Stephanie Draven - Poisoned Kisses

Marco wanted to push Ashlynn away. This was none of her business and she should stay out of it. But his mother stopped struggling. “Oh, the light,” his mother murmured and in that moment, Marco thought he saw something flicker over the old woman’s scarred features. Something like… grace. “But you’re—you’re not Ashlynn, dear.”

“Of course she’s Ashlynn,” Marco said.

As a teenager, his ex had always been polite about his mother’s illness, but shied away from her, as if madness were contagious. Now, Ashlynn let his mother grip her hands like they were a lifeline, and didn’t pull away even when the older woman’s nails dug into her skin. “Ma, let Ashlynn go,” he said quietly. “You’re hurting her.”

“It’s all right,” Ashlynn said. “She’s hurting worse than I am.”

Lori pushed forward with a bottle of pills and his mother’s nurse in tow. “Both of you get away from her,” his sister said, glaring at Marco as if he’d caused his mother’s outburst. Ironically, it was the one damned thing he didn’t feel guilty about today.

“You’re okay now, aren’t you, Ma?” Marco asked. “I’m right here with you.”

“Please,” Lori said, acidly. “She doesn’t even know who you are. On the days she remembers you, she tells the doctors that her son was a soldier, a peacekeeper. And you know what breaks my heart, Marco? She sounds proud. Ma’s mind is so far gone she doesn’t have any idea that you’ve become some kind of mercenary.”

He shouldn’t have this argument. Not now. Not again. Not here where everyone was listening. But being home again was opening every old wound. “I’m not a mercenary,” he hissed, voice low. “It’s not like I sell weapons to the highest bidder. I choose sides in the world.”

Lori just shook her head, angry tears in her eyes. “But nobody elected you to choose sides, Marco.”

“The people we elected are doing a shitty job of it!” Marco wanted to slam something. He wanted to kick over chairs, or crash the floral displays to the floor. It was only Ashlynn’s hand on his arm that calmed him and gave him the presence of mind to fish a check from his coat pocket. “Here, take it.”

That’s when Lori realized it was a check. “I don’t want your money,” Lori snapped.

Marco took a deep breath. “Funerals are expensive. You can’t afford it with the house, and mom, and the restaurant—”

“Your money is blood money, Marco. I think you should go.”

And, for once, his sister was right.

Kyra was shaken.

It wasn’t that she thought she was the only person in the world whose mother suffered from mental illness. But in confronting the hydra again, she hadn’t expected such a stark reminder of her own past. It made her feel sorry for Marco Kaisaris and, somehow, she was going to have to shake that off.

She’d managed to get the hydra to agree to go for coffee. If she played this right, she could lure him into the basement dungeon she’d built for him, and then neither his poisonous blood nor his bullets could ever hurt anyone again. But Marco didn’t look like he was in any mood for a caffeinated beverage. He maybe needed a Scotch on the rocks, not a latte.

Once he’d helped her into the car, he was distant, but showed no signs of suspicion so she must be doing a good job of impersonating Ashlynn. Then again, the man had just lost his father. She had him at his most vulnerable. “No one ever tells you how much smaller a person looks in death,” Marco said, pulling out of the parking lot. “It’s like something’s missing, as if their spirit took up physical space.”

“Oh, but it does,” Kyra said emphatically. But now wasn’t the time to give lessons to mortal men on the physicality of the soul. Snow was turning to sleet, and it was good that Marco was driving because Kyra had trouble concentrating on the road. She was too busy watching for signs that Daddy was on her trail. She knew to be alert for the vultures of Ares or Athena’s telltale owls, but here in Niagara Falls, Kyra had to be just as wary of the local echo god who once carried Iroquois war cries on the wind.

“Listen, this was a bad idea, Ashlynn.” Marco’s black-gloved hands tightened on the wheel. “We’re not just two old friends going for coffee. You don’t know me anymore and, trust me, you don’t want to.”

“I know you’re in some kind of trouble with the law,” she replied.

When they stopped at a red light he looked like he wanted to reach for the unopened package of cigarettes on the dash. Instead, he folded a stick of gum into his mouth and crumpled the wrapper. She watched the way his strong jaw worked under his five-o’clock shadow. “Some kind of trouble with the law…is that what my sister told you?”

“Would she have been wrong?” Kyra asked, avoiding the question.

The light changed, but Marco didn’t drive through the intersection. Instead, he abruptly pulled over to the side of the road. Gravel popped under his tires. In the oncoming sleet, traffic cut past them in an angry blur of headlights and windshield wipers. “I can’t do this,” Marco said. “I can’t just pull into some coffee shop and sit down with you in a crowd and act like—”

“You don’t have to act like anything.”

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I can’t do it, Ashlynn.”

This wasn’t going well. If he made her get out of the car, then all Kyra’s scheming would be for naught. Scrambling for an alternative plan, she tried to play on whatever sense of chivalry he might have. “Can you at least drive me home?”

Marco gnashed at his gum. If he’d known who it really was beside him in the car, he’d have left her stranded—or perhaps even strangled—on the side of the road without a second thought. But when he finally glanced at her, he nodded.

“I’ll give you directions,” she said as he pulled back onto the road.

“I remember the way.”

“No, I just bought a new house,” Kyra said, and that wasn’t even a lie. So they drove up Niagara Parkway, mostly in silence. She’d chosen the desolated location carefully—just about as remote a place as one could get and still be in Niagara Falls. But once they were in the hinterlands, he was impatient. “Just how much farther is it?”

“Not far. Up ahead after the turn. You should come in. I can make you that coffee.”

“I just need to drop you off, and leave. This time for good.”

So that’s how it was going to be. Kyra hadn’t planned to use her powers right away, but unless she did, Marco Kaisaris was going to disappear again before she could stop him from becoming one of her father’s minions, or from putting AK-47s into the hands of another group of child soldiers. Luckily, Kyra saw the guardrail up ahead. Staring intently, she concentrated all her power. Ever since she’d been poisoned, it was painful to do this and she knew it’d weaken her, but she had no choice.

She was a nymph of the underworld, a torchbearer of Hecate; a mortal like Marco couldn’t bear the light she cast. Widening her gaze, she flashed her inner torchlight so brightly that it hit the guardrail reflectors and bounced back into Marco’s eyes. He brought his hand up as a shield against the sudden glare, but it was too late. Temporarily blinded, he lost control. They hit a patch of ice. He cursed, pumping the breaks, but to no avail. The car spun out and crashed in an explosion of shattered glass.

Kyra found herself face-first in a ditch, covered with shards and pieces of metal. She’d been thrown from the car and something inside her felt ruptured.

The pain was so intense, she couldn’t catch her breath. She was bleeding. It shouldn’t hurt this much, she thought, as she fought for air. She should be healing faster. But she wasn’t.