“Yeah? What about it?”
Nashira turned as white as her hair. “Is that what I think it is?”
Takeshi swallowed hard. “Yes.” He met Nick’s gaze and the feral fear that was deep in his eyes made Nick step back from him. “The green is where someone’s trying to throw your life out of alignment.”
That didn’t sound good at all. In fact, it was making his ulcer bleed—not that he had an ulcer, but at this rate, one might be developing.
And having babies.
Nick swallowed hard. “I thought that was the yellow.”
“No, the yellow is whereyou’vechanged it with the decisions you’ve made. And as you can see, it didn’t really alter anything. That green is someone else. Someone who shouldn’t have the ability to change anything in your life. And, kid, they’re shifting your future even as we speak.”
CHAPTER 2
Cyprian froze as a strange sensation went up his spine.
“Is something amiss, my lord?”
He cut a stinging glare to his obsequious minion. With greasy brown hair, and pock-marked skin, the slug demon was repugnant enough. That nasal tone only grated his nerves all the more. To the point, it was all he could do not to rip its head off and feast upon its organs. “Where’s my mother?”
“In her war room.”
He snorted at the pun given the fact that his mother was Laguerre … an ancient battle-goddess who didn’t so much as invent the art of war as she’d perfected it.
It was what she lived for. Blood. Mayhem. Utter and extreme violence. Those were her happy, go-to places.
Like him.
Reversing his course, Cyprian headed for the paneled study that held some of the deadliest artifacts in the known universe. Ancient artifacts that currently included his mother and her ex-husband, Grim.
Cyprian hesitated in the shadows of the doorway as the two of them poured over some matter with great intent. They were ever plotting against someone—many times for no other reason than they’d been given the wrong order at the local coffee shop.
Since his mother was a goddess, she didn’t appear more than a few years older than his teenaged body. But her beautiful, young looks were definitely deceiving.
As were Grim’s.
Much like Cyprian’s mother’s long languid movements that belied her quicksilver lethality. She’d deceived many fools to their graves with her slowness. They never realized just how swift she was to anger or stab.
Until it was too late.
Her dark hair fell to her waist in thick waves. It was a stark contrast to Grim’s lighter shade and stocky, muscled body. Together, the two of them had once led armies over the ancient world, destroying everything and everyone they came into contact with.
Good times that.
And why not? They were ancient gods of War and Death—the original riders who’d brought those concepts to the world of man and demon. Turmoil and chaos were what they lived for and what they both sought with every breath they drew forth into their not-so-human bodies.
Some thought that only Death could defeat War.
But Cyprian would take odds on his mother winning any fight between the two of them. She was vicious that way. Not to mention, she cheated.
They paused mid conversation to stare at him.
“Is something wrong?” his mother asked, making no attempt to hide her annoyance over Cyprian’s interruption. Which made sense, given that she could barely stand her son and had never glossed over that fact for anyone’s benefit.
Especially not Cyprian’s. Indeed, she’d gone out of her way totoughen him upwith insults and degradations to ensure that his skin was thicker than any tank brigade on the planet. At the rate she’d set fire to his more tender feelings, he should have bought stock in flame retardant Kevlar.
“Do you not feel it, Mother?”
