My face was on fire. My senses had gone totally haywire. I couldn’t take any more. It was like that sound below had a real hypnotic effect. But it couldn’t be . . . could it? This entire party was one big high. I’d gotten drunk on the sights and sounds like some lightweight, and now it was making me ill. I squeezed my eyelids closed tightly, forcing my mind to block out the distractions. I needed to get the hell out of here. Check the house. Find Violet and the others and leave.
Sebastian shifted, his thigh pressing against mine and causing the blade to move against my skin. The metal had warmed, matching my body temperature, and the strap was snug, almost too snug. But it was enough of a reminder that it sharpened my focus.
Strands of beads and candies flew over our heads. I shifted, angling away from the rail with Sebastian and allowing others to take our place. We drifted back, pulled like a wave retreating into the sea. Back into Josephine’s house.
God, I needed to get out of this gown! It had become way too hot, too constricting. I removed my mask and then dug my fingers into the edge of the bodice, pulling it up and away from my skin, trying to let the cooler air in. Didn’t help.
“Come on,” Sebastian said, striding through the now empty room.
We hurried across the empty ballroom floor.
A French door slammed closed.
Then another. And another.
I slid to a stop on the deserted dance floor, turning to see each door close and lock all by itself. The orchestra stopped playing. Some guests, I saw through the glass panes of the doors, tried to get back in but couldn’t. All around them doors slammed and locks clicked.
And then there was silence.
There was one more door open.
We watched it, waiting for it to close, but something told me it was waiting. A warning slithered down my back.
The sheer white curtains on either side of the door billowed. The air between wobbled and shimmered.
And then a tall figure stepped out of thin air.
The blood froze in my veins.
There was no doubt in my mind who strode into the room. How could there be?
The door slammed shut behind her, making me flinch.
Six feet tall. Perfect body. Wrapped from neck to wrists to ankles in thin, skintight leather, the color of dark, muted olive. There were lines in the leather, lines that looked reptilian—that looked like it had once been a living thing.
Athena.
She had porcelain white skin, emerald eyes lit from within, and long, wavy black hair that brushed her lower back. All through the strands were braids, braids woven with thin strips of leather, sinew, and bone beads—braids that looked like they’d been in her hair for hundreds of years. Tiny symbols were etched into the skin along both temples, just at her hairline.
Full wine-red lips curved up. “Not thinking of leaving, were you?” came a throaty female voice ringing with an undeniable vibration of power.
My eyes traveled over her. In shock. Couldn’t speak.
“I’ve wondered at your existence for years, child.”
I forced down a dry swallow, my feet rooted to the spot, as the goddess strode closer, a grin stuck on her face, a malicious, victorious grin. My hand gripped Sebastian’s tightly.
Oh God.
My stomach rolled as the leather bodysuit Athena wore became clearer. It moved. It fucking moved. Like a living thing wrapped around her body, a thing that had a very faint outline of a huge face, squashed flat, as though the skin had been peeled off the bone and pressed thin, sewn together to make this . . . thing.
“You like?” she asked, a glint of delight in her eyes. “I made this from the skin of Typhon. Just a small piece of flesh, really. He was a Titan, after all.”
It was obvious why Athena had chosen to wear the suit. Scare tactic. Intimidation.
Her gaze covered me from head to toe, her expression becoming nonchalant but strained, as though she was trying too hard to show she didn’t care. “Not as pretty as the first one of you, but I see you have the hair and eyes.”
“I don’t want the hair or the eyes,” I croaked, having to force out the words. “You can take them.”
Athena’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and she laughed. “Be careful what you say, child, lest I take you literally. I did not give you the hair and eyes. Those are yours naturally.”
“But—” Then what the hell did she give me?
“Athena, you have no rights here!” Josephine barked in a furious voice, making me jump. The door she’d burst through slammed against the wall. The matriarch of the Arnaud family marched her begowned self across the floor like the queen of England. “You have broken the compact.”
“Oh, fuck your stupid little compact, vampire.”
“You agreed never to set foot in New Orleans again. That was the sole reason we turned the τερας hunter in our possession over to you. That was the deal.”
“The child changes everything, Josephine. You know that. You know I cannot leave her in your hands. What will you do, hmm? Protect her like you did her parents? Betray her, too?”
My gaze whipped to Josephine. “You said you helped my mother.”
Josephine cast an impatient look my way. “Your mother was young and stupid and didn’t know what was best for her.”
