can’t—I⁠—”
The other vampire crossed the room in an instant, and Ares had a moment of envy for Artemis. This creature was hers, this
perfect hunter. It fit, but he could feel the soldier in him as well. Julian put a hand on the younger vampire’s shoulder. “It’s
okay, Adrian. It won’t hurt you. But it’s—that’s how it works, apparently. You kill an immortal creature, you gain its
immortality.”
“That’s why you’ve been looking at me like I’m about to catch on fire any minute. Because I—What do I do? Can we—Can
you take it away? Make it stop?”
The thought sunk like a knife into Ares’s gut, a feeling he’d experienced more than enough times over the centuries to
recognize. Tigani’s magic was finally away from that bastard Cadmus, and the person who had taken it wanted it gone.
He schooled his features, keeping them smooth and blank as Julian assured the young vampire that everything was fine,
nothing important had changed, and he didn’t need to worry. It was well done, and he was skilled at reassuring green soldiers
—a skill all too uncommon among officers.
Still, Ares had to turn away. He used the pretense of turning back to his cup of tea, drinking it with a thirst he didn’t feel. It
was a private moment, not one a young soldier wanted strangers to see.
And . . . Tartarus, he had Ares’s dragon, and once again, someone didn’t want it. Didn’t want him. Tigani had finally truly
escaped the clutches of his murderer, what tiny bit was left of him, and still, no one but Ares wanted him.
But Ares couldn’t say that. Artemis and Apollo wouldn’t believe it. Apollo would mock his ridiculous emotions, and
everyone would think him disingenuous at best, or much worse, pathetic and weak for having feelings. Unable to do the one
thing they all acknowledged that he was good at: fighting.
He glanced up and found Prometheus’s eyes upon him. Dark and fathomless and . . . knowing. He glanced away, downing
the tea.
Behind him, the door banged open. Ares froze, assessing the shape of the threat without turning to look at it. It was a
woman with green hair, reflected in the window, stance and posture wide open. Alarmed, not on the attack. She smelled like
another vampire, so that fact added to the stance meant she was not there to attack.
True to form, she turned to Julian and inclined her head. “Master Bell, I’m sorry to interrupt your meeting, but we thought
you needed to know. They’ve found a man in Central Park. He’s . . . he’s been turned to stone.”
There was a pause where everyone in the room reflected on that, except for Prometheus. Ares was impressed with how
quickly he recovered from the setback, faster than anyone else he’d ever met who wasn’t an actual soldier. “I assume that it
couldn’t have been Cadmus’s doing?”
Ares shook his head. “Turning people to stone was never something he could do. It could be a magic user, possibly, but
more likely a gorgon.”
Apollo was cursing under his breath at that, and Artemis let out a tiny hiss of air that might have been a sigh, but
Prometheus nodded.
“I know you were just sent to check in with us, gather information, but we don’t actually have anyone prepared to handle a
gorgon. I hate to ask it of you, but is there any way you could stay and take care of it?”
He . . . hated to ask it? Ares had never been spoken to that way in all his life. For a moment, he blinked at the elder titan,
mute with shock.
Just long enough for Apollo to find his voice, snorting derisively and then muttering. “Of course not. Can’t think of anyone
but himself for even a minute.”
“Of course I will,” Ares said to Prometheus, speaking over the last of his asshole spoiled brother’s outburst. “Bad enough
any of them escaped Tartarus to begin with. We shouldn’t be letting them wreak havoc on an unprepared center of humanity.”
“What, isn’t that simply the cost of war?” Apollo prodded, snide as ever.
Ares turned and gave the golden brat the blank stare that always unnerved him. “The humans in this city don’t even know
there’s a war happening. They’re innocents, and unprepared to deal with this. Are you saying you want me to leave them to it?”
Everyone turned to look at Apollo, as though they actually expected him to answer, and he and Ares both paused.
This was . . . unheard of.
Impossible.
Back home—no, not home, on Olympus, everyone would have automatically sided with Apollo. Agreed with him that of
course Ares would do the worst possible thing, because Ares was Ares and Apollo was one of their father’s favored golden
children.
Here, these people, they were taking everything at face value. Not assuming Ares was a lying monster and Apollo
invariably correct about his bastardy.
Like his soldiers, they believed him.
Maybe even believed in him.
So he slashed a hand through the air and shook his head. “No. You know what, don’t answer that. I don’t give a tinker’s
damn what you think. I said I’d handle the gorgon, and I will.” Turning back to the woman in the doorway, who was eyeing
Apollo with something that looked shockingly like disgust, he motioned her in. “I need to know everything about what they
found and where.”
 ADRIAN

hile Leslie gave them the rundown on what she knew, Adrian pulled himself together.
W Okay, he tried to pull himself together. But that was half the battle, right? Get his head on straight, then face
whatever was next. If he could fake it long enough, maybe he’d actually be fine.
If he’d asked for some time off to figure this all out, he had no doubt that Julian would’ve given him time and space in
spades, but, well, Julian wasn’t the one who’d picked Adrian as huntsman of the New York vampires.
Truth told, Julian probably had more sense than that. Adrian had won on popularity alone, and because he’d run
unchallenged, not because he had any particular skill or experience as an officer of the law. The Hunt had been scrambling
after Berger’s betrayal and Master Carter’s death, and no one much cared who was in charge, as long as they didn’t have to
clean up the shit show.
Leslie had practically demanded he run, and when Adrian had looked around for an opponent, there hadn’t been one. He
didn’t even think it was because no one cared enough to step up—they were all just hurt, afraid, and didn’t see the moment as
one to sew discord among their ranks.
They’d accepted him without question, and he’d done his best.
But Adrian had only been a hound for a couple months when he’d been elected huntsman. Julian, at least, was used to
leading people. He’d been huntsman right up until Master Carter’s death, and now Julian was master of the whole goddamn
hunt.
Adrian shouldn’t have kept leaning on him as hard as he did, but—well, what the fuck did he actually know? He could play
the long arm of the law and all that, but he knew his role in the grand scheme. He was support, backup, the guy who brought the
coffee and donuts in the morning.
Fuck, he was trying to be more than that, but right then, with a dragon’s fire searing through his veins, it felt like he was
failing.
By the time Leslie was finished talking and Ares set his teacup aside, Adrian felt—not better, but okay enough to keep
going.
“I’ll come with you,” Adrian said, stepping up with a forced grin.
Ares’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t need backup.”
That brought Adrian up short. The Hunt worked together; the hounds were a unit. Julian had spent a long time holding
himself apart, but even he’d eased up since Prometheus had come around.
Adrian bit his lip, giving Ares a once over.
Guy like that? Yeah, he probably didn’t need any help.
“Well, sure,” Adrian said, meeting his eyes again. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked onto the balls of his feet
and back. “You seem more than capable, but this is still my city, and I’m huntsman, so it’s kind of my job to handle this sort of
thing, even if I have no fucking clue what to do with a—you said a gorgon? No way to learn if I don’t try. Anyway, I’m Adrian
Wagner.” Adrian stepped up to him and stuck out his hand. “And you’re Ares, and we’re introduced, so . . . partners?”
Ares looked skeptical, but Adrian was stubborn enough to stand there with his hand out, no matter how many seconds
ticked by in foolishness. Eventually, Ares took it and gave his hand a perfunctory shake.
When he let go of Ares’s hand, Adrian turned to Leslie. He was still smiling, and sure, it felt strained, but what choice did
he really have here? He couldn’t afford to fall apart.
“I want the hounds researching. Everything you can find about gorgons, I want to know it. Maybe we’ll get lucky and handle
this fast, but in case we don’t—love comes in through the eyes, right?” Adrian laughed, and no, it didn’t sound at all strained or
hysterical, thank you very much. “So their magic does too. Look into, I don’t know, polarized sunglasses or something.
Anything that’d interrupt the flow of the curse—curse?” Adrian looked at Prometheus, who looked to Ares, who gave only the
briefest nod. “Anything that’d interrupt the flow of the curse from the gorgon to us.”
It wasn’t like Adrian was an expert on these things. He’d had the requisite middle school unit on classics and mythology,
but that was it. But when a titan settled in your home, you pulled out a laptop and got to searching.
“Yes, sir,” Leslie said with a smirk. Adrian’s smile twitched downward, but it was—almost nice? She didn’t mean it. All
the hounds called him Adrian, which was how he liked it. He only got that kind of deference when he was on edge and needed
to be taken down a peg.
“Right.” He turned to Ares. “Ready?”
The ride down the elevator was silent. Awkward.
When they hit the street, Adrian expected to take off at once, rushing after a flipping god.
But no, Ares walked slowly, his eyes narrowed, scanning the streets like he was a starving vamp looking for his next meal.
“I can go faster than this, you know?”
Ares shook his head. “I’m not rushing into trouble out there and passing it by here. Lot of enemy activity for one day. This
could be a distraction.”
“Right . . . okay.” Adrian shoved his hands in his pockets and settled in to keep pace with Ares.
He seemed ill-at-ease here.
“New York’s really not your place, huh?”
Ares glared at him for only a second before turning back to searching passing strangers’ faces. People gave him a wide
berth, almost like they could feel the gaze of a god on them. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like . . . you don’t feel at home here. Not much of a city boy?”
Ares didn’t answer, and Adrian’s nerves were getting the better of him. He couldn’t just shut up.
“I guess that makes sense. Not like we have a lot of battles here or anything. I mean, some fights⁠—”
“There are plenty of warfronts in every city that call to me.”
“There are?”
“Mmm.”
That sounded to Adrian like a yes, but Ares didn’t offer any further information.
They went on like that for long, silent blocks, before the pent-up energy working its way through Adrian got the better of
him again. “Did I do something to piss you off?”
Ares scowled at him. “No?”
Adrian bit his lip as Ares turned away. “It’s just—if I did, I’m sorry. I get it. I got where I am through a series of epic
fucking mistakes, so I’m happy to take my lumps where I’ve earned them, man. But if I knew what I was doing that rubbed you
the wrong way⁠—”
“I’m not mad.”
Well, he sounded mad now.
They’d made it into Central Park, and not far off, there was a spot illuminated by floodlights against the darkened sky.
People rushed between them.
“Right, right. So the vibes are just off.”
“We’re hunting a gorgon,” Ares said, picking up the pace while he marched toward the gathered officers and medics.
“Which I am fully prepared for.” Adrian clicked his tongue, then took off at a jog to catch up.
Ares was already trying to duck beneath the police tape when an officer came up to him, palm held out. “This is a crime
scene. I’ll have to ask you to stay back.”
“He’s with me!” Adrian said as he reached the edge, pulling out his badge and showing it to the guy.
“Huntsman Wagner,” he said seriously, with an acknowledging nod. “This is Ares. He’s an, uh—” Most humans didn’t
know about the whole Greek god epic war from on high bullshit. “He’s a consultant with the Hunt. Specializes in this kind of
thing. Magic, curses, monsters, the works.”
Ares grunted at the officer, who seemed none too pleased with the whole situation, but strangely relieved at the same time.
Adrian was used to that kind of response from mortal cops. The hounds existed for a reason, and when a human officer was
out of his depth, it was all too easy to pass the case off to a monster with the ability to handle “woo-woo paranormal bullshit,”
as one guy’d called it.
“I guess you’ll want to see the victim then.” The officer held up the tape, and Ares ducked under it. Adrian followed him.
“This way.”
 EURYALE

