“Andie, don’t do this,” Elias said, watching me with sad eyes. “Don’t push us away.”
“I’m not. I’m saving you the trouble of watching me lose.”
“Andie, wait! Dinner is almost—” Robert started, a desperate attempt to return to the script, to the safety of the routine.
“I’m not hungry.”
I walked out.
I got into my Audi, slammed the door, and locked it. The sound of the lock engaging was the most satisfying thing I had heard all night—the click of a barrier, a boundary, a line drawn in the sand.
I keyed the ignition. The engine roared to life, drowning out the silence of the suburban street, drowning out the voice in my head that was screaming at me to go back, to apologize, to let them help.
But I couldn’t afford to do that, not anymore. My sanctuary had been shattered. Not by Alexander Stormwright. Not by my mother. But by my own hand. I was utterly alone on the road now, with nothing but the hum of the engine and the radio silence of my phone. But if I went down, it would be on my own terms. Fighting. Not hiding.
Not running from the storm.
Running toward it.
5
From Endless Sunlight
Alexander
For as long as the world itself could remember, House Zeus had always led the hierarchy of the Olympian Houses. It was only natural, the legacy of our patron giving us a natural advantage.
Yet, as I sat in Julian Solaris’s private solarium, I felt an unfamiliar, exhausting apprehension. Things had not gone well for me since the disaster with Damon Blackwood. I had a feeling the situation wouldn’t improve today.
If Cora Ellis’s suppressant had worked for Andie, I couldn’t have cared less. But now? The simple requirement that I needed to be here was a waste of valuable time.
“I appreciate the welcome, Julian, though I must admit, I was rather surprised,” I forced myself to say. “You don’t exactly open your home to other Houses that often.”
“No, I suppose I do not. But we all have reasons for making exceptions. And this is the one place where I knew for sure we’d have privacy.”
That I couldn’t argue with. Julian had carved the headquarters of House Apollo into a mountain peak in the Svalbard archipelago. Beyond the crystal-paned walls, a vista of impossible beauty stretched out. The jagged glaciers were tinted amber by a sun that refused to set. The home of the Sun God’s chosen was ironically hidden in a land of ice and snow. And no one was more powerful here than Julian.
A distant bank of clouds roiled over the frozen Arctic Sea, and I could feel the faint, familiar thrum of a gathering storm in my bones. Inside the solarium, the air was warm and heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine. It was as if House Apollo had created a pocket of eternal summer in the heart of the world’s northernmost edge. Appropriate, for an Olympian House.
But Julian had never been the type of person to flaunt his power. If he said something, it was because he genuinely meant it. That was one of the most infuriating things about him. People believed I was the golden child of the Olympian Houses, but he was the real deal.
He sat behind a desk of seamless white marble and steepled his fingers, his golden eyes fixed on me. “I’ve received an interestingmessage today. It seems House Demeter and House Hades have begun formal talks.”
I suppressed the urge to grimace. I’d heard the news too, and I’d known it wouldn’t bode well. “Lyra Dawnfield and Damon Blackwood, working in concert. I never thought I’d see the day.”
He took in my words with a patience that would have made anyone else flinch. Silence fell between us, the hum of the climate control the only sound still traveling through the solarium.
Technically, he didn’t need to say more. He’d already asked his question, even if he hadn’t said it outright. If the Omega house I had supposedly championed was now allied with the very Alpha I’d painted as their ancestral predator, then what was my true role in the affair?
But that was the unfair advantage of being the Alpha of House Zeus. As long as he didn’t have any real proof of what I’d done and planned, there wasn’t anything he could do.
The lightning coiled under my skin, but I leashed it with ease. “Damon Blackwood acquired a powerful, unbonded Demeter Omega,” I continued smoothly. “An alliance is the logical next step to formalize such a significant acquisition. It’s sound politics on both their parts.”
“Perhaps,” Julian conceded, pursing his lips. His gaze shifted from me to the far wall, where a massive heliostat silentlytracked the low-swinging sun. “But it does recontextualize the events of that day, wouldn’t you agree?”
The heliostat’s mirrored surface caught the light and projected a single, perfect beam onto an intricate solar calendar. If I wasn’t mistaken, that damn thing had been a gift from my father.
Did Julian find that ironic? If he did, he certainly refused to show it. “The conflict felt so… existential,” he mused. “An ancient theft about to be repeated. Your counsel to House Demeter was instrumental in framing it as such. The Demeter Omegas have always been proud, but they have not been so bold in generations.”