The other heads of council came into the room, spreading out to encircle us. The single door they’d filed through shut behind them and locked by itself. A glance over my shoulder revealed that the partygoers on the balcony were still engaged in watching the parade, though a few rattled the doors, trying to get back inside. Apparently, the Novem also wanted this to be a private affair.
Michel gave me a grave nod, his eyes telling me he was on my side, though I couldn’t trust that. How could I trust anything after what I’d heard earlier?
Sebastian stiffened, and his hand tightened around mine as he saw his father for the first time in almost ten years. I squeezed back and then let my hand go slack, signaling him to go to his father, but he remained by my side.
“Enough of this, the child is one of mine.” Impatiently, Athena reached out and grabbed my arm.
Fear rushed into my open mouth with a gasp, coursing down my throat and into my lungs. Athena’s touch was cold, her fingers like ice as she gripped the bare skin of my upper arm.
Sebastian refused to release my hand. Athena leveled her gaze on him as the council encircled us and raised their arms straight out to their sides. The air in the room went electric as a shimmering blue line of energy connected them from fingertip to fingertip, making the circle whole.
“We forced you out before, Athena,” Josephine said, her voice strong and never wavering. “And we can do it again.”
Athena’s thick fingernails dug into my skin, burning, signaling that soon the skin would break and blood would flow. The goddess slowly turned her attention to Josephine, her entire being going still and deadly, her voice coming out low and with more power than before. “Go ahead. Link your powers. Let them loose on me and watch your party end in a sea of blood.”
I stared in horror as Josephine actually considered those words. I knew then that Josephine wouldn’t give a damn if everyone here died as long as it meant getting what she wanted.
The skin-suit moved again along Athena’s arm and wrist, so close to me that it made me jerk against the goddess’s iron grip. Panic weaved its way in. “Why do you want me?” I burst out, pulling against her.
Athena stilled, withdrew her attention from Josephine, and then leaned down, her face inches from mine. Then she let me see what the goddess of war was really made of.
The perfect face changed from beauty to the darkest, most horrifying hell I’d ever seen. Death. War. Bones. Her face transformed into the queen of it all. Part skeletal. One eye gone, one vibrant emerald eye still intact. Bugs scurried through the space between Athena’s eye socket and eyeball. Tendons pulled her lips into a smile. And inside her skull, between the ragged hair, bone, and rotting flesh, I saw movement. All through the goddess, all through her body, beneath her ribs, were the souls of warriors, the hell they’d found inside her.
Athena straightened, once again a beauty, and smirked. “We let the child decide.”
I had glimpsed into the heart of war and death, and knew the goddess had the power to wipe out the entire city if she wanted. Sure there might be politics and compacts and laws that maybe even Athena was bound to, but in this, she’d ravage the world to have her prize. Me.
“No,” Sebastian said, realizing which way I was leaning. He tightened his grip, but I pulled my hand from his.
“One day, Athena,” Michel said, eyes on the goddess, “the creatures you made will turn on you. And the gods help you when they do.”
Her head whipped around. She snarled. “And every time they try, they fail. I can put you right back where you were, Lamarliere, so shut the fuck up.”
He’d hit a nerve.
My mind raced. Goose bumps rose on my skin. I thought of the harpy and Arachne, but I was too afraid to call them, too afraid of what Athena would do.
“Thirteen years ago, you nearly succeeded in your quest to destroy us,” Michel said in an even voice, but his eyes were bright with hatred. “Tell me, Athena, do you regret summoning the wind and the sea? Regret your lust for power?”
“I regret nothing,” she hissed.
“Oh, surely you must. Your hurricanes grew uncontrollable. Maybe if you hadn’t been so overzealous, you could have held on to the Aegis and not dropped it into the sea.”
Athena’s intake of breath told me Michel had revealed something he shouldn’t have known. But Michel only grinned. “There’s not much to do in prison other than talk. … If your father, the great Zeus, were alive today and knew you’d lost his Aegis, one of his most powerful weapons, the one you killed him for, I bet the irony would amuse him, no? Without the Aegis you’re no longer invincible. “
Athena stiffened, her eyes narrowing in on Michel. Then she yanked me hard, pulling me closer. “Aegis or not, I am still more powerful than you. And this little shit”—she flicked my hair—“will be my new Aegis. I’ll remove her head from her body, flay the skin from her bones, and with it make a new shield, a better Aegis than the one before. Or perhaps I will make my next Aegis a breastplate or a cape.” She ran a finger down the side of my face. “Skin has many uses.”