Chapter 40

Dimitri was done with waiting. Turning to the side, ignoring the pain in his left shoulder, he cracked his right elbow down hard against the throat of the soldier standing next to him, driving him to his knees. With another roundhouse punch, he leveled the demigod flat. Then he turned and bounded toward Lauren and Smithson.

The two of them were in a battle for Smithson’s gun. Lauren, in her ridiculous shift, torn and hanging from her shoulder, was fighting the man as fiercely as anyone he’d ever seen. But Smithson was clearly no stranger to a fight. With another resounding crack, he struck Lauren in a body blow that caught her across the shoulder, and she went flying as he whipped around. He stopped Dimitri cold with his raised pistol.

Dimitri raised his hands, his attention torn between Lauren and Smithson. “Take it easy, Mr. Smithson,” he bit out. “This is a misunderstanding.”

“Yes, it is. Yours.” Smithson drew himself up. “This is how it’s going to work. You’re going to die like the good little bodyguard that you are, and I’m going to collect my fiancée and return to my yacht. I’ll express my condolences to the king and queen, maybe settle a nice cash amount on your family—assuming you have a family—and wash my hands of the whole affair.”

Lauren was pulling herself to her feet, and Smithson flicked a glance to her. “I didn’t strike her that hard, and my doctors will pronounce her fit and competent. And, fortunately, you won’t be around long enough to complain.”

She wobbled a little, and Dimitri fought to keep himself from clenching his hands into fists. His standing orders from the Crown were good ones, solid ones. He couldn’t kill Smithson, had to take him alive or not at all. He sure as hell wasn’t planning to die by the idiot’s hand either, of course, but Lauren didn’t know that apparently.

“Henry—no,” she said, her voice so ravaged and broken, it distracted both Dimitri and Smithson. Slowly, as they watched, she dropped to her knees, her hands up in supplication.

She was begging. This woman, this proud, defiant, spoiled woman who had every advantage handed to her and never needed anything in her life, was begging for his life.

“Don’t kill him, Henry,” she said, knowing instinctively not to give Dimitri a name, a face. “He’s nothing to you, the merest inconvenience. His words don’t have the weight of yours—or of mine. And I will be your wife, your Echidna, dedicated to you in all things.”

His what? Dimitri’s lip curled as he glared at Smithson. The fact that Lauren even knew the name of Typhon’s consort, that Smithson clearly had assigned it to her as some sort of term of endearment, still didn’t give them solid proof that Typhon gave one shit about this scumball. But it definitely gave the Crown plenty of reason to interrogate Smithson within an inch of his life. Even if he might be roughed up a bit by the time Dimitri delivered him for questioning.

But Lauren kept going. “I will do whatever you want, be whatever you want. All for this one favor. Don’t take a life as we set forth to embark on ours.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Smithson’s gun never wavered, but he seemed transfixed by Lauren, marveling at her. Her torn clothing and disheveled hair somehow didn’t stack up to the strength of her face, her eyes. The rigidity of her body as she kept kneeling in a position of devout prayer. Beseeching Smithson, who appeared to be enjoying being beseeched. Bastard.

“Because you have everything, Henry. You don’t need to add an insignificant death to the ledger. You more than anyone know the value of having someone be in your debt. I will be in your debt, for this as in so many things. I will owe you so much more than I can ever repay. I will be yours, without murmur, without opposition. What you want, I’ll want. What you crave, I’ll give you. Give you or find for you. And I will never leave you.”

Henry’s focus sharpened. Something seemed off about that, and Dimitri thought again about the documents on Smithson’s boat. The marriage contracts, binding and final. Why was he so fixated on securing Lauren Grant to him, forever and always? It couldn’t be her money. He had that in spades. So what...?

Lauren wobbled, fell, scrambling up to her knees again as Smithson watched her struggle, a smile playing over his lips. “He may not live the night anyway, Henry. Look at his shoulder. That’s a lot of blood. Why do the work of nature if that’s what’s in store for him?”

She pulled herself upright then and edged closer, and Dimitri blinked. She wasn’t moving toward Smithson; she was moving in a direct line—toward him. Not toward him precisely, but between Smithson and him. As if despite everything, she could still regain control of the situation somehow.

“And if he does live, who would take the word of a critically injured man against yours?” Lauren continued. “He’ll have no supporters alive. But if you kill him, he’s a martyr.”

That seemed to get Smithson’s attention, and Dimitri fought another surge of outrage at Lauren’s intervention. She was playing a dangerous game here. No, he wasn’t planning on taking a bullet from Smithson’s gun—one wound was enough for tonight—but he could tell by everything in Lauren’s body, her words, the tone of her voice that she’d already made up her mind to take that bullet for him. As if that would change anything, as if that wasn’t the dumbest damned thing he’d ever heard in his life.

As if that didn’t make his heart want to stop, right there in the middle of the clearing.

“Threaten him, Henry,” Lauren said quietly. She’d almost dragged herself into the direct line of sight between the two men, but she stopped, smart enough to know that capturing Smithson’s attention alone was better than having that attention split between two focal points. But she was speaking so softly now that Dimitri had to strain to hear her. “You have the power of the world in your hands. You know that. You’ve always known that. Because it’s true. Tell him now what will happen to him if he tries to cross you. Make him understand.”

