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Ares chuckled darkly. “You amuse me, Marigold.”
“My mate isn’t here for your amusement, Ares,” Héctor growled. “And she’s my equal. She bows to no one.” He’d utterly ignored Ares’s former denial of his claim on me.
“I’m not done talking, Héctor,” Ares said coldly. “I’d hate to remind you how to respect your better.”
Cool it, Héctor,Paxton said, his voice hoarse yet weaker than usual.We have to play a different game. If we hit him straight right now, we’ll lose, and he’ll take Marigold from us. That’s his fucking intention.
Héctor’s jaw clenched; his fists formed.
Paxton’s right, Zak said.We have to stall Ares, and then we’ll get Rosebud away. We need to distract him and take his attention off her.
But the fucker’s attention is fully fixed on her,Héctor said.If he touches my lamb, I’ll go to war with him. I don’t give a fuck what kind of destruction I’ll leave behind. No one harms my lamb.
My gaze flicked between them before staring ahead as if I hadn’t heard anything. How could I hear their mental conversation all of a sudden? It was like I’d turned on a radio and stumbled right into their private channel.
Could it be that Zak and I had shared a mating bond, so he’d granted me the same access to his mind as the other demigods? I was linked to all the demigods in one way or another at this point.
Cool your jets, old boy, Axel chimed in.My father won’t hesitate to kill even me if I get in his way. We need to beat him at his own game.
His game is to take my lamb from us!Héctor shouted in the channel, and I winced a little.Let’s all rush him at once.
We tried that and failed, Paxton snorted.He didn’t kill us only because he needed us, but this time, he will kill us all and take her.
How did he learn about us having Marigold? Who betrayed us?
My brain hurt as the demigods all shouted their opinions. And I seemed to be the only one keeping watch on Ares, our biggest threat.
“Don’t play me for a fool, demigods,” Ares said frostily. “Loki didn’t breach the wards of the Academy to come after any of you. He and his mages were here for Marigold.”
My blood ran cold.
Did he know what I was? If he revealed that I was a half-demoness, even the demigods would turn on me.
I darted a glance at Paxton, and he looked back, cold certainty in his violet eyes, which, strangely, calmed my nerves.
He was telling me to stay put.
He wouldn’t sell me out. I’d become his bargaining chip and was his to blackmail, and from what I knew about him, he wouldn’t want to give that up. I was the wild card he held.
Héctor wrapped me tighter in his arms, lending me his warmth, ready to fight or fly.
“You have no proof of that, father,” Axel said. “We were throwing a party, and things went wrong. Our conflict with Lucifer’s archdemons has escalated, and you know that.”
“Don’t play coy with me, cub,” Ares said. “You have millennia ahead of you to learn if you even survive that long. Most of my children haven’t. Not even Deimos, who was killed by that bitch Cass Saélihn.”
Had the asshole just threatened his own son?
“The infringement on the Paris Academy was a decoy to get me away from this location,” the asshole continued, his eyes raking over my person, despite Héctor’s growl and the other demigods’ enraged expressions, “so that Loki could penetrate the North American Academy and snatch Marigold. So you can see how important she is to unveiling his deep scheme.”
“You’re as paranoid as usual, Ares,” Paxton snorted. “I had an unpleasant conversation with Loki. It had nothing to do with Marigold, but everything to do with Brittney and me. There’s no deep scheme here, other than that Brittney might have been carrying my child, or so she told me. Loki wanted her for that reason alone to get back to me. I killed one of his dukes two years ago. Now the girl is dead.”
Everyone was shocked into silence until Ares’s snicker broke it.
“That’s the most laughable lie I’ve ever heard from you, Paxton,” Ares said. “You can do better. Every one of you has tried to divert my attention from Marigold, which has only confirmed my suspicion that she’s become a player or at least an important pawn in this war. I wonder what it is about her that even Lucifer’s heir went through such trouble to have her. I’m going to take it from here. Marigold isn’t going with any of you because she’s coming with me.”
“Like hell she is!” Héctor placed me behind him, spread his wings to their full length in a battle stance, and hauled his death light toward Ares.
He’d just attacked the God of War.
