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“Ares,” I said, “may I borrow—”
He flicked his wrist, and a pair of boots wrapped comfortably around my feet.
I didn’t thank him. He’d abducted me, so he didn’t deserve any gratitude.
“Where the hell is this dump?” I asked. “At the Academy, it was nighttime, and now it looks like high noon.” I squinted at the sun. “I’m having jetlag.”
He slanted me a sidelong glance. “You talk shit, girl, and you act like you’re my equal. No mortals or immortals dare to talk to me this way.”
“I dare many things. Listen, Ares, from what I’ve learned about you in the last few minutes, I think you’re the most misunderstood person on Earth.”
He nudged up an eyebrow in a gesture both charming and sexy. Of course, he’d had eons to perfect his every muscle movement, yet my heart didn’t stutter for him, unlike when his son arched an eyebrow at me.
“Care to elaborate?” he asked.
“They say that you’re the biggest asshole on Earth, the same as Lucifer,” I said.
“Who said that?” he asked, rage coating his golden eyes. “I bet it was the demigods.”
“Nay, it wasn’t them,” I said. “They’re kind of asshole-ish too, according to Earth’s citizens. Rumor on the street says you’re a fraud who’s conspiring with the devil to create the Great Merge.”
I was testing my theory. After a decade, I finally had a chance to say this in front of the war god. Never had I expected this day would come, back when I lived in Crack. But my life had turned upside down the day his son had found me and sniffed my scent.
I watched his expression. A muscle under his left eye twitched, which meant I might’ve been right all along as I’d caught him off guard.
A moment later, his expression changed. His eyes glinted with vengeful dark light.
“There are rogues and rebels under my nose,” Ares drawled. “I must eliminate them all.”
“Not really,” I said. “It might surprise you where the rumors came from.”
Goading a god into a paranoid, vengeful mood wasn’t the direction I wanted to go. If he started to purge Earth’s residents, as those religious fanatics had done throughout Earth’s history, it would be a disaster.
He narrowed his eyes. “The source?”
“Lucifer’s demons spread the word,” I said. “So maybe the devil is the source.”
“Do you have any proof?”
I shrugged, feeling good for planting doubts in the god’s mind.
I climbed stairs paved with roses. If this god was a romantic, he was a sick one. Then my thoughts staggered.
Why would the God of War have fresh roses all over here? There was nothing romantic about kidnapping me. I hoped he didn’t—
My breath hitched as I remembered how he’d been aroused when I attacked him. The war god thrived on bloodshed. The violence turned him on.
I instantly put two paces between us while I kept talking.
“What I was saying is that you’re the most misunderstood guy, Ares,” I said. “I think you can be friendly and reasonable and not just some crazy dick as some people call you behind your back. To prove I’m right about you, all you need to do is return me to the Academy. We can have a nice chat there. Axel was throwing a great party before you popped up. We can go to the after-party. I bet there’s plenty of high-quality booze and snacks left. Any questions you have, you can ask me freely and I’ll answer truthfully. If I don’t have the answers, the demigods will be able to fill you in. That will be the most effective way to get what you want.”
“You want to return to the demigods?” he asked, his tone flat, but icy displeasure flickered in his eye.
And then all of a sudden, I was no longer with him on the stairs paved with roses.
Glass panels closed in on me from all sides. I shouted out curses and threw my hands up in an endeavor to push them back before they squashed me to meat pulp.
Black panic wrapped around me in waves.
