Dice were thrown.
Cards were played.
An heir tossed his head back as he laughed, laurel crown gleaming.
Turning away from the joyous scene, I picked at the platter of food, eyes closing with each savory bite as I tried to commit the flavors to memory.
Time passed. I lost myself in the luxury of food and music as I tried to forget about Augustus’s glowing crimson eyes.
My mind is my own. I shoved him out. He didn’t win. He won’t. I will survive.
I hummed softly in the back of my throat, and my eyes fluttered as I fought off sleep.
“Here she is, sir,” someone sneered.
Theros—Drex’s mentor and heir to the House of Zeus, also part-time egomaniac who could create a shield—gestured, with a golden vulture on his shoulder, from me to a Goliath of a man.
Then Theros bowed his head deeply, shot me a withering glare, and moved a discreet distance away.
“I’ve been looking for you,” the Goliath said, voice dripping with accusation. An oversize laurel crown glittered with jewels atop his head.
He was the only House leader at the symposium. From what I could tell, everyone else was heirs and mutts.
Sighing, I sat up and pulled my elbows off the table. So focused on eating, I’d forgotten about Augustus’s original message.
Electricity sparked as storm-gray eyes sized me up.
Zeus towered above me, firelight illuminating his famous features. A golden lion stood beside him with matching eyes.
I sank back into the shadows.
Without invitation, Zeus sat down in the booth, and I scrambled away so we were across from each other.
The lion bared its teeth threateningly and took a step back.
I made a face at it.Get in line—the cheetah hated me first. Its eyes narrowed as it slowly settled down onto its belly.
“So,” Zeus said without preamble, “you grew up in the human world?”
“Yep, I d-did.”
His eyes narrowed, brow furrowing. “Have you always had that stutter?”
There’d been a time—a hazy memory of peace—where words fell easily from my mouth, smooth and unbothered, but that was before the beatings had started. Long before I’d become who I was.
That time didn’t count.
“Yes.”
“Can you control it at all? Or do you always have it?” he asked judgmentally.
“I always have it.”
“Have you taken speech therapy, or worked on yourself?”
I ground my teeth together. “Nope.”
Funnily enough, speech therapy wasn’t an option for a poor orphan in the protected zones. Neither was food. Or shelter.
