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“So little faith,” I sighed. “It’s basically doodling with a needle. I could figure it out.”
“Grace,” Vasileios said, inclining his head as he sauntered into the room, Alesa trailing after him with the most obvious case of sex hair I’d ever seen. “I’ve organized a boat ride back to my home tomorrow with a friend, an uncle of sorts, who is docked at Piraeus. He can take ten people, five of them should be you and your soul bonds. It’s too exposed here. We cannot stay. Not everyone, at least.”
“There’s over a hundred people here,” Grace replied, her positive mood evaporating instantly. “How can I just leave most of them behind when they’re looking to me for answers?”
“Gracie,” I chided, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her against me. “We’re all adults here, everyone knew what they were getting into. You can’t babysit them all.”
There was no way we could move as a group. Not now, after the video footage. We were way too obvious.
“The Spartoi…” Grace trailed off, probably wondering for the millionth time what to do with them. “We can’t just abandon them. They don’t know how to blend into society. They can’t even communicate with the outside world.”
Wild glanced up at us, frowning, and whatever Grace sensed from him through the bond, she didn’t like.
“We’re not splitting up,” she told him fiercely. “I’m not risking it. If something happened to one of you…”
“Agreed,” Bullet murmured, sliding past us to pour a glass of water from the kitchen.
“I don’t know how to transport them without drawing everyone’s attention, but I can find a way to house them if we just get them back to my hometown.” Vasileios shrugged, indifferent. “Or maybe they stay here and use this home as a base? We can leave some Kakodaimonistai here to help them.”
Grace nodded uneasily, worry for them warring with what would be the most practical solution. She wanted perfect comfort and perfect safety for all of us, and it wasn’t possible. Something would have to give somewhere.
Vasileios sighed, noticing Grace’s reluctance. “We can find more boats. I think we’ll be safer traveling by sea than land.”
She sent him a relieved smile, very deliberately not asking him to elaborate on ‘find’.
Alesa was practically humping Vasileios’ leg, ignoring the conversation completely. She was human, and susceptible to Vasileios’ Philotes allure at the best of times, but having Dare around was probably making her too horny to think. They couldn’t help it—to be a Philotes was to inspire lust.
“We’ll decide in the morning, yes?” Vasileios asked, grabbing the back of Alesa’s thighs and encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist. “You keep doing… whatever it is you’re doing. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
He was already heading back toward the terrace which led to the guest cabins, Alesa’s lips suctioned onto his neck. Surprisingly, it wasn’t Grace who was blushing this time, but Dare.
“Philotes daimons,” he muttered under his breath.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” I laughed. “Grace is very accepting of all our daimon traits, and you’ve got one of the better ones. Wild is horny for violence, that’s way worse.”
Wild rolled his eyes.
“What are you thinking, Grace?” Bullet asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Do you want to head back to Vasileios’ place tomorrow? Or is there somewhere else you had in mind?”
Bullet must have been paying closer attention than I was, because Grace immediately squirmed. “I keep remembering what Hygeia said. But maybe it’s just agathos instincts talking. Maybe I’m swayed because of the connection I have to them.”
“Maybe,” Bullet agreed mildly. “Or maybe you have good intuition and it’s the right choice. I’ll make you some tea and we can plan an evacuation while these guys finish all getting tattoos just because you wanted a tattoo.”
“This is my best work yet,” Dare said, lifting the leg of his shorts to admire the depiction of The World on his thigh beneath the clear bandage. “Though I’m not in a rush to repeat tattooingmyself. That was unpleasant.”
“I did offer,” I shot back with a grin, tracing the edge of the adhesive on my clavicle. “Aren’t you going to repeat it on your other leg? Symmetry and all that?”
Dare shrugged, pulling the leg of his shorts down. “I was thinking I could teach Grace and then she could ink it on me. Eventually. You know?”
“I mean, I get why you’d rather have Grace touching your thighs than me, but I’m still a little offended,” I laughed. Dare rolled his eyes, bumping me with his shoulder as we made our way outside. Grace had pulled a few of the Spartoi aside for lunch—rice and canned beans—and between her English, Bullet’s knowledge of Ancient Greek, and the sign language they’d been picking up from Wild, they were attempting to make a plan.
“Any luck?” I asked, flopping into the seat next to Wild and leaning my elbow on the table, propping my hand under my chin. Dare leaned his hip against the table, still holding himself slightly separate from the rest of our group. Apparently, matching tattoos wasn’t enough to fully bring him into the fold, though the bond with Grace would definitely help with that, whenever they got to it.
Wild drummed his fingers irritably on the tabletop. Not good, then.
“They don’t want to leave me,” Grace explained, sounding slightly bemused.
“Theras even said ‘no’ in English,” Bullet added cheerfully. “So at least the English lessons are going well. But they’re never leaving Grace’s side, ever, so there’s that.”
