Page 5 of The Blood of Gods and Monsters

Caedmon shakes his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Kiera.”

My movements still and my gaze narrows on him. The Gods I’ve killed have always been lesser ones. Gods who wouldn’t be missed and who had no connection to the God Council or even the Mortal Gods Academies meant for their Divine Children. I do not doubt that if I tried to attack Caedmon right now, I would lose. No amount of training or years of service to the Underworld can prepare one to go up against a being who can see the various pathways that no doubt exist in the future.

As my hand slowly edges away from my dagger, my eyes flash back to Ophelia. Her expression remains shrouded. Of course, it does. She’s harder than even Ruen to understand and always has been. It’s been months since I last saw the woman who’s raised and trained me for the last decade, but the time apart hasn’t changed a single thing about her.

Her thick hair is braided and coiled tight, fixed to the top of her head by invisible pins. Streams of silver weave in and out of the dark strands, perhaps one of the few features that indicate her age. Her face is clean and devoid of makeup, but she’s never needed it. No. Ophelia is a beautiful woman with or without makeup even if she’s not Divine. With her high cheekbones, angular jawline, and glittering brown eyes with flecks of gold in them, she’s everything I’d expect a Guild leader to be.

Cold, professional, and above all, calculating.

“What’s going on?” As much as I want the question to sound like a demand, it comes out a bit more breathless than I intend and I inwardly curse myself.

Ophelia straightens away from the table she and Caedmon stand behind. Her son shifts on his feet, gaze passing from her to Caedmon and then back to me. My attention doesn’t stay on Carcel but on Ophelia and Caedmon. The position of their bodies—close, but not touching—tells me that while they might be familiar with each other, neither truly trusts the other. My attention flicks from their bodies to their faces once more.

“Come in, Kiera.” Ophelia’s command is spoken with a cool, but succinct tone, brooking no argument.

I release a breath. She sounds like an irritated Mistress ordering the loyal dog that doesn’t quite know anymore if it should trust her. That’s exactly what I am—a loyal dog on the precipice of going against the one person I’ve trusted for the last ten years. Though Ophelia has always kept her emotions close to her chest, she’s always been one of the few people I thought I understood.

Now, I don’t know what to think of her. I am adrift in an ocean of confusion, and a violent storm is coming. I don’t know if I’ll survive it.

The sound of Regis’ footsteps at my back has me turning as he approaches and stops a few feet away. The betrayal in my heart tightens briefly only to ease when he catches a glimpse of the God standing beside our Guild leader. He’s a good actor—he’s had to be to cover up the few misgivings he’s always had being an assassin—but the shock and confusion in his expression are so sudden that I know it’s not faked. He had no clue that Caedmon was here. Despite my current feelings towards him, that alleviates at least a small amount of turmoil currently roiling inside me.

I clear my throat and turn back to those standing across the room. “What,” I repeat, “is going on?”

Dark eyebrows lower and curve inward as Ophelia’s placid expression morphs into one of irritation. Her lips part, but before she can speak, Caedmon holds his hand out, stopping her. I half expect the woman I’ve never known to let herself be commanded by anyone to slap his hand aside. So, it shocks me when she doesn’t. Her expression isn’t mitigated, but she closes her mouth.

A sneaking suspicion creeps into my mind and with a jolt, a swarm of little minds call out to me. Fuck. It’s only for a brief moment, but I close my eyes and reach back. The spiders that I’d used to watch my surroundings while I’d been staying here in the early days of my mission are there and they are nervous. Melding my mind with one of them, I spot not one, but three dark figures diving across the rooftop of the building. I could groan with annoyance. They’re here. Not just Theos but all of them. Of course, they are. I should have known better than to expect that Kalix would stay behind, and if Kalix came, Ruen would follow—just to make sure he didn’t slaughter anyone on his way.

Any hope I might have had that Theos would convince them to wait where I told him to dies a swift death. Even now, they’re hovering just above our heads, waiting for what, I don’t know. What I do know is that I want to strangle the lot of them.

Men never fucking listen.

I reopen my eyes just as Caedmon tilts his head to the side and sighs.

“You may as well tell them to come in,” he says drily.

I stiffen. “I don’t know what—” The denial evaporates as he sends me an exasperated look.

“Please don’t insult me, Kiera,” Caedmon says, cutting me off before I can finish the denial. “I may look unassuming”—he doesn’t and never has, but I don’t say as much—“but I know those boys very well. They would not have let you come alone. Go and tell them to come inside.”

Ophelia’s gaze snaps to my face and her lips curl down as a sure sign of her disapproval. I don’t say anything. Instead, I simply turn away from the room, pushing past Regis as he continues to stare at the God with a pale face, and head for the door.

Moving through the first room, I enter the kitchen beyond and move for the back door rather than the front. The night is cool and it washes over my skin as I step outside. Air enters my lungs and then more as I suck in breath after breath. Now that I’m away from the prying eyes of Ophelia, Carcel, and Caedmon, true panic sets in.

“Dea?” As if he senses my impending meltdown, Theos’ voice comes from the darkness above my head. The light brush of footsteps over roof slats echo back to me a moment before I hear the dull thud of a body dropping from the top of Madam Brione’s shop and boarding house.

A flash of white and gold appears in front of me a second later. My eyes burn and no matter how much I breathe, I can’t seem to catch enough air. Theos’ brows lower over those shimmering eyes of his as he reaches up and cups both sides of my face.

“What’s wrong?” he demands as the sounds of two more bodies dropping from the roof reverberate to the side of where we stand. “What’s happened?”

I bite down on my lips hard enough that I taste blood. How did this happen? I ask myself. How did I fall so far? Ten years of training. Ten years of hiding. All of it down the drain in a single day. It’s happening too fast and I am freefalling with nothing to break my descent.

“Fuck.” Theos’ dark curse ricochets off my ears a split second before he’s leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my cheek. I blink and squeeze my eyes shut as his lips press into the skin beneath my eye and when he pulls away and I open them again, his lips are wet with my tears. “Don’t—” Theos cuts himself off. “Fuck, please don’t cry, Dea.”

“What’s happened?” Ruen’s deep baritone lingers nearby but I can’t reply as Theos closes his arms around me and pulls me into his chest. “Why is she crying?”

I am crumbling under the pressure inside me. They know. The Gods know—at the very least, Caedmon knows. What does that mean for me? What does that mean for the Underworld? Are they going to die? Am I?

“I’m not crying,” I lie. Fuck, I am, and I can’t stand it. Why am I crying?

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