Chapter 6

Dimitri strode through the halls of the palace, fury arrowing through him. Fury at what, he wasn’t sure, but he had a whole lot of mad going on.

The American sure knew how to pick her freaks.

Henry Smithson wasn’t merely a friend of her family’s. He was a friend of just about every royal and moneyed family in the civilized world. Hell, King Jasen knew him, though he’d also confirmed that neither he nor the queen had ever received packages from the man. Certainly nothing in such a distinctive box.

That wasn’t even the worst of it, though. The ONSF had a dossier on Smithson an inch thick, same as it did on any moneyed mortal who dedicated themselves in service to a Greek god. In Smithson’s case, the billionaire financier had chosen a particularly nasty deity to don the toga for: Typhon, god of monsters. Yeah, him. Even though Zeus had long ago beat Typhon’s snake-dripping ass well into the ground, the tempest-loving creeper god still had his groupies, and Smithson was apparently a big fan.

Funny how it was the second time in a single day that Dimitri had been forced to think about Typhon and his minions. He wasn’t a fan of coincidences like that.

To the king’s recollection, Henry Smithson was in his late thirties, fit and athletic, and an avowed bachelor. He’d apparently been part of the Grants’ inner circle since he was a young man, but now was richer than Croesus all on his own. There’d been some speculation in the media that he was finally considering marriage and family life, but by all accounts, he was currently sailing around the world on his yacht called, because of course it was: Typhon I.

Smooth.

Dimitri chewed on the logistics required to deliver the package to the palace. Even if Smithson had seen the media blitz on Kristos, Emmaline, and the rest of the girls, he would’ve had to scramble to get a package here the same day that Lauren had returned to the castle. And the package was empty, so how could he have known that Lauren would see it?

There’d been no note, only the crisp handwriting on the card that had accompanied the package addressed to King Jasen. There’d also been nothing to suggest that the box had come from Smithson. It had arrived by special courier, unwrapped, like a birthday present carried in by a family friend. The only notation from the concierge was to follow up with the courier service the next day on what the intended contents had been. Theft was suspected, but as it had arrived at the palace already empty, it wasn’t as high a priority. It could wait until the following day.

Dimitri couldn’t wait, though. Not if the gods were involved.

Typhon may have been an outcast of Olympus, banished beneath Mt. Etna for eternity, but he still stirred up the seas with the best of them. Known for gifting his minions with fabulous wealth, power and the toys, he cast a long and dangerous shadow. Ordinarily, humans were smart enough to accept such gifts and enjoy them circumspectly, taking care not to attract the interest of the deity who’d so casually transformed their families with generational wealth. But occasionally, humans sought more attention from the gods.

They usually got it.

And that invariably meant trouble.

Dimitri stalked into the guest-apartment wing of the palace, his scowl deepening as he caught the flickering light from the sitting room east of the girls’ suites. He wasn’t in the mood to interrupt a late-night fireside girls’ chat, he just needed to talk to the blonde. Something wasn’t adding up.

Fortunately, a quick sweep of the sitting room reassured him that the room was empty.

Or...not quite empty.

He stepped inside, moving silently to where the very top of Lauren Grant’s head peeked out of a summer weight blanket. She’d wrapped herself in a cocoon, her purse tucked beside her, her face angled toward the warmth of the fire. He stood there for a moment, weighing his options.

The American wasn’t telling him everything. She wasn’t telling him much of anything.

But what did it matter,? She wasn’t his real concern. The royal family was, especially until plans got settled for how Kristos’s engagement would move forward. Then the remaining girls would be ushered along to enjoy the rest of their fancy European vacation. Once he’d confirmed that this Henry Smithson wasn’t tangled up in the affairs of the gods but was simply a fanboy freak, he would happily wave them all goodbye.

He had already missed the window of his leave to go see his family on Miranos, but that couldn’t be helped. The ONSF reports from the Turkish border were increasingly dire. The military needed to increase its presence to the north, and there were precious few fighters to spread out through the mountainous region. He’d assigned one of Kristos’s royal cousins to the job, along with his contingent of hotheads. That might have been a mistake, but sooner or later, the young fools would have to be trusted with real work.

Either way, he had too much to do to play nursemaid.

That didn’t change the fact that Kristos had asked him to take care of this woman. Worse, Dimitri wasn’t simply honor bound to do what his prince commanded, he needed it. Needed the assignment, needed the mission, just as he’d needed every mission over the past year. Especially those missions that required him to save people from themselves.

He’d failed at that the day Ari had disappeared. Failed miserably.

He wouldn’t fail this time, regardless if his focus wasn’t the heir to the throne, but some spoiled, insufferable woman whose touch he craved so much, it made his bones ache.

He wanted nothing more than to get away from Lauren Grant. He needed to put her on some plane back to America and never see her again. Because if she didn’t get out of his sight soon, he knew she’d drive him to do something he regretted.

Nothing permanent. Nothing stupid. But...still something more than he should.

Even now, he wanted to lean down and take her into his arms, holding her so tightly that he might never forget the warmth of her body against his, the touch of her lips, the feel of her long, lean legs?—

Stop it.

He stomped another step forward with perhaps a bit more force than necessary, and Lauren stirred. The blanket fell away from her face, and her hand reached out reflexively to keep it tight around her body, as if that flimsy bit of comfort was sufficient shield against the hornets’ nest she stirred up around herself simply by existing.

Well, he was more than in the mood to kick that nest a few more times right now.

Stopping short of the couch, he dragged an ottoman closer and sat on its edge. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he stared at her.

He could tell the moment she returned to awareness. It wasn’t so much a change in her coloring or a flutter of her lids, but an electric energy that seemed to course through her, warning her that once again, she was being watched. Once again, she was the focus of someone’s attention.

