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“Then Bella is exactly where she should be. For everyone’s protection, including her own.”

“Well, you see, that’s why I’m here to talk to you,” I said. “I think Ava wanted you to lock up Bella in your dungeon.”

“To what end?”

“So that Bella is right where she needs to be in order to kill you.”

“She would have to break out of my dungeon first,” he told me. “And that isn’t happening. It’s never happened before.”

“She cut through an army of gods like they were nothing. I think it’s safe to say that the rules of the game have changed. That’s why I’m here.” I grabbed a magazine off the side table and cracked it open. “To protect you.”

“You believe you can protect me better than my own soldiers?” He laughed. “Ok, very well, Leda. I will play along, if only to humor you.”

Well, wasn’t he amiable today?

“I promise I’ll protect you,” I told him. “Though you might want to put on shoes or—I don’t know—a shirt or something. Just in case you have to fight too, Faris.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? It is your name,” I reminded him.

“And you are my daughter.”

“Ok, whatever you want, Pops.”

He frowned. “You could at least try to take this seriously, Leda. After all, I am trying to be your father.”

“Oh, really?” I gave him a wary look. “Were you being my father when you threatened my family if I didn’t do whatever you said? Or when you tried to turn me against Nero? Or when you designed me to be a living weapon, just like Ava did to Bella?”

Right now, I was seriously wondering why I was protecting Faris. He’d done a lot of really shitty things over the years.

“Calm down,” he said levelly. “You’re making a scene.”

“A scene? For whom?” I jumped up, looking around at the empty library. “No one else is here.”

“Gods have excellent hearing. If the soldiers stationed outside this room hear you screaming at me, they’ll wonder why I allowed you to leave here unscathed.”

“Deities are so screwed up.”

“Then you are ‘screwed up’ too,” he countered.

“Me? What did I do?”

“It’s not what you did, Leda. It’s who you are: the daughter of a god and a demon, which makes you a deity too,” he pointed out.

I frowned. I hated that he had a point.

“Your husband is a deity too, an Immortal,” he continued. “Therefore, so is that sweet little daughter of yours.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I just sat down again.

“Good.” He nodded in approval. “Nice to see you’re learning to control your temper. You’ll need a level head if you’re going to survive what I have planned for you.”

I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “What exactly do you have planned for me?”

“Never you mind about that,” he replied. “Instead, since we’re waiting around anyway, tell me about what you’ve been doing.”

“Well, right now, I’m busy trying to find a way to cure Bella’s curse, worrying that the god-demon alliance is going to crumble and then the Guardians will destroy us all, trying to get the former Plains of Monsters in order?—”