Poisoned Kisses

That’s when Lori realized it was a check. “I don’t want your money,” Lori snapped.

Marco took a deep breath. “Funerals are expensive. You can’t afford it with the house, and mom, and the restaurant—”

“Your money is blood money, Marco. I think you should go.”

And, for once, his sister was right.

Chapter 6

Kyra was shaken.

It wasn’t that she thought she was the only person in the world whose mother suffered from mental illness. But in confronting the hydra again, she hadn’t expected such a stark reminder of her own past. It made her feel sorry for Marco Kaisaris and, somehow, she was going to have to shake that off.

She’d managed to get the hydra to agree to go for coffee. If she played this right, she could lure him into the basement dungeon she’d built for him, and then neither his poisonous blood nor his bullets could ever hurt anyone again. But Marco didn’t look like he was in any mood for a caffeinated beverage. He maybe needed a Scotch on the rocks, not a latte.

Once he’d helped her into the car, he was distant, but showed no signs of suspicion so she must be doing a good job of impersonating Ashlynn. Then again, the man had just lost his father. She had him at his most vulnerable. “No one ever tells you how much smaller a person looks in death,” Marco said, pulling out of the parking lot. “It’s like something’s missing, as if their spirit took up physical space.”

“Oh, but it does,” Kyra said emphatically. But now wasn’t the time to give lessons to mortal men on the physicality of the soul. Snow was turning to sleet, and it was good that Marco was driving because Kyra had trouble concentrating on the road. She was too busy watching for signs that Daddy was on her trail. She knew to be alert for the vultures of Ares or Athena’s telltale owls, but here in Niagara Falls, Kyra had to be just as wary of the local echo god who once carried Iroquois war cries on the wind.

“Listen, this was a bad idea, Ashlynn.” Marco’s black-gloved hands tightened on the wheel. “We’re not just two old friends going for coffee. You don’t know me anymore and, trust me, you don’t want to.”

“I know you’re in some kind of trouble with the law,” she replied.

When they stopped at a red light he looked like he wanted to reach for the unopened package of cigarettes on the dash. Instead, he folded a stick of gum into his mouth and crumpled the wrapper. She watched the way his strong jaw worked under his five-o’clock shadow. “Some kind of trouble with the law…is that what my sister told you?”

“Would she have been wrong?” Kyra asked, avoiding the question.

The light changed, but Marco didn’t drive through the intersection. Instead, he abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Gravel popped under his tires. In the oncoming sleet, traffic cut past them in an angry blur of headlights and windshield wipers. “I can’t do this,” Marco said. “I can’t just pull into some coffee shop and sit down with you in a crowd and act like—”

“You don’t have to act like anything.”

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I can’t do it, Ashlynn.”

This wasn’t going well. If he made her get out of the car, then all Kyra’s scheming would be for naught. Scrambling for an alternative plan, she tried to play on whatever sense of chivalry he might have. “Can you at least drive me home?”

Marco gnashed at his gum. If he’d known who it really was beside him in the car, he’d have left her stranded—or perhaps even strangled—on the side of the road without a second thought. But when he finally glanced at her, he nodded.

“I’ll give you directions,” she said as he pulled back onto the road.

“I remember the way.”

“No, I just bought a new house,” Kyra said, and that wasn’t even a lie. So they drove up Niagara Parkway, mostly in silence. She’d chosen the desolated location carefully—just about as remote a place as one could get and still be in Niagara Falls. But once they were in the hinterlands, he was impatient. “Just how much farther is it?”

“Not far. Up ahead after the turn. You should come in. I can make you that coffee.”

“I just need to drop you off, and leave. This time for good.”

So that’s how it was going to be. Kyra hadn’t planned to use her powers right away, but unless she did, Marco Kaisaris was going to disappear again before she could stop him from becoming one of her father’s minions, or from putting AK-47s into the hands of another group of child soldiers. Luckily, Kyra saw the guardrail up ahead. Staring intently, she concentrated all her power. Ever since she’d been poisoned, it was painful to do this and she knew it’d weaken her, but she had no choice.

She was a nymph of the underworld, a torchbearer of Hecate; a mortal like Marco couldn’t bear the light she cast. Widening her gaze, she flashed her inner torchlight so brightly that it hit the guardrail reflectors and bounced back into Marco’s eyes. He brought his hand up as a shield against the sudden glare, but it was too late. Temporarily blinded, he lost control. They hit a patch of ice. He cursed, pumping the breaks, but to no avail. The car spun out and crashed in an explosion of shattered glass.

Kyra found herself face-first in a ditch, covered with shards and pieces of metal. She’d been thrown from the car and something inside her felt ruptured.

The pain was so intense, she couldn’t catch her breath. She was bleeding. It shouldn’t hurt this much, she thought, as she fought for air. She should be healing faster. But she wasn’t.

Gasping as icy water seeped into her clothes, she thought for a moment she understood what it was to fear death. And having used all her power to cause the accident, it took all the strength she had to maintain the illusion that she was another woman entirely.