What would it be like for this woman to wake up outside the spotlight? He smirked. She’d probably be lost.

“Were you planning to stare at me all night?” Lauren’s eyes drifted open with a cold challenge, her face controlled, her tone even. There was nothing to indicate that she’d been sleeping, other than the fact that he’d observed her not thirty seconds earlier, dead to the world.

“Where is this Henry Smithson now?” he asked too gruffly, but the sharpness of his words seemed to ground her. She straightened on the couch, pulling the blanket tight around her.

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Has he ever threatened you?”

“Of course not.” Her outrage flickered between laughter and anger with such precision that every one of his nerves prickled. She was bluffing. Had to be. Still, Lauren continued. “He’s a friend of my father’s. I’ve known him since I was a little girl.”

“How little?” He didn’t know why he asked it, but the spasm of emotion that arrested her face might have been the confusion of waking up on any other woman.

But not this woman.

Either way, she recovered quickly enough, and rolled her eyes. “As if I could possibly remember. I was young, and he and my father did business together. I was paraded in front of all of Dad’s business clients at one point or another, it couldn’t be helped.” She tilted her head. “Why? Did you find something in that package after all?”

“We’re tracking it down. Officially, we expect to determine that it was emptied on the way to us, since Mr. Smithson cared more about the style of his presentation than its contents. He sent the thing to the palace unwrapped. Is he frequently careless?”

“I wouldn’t call him careless, no.” As if she realized she was saying too much, she lifted a slim shoulder. “He’s too good at business to be truly careless. He might have been conducting a test, to see how the good citizens of O?ros would react to such easy pickings. Or”—she waved off his bristled indignation—“he may merely have been playing a game. He likes games. Perhaps another package will arrive tomorrow, identical in every way, except this time, it will have something in it. That would play to his sensibilities.”

Dimitri scowled. He hadn’t considered that. Rich people often had too much time on their hands. “Has he recently come into a lot of money, a lot of power? Things suddenly seeming to go his way? Or has his family been wealthy for awhile?”

“Henry? No.” Lauren’s absolute certainty didn’t seem manufactured. “He’s scraped and scrabbled to get to where he is—he’s known my family since I was a kid, and my dad in particular. The money he’s got, he’s made himself.”

Well, none of that tracked. Ordinarily, any minion of Typhon would be a pampered piece of shit. It’s how the god kept his acolytes close to him. Maybe Henry wasn’t as tight with the monster god as Dimitri had feared. It certainly would make his life easier.

He narrowed his gaze on Lauren, knowing it was time to ease back on the interrogation. “How are you feeling?”

“Remarkably well, actually.” She smiled, and Dimitri nearly lost his breath at the sight. Lauren Grant was pretty all the time, but she was heartbreaking when she smiled the way she was now, without art or intent. She reached up to tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear, then laid the back of her hand against her mouth, stifling a yawn. In that moment, she could have been any young woman, from any background, wrapped up in a blanket at a college sleepover.

Then, of course, she had to keep talking.

Her brow arched in a smug curve. “Are you seriously stuck being my babysitter tonight? Out of all the jobs in O?ros, that’s what they assigned you to?”

“You would be so lucky.” The words were out before he could stop them, and his movement seemed unstoppable as well. He leaned closer with a smooth, almost predatory shift, and the American’s hand froze mid-drop, her eyes fixed on him. “Tonight I was out and heard the commotion, and I thought to myself: who would be stupid enough to rouse up the locals at this bar that is usually so quiet, making them spend their hard-earned cash when ordinarily they are careful souls?”

As if remembering that her hand hung between them, she shifted it once more to her hair, then lowered it as she tried to back away from him, retreating more deeply into the plush cushions. “You must have been hearing something different than I did, then. The patrons of that establishment were already half-drunk when I got there. I never did catch up.”

“And may the gods help you if you did.” The anger was back, and he welcomed it. Anger he could understand, manage. Anger had purpose and form. And this woman definitely made him angry, he decided. That was the emotion coursing through him, he was certain of it.

She seemed to welcome it as well and leaned forward now, her lips inches from his. “You truly dislike me,” she said, her words a low purr. “What did I ever do to upset you so much?”

He held himself locked in place. “Don’t flatter yourself. I don’t waste my time being upset by people like you.”

“Mmm.” Like some sprite of the gods, she wouldn’t leave it alone. She moved forward another inch, and now her lips were brushing his, the warm, vital scent of her filling his senses. His entire body demanded that he take her, and Dimitri’s reality was narrowed down, focused on the tiny point where their mouths connected. “I wish you liked me more, though. I really do.”

She would have pressed forward, but Dimitri reacted to the sound almost before he could process what it was, who it was. He jerked straight and turned, rising to his feet and taking three strides across the floor before the petite dynamo of Nicole Clark burst into the room, her eyes bright and wide, her body practically quivering the way it always did, as if she was constantly high on caffeine.

“Lauren!” She burst out, hurrying forward. “My God, girl, what are you doing here? We’ve been worried about you. Did you go out—she went out, didn’t she? I knew she did.” Midsentence, Nicki transferred her gaze to Dimitri. “You had to fetch her.”

“No one had to ‘fetch’ me.” Dimitri turned back to the blonde, unsurprised that she’d also risen to her feet, the blanket thrust aside like garbage, her purse clutched to her side. “Dimitri was out and about, and was kind enough to walk me home.”

She nodded to him, but her eyes glittered with something he had seen before. Something that set every nerve ending alive with anticipation. She was using his attraction for her to distract him, but in doing so she’d betrayed her own interest all too clearly…

Lauren Grant was desperately trying to hide something.

He intended to find out what.