Ember took one look at the photo and went completely gray. I couldn’t parse out why, though. There was no way she was squeamish. Not after her long lifetime of violence. The world was different now, but once the Maere were thought of as butchers. Mercenaries in the early days of the Consulate.
“I’ll find her,” Ember promised, sliding off the table. “Right after my dry cycle.”
CHAPTER 10
EMBER
The photosof the beheaded woman were all too familiar. I choked so hard on fury, I thought I might asphyxiate. Fuck Lara Achilles. Fuck her straight to whatever hellish afterlife awaited us if we ever did die. If it weren’t completely futile, I’d hunt her down right this very minute and murder the foolishness right out of her.
I allowed myself twenty full seconds of imagining how nice it would feel to backhand her so hard she just fell the fuck over, before moving on to brooding. All these years, I’d told her that what happened with the swords wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t.
But also, it so obviouslywas. Before the SIs, the Consulate had us to do their dirty work for them. We investigated crimes they couldn’t sweep under the rug. And we’d been tasked to hunt down a serial killer who only went after parapsychs and stop them.
It had been her all along.
Lara had been the killer we were looking for.
This clarity opened up a terrifying host of possibilities both about who’d stolen the swords, and why. And the little bitch wasn’t going to tell me. She was going to let me just walk into what very well might be a trap without all the information.Twenty more seconds of fantasizing about punching her really hit the spot.
“Easy,” Ares said. “You’ll tear your clothes.”
I came out of what could only be described as a mild fugue state to discover how angrily I’d been moving my clothes into the dryer. A long, deep breath helped to bring me back to the moment. The empty laundromat hummed with the sound of our washers and dryers. The spirit who haunted the little old woman who owned this place peeked around the corner. I couldn’t exactly see the Shade, but I could sense her presence.
“I’m fine,” I assured her.
Ares glanced at me, then the spirit, frowning. “Can you see that spirit?”
I shrugged. “Not exactly.” I didn’t add,not without my sword, because I couldn’t bear to articulate just how much I’d lost when the blades had been stolen.
Ares’ fingers brushed my arm. I jerked back from him. My anger with Lara, and all the loss of the past two hundred years, infected every part of me. He stepped back from me like I had smacked him. “Sorry,” I growled. “It’s just all a lot to take in.”
The wounded look in Ares’ eyes haunted me, and I couldfeelthe spirit rolling her eyes at me. A sick, aching feeling twisted my gut as he turned from me to tend to his own laundry. My attention focused all too narrowly on the way his black sweater hung off his broad shoulders, the delicious hollow of his sharp cheekbones, and the tantalizingly casual air of his gray sweatpants.
I’d never seen Ares Necroline in anything but a suit, but Saints alive, he looked good in sweats. Elegant still, and deadly as ever, with all those tattoos and dark brooding eyes, but delicious all the same. He pushed the unruly hair that had fallen onto his sculpted brow out of his eyes, glancing sidelong at me.
That twisting in my gut heated, pooling lower as it deepened into something richer and bittersweet. The way those dark lashes brushed his pale skin was utterly unfair. I swallowed hard.We weren’t here on a date. We weren’t even friends.Couldn’tbe friends.
The best Ares and I could ever hope for was to be cordial associates. However well-meaning his intentions had been, he still burned my fucking house down, and grievously injured Sera. I could follow the logic of it all and forgive him, but there couldn’t be more between us.
What was I trying to convince myself of?Of course, there couldn’t be—wouldn’tbe—more between us. Ares had his role to play, and I had mine. Neither of us had room for even one ounce of trust for another creature.
“What?” He pushed the sleeves of his sweater up, revealing more of his gorgeous floral tattoos. “You’re staring.”
“Your tattoos are beautiful,” I replied, the words sliding out of my mouth like traitorous drops of poison.
A small smile quirked the corners of Ares’ mouth. He was like a work of art, from the tattoos to the sharp lines of his body, every bit of him carefully constructed. “Thanks,” he said, softly. “Do you know much about the language of flowers?”
I tore my eyes away from him and shook my head. This felt like dangerous territory. “Never had much time for gardening.”
He made a thoughtful noise. I thought he might explain more about the language of flowers, but he stayed quiet for long enough that it was clear he wasn’t going to say more. It stirred something in me. Something torrid and wild that I was going to interpret as anger, rather than lust. That was better for me. If I couldn’t fuck him, and truly, Icouldn’t, it was better to be angry with him, to try to hate him.
I let the rage build in me, mix with my natural irritability when it came to how long Ares Necroline felt was acceptable to keep me waiting, and then set it loose within my heart. My emotions created a scorched plane within me, room for me to breathe.
When Ares finally spoke, he asked, “What are we going to do about Lara?”
All that fury had to go somewhere. “We?Weare not going to do anything, Necroline.” He started to say more, but I shook my head. “I mean it, Ares. Leave it.” I turned towards him. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and was positively glowering at me. I stepped forward, hating that in my comfortable clogs, I still had to look up at him to make eye contact. “Forget this, or I’ll find a way to make you sorry.”
His arms fell to his sides, relaxed, but clearly ready for anything. “Oh?” he asked, tilting his head to the size, quizzical. “And how do you reckon you’ll managethat?”
