Page 38 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

Oooh!

“I’ve died before,” I snarled. “I went toe to toe with Zeus, and yes, I died for it—and then he almost did! Because I’m not the weakling you seem to think—”

“I’ve never thought that—”

“—and I’m back now and fighting fit—”

“Only because Faerie chose to save you and was in a position to do so,” he reminded me. “What if she can’t next time? Or won’t? I don’t trust her—”

“You don’t trust anybody, it seems!”

His eyes flashed, and his cheeks flushed, which I liked much better than sappy male superiority.

“Pritkin, we need this army.”

“And I won’t trade you for it.” It was implacable.

“You don’t need to worry about me. They need to worry about me!” I flung out an arm in the direction of the assholes behind us, somewhere down the corridor, and all the others spread throughout this poisonous place.

It didn’t help. I could see it on his face; he wasn’t listening to me. He was the one person who always did, yet he was deaf this time.

“Faerie helped,” I said angrily. “But she didn’t fight that battle—I did. And it taught me something. I am Artemis’ daughter and stronger than I ever thought I could be. Maybe I do die in this war, permanently, finally; I don’t know. But I can tell you one thing. It won’t be anybody at this court who ends me!”

“And if you’re wrong?”

And it was all there, suddenly: the worry, the anger, the helplessness, the fear—especially that last one. Pritkin wasn’t afraid for himself, but he was terrified for me. He had always leaned to the overprotective side, but that damned camp had really done a number on him, and it was clouding his judgment.

There was more at stake here than me, but he couldn’t see it.

All he could see was that bloody corpse in the water.

So, I kissed him because it was all I could do, as there was no reassurance I could give that wouldn’t be a lie. “Then you’ll go on,” I whispered against his lips. “You’ll win this, and you’ll win the war in my memory. As I would do for you.”

“I’m not that strong,” said the most powerful man I’d ever known, his face contorted.

“Yes, you are,” I said, hugging him. “Yes, you are.”

Chapter Twelve

Okay, but what about Tony?” Alphonse said as we sat on the floor of our room, with the bottle that Pritkin had stashed away getting passed around and the guys snacking out of Alphonse’s coat.

I wasn’t eating, although my stomach was still actively complaining about that, maybe because most of the little offerings looked good. But they didn’t smell good. Nothing in here did.

And, for once, it wasn’t just the twins’ fault.

The flunkies must have cast a spell to mask the demonic scent while the ladies were retrieving their stolen items, and they’d cast it hard. It was the kind of passive aggressiveness I could have done without, despite the stuff being everywhere in the royal palace. It was called “ocean breeze,” according to Pritkin, and was supposedly the clean smell of wind across the sea, with a tinge of salt and a hint of pine.

And maybe it was. Unfortunately, the twins continued to emit what I hoped was merely passive odor, but frankly doubted it. The monster’s leg seemed to have made them gassy, and the spell wasn’t having it.

So, every time they erupted, it did, too, in a duel to the death that had the room taking on a smell that I wasn’t entirely sure was quantifiable or an improvement over the original.

“What about him?” I asked, trying not to choke.

“Okay,” Alphonse said, chewing on some seaweed candy because his nose seemed to have already adjusted, damn it. “I get what you’re saying about the illusion, and it’s possible. I didn’t scent the fat man, although, in a crowd like that, I might not have. I’m not a Hound,” he added, talking about the vamps with super sensitive noses that could pick up almost any scent, even one days old.

Lucky we didn’t have one of them with us, I thought, shooting the twins a look.

The poor thing would be dead.

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