Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) (2 page)

“For
justice,
” Anderson corrected sharply. “He can’t be tried in a court of law. There is no way to make him accountable for his crimes. Unless we do it ourselves. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’m not a freaking hit man!”

Anderson’s gaze was hot enough to burn, and the muscles in his jaw and throat stood out in stark relief. “I’m not asking you to kill him. I’m asking you to
find
him.”

Usually, Anderson looks mild mannered and relaxed. The kind of man you’d pass in the street without a second glance. Certainly not someone you’d be afraid of. But that’s just his human disguise, and sometimes when he’s with me, he lets the disguise slip. Like right now, when pinpricks of white light appeared in the center of his pupils.

I won’t say I wasn’t intimidated. I’d seen what Anderson could do, and though I liked to think of him as something of a friend, I knew he didn’t have some of the boundaries human beings do. I was pretty sure he would hurt me if he got mad enough. But I was not a murderer, and I wasn’t going to let him turn me into one.

I put my coffee cup down, as if freeing my hands to defend myself would really help. My mouth had gone dry with nerves, and I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes and see that glow. It was hard to feel like I was drawing a firm line in the sand while not meeting his eyes, but I hoped he’d hear the conviction in my words.

“You sound just like Konstantin,” I told him. “Remember? He asked me to hunt ‘fugitives’ for the Olympians and basically told me I shouldn’t feel bad about doing it because I wouldn’t be the one actually killing the people I found.” In truth, there’d been no
asking
involved. The Olympians were on a mission to destroy all mortal Descendants—the only people capable of killing
Liberi,
at least as far as they knew—and they thought having a descendant of Artemis on their payroll would make their mission a
lot easier. I was pretty sure that under the supposedly kinder, gentler leadership of Cyrus, they still had the same goal in mind, and still would love to recruit me by hook or by crook.

“If I hunt someone down knowing that person is going to be killed, then I’m a murderer, whether I do the deed myself or not,” I argued. “I’m not a murderer.”

“You were willing to hunt Kerner down, and you were
hoping
I would kill him!”

Since the alternative had been to bury him alive for all eternity, yes, I had indeed hoped Anderson would kill him. But as a mercy, not as a punishment. I was pretty sure he was being willfully obtuse, but I restated my point anyway.

“I hunted Kerner because it was the only way to stop him from killing innocents. Not because I hated his guts and wanted revenge.”

“And you think Konstantin won’t kill innocents if he’s allowed to live?”

I understood why Anderson wanted me to do this. Really I did. I could even acknowledge that he had a point. Konstantin had raped, tortured, and killed countless innocents in the centuries he’d been alive, and there was no reason to believe he would mend his ways now. Anderson would probably want to kill him even if Konstantin
hadn’t
kidnapped Emma, Anderson’s now-estranged wife, and chained her at the bottom of a pond to drown and revive for almost ten years. But we’d both be doing it as revenge for what Konstantin had done to our loved ones, not
for any great and noble cause, and that would make me a murderer in my own eyes.

“Whatever I do, I’m going to have to live with it for the rest of my life,” I said, and with an impressive effort of will managed to meet Anderson’s gaze once more. The glow in his eyes had widened, the anger on his face inhuman in its intensity, but I didn’t let myself look away. “Unless you’re planning to kill me for saying no to you, I’m likely to have a very, very long life. And a revenge killing is something I don’t want to have on my conscience.”

“You don’t think Steph deserves vengeance?” There was both contempt and surprise in his voice, along with the anger. Yes, there was a good reason I’d been avoiding this conversation.

“She wouldn’t want me to do this,” I answered. “She didn’t even want me to kill Alexis.” Not that I was capable of killing a fellow
Liberi
myself, but I’d been trying to dream up a scheme to
get
him killed when Steph put the kibosh on it. “She wanted him dead,” I clarified at Anderson’s incredulous look. “But she didn’t want
me
to be involved.”
I want Alexis to pay for what he did,
she’d said,
but not at the price of putting a black mark on your soul.
She was the best big sister I ever could have hoped for.