Smithson’s lips twisted, but his expression was supremely smug. “That’s the Lauren Grant I have come to know and love,” he said, waving the gun at her. “You tell him.” He watched her hungrily as Lauren pivoted, reaching out to Dimitri, her face resolute.

“If you do leave this place alive, you must never go after Henry. He will always win.” Her words were deliberately cold. She didn’t look at Dimitri. Couldn’t look at him, he realized, whether to protect him from Smithson or because she would falter, he didn’t know.

But he found he yearned for the feel of her gaze upon him once more. Wanted nothing more than to drink in her beautiful eyes, her smile.

She continued in a wooden tone. “Whatever your weak point is, he’ll find it. Your childhood friends you had lost complete contact with, until a pattern forms that you can’t ignore. Former lovers. Current lovers. Family members. Coworkers. Pets. Your bank accounts. Your treasures. Your mementos. Things you didn’t know you cared about desperately, until they were taken away from you. He applies the right pressure, and he applies it quickly and assuredly, so that he doesn’t have to reapply the pressure again. Because with the first touch, he’s already broken you.”

“You’re making me seem quite frightening,” Smithson drawled, clearly enjoying the moment.

Lauren didn’t turn to him. “And when he grants you some sort of reprieve, it isn’t over. It’s never over. That’s his genius. He’ll remind you in ways you can’t imagine that he is always out there watching, always waiting for you to make a misstep, say or sometimes merely think the wrong thing. He’s everywhere.”

“Why, Lauren, I’m flattered.”

Dimitri’s lip curled. He couldn’t abide allowing this man to live another second. Just as he couldn’t abide the fear that rolled through Lauren like a sickness, the incredible hopelessness. That she was consigned to a future without rest, without escape. No one should feel that way.

“And yet,” Smithson continued, “I think the lesson isn’t quite over yet. You should never try to talk me out of something that gives me so much pleasure, Lauren. Remember that.”

He lifted his gun, and Lauren screamed.

But the shot that came was fast—too fast!

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Dimitri reacted to Smithson lifting his gun to surge forward and away, to get himself and Lauren out of the trajectory of the bullet, but Lauren jumped sideways, her arms outstretched, as if in a single leap, she could cover his body with hers.

But it was Smithson who staggered back at an unexpected angle, Smithson who fell as Dimitri lurched toward him, the blood bursting from Smithson’s head irrefutable proof that he wouldn’t get up again. Dimitri turned, bracing himself to launch at the soldier who stood at the edge of the clearing, the soldier he’d dropped to the ground but hadn’t—quite—knocked out.

The man who threw his gun down as they watched and rubbed his face with a grimace.

“My thanks. I’ve been waiting for a chance to take him out cleanly for over a year,” he said, his accent once again placing him as Greek, though he spoke clear English. “The owners of the yacht Smithson commandeered are dead, you should know, dumped into the sea. You won’t find them. However, there’s a brace of his men left aboard who I’m sure would turn on him in an instant. He wasn’t well liked.”

“I can see why. He claimed to be a follower of Typhon. You have any intel on that? Is Typhon on the move?”

The man shrugged. “Not through this asshole, not from what I could ever tell. If he had a direct link to Typhon, he would have been better protected. You’ll still want to check the gates, though. Always pays to be prepared.”

Dimitri snorted, though he was relieved to know that the monster god’s grasp hadn’t extended so far. At least not yet. “Agreed.”

“I’ll leave you to that then. My work here is done.” The soldier of Zeus stared up at the night sky. “The official story circulated to the criminal syndicates will be that Smithson cheated my employer. My employer took offense. But he is a patient soul, and now he will be a happy soul.”

“Your...employer,” Dimitri drawled. “I feel I may know this employer.”

“You could know him a lot better, if you choose to do so.” The man favored him with a wry gaze, his wild blue eyes fierce with unexpected joy. “He knows of you, is proud of you. He’s honored by what you’ve already given. But a man must make the decision to serve him twice. Once when he doesn’t understand what he’s giving up, and once when he does. Your time is coming and...” he slid his gaze to Lauren, then back to Dimitri, and smiled. “I know you’ll make the right choice.”

Dimitri stared at him, but the man merely turned to scan the dark forest again. “Unfortunately, if Smithson’s men see me, I get shot—and as you well know, I can die as easily as the next soldier, no matter who I work for or how long I’ve done so. I don’t suppose there’s another way off this rock?”

Dimitri pointed. “Path to the secondary port. The bartender will set you up if you have money.”

The man’s teeth flashed in the darkness. “Money, I have. Sorry about your shoulder. I cut for show. Smithson liked blood. A lot of it. With you injured, he relaxed his guard just enough.”

It was Dimitri’s turn to smile. “It’s the only reason you’re still alive. You should have told me who you were earlier or I wouldn’t have hit you so hard.”

The demigod of Zeus snorted, teeth gleaming in the darkness. “And where’s the fun in that?”