scape.
E That was all Euryale had thought of for so many years that she’d lost count of them, trapped alone in the depths of
Tartarus.
Sometimes, it was silent.
Sometimes, she heard screaming.
She knew the exact tenor of her sisters’ voices, but the brutal ministrations in Tartarus warped them, turned them shrill and
brittle and⁠—
And breathing fresh air, feeling the wind on her face and tickling across her scales for the first time in so long, Euryale
knew that she could not ever go back. She would do anything to keep her freedom.
So when Cronus stepped closer to her, his visage so different from what she remembered, but the wicked hunger in his eyes
terribly familiar, she didn’t flinch back.
“I forgot how pretty you all are,” Cronus said, his cold, fetid breath falling across her face. Her eyelids fluttered when his
crooked fingers gripped her chin, and the serpents hissed.
That drew his attention to the creatures that grew from her head—a part of her and separate all the same. One snapped, and
with a grimace, he withdrew his hand.
“Save for those damned vipers,” he whispered.
“What do you require from us,” Medusa’s voice was strident, almost impatient, “my lord?”
This last, she added only as a formality, disdain dripping from her lips as easily as venom from a serpent’s fangs. Cronus
did not care. He smiled, revealing a sickly brown buildup between his teeth.
The man was half rotted, and—and something else besides.
He’d taken the body of a mortal, but it was twisted now as the titan’s strength recovered. Just the sight of him sent shivers
down Euryale’s spine.
“Chaos, my sweet,” Cronus breathed. “Chaos, suffering, the end of all things. I will unmake this world and rebuild it⁠—”
“And we,” Medusa interrupted, eyes narrowed, “will be free and left alone.”
Euryale wasn’t sure she trusted it when he inclined his head. That wasn’t enough of a promise.
She and her sisters had heard the oaths of gods and mortals alike, and seen them broken time and again. Euryale would
have seen Cronus bleed for his promise, would have seen him etch it in stone.
But if it was good enough for Medusa, who had always been cleverer than Euryale, she would satisfy herself with the idea
of something safe and comfortable on the horizon. This would end, and they would find a place for themselves far enough away
from anyone who meant them harm.
It would’ve been easier if this new world wasn’t so very full.
“It’s one city,” her sister Stheno promised, holding tight to her hand.
 Euryale laughed, the sharpness of it bordering on hysterics. “It is a continent’s worth of people in one of those—those—”
She waved her free hand at a nearby tower. It glowed from within. The walls were somehow transparent, and she hated the
strange lights inside. They were glowing like it was daylight, and she could see the people within.
Stheno shook her head. She turned to face Euryale and tucked a scarf around her head. “Don’t think about it.”
That was no easy feat, when every inch of this new world was so horribly dramatic.
“They’re so loud,” she whined. She could even feel the tension in her serpents, hissing and bunched up close to her scalp,
hiding beneath her sister’s scarf. “Don’t leave me here. I can’t—I don’t want to be alone.”
Stheno held both her hands tight. “It’s just for a little while, and we can’t focus on just one city. There are too many
Olympians, little snake, but we’re just a distraction. We only have to do this long enough for Cronus to get the titans in order
and mount their attack.”
“And then what?” Euryale swallowed, her tongue suddenly dry.
Then, there’d be war. What promise did they have that Cronus would win this one?
What promise did they have that they’d survive being just distractions?
“And then we’ll be safe. No more Tartarus. No more suffering. No more time trapped apart. We’ll be together. Just . . . do
this. For us. Anyone who comes too close, petrify them and run. That’s all you have to do. Keep running. Keep moving.”
Euryale pressed her lips so tight together that they ached, but she nodded. One more favor for a titan, and this would be
over.
It—it wasn’t like they had any choice. As if Poseidon or Athena or any of the others had ever lifted a finger for her and her
sisters.
At least Cronus had no interest in them beyond simple convenience—another set of bodies to throw between himself and
his furious children.
Stheno left. Another city, more victims.
Euryale kept moving.
Her first victim? It wasn’t even his fault.
She’d been walking fast, her breath coming in short gasps. He must’ve heard her, because there was a rustle of paper. She
hadn’t even noticed a person beneath it in the dark.
He moved to sit up. “Miss, do you have any spare ch⁠—?”
He was stone before he finished his question, and she ran.
 ARES

t was a homeless man.

I Of course it was. The victims of these things were never rich assholes. They were always the most vulnerable people.
Just like soldiers in the modern era, victims of violence were almost always people who had no other choices.
A man who’d been cold, so he’d wrapped up in newspaper on a park bench to keep warm. A woman whose family had
thrown her out for the crime of being a lesbian, so she’d joined the army to have somewhere to go. This was the war of the
modern era. People who needed a voice, who needed just the tiniest bit of . . . fuck, of humanity. Of care, from their fellow
people. The voiceless and homeless and hurting.
But it wasn’t time to mourn the dead. That was for after.
Now was time to stop the gorgon, so she didn’t leave a trail of dead across the city.
Ares knelt next to the bench, looking the man over. The objects immediately touching his skin had also been turned to stone.
Two of the sheets of newspaper, thin as tissue, were stone. His hair had been long, covering part of his face, but not the dog
tags still hanging down from his neck, almost touching the wood of the seat. It was easy to imagine the light coat he wore
before it was turned as well, one of those green canvas numbers.
He was one of Ares’s in every way, not just because of a feeling of camaraderie. So he reached out and touched the
remains, closing his eyes. He was bound for Elysium already, this one. A hero.
“His name was Bernard Washington,” Ares announced aloud, feeling and hearing everyone in the vicinity turn toward him.
“Sixty-five years old. Army veteran. The Gulf War.”
“Was . . . was he a friend of yours?” the man who’d let them past the crime scene tape asked, suddenly subdued.
Ares turned to him, giving him a once over. He’d never been a soldier. He wouldn’t understand. “In a way,” he agreed
instead of explaining. Then he pushed up. “It was a gorgon. And this wasn’t an accident. Not this close to Prometheus’s home.
They’re trying to get his attention.”
He didn’t know whether it was Tigani’s instinct or something else, but the young vampire didn’t doubt or question his
conclusions, simply nodded. “So what do you think their next move is? Is there a way we can get ahead of this?”
“Wait,” the cop interrupted. “A gorgon? Like . . . like a snake-headed monster? Like the one that attacked the Hunt Building
this afternoon?”
Ares turned and lifted a brow at him. What the hell were they teaching kids these days? “Gorgons have snakes on their
heads in place of hair, not snake heads. And Cadmus didn’t have a snake head either. Just the aspect of the dragon.”
“Who’s Cadmus?” the man asked. “And what’s the . . . the aspect of a dragon? What the hell does that mean?”
Adrian cleared his throat and stepped forward, giving Ares a subtle head shake. It made sense. It rarely ended well when
mortals learned that killing an immortal gave you their power. “He had slitted eyes, and breathed fire, that kind of thing,”
Adrian answered instead of giving the whole truth. It was close enough, and more than they needed to know anyway.
“Gorgons,” Ares said, drawing the conversation back in the direction it needed to go. “They’re nocturnal, so she won’t
come out in the day. A city-wide curfew would save lives. If you don’t take precautions, Bernard won’t be her last victim
before I catch her.”
“I can’t just get the whole city of New York put on a curfew because you say so,” the man protested, shaking his head.
“This city runs twenty-four hours a day.”
“Then Bernard won’t be her last victim,” Ares said, meeting his eye unflinchingly. “I understand you might not have the
power here, but I recommend you do your best to convince someone who does. This isn’t over the top. It’s not being too
cautious. There’s a gorgon loose in the city, and she will kill more people if you don’t take precautions. She might even if you
do. She’ll target people like him. Vulnerable. Alone. People who have nowhere else to go.”
The cop closed his eyes, clearly pained, and Ares felt a pang of guilt. If the man actually gave a damn about the citizens of
his city, of course he’d be pained by its most vulnerable people being targeted. It was necessary to tell him, though. Keeping
secrets for the sake of saving people’s feelings helped no one.
“All right.” The cop nodded to him, then to Adrian. “I’ll see what I can do. I won’t promise anyone will listen to me, but
word from the Hunt holds water. They’ll agree if I ask their backing?”
“They will.” Adrian nodded to him, then turned back to Ares. “Is there anything else you can tell them about a gorgon’s
hunting habits that might help?”
“Turning people to stone isn’t automatic. She can’t do it accidentally. It takes intention and energy. She couldn’t just step in
front of a crowd and turn them all to stone. That kind of effort might kill her. It’s one of the reasons she’ll hunt this way, looking
for people alone. Groups will be safer than a person or two.” Ares looked at Adrian again. “The Hunt is looking for some
other way to stop her magic from working, too. The police should keep in contact with them, in case we come into more
information.”
At that, Adrian seemed to turn into another person. He flashed the cop a smile, turning to take up all his attention, handing
him a card and explaining who to talk to and when to call and . . . everything came into focus just a little better.
Ares had seen it a thousand times, in a thousand men over the years. Caesar. He’d been one man in the trenches with his
men, and another when he stood in front of the adoring crowds, or the consulate, or his fellow generals. It was an impressive
skill that Ares himself had never been able to foster. There was only one Ares. He only ever managed to be the same taciturn,
blunt asshole with everyone.
He wasn’t a general or a politician.
He was a soldier.
Adrian was something more than that.
It made sense. Tigani had been more as well. Brilliant and beautiful and clever, light personified in a way Ares had never
been. He’d made him feel brighter simply by his presence. It somehow gave him the same feeling of lightness and a sinking
feeling in his belly at the same time, seeing all that in Adrian. Wondering if it was some remnant of the dragon, or if Adrian
was just that much like his old companion already.
They were walking away from the police when his phone rang, and he paused. He glanced at Adrian, but the man was his
partner in this investigation for the foreseeable future, and he had never been one for subterfuge. He answered. “Sweetheart. Is
everything all right?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, followed by a sniffle. Of course. “Is . . . is it true? Is Cadmus destroyed?”
A growl rose inside him, and he didn’t even try to hold it back. “He is. He’s gone for good. He’ll never bother you again.”
On the other end of the line, his sweet, perfect point of light, his beloved daughter, Harmonia, wept. “Did—did you do it?”
She was truly a wonder, his Harmonia. Forced to marry the dragon slayer at Zeus’s orders, it had been his father’s way of
punishing Ares for having the gall to demand justice for the dragon’s murder. Cadmus had done his scant years of service, and
then Zeus had offered the monster his baby girl, as though she was a prize to be given and not a person able to make her own
decisions.
It had been the moment Ares had left Olympus for good, going to live among his people on earth without looking back. And
when Cadmus had died, passing into Hades’s hands, Ares had taken his daughter home, then Sparta, and given her anything she
wanted for as long as she stayed, to try to make up for what had happened.
The perfect child of war and love, Harmonia was a child of peace. Of peacemaking. She’d never held a grudge against
anyone, not even her grandfather, for her torment. But Ares knew that she would feel safer in her skin with the knowledge that
Cadmus did not even exist in Tartarus any longer. She was truly safe from her dead husband, forever.
“I’m sorry to say I didn’t kill the bastard myself.” Ares looked over at Adrian, giving him a nod. “A vampire at the New
York Hunt killed him. I’m with him now.”
She sniffled, and he could almost hear her drawing herself together. “He . . . he knows he did what needed done, yes? You
won’t let him worry that he killed a good man?”
“He knows Cadmus was a monster, sweet. The bastard was trying to murder Prometheus.”
She hissed in displeasure, but even then wouldn’t speak an ill word.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier, but Cronus has sent a gorgon to the city, so we’re trying to find it and stop it before it
kills anyone else. Is there anything you need? I can’t be there right now, but I’ll call your mother, and I’m sure⁠—”
“No, no, no, it’s okay, Daddy. I’m fine. I just . . . I just needed to know.” She paused a moment before adding, softly, “Will
you come visit when you’re done? I miss you.”
“Of course I’ll come visit,” he agreed instantly. “Or you can come to me anytime you wish. I’m always happy to see you.”
He wasn’t worried about her fighting a gorgon, and it wasn’t as though anywhere in the world was safe, when they were
fighting titans on all sides.
“Maybe . . . maybe I will,” she agreed. “But I should let you go stop the gorgon. Thank you, Daddy.”
“Always, sweetheart. Always.”
When he hung up the phone, Adrian was staring at him, wide-eyed, but then averted his gaze. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to—that
is, I⁠—”
“It’s fine,” Ares said, the words coming out like a promise. “I have no secrets. Anything you want to ask, feel free. That
was my daughter Harmonia. Zeus once forced her to marry that bastard Cadmus as a way to punish me.”
Adrian’s mouth fell open, shocked, and he shook his head. “Fuck me, the gods are assholes.”
Ares couldn’t help himself at that. He laughed.
 ADRIAN

