Page 119 of Nemesis

I know that look. I also know that her mind is set, and I missed my opportunity to volunteer someone better thanher brother. I find myself nodding along to her unvoiced idea, silently accepting that Kade and I were bound to clash sooner or later.

I meanmeet. We were bound tomeetsooner or later.

“Let’s go,” she says quietly. “I got my car back from Apollo, so…”

“Great.”

I follow her to the parking garage. Her car is in the spot right next to Reese’s truck, the block lettering painted on the concrete floor denoting it as her two free spaces. She gets in the driver’s seat, and I wrinkle my nose getting into the passenger seat.

The car smells like her, though. She uses some sort of lavender-scented shampoo that I used to loathe. But it’s grown on me, and now I take a deep breath. I try to let it settle me.

“What happened earlier…”

I glance over. By the time we pull out of the garage, the sun has risen. It truly is a contrast to how much time we spent watching the footage, and…other. Fucking. Which brings my attention back to my dick and how it felt to sink into her.

Thoughts I shouldn’t have but cannot stop.

It’s what she’s bringing up anyway, isn’t it? She startled me awake with ice-cold water, I leapt on her, and the burning urge—what I had been dreaming about, not satiated with the icy water dripping from my face—took over. Sue me.

“Go on,” I goad. “Gonna try to walk that back?”

“You’re using me,” she accuses.

I frown. “Am I? Any more than you’re using me, Artemis?”

“No, I?—”

“Tell me how it’s different.” I twist to face her, ignoring where we’re going. “Tell me how you didn’t have any reaction, that you didn’t spread your legs. Tell me you said stop and I missed it.”

“Saint.” Her cheeks redden. “No, I didn’t say stop.”

I hum.

“We’re using each other,” she decides. “We’re distractions.”

“Reese kissed you.”Thatunpleasant memory comes snapping back to the front of my mind. “Did you ask him to do that?”

She shifts. “I did.”

That silences me. She goes from freaking out around him to—to making out with him? What the fuck is that? It’s not like I want monogamy. Actually, it’s the last thing I want from her. Or anyone.

Not her.

I mean?—

Just stop thinking.

I lean my head back and close my eyes. I blow out a long, slow breath. Inhale. Exhale. It should be easy to get myself back into the mindset, but she seems to have obliterated my calm facade.

“We’re here,” she says quietly. She shuts off the car.

She gets out before my eyes open. But when I do, my heart immediately stops.

I knew he lived here. I knew… I knew, and I fucking forgot.

We’re in front of the mansion that Kronos once took refuge in. The mansion made of glass and steel, that sits on its own private beach in North Falls. There are dunes to the left, the ground rising farther beyond. The sandy beach disappears into cliffs. The reservoir is beyond that, and the church…

I suppose it’s not a church anymore. It was an evil place.

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