Page 51 of Blood of Olympus

Mate.

Before I could second guess his choice in label, a secondary thud echoed through the palace.

A wicked-sharp shadow dagger materialised in Nyssa’s palm, and I gripped the edge of the tub, ready to vault out whenever the perpetrator in question revealed themselves. I didn’t think it wise to summon my misbehaving lightning while we were still waist deep in lukewarm water.

It’s only Aros, Lykos sighed.

The tension in Nyssa’s shoulders visibly eased as her dragon, no doubt, relayed the same message.

“Nyssa!” the god of war bellowed from somewhere downstairs. “Caelus!”

“We’re up here!” I shouted back, shrugging in response to Nyssa’s grimace.

Aros bolted audibly up the staircase and down the hallway, pausing just outside the bathroom door.

“I need to speak with you,” he announced.

“You can come in,” Nyssa responded wearily.

A pause. Then, “I don’t want to interrupt… actually, maybe I do. After all, I know what happens in this room.”

I could hear the smirk in his voice a heartbeat before he threw the door wide. Another beat later, he visibly deflated at the very unerotic scene that both of us, mostly-clothed in the tub, painted.

Aros scowled. “You’re wearing entirely too much clothing for this to be even a little scandalous.”

“That’s because it’s not,” Nyssa answered drily. She showed no outward signs, but I could feel her bone-deep exhaustion.

“Boring.” He frowned. “By the way, you look a little… pink, darling.”

“Long story,” she sighed. “But I take it you didn’t come barrelling into the palace at the pace of a centaur just to climb into the bath with us or comment on my skin colour.”

“No,” he said uncharacteristically sombre. Aros straightened, his face falling into an odd kind of solemnity — so very out of place on his features. “A messenger has returned.”

Nyssa tensed.

“Neros has fallen.”

An icy feeling that had nothing to do with the cold water crept through my veins.

“Did it burn?” Nyssa whispered.

Aros’ frown deepened as he eyed her curiously. “It did… but how would you know that already?”

Her terrified gaze met my own.

“I dreamed it.”

CHAPTER 14

Nyssa

After Caelus’ insistence that Aros need remove himself from the bathroom so we could extricate ourselves from the tepid bathwater — and Aros’ audacious refusal to follow his orders, because he wasn’t king yet — I rolled my eyes at the pair of bickering gods and stood up anyway.

Water sluiced down my body, leaving my black silken nightgown plastered to every curve, its hem sitting indecently on my upper thighs.

The effect was instantaneous.

The room instantly filled with the mingling scents of caramel and whiskey. Their arousal set my nerves alight, triggering my core to throb so insistently I had to clench my thighs together to smother it.