drian hadn’t meant to eavesdrop on Ares’s conversation with his daughter, but a lot had changed when he’d become a
A vampire.
That whole night had . . . fucking sucked, really. It’d been a simple kind of suck though. Nothing to do with gorgons or
gods or horrors beyond comprehension.
Some asshole hadn’t been paying attention, had run a red light, and had crushed Adrian’s body between the center console
of his car and the outside door.
He’d been on the way to visit his mom, and he’d wound up in—well, he’d made it to the ER, but not intact.
He’d have died on the pavement beside his sedan if it hadn’t been for the vampire EMT who’d⁠—
Well, it wasn’t quite right to say he’d saved Adrian’s life, but he’d saved his existence, and Adrian had been so grateful.
Not everyone was, but Adrian? Yeah, life as a vampire beat the hell out of dying.
The NY hunt had welcomed him, tolerated him while he’d figured out the rules, given him somewhere safe to say and
guidance and hell, he was sure part of the reason people seemed to like him was that he wasn’t shy with his gratitude. Yeah,
knowing the best selfie angles didn’t hurt, but that wouldn’t have won over a bunch of decades’ old bloodmonchers who’d been
intimidated by a smartphones until Adrian had showed them how to use them.
He didn’t just owe the Hunt for that time Julian saved his ass from getting driven out for breaking the rules and bringing in
an unregistered guest. He owed them for everything.
Now, he could eavesdrop on practically any conversation he focused on, hear things he wasn’t meant to hear.
And even if he’d wanted to turn away, ignore it, turn his ears off somehow, he couldn’t manage it. Since Ares had shown
up, Adrian was singularly focused on him, so while the Olympian talked to his daughter, Adrian stared, then tried not to, then
stared some more.
He wanted to know everything, felt guilty for it, and then Ares went and offered to answer any question he had. Easy as
that.
At least Adrian could make him laugh.
“How’d you know that guy’s name?” Adrian asked later. “The victim. Just because you’re a god? Do you all, like, know
everybody?”
Ares’s lips turned down for a second. There was bottomless sadness in his eyes, but Adrian only saw a flicker of it before
Ares turned away. They were searching the park, but it was huge. There was no way for them to do it alone, even with a
vampire’s senses and a god’s strength.
“No. It’s . . . ”
Adrian watched from the side as Ares’s brow lowered, but he could wait. Sure, his thoughts raced ahead of him sometimes,
but he knew when to bite his tongue.
“Artemis created vampires,” Ares said. He glanced at Adrian long enough to see him nod. At least Adrian knew that much
now.
“There are some of them, like Julian, that she blessed directly, and there are many more who were made, but all of you are
hers. If pressed, she would know you.”
Ares’s lips disappeared between his teeth. There was so much here that was beyond Adrian’s understanding. He’d lived in
the same place all his life, had never fought, had never really thought of himself as particularly religious. Grappling with the
idea that gods were real, much less that they felt the same kinds of emotions everybody else did, was too much.
Much easier to hold onto the idea of some enormous, unknowable, almighty deity, right? Not a bunch of people with the
same petty concerns and squabbles everyone else had, only with the power to level cities while they worked them out.
Whatever had come over Ares, he shook himself out of it.
“Every warrior’s heart beats in time with my own. They’re why I still walk the earth. Hermes has his emails and texts,
Hebe has social media⁠—”
“Aidos has a complete dearth of human decency,” Adrian mumbled.
Ares hummed. “It’d be easy to think so, wouldn’t it?”
Adrian grimaced, caught out. “Prometheus says she’s getting better. We’re not . . . all fucked. Hopefully?”
It wasn’t the most heartening thing in the world, when Ares didn’t answer him.
They spent the whole night patrolling, but there wasn’t another attack, and if there was some sign of a gorgon that they’d
missed, Adrian wouldn’t recognize it. He could go a long way with scent, but it wasn’t like he had the gorgon’s sweater to
wave under his nose so he could take off after her like a hound dog.
When the sun started turning the sky a velvety lilac, Adrian sighed. “I should check in with the hounds, see what they’ve
come up with, let them know where we are. And, well—” Adrian lifted his hand. “The ring keeps the sun from frying me to a
crisp, but I’m not sure the Hunt’s ready to reveal that to the world yet.”
Ares nodded. “Wise. Play your cards when you have to and not before.”
“Right, so . . . I know you all don’t really have to sleep, but you got to the city and they put you to work pretty fast. I can get
you set up in a guest suite in the Hunt Building?”
Ares shook his head. “I’m going to keep looking, maybe check in with Olympus.”
Adrian didn’t have a ton of godly experience, but he grimaced.
“Good luck, man. Seriously. Uh—” Adrian held out his hand. “Can I see your phone?”
He plugged in his number and texted himself.
“Let’s keep each other in the loop? I . . . get that you probably don’t need help, but you never know when backup could
come in handy, right? And it’s literally what we were made for.”
Ares nodded again—taciturn guy, Ares—and a weight lifted off Adrian’s back. Maybe he was struggling to take himself
seriously, but he was the only one. Everyone else just accepted that he was Huntsman Wagner, no matter how absurd that
seemed.
He could fake it. He could do whatever needed doing.
Only, when he left Ares behind, it . . . hurt.
What the fuck.
His chest clenched like someone had reached in and squeezed all the blood out of his heart, drained him dry. His veins felt
parched, searing like the desert in high summer.
He forced himself to keep moving, but by the time he got to the office the hounds kept, he had to hold onto the door to keep
himself upright. He practically swayed into the room, and Leslie looked up from her desk.
“You okay, boss?”
Adrian laughed, and it only sounded a little hysterical. Just a little. “So good. Really good.”
He inhaled deeply through his nose to steady himself, straightened, and walked over to her desk. If he put his hands on the
edge of it when he got there, whatever. It was a casual lean. Fully composed. He was on top of everything and there was no
reason to give a second’s thought to the visceral reaction he had to leaving Ares’s side.
Totally normal.
“What’d you find?”
Leslie bit her lip. “It’d be easier if we could get some testing in the field done, but—” She waved her hand in the air. It was
too dangerous. He didn’t know if a vampire could get petrified, but Adrian didn’t want to risk his people unnecessarily until
they had a good lead. “Not sure about sunglasses or anything like that. Lewis reached out to Professor Ward at Banneker—
supposedly he’s good with this kind of thing, passive magic, objects, all that. So we’re waiting to hear back from him. In the
meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty good about augmented reality headsets.”
“Okay, why?”
Leslie turned her screen around. “They look pretty goofy, but there’s a camera on the outside, right, so you’re not looking at
the stuff you’re looking at. If a gorgon’s magic can make it through a camera and then pixelation, we’re pretty fucked, but I think
this is the way to go.”
 Of course, the headset she showed him was expensive as fuck.
“This isn’t an accessible solution. The—the guy they found in the park, Bernard Washington? Seemed like he was
homeless. No way just anyone can afford one of those.”
“Nope,” Leslie agreed, leaning back in her office chair. “But it’s all we’ve got that I feel solid about.”
Adrian tried not to let any strain show. It was what he’d asked for, his head was just spinning. He’d killed a fucking dragon,
or something like it, and a guy had been turned into a really nice looking sculpture, and every time he blinked he saw a big
blond god in a leather jacket, and ugh. Just fucking ugh.
“Order enough for the hounds.”
“Got it.” Already, her fingers flew across the keyboard to place the order.
Adrian straightened, but he hadn’t made it even a step back when her head popped up.
“Adrian?”
It was nice to hear his own name, not “boss” or “huntsman,” but it brought him up short. Leslie meant business when she
used his name.
“Yeah?”
“Be careful who you mention this to. Word gets out that this is an option, and all the rich assholes who don’t even need the
things are going to snatch them up, and the rest of us will be fucked. I know you don’t want to leave human authorities in the
dark about it, but for now, until we know what works and what doesn’t, push reflective sunglasses.”
Much as he hated it, she was right. This was a luxury solution, and if they weren’t careful, more people like Bernard were
going to get left behind.
 ARES

fter being ignored as background noise for thousands of years, the moment Adrian walked away, that old pain of losing
A Tigani was back.
He’d forgotten how awful it was. Like walking around the world pretending everything was fine while
simultaneously trying to saw his own arm off. It made his gut clench and his eyes sting, but . . . no.
Adrian was his own man. He’d inherited what was left of the dragon, but he wasn’t Tigani, and Ares refused to put that on
him. He deserved to live his own life, as he chose, without having to deal with the drama and trauma of the gods.
Ares had too much to do to even be thinking about this. It was time to get back to work.
The first order of business was checking in with Prometheus.
Yes, Zeus would have wanted to come first on Ares’s list, but he also knew damn well that hadn’t been the case in
thousands of years, so he wouldn’t have been surprised. He’d have thrown a fit at the knowledge of who was coming first.
Adrian and the Hunt, Harmonia, the gorgon . . . Zeus would think all of those beneath him, yes, but he’d be especially annoyed
by Prometheus.
He always had been.
It was funny, how all Ares’s brothers hated Prometheus for telling Zeus about his vision, and how it had fractured their
relationships. Like so many of his brothers, Ares had a child of his own. Unlike most of them, he’d raised his daughter. Spent
years, decades, centuries with her.
And if someone told him that Harmonia would kill him, it would change nothing between them. If his guiding light were to
kill him, he didn’t doubt she’d have an excellent reason to do it.
Zeus didn’t have that kind of relationship with his sons, and he never had, but the older Ares got, the more he realized that
was the old man’s own fault. Ares chose his relationship with his daughter, every single day. Zeus had never, in his many
millennia of life, chosen anything but his own damned cock.
“—is absolutely unconscionable,” Apollo was ranting as the young man outside Julian’s office waved Ares in. He rolled
his eyes as he did so, and it took Ares a moment to realize he was rolling his eyes at Apollo, and not him. The corners of his
lips twitched up in a stiff half-smile as he nodded to the young man and headed inside.
He didn’t know what he was going to do if this kept going. He’d have to relearn how to smile, because it felt unnatural
smiling at near strangers.
“You can’t just make these . . . these darkspawn immune to every weakness. They’re not gods.” Apollo was pacing the
office, one end to the other and back.
Julian, darkspawn, the office’s clear owner, was sitting at his desk, feet propped up, leaning back in the chair, his eyes
closed. Ares thought he might be asleep.
Artemis was sitting on the sofa Ares had inhabited earlier, her jaw clenched and lips pursed. Apollo was raving about the
vampires, Ares realized. Her creations, the closest thing she would ever have to children. Calling them names and railing
against them. No wonder she’d been so annoyed with him earlier, if that was the attitude he was taking.
Prometheus, meanwhile, was sitting in a chair, digging through a paper take-out box with a pair of chopsticks. He looked
like he’d found something truly worthy of worship inside, and Ares tried not to think of him, imprisoned and starved, for
millennia.
Ares had allowed it as much as anyone had.
Hermes of all people freed him, and whether it had been out of concern for anyone but himself didn’t matter all that much.
The fact remained that Ares hadn’t done a damned thing to stop Prometheus’s unconscionable imprisonment, because he’d been
afraid of ending up shackled right beside him.
Ares barely rated the grudging sufferance of his family on the best of days. The worst, well . . . he was sometimes surprised
he hadn’t ever ended up imprisoned right next to Prometheus.
Clearly not reading Ares’s abiding guilt about his unjust captivity, or listening to Apollo at all, he looked up when Ares
entered the room, smiling at him before motioning to a pile of other boxes sitting on the low table in front of himself. “Pad
Thai? It’s amazing.”
That got Julian’s attention, as he opened his eyes and sat up, looking to Ares with hope.
“I wish I had better news,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a gorgon, and more than that, we didn’t find a single hint of
where she’s gone, so this is intentional, not accidental.”
Prometheus winced, but nodded and motioned to the boxes again. “Still. Eat something.”
Ares wasn’t going to ignore the offer of food twice—that was a grave insult in some homes—so he inclined his head,
grabbed a box, and dropped onto the opposite end of the sofa from Artemis. “What weakness are we making vampires immune
to?”
Artemis winced, Apollo sneered, and Prometheus brightened, sitting up and turning to look at Ares. “Daylight. Apparently
they burn up in daylight, and frankly, it makes it a lot harder to fight titans if we go catching fire. So we’ve been looking for a
way around it.”
They were talking about the ring Adrian had mentioned, then, that made him able to walk in the light. That made sense, but
it was limited by availability, to say nothing of the fact that it could be removed or destroyed by enemies who knew what they
were fighting. “Give Hephaestus some time,” Ares answered without thought. “He’s the sun god now. I’m sure he can turn it
off.”
“Turn the sun off,” Apollo huffed. “That would be your answer.”
Everyone in the room, including Artemis, looked at him like he’d just grown an extra head.
“He clearly meant turn off the vampires burning in the light,” Prometheus said, shaking his head slowly, looking at Apollo
with concern, like maybe he thought the snotty little bastard had taken one too many blows to the head. “And if Hephaestus
controls the sun, then I’d agree, that’s something he’ll be able to figure out. For now, he’s given us a supply of these rings.” He
pulled a simple gold band from his pocket, holding it up to the light. It had the vague feel of the gods about it, but nothing that
stood out overly. It seemed harmless enough to Ares.
“And I’m telling you,” Apollo said, glaring at Prometheus. “You can’t just take away rightfully given flaws. They have
weaknesses for a reason.” The sneer on his face was an obnoxious, all too familiar expression, and it was strange to Ares, to
see it pointed at someone other than himself.
“What reason?” Ares asked, and when Apollo spun to glare at him, he kept his face as neutral as possible.
“You know what reason.”
Of course he knew. Everyone in the room knew exactly what he meant. He wanted every powerful creature to have
weaknesses because he didn’t want to have equals. He wanted to lord himself over all, confident in his superiority.
“No,” Ares said anyway. “Enlighten me.”
It was always more fun, making someone explain out loud why they wanted something selfish and douchey.
Sadly, he didn’t take the bait, just spun away from Ares, huffing with annoyance.
“Helping the vampires helps us right now,” Artemis said, finally speaking up in defense of her children. “We’re all fighting
the titans, them included. You can’t ask someone’s help and refuse to help them in return.”
The glare Apollo gave her suggested he disagreed entirely, but that wasn’t a surprise. He wouldn’t comprehend equality if
it turned into a snake and bit him in the ass. Instead of responding, or continuing a different track of the argument, he spun to
face Ares. “What does Father say we should do about the gorgon?”
Ares gave him a slow grin, letting the expression take his whole face. It felt off, a little stilted, but apparently it managed to
get his point across, since Apollo groaned, threw his hands up, and marched over to glare at the shaded window.
Tamping down his amusement at Apollo’s discomfort, Ares turned to Prometheus. “Given the way things look here, and the
fact that dear perfect Athena has Washington under control, I’m going to tell Zeus I’m staying here to handle the gorgon. I think
there’s more to it than just a loose gorgon threatening New York, but even if there isn’t, it needs to be handled.”
“You’re going to—” Apollo turned back to stare at Ares, mouth hanging open in disgust before shaking his head. “You don’t
just tell Zeus what you’re going to do. You ask him what he wants you to do. He’s the king of the gods. Your king.”
 Ares cocked his head at him, staring for long enough to make sure everyone was uncomfortable, then threw gasoline on the
fire. “He’s also supposed to be my father. Your father. A lot of people’s father. He’s never much bothered to act like that,
either.”
Apollo’s scandalized horror would have made an excellent Saturnalia card photo.
Ares turned away, looking to Julian instead. “Do you have a place I can call and talk to him? I don’t care if you listen, just
doubt you’ll want to. It’s probably going to go a little like this did.” He motioned toward the still angry Apollo, glaring at him
with venom.
Julian snorted and motioned to a door. “You can go in there if you want. Or on the balcony. Or you can stay here and we can
all roll our eyes along with you. Your call.”
Ares liked the man more and more, that unfamiliar smile stretching his lips once again. Still, he stood and went into the
indicated room. Zeus was probably going to yell, and no one deserved that.
Not even Ares, not even if he agreed with his family’s assessment of his own poor character.
Zeus sounded distracted when he answered the phone, though. He hated that the distraction gave him hope to escape the
conversation without extra stress, but sometimes a man had to take what he was given, and like it.
“There’s a gorgon loose in the city,” he explained, ignoring the mess with Cadmus entirely. It was over. It didn’t matter. “I
think she’s here for a reason, so I need to hunt her down and find out what it is.”
Zeus grunted in frustration. “One here in Tokyo too. Possibly another in Jakarta, though news is spotty and local
governments try to cover things like that up.”
Funny, Ares hadn’t even known his father was in Tokyo. Still, it proved his point and meant he was right about this
situation. Three gorgons in three of the biggest cities in the world. That meant there were probably other titanspawn, in other
cities, possibly not having struck yet. Or possibly as Zeus said, local governments hiding the situation. It could easily cause a
panic if the humans of the world were told they were facing monsters of legend around the world, so keeping it quiet felt like a
sensible choice.
“I’ll find this one and get what information I can from her,” Ares said. It felt oddly like a peace offering, despite the fact
that they both knew Ares wasn’t doing it for him. And Ares knew he’d been planning on doing it regardless of Zeus.
It didn’t matter. In this, for the first time in centuries, they were aligned, and both wanted the same thing. For that
motherfucker Cronus to grab a one-way ticket back to Tartarus. Or better yet, to be entirely destroyed like Cadmus.
No more granddad would solve so many of the world’s worst nightmares. Wars had a tendency to end differently than the
people in them expected. Invariably, little roadblocks would come up that no one had imagined. In this case, no one mistakenly
believed that as long as Cronus was alive, it could ever be over.
The problem was that Ares had seen a lot of war. He knew war. And he wasn’t sure he could imagine an end to this one
that didn’t involve both sides lacking a leader.
 ADRIAN

