Page 9 of For the Gods' Sake

“I will,” Persy said, with a soft smile on her face. Then her eyes got that little glint in them that told me she was about to turn her skill of cutting through people onme. “Speaking of panic, how areyou?”

As if summoned by her words, a bolt of of lightning shot down my arm and I caught it at the last minute, curling my hand in on itself. I had to roll my shoulders back to wrestle my power back in. “Is that what we’re calling this?” I asked, flexing my hand. “Panic?”

Persy looked pointedly at my hand. “If you have a different word for your power trying to crawl its way out of your body, you tell me.”

I breathed deep, feeling my nostrils flare slightly. Even her description was a tame retelling of the truth. There was a distant peak of Olympus that was currently living in an eternal thunderstorm, the ground charred from hits of lightning.

“Control.” Persy laughed when I said it, but wisely chose not to tease me further. “I just have to control it.” Most things in my life had been fixed by that same mentality. Which was only a reminder of how dangerous this arrangement with Reyna could be.

Persy didn’t even try to hide the disagreement on her face. “I’ll say it again—I don’t think this is about control. You can’t just press it down until youthinkyou have it in hand. That’s like repressing your emotions then all of the sudden you stub your toe and start bawling your eyes out.”

I felt my eyebrows raise on their own accord. “Are we speaking from personal experience?”

“Absolutely not,” Persy said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know why you would possibly think that.”

I nodded my head sarcastically. For all Persy’s strengths, the one thing she hadn’t quite mastered was when to ask for help. Some might call it an inability totake her own advice, but I would never be the one to say it. She’d probably punch me in the stomach.

“The point is,” I said, my voice tense. “I’m handling it. By the Council meeting, you won’t be able to tell.”

Persy rose from her chair and grabbed another muffin off the platter she’d brought over.

“What’s your plan?” she asked as she sat back down. “I told everyone at breakfast the other day about the heirs.”

I ran my hand over my jaw. That breakfast was another reminder of what this power was costing me. I’d woken up knowing it would be a bad day, my hands vibrating with contained lightning and dark storms gathering outside my window. Persy had to fill in for me when I realized I couldn’t step foot near water without the threat of electrocuting everyone in it.

“A few things. I’m going to try to keep a closer eye on Claudia. I never knew she still carried all that Juno resentment, but I’m not surprised by anything anymore.”

I’d made a special effort with Claudia and Anders Hera to make sure that the age-old resentment from our families no longer caused a problem.

On both sides of my lineage, a Jupiter and Zeus along the line had fucked over Juno and Hera, respectively, in a rather creative way, but that was years ago. I wouldn’t have imagined Claudia would turn that into a conspiracy.

“And you’re keeping an eye on Lorenzo through Reyna, I assume?” Persy asked. There was a concealed threat in her words, I could tell. She was friends with Reyna and she'd kill me before letting me betray her.

“I am,” I said carefully. “I’m going to tell her, Persy. Ijust can’t share the details of this conspiracy with her before I know for sure if she’s involved or not.” I wasn’t convinced that Lorenzo, and Claudia for that matter, were actually involved. It just all seemed a little too convenient.

But there was definitely money and power backing this. There was no way they would have gotten this far without it.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you she isn’t,” Persy said, echoing my thoughts. “Daphne said the same.”

“I know,” I said, hoping Persy understood that I was listening to her. For all my authority, I wasn’t somebody who thought I was right all the time. I just happened to be right most of the time. There was a difference. “She told me herself that she doesn’t share her father’s resentment. But I have to be careful. Whoever is heading this up—whether that’s Lorenzo and Claudia or someone else—is smart. The tattoos they’re inking on everyone kill you before someone can make you talk. They have a poison that can prevent people from talking. And apparently can recruit people who are a part of a god’s personal guard without detection.”

It was a basic recap of everything that had happened to Daphne and Lukas in the last few months and that wasn’t even diving into the attack that was orchestrated against Rose. A young kid—too young to be involved with something like this—had been recruited to help a disgruntled member of Lukas’s court poison Daphne for the past few months.

Persy didn’t even look remotely satisfied. “How do you possibly think this arrangement is going to help solidify that answer for you?”

I took a long sip of my coffee, even if I didn’t need the caffeine in the slightest. “I figure if he has that much resentment against the gods, one of them dating his daughter will send him over the edge. Maybe make him do something stupid that gives us a leg up.”

Persy’s expression made it clear she didn’t think it was an entirely stupid idea. “I assume your spies are going to be looking for slip ups?”

I nodded. “Emre is on it. There has been an eerie level of silence on that front, which means that someone high up in this thing knows about them.”

Another reason why I had a feeling a god was in on this. Shit, Claudia was young. Maybe she slipped up and told Lorenzo about it.

“Yeah, well, if there’s something to find, he’ll find it,” Persy said. She was right. Emre might have been my head guard, but he had a knack for knowing everything that was impressive. After a pause and a very loaded dunk of her tea bag in her mug, Persy added, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

No. That was the honest answer. “It’s necessary.”

“Adrian,” Persy said, drawing out my name in warning. “This is not the time for responsibility to win. Have a human moment and consider if this is the right thing.”

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