Page 42 of The Brothers Bane

Noise is inconsequential to me as I stride into Erika’s camp, not bothering to mask my presence. The sudden disturbance sends a ripple through the stillness. Erika sticks her head out her tent opening, her green eyes blazing in the darkness.

“What in high fuck do you think you’re doing stomping through my camp like that?” she hisses, stepping out into the open to confront me with an anger that could rival that of the Titans themselves.

The other members of her team groggily join us, including a blinking Gabby, who slips an arm around her mother’s bare leg and peers up at me.

“Why is the crazy man here again, Mama?”

Erika glances affectionately down at her daughter, gently combing fingers through the child’s red curls. “He has important business with me. Remember, he’s going to help us fix your Papa.”

Gabby sizes me up with a cock of her head, then gives a skeptical nod. “If you say so.”

Erika chuckles and sweeps her daughter into her arms. “Go with Thea, baby. I’ll see you in the morning,” she says as she hands the child off to one of the other women who I roused with my noisy entrance. The others slip back into their tents, sending scowls my way.

I grab Erika’s arm, and with a flash of power, I whisk her away from the camp toward the true heart of her archaeological treasure—the excavated doors of the Temple of Olympus.

The dig site is well illuminated, though the temple doors cast their own ethereal divine glow over the area, at the center of which the four cursed dragon eggs lie under watchful eyes. Half a dozen ivory-scaled Guardian dragons stand guard around the eggs, while a dragon so dark he’s nearly invisible perches high above at the mountain’s peak, watching silently. Kol, the Queen’s Shadow, head of security and spymaster for the dragon race, is still here.

Erika rounds on me again. “You’re not supposed to be heading to Vegas until tomorrow night. What’s so urgent that it couldn’t wait until morning?”

A flood of grievances threatens to spill forth about Nemea and my guards. I purse my lips, barely holding it all back, but Erika narrows her eyes, ever perceptive and adept at peeling back layers I never intended to expose.

She marches over to an area shaded by a canvas lean-to with a picnic table underneath, opens a trunk, and produces a bottle and two tin cups.

“Out with it,” she commands, plunking the cups down and pouring a measure of oaky whiskey into each one before she sits.

“I didn’t come here to burden you with my woes.”

She snorts as she takes a swallow from her cup, gesturing for me to sit also. I obey and pick up the cup, swirling the liquid and staring into the resulting vortex that so well reflects what’s going on inside me.

“You fucking woke me up out of a sound sleep for something that probably could’ve waited for daylight.”

“I wasn’t aware of the time. The hours are distorted inside the prison.”

“All the better to torment the residents?” she suggests.

“Something like that.”

She cocks her head, her piercing stare making me itch. “How is Nemea?”

I cover my irritation by tossing back the alcohol in one swallow, then reach for the bottle to top up my cup. Erika raises her eyebrows.

“That bad, huh?”

“She left me.”

She makes an ohhh sound that’s part laughter, and I grit my teeth to keep from lashing out.

“I don’t find it funny,” I snap.

“Oh, it’s fuckinghysterical.You’re not very good at listening, are you? She left because you trapped her, didn’t she?”

“She had the power to leave when she wanted…”

“Didsheknow that?”

When I don’t answer, Erika scoffs. “You’re a fucking fool, Vesh. I told you that scheme of yours would backfire. Where is she now? Is your plan to beat the Titans fucked now?”

“She’s still speaking to my guards. She’s still training to help us fight too. She’s just not speaking tomeat the moment. I’d rather not say where she is. She’s safe, and Alcides and Campe are with her.” I snort, then add, “And my traitor brothers, who incidentally are not speaking to me at all now. Which brings me to why I’m here: Erebus is out of the plan. I need a replacement for him.”

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