Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) by Zee Monodee, Natalie G. Owens Page A

defeated whisper.
    Sera murmured something in Will’s ear, then she stood and turned her back on them before stomping toward the castle. The dog whimpered, until Old Jim petted him on the head.
    The craggy face turned to her with a gentle smile. “Don’t let her get to you. Children always act up.”
    She gave him a weary smile. “Don’t I know that. Mark my words, she’s thinking of a way to make me pay as we speak.”
    “She’s a good girl, at heart.”
    Adri nodded. Too bad her daughter couldn’t be a good girl on the surface, too. At least with her. Perhaps it was her fault for not treating her daughter more as the adult that she was. Was she too hard on Sera? She was, after all, a grown woman who’d been through Hell and back in her lifetime.
    No. After what had happened, and Sera failing to confide in her, she had no alternative. Her mother’s heart brooked no argument.
    After rubbing Will’s head in goodbye, she trudged up the path toward the castle, Sera firmly in her sights. She had to make sure the girl was inside and in the lower level as soon as possible. After that, she had a lot of work to do to protect the latest secret about Séraphine Dionysios.
    The air positively crackled with electricity the closer she got to the castle. Restless energy surged into her muscles, hurting like the trickling flow of lactic acid build-up in the body after a frenetic workout.
    Anxiety materialized to wrap itself around her heart and squeeze. Something not right waited at the house. What could it be? There wasn’t a place on earth more protected than that residence.
    Sera nipped into the interior from an opened French window. Adri sighed. Of course her daughter would go in from the north library and sitting rooms. The corner farthest from their living quarters, from where she could hope to dodge her mother’s vigilance by getting lost in the maze of corridors.
    Not on my life, you don’t, you cunning rascal. She forged into the north wing, passing from one room to the other in their Versailles-style enfilade structure. Catching sight of the bright red hair as Sera took a turn left, she accelerated her step, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight that greeted her.
    Energy bristled around her, the same electricity that had prickled her skin outside. No wonder, given who was here.
    “Grandpa!” Sera squealed and jumped to wrap her arms around the neck of the tall, huge man who had stood to greet her. The girl nearly disappeared into his barrel-chest once inside his embrace.
    As he released her, Sera turned for a fraction of a second to throw Adri a sly look. Oh yes, her daughter would make her pay. Starting with the over-enthusiastic welcome to the man she’d never wanted to see again.
    Zeus. Mighty god of Olympus. The one who had thrown her out on her arse two thousand and eight hundred years earlier.
    “What do you want?” she asked.
     

Chapter Six
     
    He had the gall to chuckle. “I should’ve expected that.”
    Adri snorted. Crossing her arms in front of her chest, she cocked her right hip and narrowed her gaze onto him. “What are you doing here?”
    He wrapped an arm around Sera’s shoulders and pulled her to him. The girl all but burrowed into his side.
    “Can’t a man come see his family when he misses them?”
    “You are not a man.” And we stopped being family the day you repudiated me.
    “Gosh, Mom. Do you have to be such a bitch?”
    “Watch your tongue, young lady,” Zeus said softly.
    The girl had the decency to look chastised. No wonder, given how she idolized the creature she considered her grandfather, and hero-worshipped her uncle. Bloody damn, she shouldn’t think of him. If he popped in here, they’d be in even more of an awkward relationship mess.
    As if summoned by the devil himself, Ares materialized in the sitting room.
    Adri closed her eyes. Oh, great. Just what she didn’t need. These two men couldn’t be in the same room without the Apocalypse breaking out.
    She