Lara was in the hallway, a bottle of heavy duty painkillers in her hand. “Can she take these?”
“Ask Rhiannon,” I replied, not knowing anything about what a human child her size might need in terms of dose.
Suddenly, the apartment felt too small. Too close. How was I supposed to know what to do with a kid? That familiar note in her aura haunted me, driving me to near-panic. Ares followed me through the apartment and onto the terrace. The night air was cold, but it had stopped raining.
He could see auric energy. I had to ask. “What did you see in her aura?”
Ares shut the door to the terrace, staring out at the city. “She is Maere.”
My breath caught. This was either a very good thing, or possibly the worst thing that could have happened to me. My cowardice won, at least for the moment. “You can’t know that. She’s barely even seventeen. She can’t have ascended.”
He shrugged. “She hasn’t.” He leaned against the balustrade, his jaw clenched in a way that I now recognized was him thinking, not frustration or anger. “It resembles your aura, or Lara’s or Rhiannon’s, but…I just thought she was a medium…” he shook his head a little, as though he couldn’t quite find the words. But I knew what he was trying to puzzle out. The Maere were supposed to be born as humans, not parapsychs.
My heart beat faster as he continued, wondering how close he might come to the truth of things. He squinted a little, thinking hard. “I couldn’t see it before. Not until she was with the rest of you. It’s not that the Maere signature is weaker in her. It is strong. But more like, it hasn’t matured.”
But it would. And then she would be locked into a life just like mine. My heart pounded in my ears. At least he hadn’t gotten to the heart of things. Not yet, anyway.
“Well,” I snapped. “Sheisa child.”
He stared at me, those gorgeous light green eyes roving over me, like he knew what it felt like to be inside me. Technically, he did, but the way he looked at me scared me half to death. If only that were possible.
I wrapped my arms tight around my body. “Sorry. This is all just… a lot.”
He nodded, seeming to wait for me to say more. A frigid wind howled over the city, but on the terrace, we were protected enough that it didn’t so much as lift my hair. Still, it got colder by the moment. The sky was clear enough tonight that I could see all the way to the seawall. Lightning struck over the water, illuminating a gargantuan tail as it sank back into the ocean.
“They’re getting bold,” Ares breathed at the sight of thescaled tail sinking beneath the enormous waves. “It’s been ages since the Ceti came so close.”
I shivered, but not because of the wind. The seas were not for us. They were for the monsters. Another web of lightning crossed the night sky, showing the raging sea, threatening as any of the Ceti. We stared at it for a long time. It was rare that the cloud cover lifted enough to see the ocean, even when it stopped raining.
Most of the time, that was well enough. No one in Orphium wanted to think of the sea. Of what lurked beyond the seawall. As one of the few who’d traversed those waters, I certainly did not. I ran my eyes over the city, watching as people went to their windows, stared at the seething masses of water and Ceti. The eldritch horrors of what lay beyond were captivating, if terrifying. It was impossible to look away.
“What does all of this mean?” I whispered, leaning on the balustrade, my arm pressing into Ares.
Though he didn’t jerk away, I felt his absence acutely as he carefully sidestepped my touch. My heart sank. Whatever that wasin his bedroom earlier, it was not what I’d thought it had been. It was not the start of anything between us. It was a lapse in his perfectly calculated exterior. I had never once seen Ares Necroline deviate from his mission to help his own people.
There were rumors about him, of course. About what the proclivities of Orphium’s most dangerous necromancer might be—that he might enjoy the strange and unusual when it came to sex. But I’d never found evidence of anything violent. Mostly, it seemed he hurt feelings, not lovers. The man fucked, and rather often, to be honest. But he never darkened a lover’s door twice.
If that held true, then he and I were done. I couldn’t let that affect me. Couldn’t let it show that it hurt. I hadn’t been with anyone in years. Hadn’t been in love in centuries. But I knew myself well enough to know that the resentment that wasmerely a kernel of emotion in me now would germinate and spread like an invasive vine.
This was why everyone always left me. Because the mess inside me always leaked out onto those I loved. There was no way to keep it in. No way to keep me from ruining anything good that ever happened to me.
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything at all,” Ares mused from his new spot, a few feet away from me. He stared at the sea, watching the confluence of sea creatures as they feasted, just beyond the city. “Maybe it’s all just a coincidence.”
“Do you actually believe that?” I couldn’t believe that he would ignore this. The Ceti hadn’t been seen in numbers this great for centuries—not this close to the city. They were deep water creatures, and only surfaced to breed in summer, and never so close to land. He knew that as well as any child. “Or are you just being an asshole?”
Ares pushed off the balustrade, obviously annoyed. His tone was loathsome, laced with superiority. “I think it’s unwise to connect too many dots at once.” Here was the Ares Necroline I’d always disliked. There was something comforting about being back on opposite sides of things.
Perhaps that was why he did it. To put me back in my place. Two could play that game. I scoffed, giving him my worst glare. “And that’s that, right?”
I had his hackles up, and loved every moment of it. If he wanted to be horrible, we could be horrible. He positively glowered. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
I shook my head, pushing past him with the unmistakable thrill of having riled him. The feeling was nearly as delicious as his touch. And if I could not have that, this would suffice. “You’re the only one who is ever allowed to be right, Necroline. Have you ever noticed that?”
It was an unfair thing to say. He didn’t always have to be right. In fact, he was quite a good listener. But I wanted to hurthim, and the way he flinched at my words was enough to show me I had. Had I gone too far? That would be like me.
“Are you sure you’re not talking about yourself?” he hissed as I brushed past him. “Because the only arrogant asshole I see is you.”
Yes, I’d gone too far. I stopped short, my heart in my throat, then turned slowly to face him. “Is that really what you think of me, or is this all just foreplay?”