“I am beyond fucked.”
Julian’s lips twisted, nothing but sympathy in his expression. He didn’t have answers. “You know all this magic stuff
is way over my head. You should talk to Prometheus.”
Adrian grimaced. That was the reasonable course of action, sure. Even if it meant imposing on an immortal titan,
Prometheus . . . wasn’t terrifying. He didn’t look like he could swing a sword hard enough to cleave a man in half or snipe a
guy from half a mile away.
Moreover, he was nice. He was delighted by snacks and hot water and cozy hoodies. Honestly, for a guy with the kind of
power he had, he really didn’t play the part.
Adrian knew Prometheus would do his best to answer his questions. He wouldn’t even be judgmental about it.
But how the fuck was Adrian supposed to go up to a titan and ask how the transference of immortal powers worked and
whether or not that could account for how fucking stupid he’d gotten in the last twenty-four hours?
Adrian had . . . texted Ares.
Worse, he’d sent Ares a link to his Instagram page and said:
You should follow me. I’ll follow you back :D
Like that was a normal fucking thing to say to a weirdly intense, hot berserker warrior god in the middle of a random
Tuesday.
He’d gotten a tapback, just a thumbs up, because of course there was nothing else to say. And Ares hadn’t followed him.
Hell, Ares, son of fucking Zeus, god of general badassery, probably didn’t have an Instagram and certainly wasn’t going to
waste his time checking out Adrian’s thirst traps. He had better things to do.
Probably. Maybe.
“Fuck,” Adrian groaned, sinking back into the couch and sliding down until he was practically horizontal. His head was so
hot. “I’m going to start breathing fire any second now.”
“You’re not going to breathe fire.”
“Cadmus did,” Adrian snipped, pushing himself up so fast the world went spinning. “He almost melted your man’s face off,
so don’t fuck with me.”
Adrian narrowed his eyes, but he wasn’t really mad.
Well, he wasn’t mad at Julian. He was maybe mad at himself. Possibly the world. Definitely the strange, coiling warmth in
his belly.
He should’ve been hungry.
Was he hungry?
Fuck, he was hungry, but he couldn’t even focus on that because he had the aspect of a dragon, whatever the fuck that
actually meant, and he was supposed to be out hunting a gorgon, and the world was basically ending so none of it mattered
anyway.
His world was ending, at least.
Ares hadn’t followed him. Ugh!
“Prometheus might have answers,” Adrian griped.
“Uh huh.” Julian’s eyes went wide when he nodded, like he thought Adrian had lost his damn mind. Maybe he had.
“I don’t want answers!” He flopped back on the couch. “I want to be . . . not overwhelmed. And not fucked. And honestly, I
did not sign up for a battle for the fate of the fucking world when I became a vampire, man. I am not cut out for this.”
Julian’s expression softened. “Nobody is ready for war, but we’ll do our best.”
He didn’t tell Adrian he was being a baby, or that he owed their people better than a tantrum.
Adrian knew it. He didn’t need to hear it. He just needed to melt down for like, ten minutes, then he’d get back to his job.
Earlier that night, he’d brought the hounds in to get rings. Some of them were excited, some were skeptical, all knew that
this was a shift in their whole worlds.
Vampires didn’t stand in the sun, and while they might not want to make a habit of it right off, it was nice to find a silver
lining in all this chaos. Adrian wasn’t about to take it from them.
They’d gone off to do their jobs, and Adrian had sunk into the couch across from Julian’s desk and fallen apart once there
was no one else around to witness it.
He pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyelids for a second, and when he dropped them, all the fight, all the
energy, rushed out of him too.
“What if my best isn’t good enough?” he asked in a tiny voice.
Julian’s lips twisted. “It will be, and there are a lot of us who are gonna give this thing our bests beside you. You’re not in
this alone.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re doing fine, Adrian.”
“No, no, but see, I’m just some fucking guy. I’m not a soldier. I want to be a good Huntsman—I do. But I’m not you. I’m not
a soldier. I’m not even—I don’t have any business . . . god, Leslie is so much smarter than me. Do you have any idea how much
smarter than me? It’s like . . . she’s like fucking Einstein and I’m a slug.”
“You’re not a slug.”
“I’m a slug!”
Adrian threw up his hands, rushed to his feet, and immediately came up short. “But I have to try,” he said to himself, staring
down at the carpet for a second. “I’m going to try. I’ve—I’ve got this.”
“Feeling better?”
Adrian laughed, sharp and loud. “Fuck no. But you’ve got shit to do. I’ve . . . probably also got shit to do. So I’ve got this.
Totally. No big deal. The gorgon?”
“Ares is out looking for her now.”
“Great! Place to start. Step one, find the fucking gorgon. Or, well, find Ares. Because I don’t know what the hell to do with
a gorgon. But I can, I don’t know, carry his sword, right? Maybe spit some fire in her face if I figure that out.”
“Maybe find some time to breathe?”
Adrian huffed. “I’m a vampire. Breathing is optional. Ish. It’s fine. I’ve got this.”
He nodded, and he absolutely did not double over in anxiety on the way down in the sweet privacy of the elevator.
Or if he did, no one was ever going to know about it.
He could’ve just called Ares, but—god, that was embarrassing. His current plan was to pretend he didn’t even have Ares’s
phone number. No texts sent, no pathetic attempts made.
He didn’t even know why he’d done it, except that he was thinking about Ares all day and something came over him and⁠—
Fuck.
The second Adrian was out of the Hunt Building, he took off, sprinting around pedestrians in a flash. It was way too easy to
pick out Ares’s scent, like it’d buried somewhere deep inside Adrian after a couple hours spent together the night before.
Which was something he definitely wasn’t going to think about. Just like he wasn’t going to think about the thirst that
distended his fangs and made his mouth water.
He was a vampire. He was always hungry, and he didn’t feel any kind of spike in that at all, imagining what Ares might
taste like.
When it came to hunting, being hungry wasn’t a bad thing. The rush of adrenaline kept him focused on his prey.
Just because he couldn’t take a bite out of Ares wasn’t that big an issue. Eventually, he’d have to find some way to
alleviate his thirst, but an epic battle for the fate of the world did take precedence. It wasn’t like he had time to go to Hysteria
and find somebody willing, anyway.
He found Ares crouched down behind a dumpster of all places, and wrinkled his nose. Yeah, maybe he should’ve foregone
breathing after all.
 “What are you⁠—”
A movement at the far end of the alley brought him up short, and then the hiss of snakes.
Lots of snakes.
“Jesus Christ,” Adrian hissed, snapping his eyes shut tight. He had a second’s fear that he was too late. A cold breeze blew
over him that he was sure was magic. How the hell was he supposed to know what getting petrified felt like?
There was a woman’s shriek, a crash, and next thing he knew, he’d been thrown back into a wall.
So he probably wasn’t stone. He felt awfully squishy when a heavy body shoved him against the bricks.
Ares’s scent crashed over him and Adrian’s lips parted, his fangs long enough to press into his bottom one. The god was all
heat and solid strength and fury and⁠—
“Open your eyes,” the god growled.
Adrian’s eyelids fluttered open on command, the world narrowing down to the golden face in front of him, all hard lines
and gorgeous classic angles.
“What were you thinking just rushing up like that?” Ares demanded between his teeth, blue eyes flashing like they were on
fire.
Adrian could feel his rage. He shrank before it, and still, he was trapped in that molten glare.
“I—” He swallowed hard, not sure how to explain himself. Truth was, he hadn’t noticed the gorgon. She hadn’t factored,
because Ares had been there, and Adrian was on the hunt.
Only, it was more than that. Hunting didn’t put Adrian’s blinders on.
“I was focused on you,” he whispered, biting his lip, unable to keep his gaze from dropping to Ares’s mouth.
 ARES

he young vampire was beautiful.

