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“Yes,” Daphne said, her Athena side coming out in the logical way she spoke. “But it’s better that than his life.”

“Won’t whoever gave it to him notice?” I asked.

Daphne gave me a small smile and quick nod of her head. “Aphrodite stepped in for that one. I told her that he lost it to an infection and I wanted to give him the best prosthetic there was. She was able to tweak it so that you can’t even tell it’s not his skin anymore. Then we reapplied the tattoo.”

“And that way he can tell you if anyone approaches him in the future?” I guessed, confirmed by Daphne’s nod.

I looked up at Adrian, a momentary pulse of panic squeezing my heart when I saw the hard set of his jaw. “What do you do next?”

Adrian ran his hand over his jaw, tensionreverberating down his entire body. All the way to where the muscles in his leg were hardened against mine. “I have every spy I trust looking out for any signs. We have to handle this carefully, though.”

There was a low hum of agreement throughout the room. “We’ve put people through enough strife and upheaval over the past few decades. If we blow this up—turn this into something where we are knocking down doors and threatening people to find out who is behind this, it will do the exact opposite of what we want.”

“Give people even more reason to resist your power,” I supplied.

Adrian let out a low grumble of agreement. “Until it’s unwise, I want to do this quietly. But now that they are going public, starting to actively call for new leadership, we need to speed up the process.”

“How can I help?” I asked, softly. Too softly, enough that it was a quiet plea to Adrian instead of an offer to the entire room.

There was a twinge of a smile on Adrian’s lips and they parted as if to respond, but Dominic’s voice stepped in. “Avery. Daphne’s guard,” he explained. “We could place him with a member of your family. If your father isn’t involved or hasn’t already heard of it, I imagine he will soon.”

“Why?” I asked, curious what his take was. As much as I was sure my father wasn’t a major player in whatever this was, I wasn’t going to ignore another opinion.

“If someone is trying to take over, they need money and support,” Dominic said, coming down to rest his forearms on his thighs. I was pretty sure the move was perfectly timed with Rose smoothing her hand downhis back. “People will respect the power of a god, sure. But your father’s word…”

“Would convince a lot of people to follow suit,” I finished. He was right. I would be willfully ignorant if I didn’t acknowledge how well-respected my father was in society. Despite our personal difference of opinion on some of the inner workings of his business, there was no denying his power. Mortal power, that was.

“Precisely,” Dominic agreed.

I breathed in, considering the options, then offered, “Avery could easily join my—”

“Absolutely not.”

It took a second for everyone to place the origin of those words, spoken in a low, threatening voice that scraped through the room like tires over gravel. The tone was shocking enough on its own, but was rattling when combined with a boom of thunder so loud it shook the windows.

“Adrian,” Persy warned, her attention now focused fully on him.

“I said no,” he repeated. Then looked at me, making me confront the full force of the storm in his eyes. “I’ve compromised your safety enough just by attaching myself to you. We can’t be sure that Avery’s cover hasn’t been blown. And if they come after him and you are caught in the cross hairs…” He trailed off, rolling his lip between his teeth as if to consider what the appropriate reaction was. “It’s not an option,” he settled on.

“Adrian,” I said, carefully. “I’m sure it’s—”

“No.”

His face had turned to stone, impervious to any disagreement. Anyone would take the set of his mouth as final proof of how serious he was, even consideringhis words to be a harsh assertion of authority.

But I knew better. I looked at his eyes instead. Then down to his hand, clenched over his knee. A small spark of white, lilac light peeked out between his fingers.

There was control on the surface, but a storm underneath.

“Put him with your brother,” Persy cut in, breaking the tension in half with her nonchalant tone. I turned to look at her, having to force myself away from cataloging every inch of Adrian’s face, trying to find the cracks in the stone.

She was dunking a piece of the biscuit in her tea, picking it back up with her spoon. Like the tension didn’t even register. It was that calm, cool demeanor that made her uniquely able to handle what she did.

I wasn’t sure the full force of a god’s power, even directed solely at her, could rattle that disposition.

Persy’s words had allowed a collective breath to trickle back into the room.

“Pull someone from his detail to Reyna’s,” Rose supplied, holding her tea cup close to her chest.