Page 78 of Guarded By the Nightmare

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, with a snort. “I couldn’t help myself! I love you too much!”

Half a second later, a girl with blonde hair that streamed down to her waist in perfect waves ran in—although oddly, pieces of her eyes and jawline looked like Royce. And behind her was Royce’s Arachnaea agent, who first climbed up the wall outside and entered the room sideways, tilting forward so his human half could angle in the door.

“You’re not security!” Royce shouted at the girl.

“Dad,” she groaned, crossing her arms. “Being a receptionist isso boring.”

“It’s supposed to be!” he shouted, while the spider-human neared.

“Did you need assistance?” he asked, with a mechanical voice. I realized it was coming from a translation device by his ear.

“I’m not attacking anyone,” I said. “And neither is she,” I went on, winding a portion of myself around Mina. “We just need to talk to him,” I said, pointing to Royce—while Mina offered out the picture she’d stolen from the cruel boy’s hidden room.

Royce’s eyes darted down in anger, but then his expression became solemn. “How did you get that?” he asked, snatching it from Mina’s hands.

“It’s a long story—but that’s your great-grandfather, right?”

The blonde girl grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, this is family stuff, I’m staying for sure,” she said, dropping into the nearest seat.

58

SYLAS

Between Mina and his daughter,Royce never stood a chance.

“I’m Mina,” my queen said, walking up to introduce herself.

“Sirena.”

“How did I not know you had a child?” I asked the bald man.

“Because he’s never let me out of the water before,” Sirena answered for herself.

“That’s not true,” Royce muttered, still looking at the photo he held.

“It’s not, not really,” Sirena told Mina more quietly. “If my mother had her way, I’d be chained to a rock at the bottom of the ocean.”

“Your mother just wants what’s best for you. As do I,” Royce said, slowly taking a seat beside her—keeping himself equidistant between her and me.

“I mean you no harm,” I reiterated. “I’ve eaten recently.”

“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to make me feel better.”

“Should I stay?” the Arachnaea asked Royce, via his translator.

“Yes. If anyone human in this room seems like they’re suddenly dying,” Royce began, than shook his head. “Start fucking praying and call a black alert.” The spider’s human spine stiffened at hearing that. “Now,” Royce said, rounding on Mina. “Out with it.”

“We found that photograph in Garrett Reid’s secret bunker, along with a ton of other Rho Rho Phi fraternity-themed trash,” she said, taking the framed image back from him. “Do you know anything about your great-grandfather and Egyptian stuff? Maybe something mentioning a wolf?”

Royce made a face, before looking at me again. “The thing I don’t think anyone told you—and that you didn’t stick around to learn—was that my great-grandfather was insane.”

“‘Didn’t stick around’ is a rich way to say that I’ve been trapped in that hourglass for almost two hundred years,” I growled.

But the hourglass itself must’ve come from somewhere—and I’d never gotten the chance to investigate that, seeing as I could only come out when fate summoned me, and was then forced to perform tasks for strangers.

“This is Wheaton Ellis,” Royce said, pointing at the other man in the photo. “He changed his last name over to Reid when he ‘changed his life.’” Royce said the words like they ought to have one of Mina’s fateful asterisks. “They were friends back in the Victorian era, back when men with too much money had fun exploring things, pretending to do research, but mostly just fucking things up for local cultures. It seemed like the more lawful any given area became, the more men like Wheaton, and my great-grandfather, honestly, went there to take advantage of the underground interest in newly unattainable artifacts.”

Royce spun the frame on the table and shoved it down to me, where I caught it. “Do I want to know why you were in Ellis’s great-grandson’s closet?” he asked both Mina and I. “Or should I just assume ithad something to do with the sudden disappearance of several college-aged boys?”

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