T Adrian Wagner. Ares had to stop thinking of him as a boy, or a child, or anything like that.
He’d lived and died with younger men than Adrian in the trenches, and they were young and naive, yes, but they were
grown men. They hadn’t always chosen to go to war, and many of them had felt as though they had no other choice when they
had, but that didn’t make them any less adults.
Certainly, most of them hadn’t had dozens of pictures and videos of themselves doing mundane things while being painfully
earnest and sweet. Ares was going to have to ask Harmonia next time he saw her what the hell an insta gram was, and why
someone would send it to him. In his day, it seemed like the sort of thing that would have been called flirting.
But that was silly. Adrian Wagner was not flirting with Ares. He was nervous about him, like most sensible people, shown
in the way he swallowed hard and stared, wide-eyed, as Ares pressed him into the wall. He was bothered by having the
remnants of the dragon inside himself, and Ares could hardly blame him for that. Adrian didn’t know Tigani, why would he
want any part of it? He was terrified of the new titan war and all it threatened, like any sensible person.
Those things could all be mistaken for . . . other emotions.
Up close, Adrian’s eyes were the brightest green Ares thought he’d ever seen on a human. When he blinked, then his pupils
dilated and drifted down to settle on Ares’s lips, well . . .
That was unexpected.
They stared at each other for a moment after Adrian spoke, and Ares couldn’t even remember what he’d said. Focused,
maybe. Oh yes, he’d focused on him, on Ares. And he still was. Every cell in his body was trained on Ares, and it was so hard
to tell if it was the fear of prey who’d been caught out, or the anticipation of⁠—
Ares reached up with his free hand, brushing his thumb over Adrian’s lip, then under, to the slightly sharpened fang beneath.
Was he hunting Ares? He didn’t seem like the type who’d think himself capable of taking down a god, and the way his eyes
dilated even more, just a slim ring of green showing around the expanse of his pupils . . .
Ares leaned deeper into his space, until their breaths mingled in the air between them. Mostly Ares’s, since Adrian didn’t
need to breathe, but that didn’t make a bit of difference.
Oh, he wanted to bite him. He definitely wanted a bite. He reeked of hunger, and Ares wondered how long it had been
since he’d fed. But suddenly, Ares thought maybe he wanted something else as well.
So he pushed even closer, pressing Adrian into the alley wall with his bulk, and the only response that elicited was a hiss
of breath that sounded almost like a whimper.
No one had ever, on his very best day, accused Ares of being the sort of creature who overthought things. So instead of
worrying more, or considering the fraught power dynamics between them that Harmonia would surely remind him of, Ares
leaned into Adrian’s space, and pressed their lips together.
Instead of freezing or pulling back and smacking his head on the bricks behind him, Adrian melted into the kiss.
 That was . . .
That was completely unexpected. Ares wasn’t new to sex of any kind. He’d lived millennia; he’d had sex with all kinds of
people, in hundreds of different ways and places and configurations of gender and numbers. But for some reason, this young
vampire just falling into him wasn’t what he’d been expecting.
He went all loose-limbed against Ares, letting his arms fall around his neck and leaning in even harder, opening his mouth
to Ares’s questing tongue and just . . . opening. Completely. No one did that for Ares. They always held something back. This?
It was fucking intoxicating.
He pushed harder, his body a hot line against Adrian’s, grinding them together and discovering it wasn’t any kind of
pretense—Adrian was well on his way to being hard in his jeans, impossible to miss as Ares ground their cocks together,
against the rough denim.
With barely a thought, he pressed his tongue into one of Adrian’s sharp incisors, until ichor welled up in their mouths,
strangely sweet-salty, somehow both like and unlike the crimson of human blood at the same time.
Adrian moaned, stiffening and pushing his cock harder against Ares, sucking on his tongue like it was the best fucking thing
he’d ever had in his mouth. It was too fucking easy to imagine that dexterous tongue on his cock, how perfect it would be, the
feeling of⁠—
A crash behind them drew Ares off Adrian in an instant, using his bulk to shield the young vampire from whatever danger
might have made the sound. He’d been sure the gorgon had fled—had she returned? He didn’t think so. He couldn’t feel that
slick, chilling magic, or hear even a hint of snakes.
No, this was something else entirely. It was smaller and warmer and singular. It was a cat, perched on the edge of the
dumpster, looking shaky. Understandable, really. The poor thing had been in mortal danger not ten minutes earlier, just because
it had been looking for its dinner in a dumpster between a god and a gorgon.
It was either an odd shade of orangey-gray, or positively filthy.
“Holy shit,” Adrian breathed behind him. “That scared the fuck out of me.”
Ares wouldn’t say it, but he’d been startled as well, and he was hardly ever startled. He didn’t usually make a lot of time
for kissing people, let alone in alleys where he was supposed to be hunting fucking gorgons.
The cat leapt down from the edge of the dumpster and stalked over to them, looking up at Ares with bright blue eyes. It was
very small, and between that and the blue eyes, he wondered if it was just a kitten.
Without a thought, he knelt down in front of it, reaching out a tentative hand for it to sniff. Animals usually liked him. He
scared the hell out of people, and with good reason, but Ares never had and never would threaten an animal that didn’t threaten
him first, and startling him by jumping out of a dumpster didn’t count. True to that, the cat confidently marched up to him,
sniffing his hand, and then . . . hopping into it.
Adrian gave a rough chuckle, his voice hoarse from . . . well, from what they’d been doing a moment earlier. Just the
thought made Ares want to spin back around, cat be damned, and continue. “I think it likes you.”
Like all his other interactions in New York, Adrian didn’t seem shocked by the notion that a creature liked Ares. It was just
an observation. He was used to his soldiers treating him like that. Like he was just one of them, and that was fine. It had never
before happened among people who knew who—and what—he was.
It was almost enough to make a man wonder if he’d never been the problem at all. Almost. It probably helped that
Harmonia had been telling him for centuries that there was nothing wrong with him, and being the black sheep of the family
wasn’t a crime, especially not with his family being what it was. Look at the only other member of his family he’d ever really
identified with—Hephaestus. Also an outcast among Olympians.
Perhaps Olympus hating him wasn’t really⁠—
The cat, taking his lack of annoyance as permission, climbed his arm, tiny little claws pressing into the leather of his jacket
to keep its balance, and worked its way up to his shoulder, where it perched, like a filthy vulture.
There was a choking noise behind him, and when he turned around, Adrian was there, hand over his mouth, eyes shining
and looking like he’d just seen the true meaning of life in an audacious little dumpster cat. His phone was in his hand, and he
waved it around for a second before finally taking his hand off his own mouth. “Do you—do you mind if I?” He used the phone
to punctuate the comment as though⁠—
Oh, he wanted to take a picture. Of the cat? Of . . . Ares with the cat? Ares shrugged his cat-free shoulder and gave a little
nod. “That’s fine.”
Adrian had his phone open a second later, and it made a repeated snapping noise, as though he was taking a dozen pictures
of them. It had to be the cat. Ares had never been looked at like he was something utterly precious, except possibly by his
daughter when he was being especially dense or behind the times. He sometimes regretted her friendship with Hebe, that meant
she was constantly up on the new and modern. Ares hadn’t been modern or “hip” since before he could even remember. That
probably wasn’t even the right slang word for the concept anymore. They changed so damned often.
He shook his head and pushed up off the ground, the cat clinging to the jacket with determination, so he reached up and ran
a hand down its back, which made it retaliate by leaning into him and giving a rough, throaty purr. It sounded like a lifelong
smoker, loud and strident, and Ares . . . Ares liked it. He’d have to find it a safe place to stay before he left New York.
No one deserved to live in a dumpster.
 ADRIAN

eah, so Adrian had gotten ringside seats to Julian’s romance with Prometheus, but he hadn’t realized the titan tasted like
Y that—all sunshine and honeyed, molten sweetness.
Ares had pierced his own tongue on Adrian’s fang, and it was the hottest fucking thing that had ever happened to him.
Seriously. Ever.
It wasn’t like Adrian had never fed on anybody. He had. Hundreds of times. But humans who were open to the idea of a
vampire bite would usually flutter their lashes, tilt their heads, and offer their neck. It was great and all, but nobody’d ever
shoved Adrian back against the wall and flooded his mouth with the best tasting blood he’d ever had while grinding all his
thoughts to dust and tonguefucking his mouth in a desperate parody of what Adrian really wanted.
Gods, he wanted so fucking much. And he thought, if he could just get a taste—one night of Ares’s undivided attention—he
might be able to shake this need and get back to work.
Or he’d turn into some kind of feral monster from all those bad vamp horror movies and Ares would have to put him down.
Either way, seemed completely worth the risk.
But what kind of asshole would Adrian have to be to demand Ares set aside a terrified, starving kitten and get back to
letting Adrian swallow every drop, every piece of him, he could fit in his mouth?
He slipped his phone into his pocket once he was satisfied he had enough pictures for a scrapbook. Or, well, maybe a few
too many, indulgently snapped at different angles because Adrian had made out with a fucking god and he was perfect.
Stupidly, annoyingly perfect. But Ares was the kind of guy you told your friends about and when they asked to see a picture
of him, you gave a sly, victorious smirk, knowing they’d be floored by your pull.
Adrian wasn’t a complete fool—he didn’t think Ares was going to stay in New York. He was here, doing a favor for
Prometheus. When it was over, he’d have nothing else to stay for and infinitely better things to do. Adrian just hoped he got
another taste before it was too late.
“We should go home,” Adrian said.
Ares arched a brow.
Adrian’s mouth twisted. “To the Hunt Building, I mean.”
His home, not Ares’s.
Ares looked skeptical, but the little kitten on his shoulder had nestled in under the edge of his jaw and he touched it
carefully, his rough-callused fingers gliding over its head while its eyes shut blissfully.
Yup, Adrian was jealous of a stray cat.
“We can’t go on the hunt while you’ve got a kitten in your pocket,” Adrian said. “And the gorgon’s probably gone to ground
anyway. It’s not long till the sun’ll come up, so let’s get it settled somewhere safe so we can try again later?”
At the best of times, Adrian struggled to give orders, particularly one-on-one. Oh, he’d pull it together in a crisis, rush to
fill whatever role needed filling.
 But standing across from a literal fucking god who’d seen more warfare, who knew more about tactics, than Adrian ever
would? Yeah, no. It felt off.
Only Ares shrugged, said it made sense, and let Adrian take him back to the Hunt Building. He only paused long enough to
scoop the kitten carefully into his hands, pass him off to Adrian for a second, and shrug out of his jacket so he could wrap it
around the little dustball.
At the information desk on the first floor of the Hunt Building, Jordan popped their head up and smiled when they came in.
“Everything all right?” They scanned over the pair of them, peering into the bundle of Ares’s coat.
“Perfect,” Adrian said, maybe a little too brightly. He was nervous, kind of overwhelmed, but he’d made out with a god.
And he wanted to again. And . . . it was just a lot. His head was spinning, and he felt giddy and hopeful and silly, and he was
trying to convince himself that he couldn’t afford to get all twisted up.
Ares was a god. Making out in an alley didn’t mean anything. Adrian was just thirsty in every sense of the word, and
indulging it a little didn’t have to be serious. And not being serious wasn’t bad.
And come on, Adrian was never really serious, so why did it feel like something was clicking into place, immutable and
perfect, filling a gap he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying around?
“So, I need some help,” Adrian said, shaking it off. “I want to get Ares set up in a guest suite, if one’s available. And, uh—
you have cats, right?”
Jordan grinned. “Two of them, yeah. Sappho and Joey.”
“Sappho?” Ares asked.
Something passed between the two of them—amusement and understanding and something that went right over Adrian’s
head. Didn’t matter.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any extra food? Maybe some litter? Just, you know, cat stuff?”
Jordan stood up, peering over the desk. “So that’s what you’ve got there?”
The kitten had nestled down in the dark of Ares’s coat, only its tiny orange head peeking out from the soft inside lining. Its
eyes were closed.
Jordan cooed and ran two fingers between its oversized ears. When they flopped back in the chair, they had a new badge
printed for Ares. “Room fourteen oh-two,” they said, passing it over. “Adrian can show you where it is. It’s all yours, and I’ll
come up in a few with some supplies.”
It was weird, taking Ares up there. Adrian thought about offering him his place—he’d moved into the Huntsman’s rooms
when Julian had moved into the Master’s suite at the top of the tower. The place was big and nice and open and modern and
way better than any apartment Adrian had been able to afford before joining the Hunt, but it still didn’t feel like his—like he’d
earned it. Anyway, asking Ares to stay with him was way too forward, right?
Right. He was, Adrian needed to remind himself again, a god. He’d want space of his own. Maybe a whole ass temple.
At least a shrine.
That was reasonable, right?
Adrian took him upstairs and stood in the entryway of the suite while Ares went in ahead of him. He’d expected Ares to
look around, check to make sure everything was up to his standard.
He didn’t waste a second on that, and it took Adrian a moment to realize Ares had probably slept in way worse conditions
than the mildly bland guest suite at the Hunt Building.
When Jordan came up, they had a whole tub of stuff. It wasn’t huge, just one of those clear plastic bins, but it had cans of
cat food in it, a big plastic cup full of litter to spread out in a shoe box lid short enough for teensy kitten legs, and some other
stuff.
“It looks too little for a flea bath,” Jordan said, “but you might want to try dish soap. I brought a comb for you guys. Do you
need help?”
Adrian shook his head. He knew what he was doing, roughly, and it wasn’t even about getting Jordan back to their desk and
their actual job. He⁠—
He was being selfish, okay? He wanted Ares and the kitten to himself. Some of his nerves unwound when the door shut
behind Jordan, and Adrian grinned at Ares. “Bath first? You should hold him.”
He got the water running lukewarm, and filled the sink. The kitten still shivered, mewling loudly like the poor thing was
getting tortured.
The comb Jordan had brought had close, tight teeth, and Adrian was careful and quick. No flea, no speck of dirt, could get
away from a vampire’s keen eyes.
Ares spread one of the fluffy white guest towels across his arms, and when Adrian set the kitten inside the towel, Ares
wrapped it up and did his best to dry it well.
Once it was only damp, its hair stuck out and extra fluffy, they scooped some of the wet food onto a little plate and let it eat
on the counter.
“What are you going to call it?” Adrian asked. The little thing was shaking with delight, making strange, almost growly,
nomming noises with every bite.
Ares scowled. “I don’t know.” He looked up, met Adrian’s eye, and it was like a lightning bolt rushed through the vampire.
“Pancake,” Adrian offered on the spot.
Ares’s head tilted, eyes narrowed in thought. “Odd name for a cat.”
Adrian shrugged. “I was hungry.” He flinched at the half-truth. He was hungry, but not for breakfast sweets. “For pancakes,
I mean. I was hungry for pancakes.”
And it had absolutely nothing to do with the syrupy-sweet memory of Ares’s ichor dripping down his throat.
“You know what,” Adrian said, rocking back a step, “I think I’ll let the two of you get settled. But next time, let me know
before you go out? I’ve got the gorgon’s scent now, and what’s the point of hanging out with one of Artemis’s hounds if you
don’t stick him on the trail, hm?”
Ares nodded, solemn and serious. “I will.”
“Great! Uh, good night then.” Adrian paused to scratch the kitten’s ears. “Good night, Pancake.”
Then, he raced out of the room before the Olympian could catch him blushing.
 ARES