Anderson slowly rose from his chair. I rose just as slowly, my heart pounding, my breaths shallow. My lizard brain really wanted me to get the hell out of there, away from the dangerous predator that was Anderson, but I forced myself to stay rooted in place.

“I
need
you to do this for me,” he said in a low
growl that resonated strangely in his chest. He slowly raised his hand, threatening me with what I had dubbed his Hand of Doom. It wasn’t glowing, which is what it did when he was about to kill someone, but I didn’t much want him to touch me, either. I’d seen him use that hand against Jamaal. He’d been able to make the big, tough death-goddess descendant scream in pain with nothing more than a touch. I did
not
want to know how bad it had to hurt to accomplish that.

“If your plan is to torture me until I agree to do what you want, then you really
are
no better than Konstantin,” I said. My voice shook a little, and I was sure my eyes were wide and frightened looking. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t expect him to follow through with his threat, because I believed he was one of the good guys. But he’d never been able to see straight about anything involving Emma, and I was standing between him and his longed-for revenge. It took every scrap of courage I could gather not to run screaming from the room.

We stood there like that—Anderson’s eyes glowing, his hand halfway extended toward me while I quaked in my boots—for what felt like forever.

Then Anderson let out a whoosh of breath. His hand fell back to his side, and the glow receded from his eyes. There was still a wealth of tension in his body language and a hint of menace in his facial expression, but at least he looked short of murderous. It seemed like I’d won round one of our game of chicken.

“This isn’t over,” he told me. “But I guess we have to wait until Konstantin kills someone else before you can feel righteous about hunting him. Don’t worry. I doubt it will take long.”

He was still so angry I didn’t dare move, and I didn’t think any response was required. So I stood there like a statue as he stalked out of my sitting room and slammed the door behind him.

Having survived my verbal
skirmish with Anderson, I supposed I no longer needed to work so hard at avoiding him. However, I’d already made a couple of appointments for the day to keep myself out of the house, and I saw no reason to break them. Funny how being turned into an immortal huntress and moving into a huge mansion owned by a god didn’t make the mundane cares of the world go away. I still had to go to the post office, and go grocery shopping, and get my hair cut. Ah, the glamour of it all.

The problem was the
Liberi
had a way of intruding on even the most mundane aspects of my life. After my haircut, I stopped by my favorite little French bistro to have a leisurely lunch while indulging in some people-watching from my seat in front of the generous picture window.

I’d been expecting to watch strangers, but before I’d even had a chance to place my order, I
saw someone I knew crossing the street, headed my way.

Cyrus, the current leader of the Olympians, was Konstantin’s son, and you could see the resemblance in his olive-hued skin and coarse black curls. Cyrus, however, gave off the vibe of being an approachable human being, unlike his father, who looked exactly like you’d expect someone who calls himself a king to look. I’d met Cyrus a few times now, and he seemed like a friendly, personable kind of guy. If he weren’t an Olympian, I might almost say I liked him. But he
was
an Olympian, and he believed in a world order that was anathema to me.

I hoped that Cyrus just happened to be passing by, his presence nothing but a coincidence. Too bad I don’t believe in coincidence.

Cyrus finished crossing the street, obviously not caring about the indignant drivers who were honking at him. He smiled and waved at me through the window and made a beeline for the bistro’s door. So much for my plans for a quiet, uncomplicated lunch.

Either assuming he was welcome or not caring if he wasn’t, Cyrus plunked himself down on the seat across from me.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked with a charming smile.

“If I told you I minded, would you leave?”

Why I bothered to ask the question, I don’t know. Cyrus gave me a mock-reproachful look and helped himself to my menu. I considered getting up and walking away, but as I said, Cyrus is
likable enough, and I harbored more than my fair share of curiosity about him. For one thing, I knew he and Steph’s . . . Well, I didn’t quite know what to call Blake. Boyfriend, I guess, although as far as I knew, they weren’t sleeping together. Blake, being a descendant of Eros, is apparently such a supernaturally good lover that any woman he sleeps with more than once will never be satisfied with another man. Anyway, it seemed that Blake’s unfortunate ability didn’t have the same effect on men, so he and Cyrus had hooked up in the past. Having seen the two of them interact before, I wasn’t sure how mutual—or how permanent—the breakup had been. Blake had described their former relationship as “friends with benefits,” but I suspected there was more to it than that. If there was any chance Cyrus would play a continuing role in Blake’s life, Steph had a right to know, and I figured I could try to work in a pointed question or two.

