Kyrian was right, he’d been blessed by the gods. His family had done their best to protect their son and keep him safe. Even when he insisted that he fight as a soldier, his father had surrounded him with a personal guard of the best soldiers he could find, and sent him to train under Julian of Macedon—the most skilled and respected commander of the Greek city-states of that time. Alkis of Thrace had spared no expense to protect his only son. He would have done anything for Kyrian.
And when Kyrian had married a prostitute against his wishes, Alkis had tried his best to make his unreasonable son see the truth of her.
Kyrian had refused. In love with the fa?ade she presented to him, and deluded by her lies, he’d listened to no one about his Theone. Nothing could make him let her go, not even when his father had disinherited him as a last resort.
Theone had been his life and he’d abandoned his troops when he’d heard she was in danger. Riding day and night, he’d gone to her side to rescue her, only to have her drug him and turn him over to his enemies for torture and execution.
His family had done everything they could to try and save him. Alkis had offered to surrender all of Thrace to Roman control. Kyrian’s sister Althea had offered herself up as a slave to his mortal enemy, Valerius Magnus the Elder.
That was true love. Unconditional love. After all the bitter words Kyrian had spoken to his father, King Alkis had still done his best to save him and spare him from Theone’s treachery.
Unfortunately, the Romans had no intention of letting him go. He’d been too good a commander for that. They knew if he were to ever go free again, he’d defeat them and destroy their empire. As the ancient historians had written, when Kyrian of Thrace led his army to war, Rome fell like leaves during a bitter frost.
And on the day his father had received word of Kyrian’s execution, the proud King Alkis of Thrace had killed himself over it.
Nick blinked back tears as he choked on grief. He could feel the anguish and guilt that Kyrian lived with every day for what he’d done. By seeking his own happiness and believing the lies of one treacherous woman, he’d ruined his entire family and destroyed his nation.
One moment of blind selfishness …
No wonder he didn’t talk about it. No wonder Kyrian didn’t trust anyone. How could he?
But that was the trick in life. Deciphering who had your best interests at heart. Who was in it for you and who was in it for themselves. More often than not, you didn’t find out until you were like Kyrian and left hanging to die.
Nick reached up and touched Althea’s hand. For the merest instant, he could have sworn that she gripped his fingers.
Yeah, that was freaky.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered to them. “I won’t let anything happen to your brother. I’ve got his back for you.”
But who has yours?
Nick jumped at the disembodied voice that whispered in his ear.
What the heck?
Using his powers, he scanned the room with his demonic eyes.
There was nothing here. No sound in the aether. No scent …
Yet that had definitely been a feminine voice speaking English.
“Crap.” The one thing Nick had learned these last couple of years …
A disembodied voice whispering in his ear was a harbinger of bad things a’coming. And it definitely didn’t help that both War and Death had declared open warfare on him already. The Grim Reaper had told him to buckle up.
Obviously, it was on.
CHAPTER 2
“Whoa, Gautier! You’re jumpier than normal, which given the fact that you could double as a hyperactive squirrel most days, says a lot.”
Nick grimaced as Brynna Addams and LaShonda Thibideaux stopped beside him at his locker. “Thought you were Caleb sneaking up on me to do something foul … like wedgie me before class,” he lied, hoping Brynna would accept his excuse. Not that Caleb needed to sneak up on him to give him a wedgie.
Evil demonkyn snot could do that with his Jedi mind tricks from across the room. And had been known to do so in his crankier moods.
One day, Nick was going to fully master his and return that favor.
Then run like heck into another dimension where hopefully Caleb would never find him.
“Ah. That explains it.” Adorably cute as she stepped up to reach for her lock, Brynna was an average girl-next-door who dressed in understated khaki pants and conservative button-downs, while LaShonda was her flamboyant best friend with a flair for stylish J-pop trends. Today, Shon had gone in for that whole sexy Japanese Lolita schoolgirl uniform that reminded Nick of something out of a fantasy manga—right down to the frilly white cuffs and bright frou-frou red bow tie, and a blazer that was two sizes too small, which seriously emphasized a part of her ample anatomy he wasn’t looking at because he didn’t want to get Jack-slapped for sexual harassment.
Not that it was the only reason.… Also, because he wasn’t a lech.
However, he would be a most happy and well-behaved boy if his woman would borrow some of LaShonda’s outfits from time to time.
Yeah, Kody would look incredible in that.