ancake.
P It wasn’t the strangest name he’d ever heard, and with the bath, the gray-orange had lifted to a golden sort of orange
that looked a little like a perfectly cooked pancake. Ares ran a hand down the tiny creature’s back while it continued to eat
its food, acting as though the plate of unappealing glop was the most delicious thing it had ever experienced.
Ares knew the feeling well.
No, gods didn’t need to eat, as such, but when one expended enough energy, marched far enough, fought hard enough,
worked long enough, food became the most incredible treat imaginable, even if it was just a mediocre MRE. Besides, the
modern era was a hell of a thing, and some of those MREs were fucking delicious.
Hungry for pancakes, Adrian had said, while giving Ares half a glimpse of that hunger. It had been about breakfast as much
as Ares shoving him into a wall and pushing his tongue halfway down his throat had been about protecting him from the gorgon.
All vampires were gripped by hunger. This, Ares knew. But he’d never imagined such hunger in the sweet young man, until
he’d seen it on display for anyone to see.
Well, no, not anyone.
For Ares to see.
Not that there was anything wrong with just being a simple young man, but it was clear now, that Adrian wasn’t that. There
was more to him than Ares had realized. The libido of a young man and the expected vampiric hunger, yes, but something more
than that. Ares had seen its like before. Alexander. Scipio.
Something in Adrian wanted . . . more.
Usually with that kind of hunger, it was about land or power or money, but that didn’t feel quite right. After all, Adrian was
a vampire. He had more power than the average human could comprehend. He held a place of importance among the vampires
of New York, but seemed disinterested in putting on airs over it.
Perhaps, like Alexander, he didn’t truly know what he was looking for, and he’d never find it. Or perhaps, like Scipio, it
was about acknowledgement. He wanted people to look at him and think he was something of value. He was someone. He was
worthy.
Ares could have told him he was all that, and he himself believed it without question, but for someone who doubted it, all
the words in the world were meaningless. They needed to see it, to experience it, not hear it. And sometimes, it would never be
enough. Only time would tell.
Pancake meowed at him, with that pack-a-day smokey voice, and he looked down to find the half can of food they had
given him entirely gone. “You were hungry,” he pointed out, picking the cat up and carrying him into the main room of the suite,
dropping onto the sofa with the cat on his chest. “I’d give you more to eat, but it’d probably make you sick.”
The kitten clearly didn’t agree, sniffing around for a bit and licking his fingers for any hint of remaining food, but
eventually, he settled down and curled up on Ares’s chest, and a few minutes later, he was snoring away like that.
 Ares was a little jealous. He didn’t really sleep unless he was nearly dead exhausted, but it always looked nice. He
wondered if Adrian looked as adorable and innocent in his sleep as the kitten. It wasn’t even hard to imagine, Adrian sprawled
all the way across an enormous bed like a starfish, lips slightly open and hair messy from tossing and turning . . .
Ares closed his eyes and tried to banish the image. This wasn’t a healthy route for him. It wasn’t. He couldn’t go getting
attached to the young vampire. When the war was over and Adrian moved on, and Ares was supposed to go deal with
whatever new war was on the horizon—well, he didn’t even want to think about it.
It was like a sick joke on the universe; the god of war was tired of fighting. He just wanted to lie there on that decently
cushioned sofa, cat curled in a ball on his chest and snoring away, forever.
There was a knock on the door a moment later, because of course there was. Pancake? He didn’t even stir, let alone wake.
Good thing they’d taken him in; he clearly wasn’t meant to be a dumpster cat. He wouldn’t survive, with those instincts.
Or maybe . . . maybe he trusted Ares to protect him. And he fucking would, not that he expected to find a threat to cats in the
New York vampire hunt.
“Come in,” he rumbled, and was surprised that the person at his door wasn’t Apollo or Artemis, or even Prometheus, but
Julian.
The vampire closed the door behind him and barely even glanced at Pancake lying on Ares’s chest. Instead, he inclined his
head. “Sorry to bother you, but I wanted to check in. See if there’s any news.”
Ares motioned to a chair opposite him and launched into the story of what had happened with the gorgon. She clearly
hadn’t been interested in a fight, the way she’d run for it the moment Ares had been distracted by Adrian’s arrival, and Julian
seemed to agree with the notion.
Julian Bell.
Ares knew him too, upon reflection. It had been some time since he fought in a true war, but it didn’t change that the man
was a warrior. He listened and nodded at the right places, and when Ares wrapped up, without mention of the kissing or the
cat, he didn’t ask about it. Not that there was reason he’d have known about the kissing. The cat, though, was a little obvious.
Instead, Julian sat back, thinking. “A gorgon in multiple big cities. Do you think they’re trying to cause a panic? Seed
misinformation? Target specific people?”
Ares frowned, considering. “Gorgons can’t hurt most of Cronus’s targets. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they could cause me
pain, but the likelihood a gorgon could actually kill me—or any other god—is miniscule. I’d be more worried if they were in
only capital cities rather than large ones. Washington D.C. would make me more concerned about tactical targets like members
of human governments.”
Julian nodded thoughtfully, sitting back for a moment, before shaking his head. “There’s just no way to know until we’re
there and the trap is sprung, is there?”
“Probably not,” Ares agreed. “We’ll keep trying, and I want to try to talk to her before fighting her. I’m sure Zeus isn’t
doing that. He’s in crisis mode, and he doesn’t . . . he’s not really⁠—”
It was incredible, how Ares despised his father, but still had a hard time truly insulting him. Zeus had given him life, and
not much else. And yet, there was a barrier there he couldn’t seem to cross.
“He’s not a soldier, he’s in over his head, and he’s an arrogant jackass who doesn’t care about anything or anyone that he
doesn’t know affects him directly?” Julian raised a brow as he summed up the situation perfectly.
Ares opened and closed his mouth once, then twice, before shaking his head. “So you’re saying you’ve met him.”
Julian burst into laughter.
A moment later, all thoughts of Zeus and the new war with the titans fled Ares’s mind, because Adrian Wagner rushed in the
door of his suite, soaking wet, wearing nothing but a towel.
It was . . . well, it left considerably less to the imagination than the pictures he’d posted of himself on the insta gram, and
yet, it made Ares want to remove all requirement for imagination. To set Pancake on the sofa, march over, remove that towel,
and lick the moisture off his body.
Except that he was clearly panicked, his eyes wide and breath coming short. He didn’t even glance at Julian, just looked at
Ares, and once he managed to control his breathing enough to speak, asked, “Is this normal?”
He spun around, showing the room his back. His back, half covered with a stunning, intricately detailed tattoo winding up
from his right hip, over his shoulder to look down his surprisingly muscular arm.
In the exact likeness of Tigani.
 ADRIAN

ll Adrian had really wanted was a shower—maybe a cold one, but more likely something steamy and luxurious, half an
A hour spent thinking about that kiss and the shape of Ares’s body against his and the way he’d moved his hips. He could
pull himself together, act like the damned huntsman ought to act. He just needed to get this out of his system.
Or rub one out.
Maybe just catch his breath.
Yeah, while rubbing one out.
But he’d put his foot up on the bench of the shower where his shampoo lived, twisted at the waist to reach back and⁠—
Well, he never got that far. He’d caught sight of the edge of the tattoo, winding around his hip.
It was just a line, he thought at first, like somebody had drawn on him with black and gold Sharpies.
Someone way better at art than him, mind.
But he’d gripped his flesh and twisted as hard as he could and the markings went back and up and around. He’d rushed out
of the shower, wiping the steam from the glass with his hand, and spun.
He couldn’t see it well, but enough to make out the scales, the sinuous shape of a gorgeous golden dragon.
It’d have taken hours with a Sharpie. Hell, it might’ve taken days if it were an actual tattoo.
When he smeared his fingers across it, his skin felt normal. Nothing smudged. Nothing changed.
And Adrian had lost his fucking shit.
He’d rushed to Ares’s room. It was the first place he thought of, and he didn’t realize how strange that was until he crashed
inside to find Julian sitting across from Ares.
He hadn’t thought to go to Julian first, or even Prometheus. In a pinch, there was only one person Adrian wanted—one
person who stood half a chance of making him feel steady.
What the fuck was happening to him?
Adrian had always thought about getting a tattoo. He’d wanted to be cool enough, sure enough of himself, to know
something awesome that he could put on his body and admire forever, but nothing had ever felt right. Or he hadn’t been able to
decide. Or⁠—
While Adrian’s breath came short and fast, panic taking him back to a very human corner of his brain that still said he
couldn’t get enough air and he was going to die, Ares set Pancake aside and stood up. He crossed the room, and when his
fingers skimmed over the curling form of the dragon, Adrian’s breath caught.
His fingertips were luxuriously cool, his calluses rough enough to tickle his skin. Adrian bit back a whine.
“Tigani,” Ares whispered.
Which . . . wasn’t a fucking word.
“What?” Adrian’s voice came out sharper than he’d meant it to, but Ares didn’t flinch.
“My dragon,” Ares said in a low rumble that went straight through Adrian. “It’s a perfect likeness. But I’ve never seen
anything like this before. I know Cadmus didn’t have this on him.”
Oh holy fuck, Adrian was a freak. There was a dragon coming out of him, through his skin. Was he going to die? Was this
some kind of black mark?
He felt so hot. Too hot. Flames were rushing beneath his skin, threatening to ingulf him.
And Ares’s hand brought the same relief as stepping out into a cool fall day when the furnace was running too hot. Adrian
pressed back against him, flattening Ares’s hand against his skin. It was only then that he realized it wasn’t just stress or a
feeling—he was burning up. He was so hot that waves of it were radiating off him, warping the air like the road ahead while
driving on a hot day. He was practically steaming.
“What’s happening to me?” Adrian rasped.
“You should go,” Ares said to Julian. Adrian glanced at Master Bell and flinched.
“Why?” Adrian asked sharply.
“Vampires don’t do well with fire?”
Adrian jerked. “Pancake!”
“What?” Julian asked, shocked out of his resistance to leaving one of his people behind.
“The cat,” Ares said calmly, like none of this was too much for him.
He’d probably seen enough of the world, enough horrors, that no matter how this went, it wouldn’t shake him. Oh god,
Adrian thought it through and came out sure that even if he melted down and took half the Hunt Building with him, it wouldn’t
be the worst thing Ares had ever seen. Not by a lot.
“Oh fuck,” Adrian whined, squeezing his eyes shut tight.
“I’ve got him,” Julian said from somewhere behind them.
Adrian nodded fast. Pancake would be fine. Adrian was not going to be responsible for hurting the cat. Or anyone else.
Nope, nope, nope.
“Far,” he hissed. “Go far.”
He felt the slight shift of Ares nodding behind him, heard the sound of the door shutting, and then Ares’s hand slid around
Adrian’s front, his palm pressing right over his heart. Adrian was trapped there, in the curve of his arm, his shoulders tight
against Ares’s chest.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Ares said softly. “You’re going to be fine.”
Adrian made a sound that was far, far too much like a squeak for his liking. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and leaned on
Ares.
“But you’re, like, fire retardant, right?”
Ares chuckled, just a breath in his ear, but it was so nice.
“You can’t hurt me, no,” Ares promised.
Adrian nodded. Good. That was good.
“Tell me about him?”
“Tigani?”
“Yeah.”
Ares hummed, and the sound vibrated against Adrian’s shoulder blades, working its way through Adrian’s tense muscles.
“He was my best friend for centuries, an enormous golden dragon. Some people called him a serpent, but when he spread
his wings, he was big enough to blot out the sun.”
“Bet that pissed Helios off.”
Ares snorted. “Guess you’re familiar with him?”
“He’s a dick. Tried to roast Master Bell alive.” Adrian’s stomach twisted. Wasn’t that what he was threatening to do?
Roast everybody around him. He didn’t mean to, but the outcome was the same.
Ares must’ve felt the tension going through him, because his fingers curled and spread out, starting a steady stroke across
his skin that allowed Adrian to let out a long, shaky breath.
“Fighting beside him was glorious, but he was more than that. He was funny. All those sharp teeth, and he still had the best
smile I’d ever seen.” Ares was talking quietly, right in Adrian’s ear. If he shut his eyes against everything else, he could almost
imagine something like that—a dragon.
He might be a vampire, but there were some things that’d always been pure fantasy. Usually, when something was big
enough to blot out the fucking sun, Adrian figured it was all folklore.
“And flying. I was born on Olympus—I’m plenty used to seeing the earth from above, but riding on Tigani's back was
different. It didn’t make me feel detached or alone, like being on Olympus. There was no sense that the world and all the
people on it were too small and insignificant to care for. We were a part of it, and we could see it all.”
He went on and on, telling him about enemies they’d faced together, or the one time Tigani had flown half the population of
Mykonos to safety when they’d been invaded. Ares held Adrian all the while, and in time, his breath got steadier, the searing
heat that rushed through him faded into something more manageable.
 And he hung his head.
“Adrian?” Ares asked, still holding him even as Adrian drifted forward to support his own weight. “Is everything all
right?”
“Yeah, I mean, I feel better.” Adrian shrugged, and Ares dropped his arm.
“You sure?”
When Adrian turned around, Ares’s finger curled under his chin and pulled his head up. Horrifyingly, Adrian’s eyes stung.
It brought Ares up short. The god’s mouth gaped slightly, so Adrian forced a smile. It was stupid. He was overwhelmed and
being needy and honestly? Kind of pathetic.
But he owed Ares some kind of explanation.
“I’m okay,” he whispered. “It’s just . . . you did all that stuff with him. But as soon as we find that gorgon, you’ll leave, and
I⁠—”
It made his chest ache in ways he couldn’t put words to.
 ARES

