“Soph!” Dread gripped his throat.
She sagged, but her eyes lifted, meeting his. Then she lit up like a torch. Lightning cracked from her body and sent the three men flying off. She reeled in shock. The last two ruffians charged, including the blond. She held up her hands to ward them off and twin thunderbolts shot from her palms.
She gasped. So did Piers. She’d laid out five men. They smoldered on the sidewalk.
Sophie looked at her hands in horror. “Oh my God.”
Novalight shoved the female soldier aside and crouched. The woman scrambled to her feet and ran. With his power-fevered eyes avidly trained on Sophie, the scientist didn’t even see Piers’s boot coming for his head. Piers knocked him unconscious and raced to Sophie’s side.
He grabbed her still-hot hand and pulled her from the scene of the fight. A family out for a walk had just stumbled upon their secluded pathway, and the mother lifted her phone just as he and Sophie ducked into the woods.
They ran until their lungs burned. They ran until they left the park. They ran all the way back to their hotel room. They ran until Sophie collapsed on their bed.
“I killed people. I killed people. I’m going to jail.” She turned and sobbed into his chest. The lightning in her blood—the most incredible and rare of all magic—had long since sunk back inward, leaving her cold to the touch.
Piers gathered her close, trying to warm away her shock. He rocked her as she cried, telling her again and again that she hadn’t killed anyone. He’d looked, and he was sure. Novalight and his henchmen were all alive—which meant they weren’t done yet.
~8~
Sophie thought shewas scared before? This was worse. Her hands had lit up andelectrocutedpeople. Her entire body had become a high-voltageweapon. She’d thrown a bunch of men off her with only theintentionof defending herself. She’d madelightning.
She kept trying to wrap her head around the idea, but apparently, her mind wasn’t that bendy. Nothing made sense to her. Except for fear. There was plenty of that.
According to Piers, lightning wielders only came from Zeus’s bloodline. And the magic only manifested in the most powerful and unique of people. His brother’s wife, Cat, was apparently one of these mega-special Magoi, and she was practically a demigoddess on her way to ruling an entire continent!
What a special snowflake.
Evidently, so was Sophie. A special snowflake. Alone on Earth. Able to zap people.
“Oh my God,” she murmured for the five hundredth time in an hour.
“Gods.” Piers squeezed her shoulder with strong, reassuring fingers, stopping her manic pacing. “I think it’s time to start believing.”
Oh, she believed, all right. She believed she needed to get the hell away from that ice shard and go back to Connecticut. She loved Pinebury. She loved teaching. She loved her family. She didnotlove the Shard of Olympus. “We have to get rid of that thing.”
“You might lose your magic. The shard might be the only thing giving you access to it here in Att…on Earth,” he said.
“Good.” Sophie glared at the shard on the desk, backing away from it. “I want it gone forever.”
“Are you sure?” Piers frowned in thought. “You—and the Shard of Olympus—could be the key to bringing magic back to this world.”
Possibly the most inelegant sound she’d ever made shot from Sophie’s mouth. “That’s the last thing this world needs. People are already destructive enough without adding unstoppable superhero powers to the mix.” She huffed, shaking her head. “You can’t tell me everyone in Thalyria uses their magic for good. Even your sister-in-law, Cat. You keep saying she’s a reckless, power-hungry warmonger. And she’s yourfamily!”
Piers’s lip curled. “She’s Griffin’s wife. Not my family.”
That sounded like the same thing to Sophie. “You don’t always get to choose, Piers. Sometimes, it’s someone else’s choice, and if you love that person, you just have to accept it.”
A shadow flitted through his eyes. He pinched his forehead. He looked guilty as hell, but Sophie didn’t have the emotional capacity right now to deal with whatever troubled him. She had her own epic freak-out going on. “And besides—”
“What’s that?” Piers pointed at the television.
Sophie glanced over. They’d turned on a local news station to try to see if there was, you know, amanhuntgoing on for them. She half expected to see Novalight hopping up and down and proclaiming himself a victim, but it was only an advertisement for tours to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
“The Statue of Liberty.” She waved a hand toward the screen, distractedly explaining, “It’s a symbol of freedom and hope to anyone seeking a new home or refuge in this country. Kind of like you, I guess.”
“It’s Eleutheria. It’s a colossus of Eleutheria. She personifies Liberty.”
“You mean Libertas? Oh, wait…” Sophie watched the images scroll by on the muted television. “Eleutheria must be the Greek equivalent. Libertas is the Roman goddess they used as a model.”
