Or, like Xev and Caleb, she was older than dirt.
“I’m…” Nick hesitated. Technically, he was the Ambrose Malachai, but he was superstitious about taking that name yet. Even though it was correct, it just seemed like a really bad idea to call down that kind of mojo right now. The longer he could keep from becoming the monster he was destined to be, the better. “Nick.”
Pulling back, she curled her lip. “That’s a stupid name for a Malachai. What fool named you?”
“Excuse me? My mother is a wonderful lady.”
Her brow shot up and Nick remembered too late that Malachais were supposed to hate their mothers. Not defend them.
“You still haven’t told me who you are.”
Cocking her head, she studied him with a scowl. “How can a Malachai so powerful not know me on sight?”
Maybe because he still hadn’t quite mastered all of his powers? But again, he wasn’t about to own up to that when dealing with someone who could mop the street with him.
“Are you Yrre?” It seemed the most reasonable guess that she’d be the rider who’d almost mowed him down in school. It made sense. They were both dressed in white, came out of nowhere, and left him totally baffled.
She shook her head and laughed. “Do I look like that cow-faced dog?”
Uh, no. She looked pretty hot, actually. Hot enough to get him into serious trouble if Kody caught her standing this tight to his personal space.
Nick stepped back.
She followed. With an adoring expression, she brushed her hand through his hair. “Do you not feel your connection to me?”
He only felt a traitorous part of his body that wanted to be connected to her. But he knew better than to listen to that part of himself. It had a mind of its own that could get him into all kinds of nightmares if he let it. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Yes, you do. You know exactly of what I speak. You feel the blood that tells you who I am.”
“Nope. I feel nothing.” Except the urge to get away from her before she got him into all kinds of trouble no amount of apologizing could get him out of – not even a shiny object from Jared’s. He’d meant what he said. He would never, ever break Kody’s trust or her heart.
Not intentionally.
Nick froze mid-step as a peculiar image went through his mind. He saw the girl in ancient armor, wrapped around a multiheaded dragon. An inherited memory that came from one of his Malachai predecessors. In that instant, he knew the goddess’s name. “Tiamat.”
She inclined her head to him. “See, you do know me.”
Sort of. And one thing he knew about her… “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Her laughter rang like music in his ears. “No one can kill something as powerful as I. You only change my state of being. So why have you summoned me from my slumber, Malachai?”
A chill went down his spine at that question. “I didn’t summon you.”
Scowling, she gently fingered his cheek. “It’s always about you, Malachai. Haven’t you learned that yet? Besides, who else would dare disturb me?”
“Someone with a death wish?”
She laughed aloud at that. “You’re a cheeky one, aren’t you?”
Not at the moment. At the moment, though, it pained him to admit it even to himself, he was rather afraid. This was one of the most dangerous of the chaos gods. She had birthed more monsters than Echidna.
Come to think of it, she might have even birthed Echidna. He never could keep all that mythology straight.
Lowering her head, she stepped back as if she was listening to the aether voices that constantly drove Nick crazy whenever he tried to understand them. Her eyes glowed a deep, scary red. She dropped her hand from his face. “As much as I would love to stay and chat, I have much to do and little time to work it.”
Before he could blink, she was gone.
Rain poured down over him as soon as she was gone. Crap. He had a bad, bad feeling deep in the pit of his stomach.
Suddenly, everything around him stopped. Even the rain. No. Not stopped. It froze in place like a painting. Nick turned a slow circle as he tried to make sense of what was happening.
He felt so out of sync with everything. Out of time. It was like being in the Nether Realm or the darkness that existed between dimensions. Only he wasn’t lost or misplaced. He was in his time and correct plane.
Just not lined up right.
Like a cog that was ever so slightly misaligned. And then he felt it… that presence that had been missing for so long. “Ambrose?”
“Find the Eye.” It was the faintest of whispers.
“What? What eye?”
“The Eye of Ananke.” Ambrose appeared to him as nothing more than a mere translucent shadow with red eyes. The only way he knew for a fact it was him was the faint outline of Artemis’s double bow-and-arrow mark on his cheek. It marked the spot where the Greek goddess would one day remove his soul from him.