Page 123 of For the Love of the Gods

Who was also in on it.

In the early hours of the night, Rose told me she had been the one to kill him, one of her Shadowwalkers crushing his heart. That was more merciful of a death than I would have preferred for him, but I got at least some satisfaction from the fact that he was ended by a version of me.

I had noticed it first that day in the library, but thought I was hallucinating it. There was no way that when Rose still despised me, the embodiment of her own power would manifest in my form.

Even though my own had been a tall, lean woman for years. Before we were married.

I’d noticed the likeness before but had written it off as the fact that I associated her with death, and the Shadows were an extension of it. Now, I just thought my power knew I was going to fall in love with her before I did.

Rose’s unmarred hand in my own was the only,only, thing keeping me together. I would be in full blown attack mode if it wasn’t for her, going through the cells in the dungeon one by one until someone spilled. Instead of letting our friends do their job.

“Go through everything you know,” I told Marcus.

“Max went back to the Temple last night,” Marcus said, gesturing at his sibling. Max took over from there, “Io had a button under his desk. Triggered a silent signal out to someone on the outside who gathered the mob.”

“I was only in there for ten minutes. How did they get that many people together?” Rose asked. It was killing me to see fear in her eyes.

“Final count was twenty,” Raiden said, crossing his ankle over his knee. “The temple is in the middle of the Corinth town square. Enough time for that many people to gather.”

“That means they were able to gather twenty people on a whim in a relatively small city. Who hated me,” Rose said.

“We don’t know if it’s you,” Raiden pointed out.

“Io said that people weren’t going to follow along with what the gods wanted to do. Not just you,” Max reminded, to which Rose flinched. I tightened my grip on her hand.

“You might just be a catalyst,” Raiden continued. “There has been unrest for a while.”

“For the love of Jupiter, Adrian wouldn’t have been born if this wasn’t Fated,” I snapped.

“You’re telling that to the wrong crowd,” Raiden said, tone even and steady. “We all know that. Most of your people know that. But that was still an upheaval of a system that has been in place for over two thousand years.”

“People didn’t have this much of a problem when an entire new Pantheon popped up,” I argued. The first Pluto lived close to a century without an attack on his life. And in a post-war world.

“They did,” Rose said, running her thumb over the top of my hand. “But they were dealing with the aftermath of a war and were just were crushed under a god’s boot if they said something. We aren’t like that anymore.”

“It might be necessary to remind them,” I said, even though the thought of a full-blown crack down made my nostrils flare.

“Okay, so it may or may not be because of me,” Rose said, recentering the conversation. “What else?”

“About half of them had a tattoo of a circle on their forearm,” Marcus said.

Rose breathed out heavily. “I saw that.”

“Any idea what they mean?” I asked. I didn’t recognize it and I knew just about every icon, logo, and symbol of Upperworld organizations. It was necessary to understand how humans worked and interacted before they passed over into our realm.

“It’s not on record anywhere,” Raiden said tightly. Not knowing things pissed him off more than just about anyone else.

Rose looked at me and raised an eyebrow. I gave her a quick shake of my head. We both knew who to go to if we needed knowledge no one else had access to, but that was a last resort considering where she stood with Lukas.

Especially not when her counterpart might know.

“Please don’t tell me that means it’s a dead end,” Rose pleaded lightly.

“It’s not,” Marcus said, a grin entirely inappropriate for the subject matter appearing on his face. “Anyone who was touched by a Shadowwalker…died.” He said it carefully, cautious of Rose’s reaction to the news. More evidence that she didn’t have a murderous bone in her entire body. She breathed in deeply, squeezed my hand, but otherwise looked okay. “Everyone we knocked out hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Why?” I asked, wishing they would. Then I could have a go at them.

Raiden shivered a little. Oh shit, that meant it was gross. “Their tattoos are festering. Like it’s infecting them. There’s a solid chance they don’t wake up at all.”

---