Davin stood nearby wearing an arrogant smirk. Or as I liked to call it, his default setting. I shot him a cold look. What did he have to be so amused about, huh? It wasn’t like he was any further into Kaya’s good graces than Erebus, and at least they had some palpable chemistry. Davin only had chemistry with himself.
“Don’t you know this is a no smirking zone?” I chided him.
His grin widened. “Not your wittiest remark.”
“Maybe not, but what’s got you so smug? Do you know something I don’t?” I didn’t know anything, really, so that wouldn’t have taken much. But maybe I could jiggle some intel out of him.
“Naturally.” He smoothed a hand across the lapel of his suit.
I stretched my stiff limbs. “Let me guess—you’re having too much fun being the only one with any clue what’s going on. That doesn’t happen too often, does it? It’s usually me with the intel and you trailing after me like a hyena, waiting to snap up the scraps.”
“You pat yourself on the back all you like, Finch. You won’t get anything out of me.” Davin walked off to the opposite side of the room like a petulant child. He might as well have been singing, “I know something you don’t know, doo-da, doo-da.”
Nash yawned and plonked himself down beside Ryann and me, with Huntress squirming halfway onto his lap. “You’re barking up the wrong Brit, Finch.”
“I thought he might’ve had a change of heart, now that he’s pitted himself against Erebus.” I ruffled Huntress’s fur for comfort. There was nothing like a dog to make a person feel grounded.
My gaze settled on the grate in the door. As if sensing my gaze, Kaya stopped pacing and approached the door, peering through at us like we were some kind of human experiment. Her strange eyes observed the room, measuring each of us from head to toe.
How do we get you to trust us, Kaya? There had to be a way to win her over. Whatever happened next, we needed her on our side. That would take some time and a bit of my own observation, of her and the people around her. Melody had been right to ask a bunch of questions, no matter how annoyed they’d seemed to make Kaya. The more we learned about these folk, the better. Knowledge was power. And frankly, it was the only weapon left to us.
A ruckus erupted outside the cell, and Kaya spun around. Footsteps echoed in the hallway beyond, and the princess stiffened with surprise. She glanced back through the grate at Erebus in a state of sudden panic. We found out why a second later, when the door burst open and an imposing beast of a man stormed in.
He stood well over six feet tall, sporting shoulders that made Luke look like an amateur weightlifter. His curled mane of icy white hair bounced with such vivacity he could’ve been in a shampoo commercial. Well, if he hadn’t been glaring like he wanted to murder us all.
“This is an outrage!” he roared in a voice that matched his mighty presence. “How dare you return! This is an insult to me and my people, Erebus! Did we not make it clear last time that you are not welcome?”
Erebus merely gave a half-assed bow. He didn’t even bother to bend at the waist. “King Ovid.”
“Why are you here?” the king repeated. At least that explained the majesty this guy carried himself with. He really was a Majesty—capital M. “You should not have come back!”
“I came for Kaya.” Erebus met the king’s gaze.
Ah, the perils of the father-in-law… I saw a degree of fear and respect in Ovid’s eyes, but there was a lot of obvious loathing too.
Ovid’s eyes bugged. “She is not for you, Erebus. I know what you are, and so I am showing you due courtesy by not having you thrown into the ocean, but this is beyond the pale. After what you did, you honestly thought there would be no repercussions? You will not have the opportunity to hurt my daughter again.”
Come on! Put your paternal money where your mouth is! Throw him out! I’d already picked my side. If anyone could destroy Erebus’s human body and eject him from Atlantis, it had to be this behemoth.
“I do not plan to hurt her.” Erebus gestured toward Kaya, who wisely hung back from the mayhem. “I will not repeat the mistakes I made last time. I have had fifty years to improve not only myself, but what I may offer your daughter. Take this body, for example—it is capable of siring children, in a way I could not before.”
Chaos help me, if I made the kind of joke I desperately wanted to make, I’d surely get my head swiped off by Erebus. It took everything I had to bite my tongue. There’d clearly been a lot more in that Fountain of Youth than I’d thought. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
“What?” Kaya stepped forward, her eyes wide.
Erebus smiled at her. “This body is capable of creating a child without killing you. It was forged in the Fountain of Youth specifically for this occasion.”
Man, some guys will do anything to get some action. I was actually pretty impressed with myself for not launching quip after quip at Erebus’s expense. This was growth if ever I’d seen it.
“That does not negate the wrongs you have done,” Ovid barked back. “You cannot simply expect me to take you at your word.”
What, do you want to check under the hood yourself? Ah man, this was killing me.
Davin swept into the mix. “King Ovid, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Davin Doncaster, and I am also here to ask for Kaya’s hand in marriage. My body is as you see it. I am human, and I wish only to make your daughter happy. I would never do anything to hurt her.”
Ovid eyed him suspiciously. “How did you know it is the time for suitors?”
“I was a former servant of Erebus, and I fell in love with the stories of Kaya that Erebus told. I came to pursue her hand because she is as lovely in the flesh as I imagined she would be.” Davin bowed low, giving it the full ninety degrees. “Erebus tried to use me to reach Atlantis five years ago and sought to kill me when I failed him. He didn’t know I had put a failsafe in place as a test, to see if he had any ounce of kindness in him. He doesn’t, as I found out when he let me drown while he watched. But I resurrected myself for Kaya, knowing I couldn’t die until I had won her heart. So I urge you to stand by your morals, because he is not the sort of man that any father would want for their daughter—the kind of man who wouldn’t even offer a hand to a drowning servant who’d served him well.”
Erebus let Davin drown?! My head spun. I’d presumed he’d done away with himself so he could use the amulet to bring himself back and escape his servitude. But judging by the stunned expression on Erebus’s face, Davin was telling the truth. Erebus had been the one to let Davin die, and that may have been the biggest mistake he’d ever made.
“You resurrected yourself?” Ovid’s eyes glistened with interest.
Davin nodded. “I am a Necromancer, but I am also able to revive myself, an ability I sought because I knew Erebus would stab me in the back. I held out hope that he would be benevolent, but he hasn’t a kind bone in his body—neither in this form nor his true form.”
“You wretch!” Erebus sniped. “King Ovid, do not listen to this cretin. He is nothing but a double-crosser and a traitor. He knew what was expected of him, and he knew the consequences of failure. My actions show the qualities of a fair leader.”