The waitress came over to take our orders. I guessed Cyrus was staying for lunch, since he ordered a
croque monsieur,
which is a fancy name for a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. I’d gone for a light soup-and-salad combo, resisting the temptation of all that butter and cheese. I felt virtuous and deprived at the same time.

“So to what do I owe the dubious pleasure of your company?” I inquired as soon as the waitress had retreated.

“Dubious pleasure?” He put a hand on his chest as if it hurt. “Why, you wound me.” He’d have looked
a lot more wounded without the glint of humor in his eyes.

If he weren’t the leader of a bunch of rapists and murderers, I might have let myself relax and be charmed. I certainly liked his pleasant, easygoing demeanor a lot better than I’d liked that of any other Olympian I’d met. Which made it even more imperative that I keep reminding myself what he was. It would be easy to become unguarded with him, and that would be a very bad mistake.

“Look, I’m not making a big scene here because I refuse to let you chase me out of my favorite restaurant and because I know I can’t get you to leave. That doesn’t mean we’re friends, and that doesn’t mean I actually want you here.”

Cyrus’s grin faded, but there was no hint that my admittedly rude pronouncement had annoyed him.

“Sorry,” he said, and he sounded like he actually meant it. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool wiseass and I couldn’t resist teasing you. But that was overly familiar of me.”

Yes, it was. But his admission made me like him better.

“I know we’re not friends,” he continued, “and considering our . . . differences, I don’t suppose we ever will be. But that doesn’t mean we have to be enemies.”

I frowned at that. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Assuming you’re actually getting at something.”

“You’re ruining my soliloquy,” he said in mock
annoyance, then shook his head and made a face. “I told you, dyed-in-the-wool. I’ll just issue a blanket apology now and hope it’ll cover our entire conversation. Konstantin did his best to beat the wiseassery out of me when I was growing up, but it never took.”

It was no surprise to hear that Konstantin physically abused his kid. From what Anderson had told me, Cyrus was Konstantin’s only
surviving
child, but there had been others. Others he’d distrusted so much he’d killed them. I’d spent a lot of years in foster homes, and yet I bet I’d had a better, happier childhood than Cyrus had. I found I couldn’t help smiling at him, despite my determination to be cautious.

“I’ll let you off with a warning,” I said. “But if you could get to the point without too much preamble, I’d appreciate it.”

He nodded, leaning forward in a way that signaled the fun and games were over and he was being serious. “I’m the first to admit that Konstantin won’t win any man-of-the-year contests. He certainly won’t win father of the year. But he
is
still my father, and even though he’s stepped down and removed himself from the public eye, I still consider him an Olympian. I talked to Anderson last week, and when I got off the phone with him, I had the impression we had both agreed that he would make it clear to his people that my father was not to be harmed.”

My years of working as a private investigator had given me both a good poker face and a nice touch of acting skill. I didn’t think my expression gave
anything away, though Cyrus was watching me with great intensity. Funny how Anderson had failed to mention this “agreement” this morning when he’d tried to bully me into hunting Konstantin.

“I’m sure Anderson is upstanding and honorable at heart,” Cyrus continued without a hint of sarcasm, “but I find myself wondering if his hatred for my father might trump his honor. I wonder if he followed through with his promise to warn his people off. You, particularly, descendant of Artemis that you are.”

“If you think Anderson lied to you, then I suggest you take it up with him. No way I’m getting in the middle of that, and I’m not going to confirm or deny what he told us.” Cyrus looked like he was about to protest, but I cut him off. “I
will
tell you that I have no intention of hunting your father for revenge. That’s just not me. Does that make you feel better?”