Page 87 of Caged By the Ruthless Thief

“Maybe,” Holter says.

Nico and I know better. Going against the domes that hold the security council so that you never have a vote go your way, to throw away the three years your dome should be in power... Castor won’t be able to help me. Not and enact whatever remarkable change the Glyden Dome is expecting from him. Michio is a good governor. But the Zaffiro Dome hasn’t based their whole value on him, not like Glyden has done to Castor since the day he was born.

38

ANNABELLE

I’m stunned. My happy-go-lucky Eros, the one always with a smile on his face, the jokester... He’s an assassin. I’m trying really hard not to let him see how shocked I am. It’s like when a child falls down and you wait to see if they’re going to cry before you react. I’m waiting to see what Nico and Holter will do. Mostly Nico. But Holter’s hand is on my hip. He’s in full protector mode. I can tell he’s one moment away from snatching me from Eros.

There’s the Band-Aid approach to this whole thing too. “There’s something else we should talk about.” I suck in my lips and reach for where my necklace used to be, the one I lost the first day on the sub, a cheap chain with my initials on it. I’m not even sure where it came from. It’s odd how much of a habit playing with it used to be. Rolling it around on my chin.

I blink at Eros. We need to tell them how I got back to the city. If he wants to tell Nico about being in the chasm, that’s up to him.

“Okay, okay. We’re doing this here, now? In bed?” Eros raises his eyebrows at me.

My eyes widen in a silent plea, an unspoken message that the time for lies is over.

Eros sits up. The thing with pod beds is they’re big enough for lots of things. And being in the middle is great. It means you’re the one getting all the attention. But getting out of the middle is never graceful. Scooting, crawling, and shimmying are usually involved.

Eros stands and walks the long length of the mattress, jumping to the floor. “I’m not dying naked.” He’s glaring at Holter, not Nico. Then he turns to me.

I push up to my elbows and sit, the sheet clasped to my chest. “You’re not going to die.” I glare at Nico and Holter, whose expressions don’t bring me confidence that I’m correct.

“I followed you. I followed you to Athens. I’ve got asolowith some high-level tech.” He finds pants from the floor. I’m not sure they’re his. He puts them on and begins to pace. “I’m not blaming you, Holter, but I had a taste. I had a fucking taste.” His fists are at his sides. “And then you.” He points to Nico. “You go and get yourself exiled to the chasm. Death. You were going to be dead. I didn’t know she mated you.” He points to Holter.

“No one did. That was the whole point.”

“Exactly. But I thought he was sending her to die, fucking die of some horrible disease. Alone.” His feet are thundering next to the bed. Even Nico has sat up. He’s clutching the sheet, his jaw firm, dark eyes tracking Eros’s every movement. “You were sentencing her to die alone. Alone with fucking humans. Someone would find out she’s a mermaid. They’d poke and prod her with their primitive instruments.” He taps his fingers on the side of his head. “What were you thinking?”

Neither of them answers Eros’s raised eyebrows.

“And what about when she got sick from the widow illness? Did you think they would know what to do?”

Holter opens his mouth.

“No, don’t answer that. That was rhetorical. They certainly wouldn’t know what to do. Maybe they’d make her swim underwater at one of their amusement parks.” Eros’s face is bright pink, his hands wringing at his side. “Back to the humans.” He shakes his head in disgust.

“I was going to let thehagissawipe my memory.” I want to pull the words back as soon as I say them.

A minute ago, it was Eros who was explaining his actions, but his mouth hangs open. He closes it, his face indignant, his arms crossed over his chest. “They were going to let ahagissaplay with your head? Are you two fucking mad? You call me irresponsible with our mate’s safety? At least I didn’t plan on letting a two-shell magician scramble our mate’s brilliant brain. What the actual fuck?”

Nico leans forward, but Holter reaches across me and touches Nico’s arm. Holter’s the one who slides off the side of the bed. “Fine. We were going to let her go home. Home, Eros. Home to the people she loves.”

“People she loves? Like her aunt and cousin in hiding? When was the last time you saw them, Sunshine?”

“Two years ago.” My heart twists. I miss them so much. It’s the one reason I want my phone back. I want to tell them I’m okay. My dad too. But Kronus is going to tell him, when all the paperwork is complete and he gives Dad the paid-off mortgage and the entire title. Not just the half he inherited from his parents.

“You didn’t think that through.”

“She wanted to go home,” Holter says.

“And when she wanted to come back home, to here, I was there. I could help her come home, and that’s what I did.”

Nico clears his throat. “Your mission confuses me. Why risk going after her?”

“It’s not a mission, it’s Annabelle’s life. My life.”

“Yes,” Nico growls. “Why didn’t you bring her straight to us? To her mates?”

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