Page 15 of Ride or Die (The Body Shop #5)

A s I cracked open my eyes on a black room with a glitzy chandelier, its frenzy of crystals each as ruby red as a drop of blood, I took comfort in the warm fur rising and falling under my cheek. “Anunit?”

A faint glow from the flickering black flames lighting the obscene fixture allowed us to make out our surroundings, but without our keen night vision, we would have been blind.

“I am here, Frankie Talbot.” Her sandpaper tongue raked across my hair, yanking on strands, treating me like I was a kit in need of a bath. “I am proud of you.” Her warm breath fanned my cheek as she lowered her head. “You laid our kin to rest.” She bumped me with her cold nose. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I clutched my head as my temples thumped out my heartbeat. I must not have slept long for the magic burnout to still linger, but the nap had given me time to heal the nub where my toe had been. That was something. Even better, Ankou was missing. “Where are we?”

“You are a visitor in my home,” a familiar smokey voice informed me. “Hello…daughter.”

The subtle rumble through Anunit’s chest revved to a deafening crescendo as it morphed into a growl.

Searching for the origin of the voice hurt too much, so I stared ahead. “You’re my father?”

Based on the conversation I overheard at Dis Pater’s house, he was in league with the enemy.

No wonder the omen knew my father wanted to meet me. She had the inside track via Dis Pater.

“You have many fathers,” he mused, “and many mothers too.”

Gods and their pointless riddles. “Who are you?”

“I am Ithas. Prometheus, if you like. The Forethinker. God of Fire.”

Prometheus.

Now that name I knew. Prometheus was a Titan, not a god.

Lore claimed he created mankind, with help from Athena, from clay in the image of the gods.

He was also cunning. A trickster. And he stole fire from Olympus to give to humans, resulting in a punishment more famous than any of his accomplishments.

“How’s your liver?” I sank my fingers into Anunit’s fur. “Been pecked by any eagles today?”

According to mythology, for the aforementioned crime of giving humans fire, Prometheus was chained in the Caucasus Mountains. An eagle—a symbol of Zeus—ate his liver each morning after the organ regenerated during the night.

“Ah. Yes. That.” His chuckle rasped out, rich and low. “Hercules slayed Aethon, did he not?”

With gods, I could never tell if they were acknowledging mythology or mocking history.

“That’s what the books say,” I said noncommittally. “So, you’re the one who wanted me dead.”

Feathers tickled my thigh as Anunit whipped her long tail against me.

“I wanted you evolved , but evolution requires change.”

Change was a funny way of spelling murder .

“Ankou brought me here.” The implications soured my stomach. “Does that mean you’re his god?”

“I am his master, yes.”

No wonder Ankou excelled at osteokinesis if his god created life, but how did I end up a death goddess if Ithas was neither a god nor death adjacent?

But…Ithas called himself Ankou’s master.

Did Ithas mean he hadn’t created him? That Ankou might be on loan?

Or was I reaching? Desperate to escape the notion of Ankou as a relative?

Kierce called his god his master, after all.

“Ankou knew that I was your daughter the whole time?”

“He has always known who you are to me.”

Something about his slippery turn of phrase struck me as untrue. “Even while he was hitting on me?”

Armie had always been flirty with me, and a pervert with everyone, but ick .

Even if Ithas had used his blood to bind Ankou into his service, it wasn’t like a few drops was enough to make me related to Ankou.

Not even a blood transfusion could do that.

I was freaking out over nothing. Ankou wasn’t a cousin or brother or uncle.

And even if this guy contributed to my DNA, Ithas wasn’t family.

Matty and Josie were my family. “Why arrange this meeting now?”

For someone eager to evolve me, he sure had taken his sweet time arranging our introduction.

“I have difficulty manifesting a body outside of Abaddon, but I wanted to meet you face-to-face.”

Hmm. That made it sound like I was safe from him in my world. Good to know.

“Except there’s no face.” I braced a hand against the wall to stand. “You’re hiding in the shadows.”

“There are other reasons I haven’t approached you until now.”

Dread balled in my gut, and I got the sense I wasn’t going to like what I saw when his outline solidified in front of me. The black mass of particles twisted and twined until a slender male form emerged dressed a bit like a Victorian gent. All he was missing, really, was a top hat.

Movement drew my gaze down to where he flexed his bare toes, ten of them.

Okay, he also needed shoes and to give me tips on how to hold on to appendages.

His feet were solid black, veined like the stone where Ankou dumped me into Abaddon.

That felt important, somehow, but I couldn’t say why.

“Give me a moment.” He drew a circle in the air before his face. “Fine details require the most effort.”

Three heartbeats later, a masculine version of my face stared back at me from beneath a thick curtain of white-blond hair that hung in his mossy eyes before he shoved it off his forehead with a scarred hand.

I wasn’t an expert, but the skin appeared burnt, roped with old injuries that had healed to a silvery white.

The similarities between us made my palms damp. “Is this your real face?”

“It is the face I wore at your conception, yes.” He let me look my fill. “Does it meet with your approval?”

Any trace of myself I had seen in him, any kinship I might have experienced, vanished when it hit me this version of him wasn’t real. To discover my looks were by design rather than a true family resemblance made me feel less real too.

This right here was exactly why us Marys hadn’t wanted to learn about our parents.

We had always known they would only disappoint us, and Ithas had done a bang-up job proving us right.