he feeling of Tigani coming from Adrian was electric, coursing between the two of them like a fiery tether to Ares’s
T oldest, dearest friend.
And that was what Adrian was saying, right?
He wanted Ares to stay. A man he’d known for all of two days, a veritable stranger. There was no logical reason for him to
care if Ares stayed in New York, except for Tigani’s presence inside him.
Was that it, then? The only reason he’d been leaning into Ares, giving him his phone number, and that link to all those
pictures, and coming to hunt the gorgon, and kissing him and . . . kissing him.
Tigani had never done that. Obviously. Not that Ares had an issue with any sexuality a person might have, including an
attraction between thinking creatures outside of one’s own species, but that hadn’t been the way of things between them.
Still, it didn’t make sense for Adrian to want him. Young, sweet, beautiful, Adrian, full of potential and hope for the future,
wanting tired old Ares? It didn’t make any kind of sense.
“You . . . that’s Tigani talking,” Ares managed to choke out, if only just. He didn’t want Adrian to do anything he’d be sorry
for later.
He hated being anyone’s regret, and the closest thing he’d ever had to a real relationship—with Aphrodite, resulting in
Harmonia—had been exactly that for her. For him as well, truthfully. He’d spent a lot of years trying not to think about how
badly he’d betrayed his only decent brother.
Adrian was unimpressed. His lips pursed and he raised one perfect eyebrow, and for a moment Ares was distracted by
that. Were his eyebrows naturally that perfect, or did he do something to shape them that way? Adrian’s previous tongue-tied
self disappeared as he scowled at Ares, and somehow, that was equally attractive. The man had balls. “I think you’ve been
completely clear that you and Tigani didn’t have the kind of relationship we’re talking about right now. Or did you spend a lot
of time pushing him up against walls and kissing him till he melted?”
The thought itself was laughable, but standing there, looking down at Adrian, his green eyes smoldering with heat that
invited Ares to have another go, kiss him again, this time without the feline interruption . . .
No. That was not something that came from Tigani. It couldn’t possibly, unless Ares hadn’t known his friend nearly as well
as he’d thought.
“Stop thinking and kiss me, dammit,” Adrian demanded, then his eyes widened in surprise. Surprise at himself? Fuck Ares,
he was as adorable as Pancake, who’d startled himself with the loudness of his own meow during his bath in the sink.
“It’s a sort of pan, you know,” Ares said, looking down at the beautiful young man. “Tigani. Like a frying pan. It was . . . it
was a joke. Dragons don’t have names in the way humans have names, so when I asked what I should call him, he said I might
as well call him the first thing that came to mind.”
Ares gripped Adrian’s arms tight, leaning in to press their foreheads together. “I was thinking of breakfast.”
Adrian took a sharp breath, seeming to understand immediately what Ares was trying to say. He shook his head. “That
should prove your point, then. Yes, he’s in here. He knows you. He’s still connected to you. But the cat is named Pancake. Not
me. The cat doesn’t want to kiss you. The dragon doesn’t want to kiss you. That’s me.”
“But the dragon is the one who’s worried about whether I’m staying,” Ares pointed out, ever the contrarian.
That, for some reason, made Adrian smile. “Maybe. For now. I can’t say I’ve minded having you around so far. And I’m not
joking when I say that the thought of you leaving is literally, physically painful. I . . . I can’t breathe at the thought. I know I
don’t need to, but I haven’t been a vampire that long. It’s still automatic, breathing. Natural. I still panic when I can’t.”
Ares reached up to cup Adrian’s face in one palm, rubbing his thumb against those soft lips again. “I’m terrible at making
plans. I . . . I’m a soldier. I know I’m immortal, but it still always feels ridiculous, making plans for a day half of me doesn’t
expect to live long enough to see. Yes, I know I’m almost impossibly hard to kill. But I still leap into the fray every day. One
day I will die. And I probably won’t be expecting it when I do, so assuming it won’t ever happen is just arrogance.”
Again, Adrian seemed to understand. It was . . . it had to be Tigani, that. That deep, immediate understanding of the things
Ares could only half say. “Then why don’t we just agree right now that you don’t have any plans to leave New York, and if that
changes, you need to let me know?”
And that? That sounded absolutely perfect. Ares nodded against Adrian’s forehead, and the bright, beaming smile he got in
return was more than he could have imagined.
“Does that mean we can go back to the kissing?”
“Just kissing?” Ares had to ask.
Because kissing was all well and good, but he was craving rather more.
Adrian’s eyes darkened as his pupils blew, and he leaned forward, resting his whole mostly naked body against Ares. “I’m
not married to kissing. There could be other things. I like other things.”
Ares growled and reached down to pull the towel away, to give himself better access to Adrian’s legs, which he grabbed,
one in each hand, and hiked them up over his hips, pulling Adrian completely into his arms to carry him into the bedroom.
Adrian didn’t hesitate to lock his ankles behind Ares’s waist, wrapping his arms around his neck and leaning in to take the
kiss he’d demanded a moment earlier. And he was good at being demanding when he wanted to. There was no hesitation in
him, no shy shrinking wallflower. Only hunger.
Maybe it was the vampire in him, or maybe it was that sheer naked need Ares had seen in his eyes earlier, but either way,
he liked it. He was drawn to it, and it wasn’t Tigani at all. Wasn’t something old he was coming back to. It was something new,
and for the first time in a long time, something new was strangely exciting, instead of exhausting.
“Fuck,” Adrian sighed out as Ares lowered him onto the bed. He arched up, rubbing his body against Ares, smashing their
lips together with bruising force before pulling back again. “As weirdly hot as it is that I’m naked and you’re still fully
dressed, I need you to also be naked, or I’m going to start chafing in really uncomfortable places.”
Ares didn’t need a lot more prodding than that to start stripping out of his clothes. He’d already lost his jacket to Pancake,
whom he was gonna have to go see Julian about at some point, and he’d taken his boots off when they’d gotten to the suite, so it
only took a few economical movements to strip off his T-shirt and jeans, tossing them into a corner with all the disinterest he
treated all clothes.
When he looked back, Adrian’s eyes had gone nearly black, his pupils were so blown. “You don’t wear underwear. Of
course you don’t wear underwear. Fuck. You’re like a ten on every sexiness scale in the universe.”
Ares almost paused at that, because that, he was completely unused to. Aphrodite had called him beautiful, but she saw the
beauty in everything. Everyone else who knew him and his family . . . well, Apollo really was very fucking pretty. It was hard
to begrudge when everyone turned to him first.
But Adrian had never so much as glanced his way, entirely disinterested in Olympus’s golden boy. He certainly hadn’t
looked at Apollo the way he was looking at Ares, like he wanted to devour every part of him.
Fuck, Adrian kept saying. Fuck indeed.
Ares leaned down and pressed their lips together again, thrusting his tongue into that warm, wet mouth, exploring it
completely as he ran his hands down Adrian’s sides, feeling his ribs, his hips, his perfect bubble of an ass. He was warmer
than a vampire ought to be; warmer than most humans Ares had ever known. It was comforting and perfect, and Ares wanted
closer to it. He wanted to taste that fire. Tigani’s fire, maybe, but now Adrian’s fire. And it sounded fucking delicious.
Finally managing to pull himself away from Adrian’s plush lips, he let his own trail down that perfect smooth skin on his
chin, his neck—did he not have to shave, as a vampire? It didn’t feel like it. His skin wasn’t rough with stubble, but as smooth
as his high cheeks and the rest of his soft skin. It was a fine contrast to Ares and his rough everything, and it made him want to
put his hands everywhere.
So he did. As he kissed his way down Adrian’s chest, Ares skimmed his callused fingers over every inch of skin they could
find. Ribs, belly, arms, chin, cheeks—every part of Adrian Wagner was exquisite.
His cock was no different, when Ares got to it. Soft and smooth, the head a blushing pink, he looked like someone who
should be an artist’s model, not someone who should be letting a blunt instrument like Ares touch him. He was too dirty, too
rough, too clumsy. He broke everything he touched. And yet here was this beautiful creature, staring down at him with want in
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Maar er werd niets neergezet, en opeens voelde Eduard hoe een
hand op zijn voorhoofd gelegd werd. —

"Vader!" riep Eduard, nu met wijd-open oogen, en daar zat hij al

overeind en stak zijn hand naar Vader uit — en daar zat Vader ook al
op de rand van 't bed, en Eduard legde zijn arm om Vaders hals en
zoende Vader, en nog eens, en nog eens, en nog eens weer. —

"Eddy!" zei Vader zacht, en even de verbonden arm aanrakend:

"Stoute jongen, wat heb je gedaan? Wat heb je je oude Vader aan 't
schrikken gemaakt!"

Maar Eduard gaf geen antwoord, en aldoor bleef hij maar naar
Vader kijken, als kon hij nog maar half gelooven dat Vader er
werkelijk was.

"U bent het toch wel heusch?" vroeg hij eindelijk, "ik droom toch
niet dat u er bent, he Vader?"

"Nee, nee, je droomt niet," antwoordde zijn Vader, "ik ben 't echt!"
— en Eduard zuchtte, zacht over Vaders hand strijkend: "ik ben zoo
vreeselijk, zoo vreeselijk blij dat u weer thuis bent!"

"Ja, ik ben ook vrééselijk blij!" lachte Vader, en toen nam hij
Eduards hoofd tusschen zijn handen en ernstig keek hij zijn jongen
aan. "Hoe is 't er mee?" vroeg hij.

"Goed Vader!" zei Eduard zacht.

 [a362]

XX.
"Hier is 't rapport, Vader!" zei Eduard, en hij gooide zijn pet op een
stoel en liep naar Vader toe, die voor 't raam stond en naar buiten
keek.

Gisterenavond waren ze eindelijk weer thuisgekomen, in hun

eigen, gezellige huis, dat door Rika netjes schoongemaakt en
gelucht was. Nog ruim een week waren ze bij Tante Lina gebleven,
want zoo lang Eduard toch nog niet naar school mocht had zijn
Vader 't niet prettig gevonden hem den heelen dag alleen te laten.
"Oom blijft ook hier tot Eetje weer beter is!" had Beppie dadelijk
gezegd, en Tante Lina had nog denzelfden avond de bedden laten
veranderen. — 't Was toch aardig van Tante Lina geweest om de
kamer van de groote jongens dadelijk voor Vader en hem in te
richten; Hugo had nu op 't logeerkamertje moeten slapen, en voor
Piet was een bed in de badkamer gezet, en Vader zelf had Eduard
naar Hugo's bed overgedragen.

En verder was 't beter worden erg gauw gegaan; wel hing zijn arm
nog in een doek, en dat zou ook [a365] nog wel een week of wat
duren, had de dokter gezegd, en ook zag hij nog wat bleek en
mager, maar toch was hij vanmorgen weer voor 't eerst naar school
geweest.

"Vraag nu of je 't rapport dat je voor de Paasch-vacantie gekregen

hebt nog eens mee mag nemen," had Vader gezegd, toen Eduard
om kwart voor negen klaar stond om naar school te gaan; "toen je 't
kreeg was 't te laat om de cijfers nog te schrijven, weet je wel, en ik
wou het toch graag zien."
 En Eduard had het rapport meegebracht; 't was wel geen prettige
boodschap geweest het aan mijnheer van Eerde te gaan vragen,
want hij wist vooruit al dat de cijfers Vader wel tegen zouden vallen.
— Vader had natuurlijk wel al lang gevraagd hoe 't op school ging en
Eduard had ook wel verteld dat 't niet zoo heel mooi was, maar al te
veel had hij er maar niet over gezegd.

Aandachtig had Vader de cijfers bekeken, en aldoor was Eduard

naast hem blijven staan om te hooren wat Vader zeggen zou, maar
Vader zei niets; en zonder Eduard aan te zien vouwde hij het rapport
weer dubbel en gaf het terug.

"We zullen gaan koffiedrinken," zei Vader eindelijk.

Eduard ging tegenover Vader aan tafel zitten; hij was daarnet hard
naar huis geloopen om gauw bij Vader te zijn en gezellig van alles te
vertellen, maar nu was 't ineens niks leuk meer; — zei Vader nou
maar wat, gaf Vader hem nou maar een flink standje [a366] over dat
rapport, want daar was Vader nu natuurlijk kwaad om — maar Vader
zei niks.

Zoo was 't bij Oom Tom en Tante Lina nou nooit, die gaven
tenminste dadelijk standjes als ze kwaad waren en dan was 't tien
minuten later weer net of er niks gebeurd was, maar zóó duurde 't
zoo vreeselijk lang. — Eindelijk kon Eduard 't niet langer uithouden.

"Vader, is u boos?" vroeg hij zacht.

"Boos? Welnee!" antwoordde Vader.

Daar had je 't nou al! Nou was hij nog even ver! Had hij nu maar
niks gezegd!

En Eduard begon zich opeens vreeselijk te haasten met zijn

boterhammen; gauw voortmaken maar, en dan buiten gaan spelen!

