Page 116 of For the Love of the Gods

“Oi, look alive!” The shout was the only warning I got before a muffin nailed me in the face.

The pastry fell into my lap, leaving crumbs in my stubble and on my freshly pressed shirt. I’d just returned to my office after running down to the training room to try to work out my guilt and anger by imagining my own face on the punching bag.

“Asshole,” I grumbled, wrapping my hand around the muffin to throw it back at Adrian, hopefully nailing him in the head.

I chucked it, but it was stopped by a floating ball of water seconds before it collided with Adrian’s smug face.

Lukas stepped around the corner, his hand barely contorted as he moved the sphere, muffin and all, over to the open window behind my desk and flung it outside.

“And what if I wanted to eat that?” I asked, pinning him with a stare.

“Figured you would,” Adrian said, revealing a container behind his back. “Persy made them.”

“Oh shit,” I said, jumping out of my seat to grab them from his hands. His younger sister was an amazing baker and if I wasn’t careful I’d eat the entire sheet of whatever she made.

I walked over to Adrian, eyes pinned on the muffin, and barely caught Lukas snaking behind me to drop dramatically into the sofa I’d been sitting on, stretching his body out. I was taller than him, but he was bulkier, and dwarfed the leather beneath him into something that looked fit for a child.

I almost bit out a curse, but held back. He’d been through some shit this year, and before, I didn’t understand why he seemed so torn up about it. But then Rose happened.

The second the muffin was in my hand, Adrian darted around me too and dropped in the chair closest to the fireplace, leaving the lumpy one for me.

I scowled at both of them. “This is my house, you know?”

“Yes,” Adrian said, shoving a muffin in his mouth. “Wrr gweshts.”

I had no fucking clue what that meant.

“He said, ‘we’re guests,’” Lukas said, looking mildly disgusted from where he was lounging, hands folded and resting behind his head. “Adrian, pick up that crumb, you heathen.”

Adrian dramatically plucked up the crumb and popped it in his mouth.

I grabbed three tumblers off the cart by the fireplace, filling them with whiskey and bringing them over before I dropped into the remaining chair. I shifted around until the lump was no longer digging into my ass. Still fucking uncomfortable, though.

I shifted forwards, resting my forearms on my knees. “To what do I owe the honor of your company? Or was it just to bring me Persy’s muffins?”

“That would be occasion enough,” Adrian answered. “But, we gotta talk about what’s going on, man.”

I tensed. Shit. “Who told you?”

I whipped my head toward Lukas in accusation after I said it. He was chummy with Rose, maybe she said something.

Lukas held up his hands. “Don’t look at me.”

“Raiden told Emre,” Adrian explained, bringing up his own head guard. “Not much, just that there was a breach and an ‘incident’ with Rose and that he should be on alert.”

I fought the urge to grind my molars together. Raiden was right to say something, but I had hoped to resolve it before it made it to the rest of the gods.

“I didn’t realize this was some big secret,” Lukas said, picking up on the way I had tensed.

I blew out a breath. “It’s not. But it’s complicated.”

“Explain,” Adrian said, an ounce of command slipping into his voice.

“The breach was organized. A kid tried to pull an Orpheus and his family freaked out and tried to come get him together. Rose’s father’s old guard helped them. But there’s…”

“There’s what?” Adrian’s stress was clear in his question.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. This was a shit show. “There’s other stuff. Isolated. Someone put some poisoned herbs in one of Rose’s dresses.

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