Poisoned Kisses by Stephanie Draven Page A

They make it seem like what you’re doing is just your nature, that it’s your own idea, all the while extracting promises from you to turn you into a minion.”
    “Luckily, I don’t make promises anymore,” Marco said.
    But he had. He’d made her promises last night, with his words and with his body. Some liked to say that skin doesn’t lie—but Kyra knew better. And it hurt. She tried to shake it off, as much for his sake as her own. “The gods will want you to pledge to be their minion and they don’t care a whit for your consent. They only care about claiming you as their own, so that other gods can’t take you away.”
    “Well, I’m no one’s minion,” Marco snarled. “Are you?”
    “I used to be.” Kyra sat up straighter on the bed. “I was given to Hecate as an infant and swore myself to her when I came of age. But she freed me a long time.”
    He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to figure out what to make of her. “So as a hobby, you now go around assassinating arms dealers?”
    She snorted. “You were my first.”
    He raised a suggestive eyebrow. “Somehow, I really doubt that.”
    “My first assassination attempt,” she spit out. “I’ve killed other men and monsters in self-defense, but you were the first person I tried to kill outright.”
    “Should I be honored?” he asked, that voice of his low and dangerous.
    “Look, Marco, Daddy had a file on you. He was looking for you—actively searching you out. So I took the file, I used it to hunt you down in Naples, and then I destroyed it. Don’t make it all have been for nothing.”
    Something she’d said ignited a spark of recognition behind his eyes. “If Ares really exists, why can’t he just snap his fingers and find me?”
    Kyra tried very hard not to roll her eyes, and mostly succeeded. “Gods aren’t all-powerful. They never were. Do you think Hera would have let Zeus get away with all his affairs if she could’ve just snapped her fingers and found him anytime she liked?”
    Marco sucked slightly at his teeth. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
    She had no answer for that. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but what you’re doing is illegal—it’s immoral.”
    “Yeah? Where were all these laws and morals when it came to Rwanda?” he demanded. “Some people want to make it seem complicated, but the way I see it is very simple. Where do you think those genocidal Hutu militiamen went after they were kicked out of Rwanda? They went to Zaire, and the people there need guns to fight them.”
    “That’s not what the people there need,” Kyra said, though she wasn’t prepared to debate global weapons policy in the nude. Since she was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to shoot her, she found her underwear and started to put them on. He watched her bared breasts as she slipped into her bra, his face caught somewhere between arousal and contempt. And that’s when Kyra heard tires crunching on the snow outside. “Someone’s here.”
    He stood, starting for the bedroom door. “Yeah, I called the people that work for me. I just didn’t expect Benji to be here so soon.”
    “But you can’t leave,” she blurted.
    Marco hesitated only a moment. “Why not?”
    There were many reasons, and not all of them had to do with her destiny or thwarting Ares anymore. She wanted Marco to stay because he needed her. Being with him made her feel like she still belonged in this world. But to admit such a thing to a mortal was self-destructive. He’d only leave her, anyway, and then she’d be like all the other sad nymphs who had changed into weeping trees and crying fountains and teardrops of amber. Kyra wouldn’t let that happen. Never! “You can’t leave because…because I need to convince you to let me hide you from Ares.”
    Marco snorted. “You can’t convince me of anything, Kyra, because you’ve already told too many lies. Is that even your name?”
    Kyra nodded, hurt that the first time she