Maybe I am. “Days ago I said we should get out of here and hide!”
Flynn recovers first. “Who needs to run when you’ve got magic fangs? And fire cages.” He waves his good arm in circles, imitating me, I guess.
Beta Sinta grabs my shoulders and glares at me. He looks like he’s about to explode. He might want to shake me. Or kiss me again. I can’t tell. Given the choice, I’d rather a good shake. Definitely, a good shake.
“When I tell you to run, you run!”
I roll my eyes, and he shakes me so hard my teeth clack together.
“If I’d run, you’d all be dead.”
“That’s beside the point!” he bellows.
“That is the point!”
His fingers dig into my shoulders. Growling a curse, he lets go and drags his bloody hands through his hair, slicking it back. “How?”
“How what?”
His eyes flash. A muscle bulges in his jaw. “How in the name of the Gods did you get magic fangs?” He flings a hand toward the fallen. I refuse to look.
I think what he’s really asking is why I didn’t do this before, why I didn’t call on the Gods weeks ago and murder him and his men in their sleep. I suppose I could have, if the Gods were listening, and one in particular. But since Poseidon has taken Beta Sinta under his trident, I doubt he would give me the means to kill him. And I don’t take murder lightly. Kill or be killed, okay, but so far, the Sintans haven’t hurt me.
“Who cares?” I shrug. “The Kingmaker’s alive and bound by an unbreakable vow. Hooray for you. Congratulations to the lucky tyrant.”
“Cat. Be reasonable.”
Reasonable? Reasonable! “Don’t ask me about magic and Gods, and I won’t ask you about warlord stuff.” My tone lets him know just how insignificant “warlord stuff” is in comparison to magic and Gods.
Beta Sinta’s gray eyes flicker with irritation. Ha!
Sort of.
Annoying him wasn’t actually that satisfying.
His hard look turns even flatter than usual. “God Daughter? Or lover?”
I swallow. For a southern Sintan Hoi Polloi warlord who doesn’t know magic from a goat, he sure knows how to hit a Cyclops in the eye every now and then. “Why do you care?”
Something primal flares in his gaze. “Either way, you’re mine now.”
Nervous laughter bubbles out of me. “Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me. You would defy a God for a Kingmaker?”
“He gave you to me.”
My heart stops. He did, didn’t he?
“God Father,” I answer with a shrug. “No Olympian lovers for me.”
That primal look turns wholly possessive, doing unacceptable things to my insides. Before I can think about anything, and especially that quick, rough kiss, power bites the edges of my awareness. I turn toward the source and see a bowman nocking an arrow.
Fisans always have three bowmen. I can’t believe I forgot. He must have come up the back side of the rise, and he’s sighting the biggest target. Always take down the strongest first.
He lets fly, and the arrow zooms toward us with unnatural speed, glowing Chimera’s Fire in its wake. I reach, but the fight and the fangs have left me drained, and I can’t grab the magic.
“Griffin!” I twist and jump in front of him. Pain lances my back as the arrow slams me into Beta Sinta’s chest. I clamp down on a cry and push off as hard as I can before I burst into flames. He stubbornly holds on, his face blank with shock. I cuff him in the ear, startling him into letting me go seconds before the inferno engulfs me.
My scream splinters the air. Crimson heat swallows me whole. My back bows in agony. My skin blisters instantly. The blaze deafens me to my own howl as my world narrows to pain—intense, searing pain. Then the flames suddenly implode, sucked inside for later.
I stagger and draw in a shuddering breath. My whole body shakes. My clothes are mostly gone, and my skin is revolting—an angry, charred mix of red and black. A violent tremor runs through me, excruciating, and then the healing process takes hold.
The bowman is frantically chanting fire into another arrow. I can’t let him get away after what he just saw, or let him kill someone. Somehow, I force a thread of Chimera’s Fire from my depths and will it toward the Fisan.
The magic is fast, a bright smear in the air. The Fisan burns, but unlike me, he doesn’t rise from the ashes. And that’s all that’s left. His scream still rings in my ears, but I don’t even see a bone.
The tension keeping me upright disappears along with the bowman, and my knees turn to liquid. My breath comes in short, painful pants. My eyes are doing their best to roll back in my head.