Dazed and bleeding, Marco found himself standing in another ditch staring at another motionless body. He was confused, momentarily unable to orient himself in time or place. His instinct was to reach for his gun and radio for air support. It was only the snow that reminded him he wasn’t in some war-torn country in Africa. What had happened? Had he hit another car? If so, where was it? He only saw his own rented Jaguar in the ditch. And Ashlynn. She lay half-submerged in the water, bobbing like a beautiful but broken doll.

The sight sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. Climbing over the wreckage, he jumped into the ditch, slush up to his waist. His overcoat fanned out behind him, soaking up water, becoming a heavy drag, and utterly worthless against the piercing chill. Still, he desperately slogged forward.

Grabbing Ashlynn by the shoulders, he pulled her out of the ditch. He managed to push her up onto the snowbank and drag himself out after her.

He was grateful to find her breathing and at least semiconscious, but her teeth were chattering. He had to get her somewhere warm. And fast.

He hoped the keys in her coat pocket were for the house at the top of the hill. It didn’t really matter; it was the only house around. He’d break the door down if he had to. Lifting Ashlynn into his arms, he carried her up the snowy driveway, his dress shoes sliding on the ice every few feet or so. She made a weak protest but he ignored it. There was no way she could walk on her own given her condition. Besides, as he recalled, Ashlynn wasn’t built for adversity.

The key fit and he shoved the door open with his foot. He set her down on the living-room couch, but there was only a throw blanket to cover her with. Whoever’s house this was, it was remarkably spare. “Ashlynn, are you all right?”

“You’re the one who is bleeding,” she murmured with half-lidded eyes, reaching up to touch his cheek where he’d been cut.

He caught her by the wrist. “Don’t touch it,” he barked. “My blood is poison.” He hadn’t meant to say it, and he certainly hadn’t expected her to believe him. But she visibly recoiled—as if she knew how afraid she really should be. She blinked in wordless terror and he worried she might actually have a concussion. “Is this your house?”

She still blinked rapidly—too rapidly—but then nodded.

“Where’s the phone?” he asked.

“I—I don’t have one,” she stammered, her wrist still locked in his grip. “I just moved in. The service hasn’t been turned on yet.”

Something about her answer didn’t seem right. Maybe it was the way she stammered or the way her eyes slid away from him, but Ashlynn had never lied to him about the small things. Taking a quick personal inventory of his sodden belongings, Marco found that he still had his gun, but his cell phone was gone. If he was going to call an ambulance, he’d better go find it. Letting go of Ashlynn, he started for the door.

“You’re leaving me?”

His steps came to an abrupt halt. She’d asked him that once before, when he was just eighteen. It had been an accusation then, cloying and immature. As if enlisting in the military was something he’d done to ruin their wedding plans. This time was more of a plea—something desperate, and resigned. “I’m just going to look for my phone, Ashlynn. I’ll be back.”

Kyra hadn’t meant to cause such a horrible accident. She’d only been trying to cause a little fender bender. At most, she’d hoped for a broken axle—something that would incapacitate his rental without doing any real damage. She’d never intended to total the car. And no matter what Hecate would say, this time she really hadn’t been trying to kill the hydra.

The problem was that Kyra had never encountered a storm like this; she hailed from a warmer part of the world. It was the ice that hadn’t figured into her plans. Now, she deeply regretted that oversight. Why, she’d been so disoriented after the accident that she’d nearly touched the poisoned blood on Marco’s cheekbone!

Fear of death didn’t come naturally to Kyra; it was still a reflex she was learning. If he hadn’t stopped her from touching him, what might’ve happened? But he had stopped her. He’d even told her the truth about the poison in his blood—at least, he told Ashlynn the truth.

She should be healed by now. But ever since the poisoning, her powers of recovery were decidedly slow. She actually felt too weak to get up and follow Marco. He said he’d be right back, but she was afraid he’d just disappear again into the snow, and every day he was free to sell weapons was another day of death and destruction. Every day he was free made it that much easier for Ares to find him, and bend the hydra to an even darker purpose.

At least, that’s the reason she told herself she was afraid Marco would disappear when he walked out that door. But there was another reason, too; she was shaken. Shaken by the accident, and even more shaken by the way he’d pulled her out of the ditch and carried her to safety in a strong and protective embrace. Why had he been so tender with her? Not with her, of course. With Ashlynn. She must remember that he was seeing a woman he once cared about. Even so, if a man could behave that way, could he still be a monster?

Marco usually traveled with a driver, but he hadn’t wanted Benji or any of his employees nosing around his hometown, so he’d rented the car. Now, as Marco climbed over the twisted metal and fished his ruined cell phone out of the icy water, he counted that decision a mistake. There’d be questions about the wreck when the authorities found it. Meanwhile, he was in the middle of nowhere, alone with Ashlynn Brown for the first time in years and without a working phone. How in the hell had this crash happened, and why couldn’t he remember?

He found her purse in the snow and carried it inside. She was still on the couch, but she’d found another blanket. That was probably a good sign—that she’d been able to get up on her own—but she still looked stunned. They were both shivering, soaked to the bone, but he said, “I’m going to have to walk to a neighbor’s house and call you an ambulance.”