Page 351 of The First Taste

My heart rate begins to thrum. “And how exactly would that help us?”

“Relax. We aren’t going to kill yer little girlfriend,” Ares says, rolling his eyes. “Eros is just brainstorming.” He pauses, yawning. “Did ye notice that it is hot as balls in here?”

Eros’s face tightens. I know that look. He was in fact trying to suggest that we should kill Persephone and start over with a new forger. That’s bloody obvious.

It’s important to me to seem impartial, so I let it slide.

“Constantine might just be sniffing around, trying to figure out when and where our next deal is going to take place,” I say. I purse my lips. “He might be relying on us to lash out when he gets too close to uncovering our secrets.”

“That is entirely possible.” Ares yawns, glancing at his watch. “I have to get some shut eye. We’ve been up for almost a whole day.”

He stands, using his meaty fist to bump Eros on the shoulder. Eros yawns, too, cracks his neck, and heaves himself up. “Fucking time differences.”

“Ye’ll have to sleep in yer car,” I tell them.

Ares yawns and flips me off, but he doesn’t argue as he heads out the door again. Eros is right on his tail, starting to argue with him over who should sleep where in the car.

I stand as they head out, watching them silently. Planning my next move, as it were.

I guess I should first check on Persephone. When I lumber into the bedroom, I find her crouched by the corner.

“Lass?”

She nearly jumps out of her skin. Looking at me with wide eyes, she silences me with a finger placed against her lips. When she moves back, she reveals a little bundle of twigs that has been stuffed with bits of fabric and wool. Something wriggles inside.

I lean closer, frowning, and I can just make out a pink, wrinkly newborn rabbit.

My eyes widen. I glance at her.

Rabbits have always been close to my cold, dead heart. They remind me of when I was young, when I would care for wild rabbits in the lush green springs of the Hebrides.

I often thought of them secretly as my friends.

Now, though, I tilt my head at the little clutch secreted away in the bundle of twigs.

“Where did they come from?” I ask, my voice low.

Persephone glances back at me with a shrug. “I don’t know. I just found them here. It seems foolish to bother them.” She frowns and looks around. “I’m not sure where their mother is.”

I watch her face for a second as she looks at the little bundle. She frets, her brow creasing.

I remember all too well having tender feelings about beasts just like these rabbits. Something inside me seizes and jerks, finding common ground where none was expected.

So far, Persephone has shown me prickly, weepy and pleading. But I haven’t had a chance to see this softer side of her.

A side that beckons to me, whispers that there is so much more of this woman yet to be discovered.

She looks back at me, her hazel eyes concerned. “Do you think that the mother will be okay out there with all this going on?”

She motions to the roof so that I know she means the weather. Her distress seems genuine.

“If I had to guess, lass, this weather is a part of everyday life here.” I suck in a breath.

She nods, looking at the rabbits. “I would hate for them to be without their mother. That’s all. No one should be motherless.”

At Persephone's mention of being motherless, I back out of the room. A pang strikes at my heart. I know what it is like to grow up without a mother.

There is one little part of me that desperately wants to know what Persephone's story is. Needs to have her tell me everything, no holds barred, from her birth to present. I’m just dying of curiosity.