En zonder verder naar Vader te kijken liep hij toen hij klaar was de
kamer uit.
 Wie zou hij nu eigenlijk eens gaan halen, en waar zouden ze naar
toe gaan? Misschien wou Meertens wel mee. — O nee, die had van
twee tot drie timmerles. — Als hij eens naar Tante Lina ging? Ze
zouden zeker wel in den tuin spelen vanmiddag! Toch maar niet
doen, 't was zoo'n eind! Wat deed hij vroeger ook weer altijd 's
Woensdagmiddags? O ja, dan had hij vioolles, en meestal maakte
hij dan daarna zijn werk. Maar in dat vervelende huiswerk had hij nu
heelemaal niks geen zin, en de vioolles was nog altijd op Vrijdag. —
Kom, hij kon Theo wel eens gaan halen, die had hij in een heelen tijd
niet gezien, en wacht, hij kon eigenlijk best op de fiets gaan, hij was
[a367] immers al weer beter, en die arm hing nog wel in een verband
maar je kon ook best met één hand fietsen. Eduard haalde de fiets
uit de kast. 't Ding was na den val wel een week in de reparatie
geweest, maar nu zag alles er dan ook weer prachtig uit en de
remmen werkten weer uitstekend. Natuurlijk waren de banden weer
slap; hoe kreeg hij die nou weer opgepompt met zijn eene arm!
Gezanik ook! Aan Vader vragen? — Eduard bedacht dat hij toch
eigenlijk ook niet goed durfde gaan fietsen zonder 't eerst tegen
Vader te zeggen. Vooruit dan maar!

En Eduard slenterde weer naar de huiskamer. Maar Vader was er

niet meer. Vader was toch niet uitgegaan, dan zou hij Vader wel
gezien hebben! Eduard liep de gang weer in en: "Rrrika! Waar is
Vader?" schreeuwde hij tegen Rika, die juist de keuken uitkwam.

"'k Geloof dat meneer naar zijn studeerkamer gegaan is,"

antwoordde Rika en Eduard holde naar Vaders kamer.

Aan 't groote bureau zat Vader te schrijven, en "Vader, wilt u m'n
fiets even oppompen?" riep Eduard.

"Waarvoor?" vroeg Vader, zijn sigaar uit zijn mond nemend.

"Nou, ik wilde wat gaan fietsen," zei Eduard, "en m'n banden zijn
zoo slap!"

Vader keek hem even zwijgend aan. "Wat dacht je nu eigenlijk?"

vroeg hij toen, "dacht je dat ik nu [a368] met je naar beneden zou
gaan om je fiets op te pompen en dat ik dan zou zeggen: 'Dag Pepi,
veel plezier,'?"

"Waarom niet, Vader?"

"Omdat er geen kwestie van is dat je fietsen gaat zoolang je arm in

dat verband hangt," en Vader schreef weer verder.

"Maar ik kan best met één hand fietsen!" mopperde Eduard, maar
hij kreeg geen antwoord, en stil pruttelde hij verder: "Bij Tante Lina
mocht je altijd doen wat je wou."

"Maar bij mij niet."

Met een boos gezicht bleef Eduard op de punt van de schrijftafel

zitten, maar Vader werkte rustig door en Eduard keek er naar hoe
vlug de zwarte lettertjes op 't witte papier kwamen.

Wat moest hij nu gaan doen? Nu mocht hij niet fietsen ook, en dan
dat akelige rapport; hoe moest dat nu gaan met 't toelatingsexamen?
Als 't zoo doorging mocht hij 't zeker niet eens doen en toch bleef 't
vast zoo gaan als Vader er zich niet mee bemoeide. En natuurlijk
bemoeide Vader zich er niet mee zoolang hij er zelf niet over begon.
Maar wat moest hij dan zeggen?

Eduard stak zijn beenen vooruit en keek naar de punten van zijn
schoenen, toen nam hij een afgebrande lucifer van de tafel en bleef
daar mee zitten spelen. Maar eindelijk liet hij 't roode houtje op den
grond vallen, en zacht begon hij: "Vader!"

"Wat is er?"

[a369] "Denkt u dat ik toelatingsexamen mag doen?" Maar Vader

keek niet eens op en zei: "Dat weet ik niet; 't schijnt jou niet te
kunnen schelen en dan kan 't mij ook niet schelen."

"Maar 't kán mij wel schelen!"

 Nu hield Vader op met schrijven, en hij vroeg: "Waarom heb je niet
gewerkt in den tijd dat ik weg was?"

Met groote, verschrikte oogen keek Eduard zijn Vader aan.

"Ik heb wel gewerkt!" zei hij toen.

"Maar waarom heb je niet beter je best gedaan?"

Eduard antwoordde niet dadelijk.

"Dat weet ik niet," zei hij eindelijk, en hij zette [a372] een heel
ongelukkig gezicht, "alles was zoo vreeselijk moeilijk en u was er
niet!"
 "Maar omdat ik er niet was had je toch precies even goed je best
moeten doen!"

"Ik kan niet werken als u er niet bij bent!" zei Eduard, maar zonder
Vader aan te kijken.

Nu legde Vader zijn pen neer, en achterover in zijn stoel leunend

zei hij: "Kijk eens, je kunt best, als je maar wilt. Je moet niet denken
dat alles nu maar even gemakkelijk is! Als je dat denkt zul je er
heusch nooit komen, dan zul je heusch nooit iets bereiken! Als jij er
aldoor aan gedacht hadt dat je werken wilde, en je daarvan niet hadt
laten afbrengen, dan had je ook gewerkt! Maar er kwam zoo heel
veel afleiding, zoo heel veel dingen waren er die je ook mee wilde
doen, en toen schoot je werk er bij in. En toch moet je leeren om
daar tegen te kunnen, er zullen altijd, je heele leven door, dingen zijn
waar je graag aan mee wilt doen, en waarvoor je je werk in de steek
zou moeten laten, en je Vader zal er niet altijd bij zijn om je te
vertellen wat je doen moet! Begrijp je goed wat ik zeg, Eddy?"

Eduard knikte van ja.

"En nu vraag je over dat toelatingsexamen voor 't gymnasium —

kijk, je moet nu zelf maar weten wat je doet; als je zoo door blijft
gaan als je nu de vier laatste maanden gewerkt hebt, nee, dan mag
je 't stellig niet doen. — En anders, als je [a373] maken wilt dat je 't
wel mag doen, dan moet je aanpakken. Je hebt heel veel tijd
verknoeid, en ik weet niet of het mogelijk zal zijn om veel in te halen,
maar als je het ernstig meent en je wilt je inspannen, dan kun je het
probeeren. Je hoeft me niet dadelijk te vertellen wat je doen wilt,
denk er maar eens stil over na."

En Vader nam zijn pen weer op en boog zich weer over zijn werk.

"Blijft u vanmiddag thuis werken, Vader?"

"Ja."
 Eduard ging naar 't raam en keek naar buiten. Stil bleef hij staan,
een heele tijd lang, toen draaide hij zich om en haalde zijn
schooltasch uit de gang. En hij ging aan een hoek van de schrijftafel
zitten, legde zijn schriften en boeken voor zich, en begon aan zijn
sommen.

En aldoor werkte hij verder, zonder op te kijken; en wel werd het

niet heel netjes nu hij zijn linkerarm niet kon gebruiken, maar 't
maakte hem vandaag niet ongeduldig, en net zoolang rekende hij,
tot hij alle antwoorden gevonden had.

Toen stond hij op en zwijgend legde hij zijn werk voor Vader neer.

Aandachtig las Vader de sommen door, toen deed hij het schrift
dicht en gaf het terug. "En?" vroeg hij, Eduard aankijkend.

"Ik wou graag probeeren om in te halen," zei Eduard zacht, "als u

me helpen wilt tenminste. Ik weet wel dat ik het later alleen moet
doen en later [a374] kan ik het misschien ook wel alleen, als u me
eerst dan nog maar een beetje helpen wilt."

"Goed," antwoordde Vader, "maar dan blijft er niet veel tijd over
voor andere dingen, heb je dat nu wel bedacht?"

"Ja Vader."

"En zijn er nu nog lessen te leeren?"

"Alleen jaartallen, moet ik dat nu eerst doen?"

Vader knikte.

Eduard haalde zijn jaartallenschrift te voorschijn en begon te

leeren. Nu was het half vier, om vier uur was hij dus met alles klaar;
in al dien tijd dat hij bij Tante Lina logeerde was 't nooit gebeurd dat
zijn werk Woensdagmiddags om vier uur af was. En als hij gewild
had was het toch eigenlijk best te doen geweest. —
 "Weet u wat ik zoo gek vind, Vader?" vroeg Eduard, toen zijn Vader
de jaartallen overhoord had.

"Nou?"

"Dat je toch zoo aan elkaar went. Ik dacht toen ik bij Tante Lina was
aldoor dat ik niks om ze gaf, om Hugo en Piet en de anderen, de
heele familie bedoel ik, begrijpt u?" en Eduard stopte de boeken en
schriften weer in zijn tasch.

"En geef je nu toch wel om ze?"

"Dat weet ik eigenlijk niet; maar je went toch wel erg aan elkaar,
vind ik. 't Was aldoor zoo'n drukte, en je hadt toch ook wel dikwijls
pret met elkaar, en ze hadden altijd plannen, zooals toen die kuil in
den tuin, en dat comediespelen en zoo."

[a375] "En ik speel geen comedie met je," zei Vader.

"Nee natuurlijk niet," lachte Eduard, "maar met je tweeën gaat dat
ook niks leuk. Kijk, ik vind het natuurlijk wel vreeselijk plezierig om
weer thuis te zijn, maar je mist al die drukte toch wel een beetje, 't
was soms toch wel erg gezellig."

Vader zuchtte even. "Je zult weer aan je oude Vader moeten
wennen, Pepi!" antwoordde hij.

Eduard streek met zijn hand door Vaders haar.

"Dat bedoel ik niet," zei hij, "ik houd van u natuurlijk toch veel meer
dan van hen allemaal bij elkaar, maar 't is hier zooveel stiller, begrijpt
u?"

"Ja zeker, ik begrijp 't wel." Vader dacht even na. "Weet je wat we
doen zullen, Pepi? Als je 't nu ernstig meent met werken en je houdt
flink vol, dan gaan we den eersten dag van de groote vacantie dat
het mooi weer is naar buiten, den heelen dag, en dan vragen we ze
allemaal mee, en dan mag jij kiezen waar we naar toe zullen gaan!"
 Eduard vond het een prachtig plan. "Mogen ze allemaal mee?"
vroeg hij.

"Ja allemaal; Hugo, en Piet, en Lineke, en de kleine krieltjes, en

dan vragen we of Oom Tom en Tante Lina en de juffrouw ook mee
gaan."

"En Theo ook? En Meertens? En van Merlen? Dat is ook een leuke
jongen!"

"Allemaal," zei Vader.

Eduard dacht even na. "We moesten Piet maar thuis laten," stelde
hij voor, "die was er toch eigen-[a376] lijk de schuld van dat ik viel,"
maar toen hij Vader aankeek, haastig: "Of nee, laat hij toch ook
eigenlijk maar meegaan." —

"Edu, daar is die jongen van Meertens en die vraagt of je buiten

komt spelen," zei Rika, haar hoofd om de deur stekend.

"Ja, ik kom," antwoordde Eduard, "'t mag immers Vader?"

Zijn Vader knikte.

En Eduard liep de kamer uit en holde de gang door met een

daverend "Hallo!"

Met een dreunenden slag viel de voordeur dicht.

Augustus 1907.
Transcriber's Notes:

Dit boek bevat een aantal zetfouten. Sommige fouten zijn

stilzwijgend hersteld, zoals ontbrekende aanhalingstekens. In enkele
gevallen werden er binnen dubbele aanhalingstekens wederom
dubbele aanhalingstekens gebruikt. Voor de duidelijkheid zijn die
veranderd in enkele aanhalingstekens.

De 'platte tekst'-versie simuleert met [_] italic, en met [~]

gespatieerde tekst-fragmenten.

De "HTML"-versie toont de oorspronkelijke bladzijde-nummers, de

'platte tekst'-versie niet. De bladzijde-nummers kunnen verborgen
worden in de "HTML-versie. Indien gewenst, open dan het HTML-
bestand met een tekstverwerker en kijk naar de aanwijzingen bij de
CSS-klassen [pagenum] en [hyphen]. Als de bladzijde-nummers
zichtbaar zijn, dan hinderen ze niet bij het zoeken naar
tekstfragmenten, omdat ze virtueel worden getoond.

Voor het gemak van de lezer is er aan de "HTML"-versie ook een

inhoudsopgave toegevoegd.

Verder zijn de volgende zetfouten gecorrigeerd (en in de tekst

voorzien van 'hints' die de oorspronkelijke tekst tonen):

[dat bij dan] → [dat hij dan]

[op die schilderij!"] → [op dat schilderij!"]

[Dat is de concierge] → [Dat is de conciërge]

[Sneeuwitje] → [Sneeuwwitje]
Deze fout kwam 4x voor. Deze link verwijst naar de
eerst-voorkomende.
[mijn viool gekregen "en] → [mijn viool gekregen en]

[geen anwoord te] → [geen antwoord te]

[het het is jouw beurt!"] → [het is jouw beurt!"]

[dit vers was] → [Dit vers was]

[naar de bioscope] → [naar de bioscoop]

[rozijnen, vermecelli, en] → [rozijnen, vermicelli, en]

[aan te merken hebt ruk je] → [aan te merken hebt, ruk je]

[over 't pikkeldraad] → [over 't prikkeldraad]

[Dat Piet grinnekend] → [Dat Piet grinnikend]

Drie maal gecorrigeerd naar de meest voorkomende
schrijfwijze in dit boek: [grinniken]
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EDUARD
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