“I'M NOT YOUR goddamned carissima.” I tried to calm the pounding of my heart. “My name is—”

“Lilah.” He adopted the same nonchalant tone from earlier.

A sliver of fear pierced me, cooling the fire that had been burning for him just moments ago. I cursed myself for my weakness under his touch. When would I learn my lesson? Would it take another forlorn century?

I began moving the blade in my hand, keeping my wrist loose in case I was going to have to use the business end. He still had a hungry look in his eyes as he watched me, taking in my every move and staying just out of my reach. But he wasn’t afraid. His actions were steeped in strength. He’d been holding back with me, even as he overpowered me. And didn’t that just get my missing panties into a bunch?

“Who are you?” I tensed slightly in case he tried something.

He let out a long sigh, as if the question was one he’d heard far too many times. “Roth,” he answered simply, perusing me closely, gauging my reaction.

Unfortunately, I had never been much for poker faces. “B-but I’ve been looking for you for months!”

“And I’ve been watching.” A playful gleam danced across his eyes.

“Son of a bitch.” That was all I could manage, amazed the very thing I needed most stood right in front of me.

“Why so surprised?” he asked. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out you were searching for me? I’ve lived in this city for hundreds of years. My spies are everywhere—here and in the Underworld. And anyone would draw attention when she goes looking for the most powerful incubus in the world in his own backyard.” His tone turned slightly chiding at the last, as if scolding an unruly child.

I made a mental note to find out whoever narced on me and give him the beating of his immortal life.

“You still haven’t told me who you serve, carissima. From the looks of you, it must be Aphrodite, though I had thought she was no longer smarting from our last little run-in. Goddesses can be so very fickle, as I’m sure you well know.” He absentmindedly rubbed his chest as he spoke, bringing my gaze down to the rippling fabric and smooth tan skin that peeked out from just above where the collar opened at his throat. I swallowed hard. Focus.

“I told you. I don’t serve any goddess.” I shrugged as if to say that was all the evidence I could offer.

“Your mark tells another tale.” His dark eyes hardened like rounds of shiny coal.

A wail of a police siren sounded nearby, and I allowed him to pull me into the safety of the shadows once again. Roth shielded me from view as police cars gunned up the street next to us, sirens blaring. The flash of the lights illuminated the stoic faces of the saints carved all around me. Some of their visages were turned up in supplication while others seemed to be watching me with intense trepidation, a feeling I should have shared. Instead, I felt exhilarated.

Roth stayed between me and the passing cars. His scent was clean but with a hint of something spicy I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I breathed in deeply, and for the first time realized I might be in over my head. He seemed to notice my reaction and ran his fingers along the exposed line of my shoulder as he slowly leaned in for a kiss. I felt myself letting go again and gave him a light reminder that I held the dagger at his stomach, twitching a button off his shirt with the razor edge.

“Ah, carissima. Always on the defensive.” He frowned and stole a quick brush of his lips against my forehead before straightening once more, ignoring the prick of my blade against his hard stomach. He turned his head toward the last of the police cars, and I took in his profile—strong, square jaw with just a hint of five o’clock shadow, inhumanly long eyelashes, high cheekbones, and a straight nose. Gods, he is gorgeous.

I snapped out of my trance, realizing I had to think quickly and with a clear head. If he was smart, and I had no doubt of that, he would probably bolt once the cops were out of the way. I couldn’t lose him. Not now. Not when I was so close.

This wouldn’t be a simple bag-him-and-tag-him routine. He was far too powerful for me.

Roth’s age alone made him daunting. Each year of an immortal’s life only made him stronger, increasing his power exponentially. If the stories I’d heard about Roth were true, then he was likely one of the strongest immortals living beyond the confines of the Underworld. By the look of him, he turned from mortal to immortal in his early thirties, but that change would have been thousands of years ago.

I’d been barely twenty-five when the quickening happened to me. One minute I was quilting piecework with my mother, carefully stitching together scraps of cloth from old dresses and kerchiefs; the next I was lying on the dirt floor of our one-room log cabin, quaking from head to toe. I remembered the very square I had been working on so painstakingly—a cornflower-blue patch with yellow flowers on it from a dress I had worn to my younger sister’s wedding the year before.

I’d always been fond of stitching; making sure each needle stroke was so very close to the last, curving my thread around each different design to keep the stitches tight. If it wasn’t perfect, I would rip through the seam and start again, frustrating everyone in my quilting circle on plenty of occasions.

The only thing I cared about more than quilting was my books. One of the few women in Killdeer Hollow who could read, I devoured every scrap of paper Pa brought me from nearby towns.

As I sewed with my mother that spring day, I began to feel ill, sinking to the floor mid-stitch. Without warning, a jolt of energy coursed through me, and my mother tried to rouse me. Just like that, cradled in my mother’s arms, Lilah the mortal died.

I later awoke as if from a pleasant dream, feeling like the cat who got the cream. A strange itching sensation on my neck was the only thing that seemed amiss. Well, aside from the fact that a goddess was standing in the middle of the Satterfield cabin. Artemis, in all her glory, had come to claim me and grant me the immortal life my parentage allowed.

It was only after I sprang to my feet and felt imbued with a strange power that my mother revealed my father was from Olympus instead of the neighboring tobacco farm where Pa was born. I didn’t know what was more shocking: that my mother, Nona Satterfield, had a tryst with a beguiling god, or that the stories about Olympus and the gods of old were true.

As I was passing from my old life, Artemis came to take me as one of her own. But Death had to have its due before a god could claim a child of both worlds, a halfling.

Dying and then being drafted by a god or goddess was the only way the child of a mortal and an immortal could bridge the gap between the tenuous mortal life and the immortal. First death and then a new life in the service of one of the gods of old. The symbol which now pulsed on my throat stood as a warning to others that I was Lilah de Artemis, a halfling warrior bound to one of the most powerful deities on Olympus.

I remembered the last I ever saw of my mother, a dazed wave good-bye and a tear rolling down her weathered cheek. And once again that day, my mother was forced to grieve the loss of her daughter. It was only now that I realized the memory of being torn from my true mother hurt worse than even Artemis’s stinging good-bye.

Though, of course, it was my own folly that got me cast out of my second family, the one I still mourned in my heart. I thought of all the times I had cried for missing my sisters, Elena and Iphi—hell, I even missed the coldhearted Lynxia. What I wouldn’t give to have another chance to beat her in Artemis’s archery competition.

There was only one thing I needed to get back the warmth of my sisters—the incubus with a high price on his head. Roth de Lis.

But how to catch him? I decided to mix a little truth with the many lies I was sure to tell in the near future. More flies with honey, I reminded myself for a second time that night. I took a deep breath and sewed the first stitch.

“It’s true.” I sighed for dramatic purpose. “I was in the service of a goddess. Then I was cast out. Now I’m what you could call a freelance immortal, serving no one except myself.”

He continued studying me with his penetrating gaze. Coolness radiated off him in the darkness. I lifted my eyebrows and tried to give off an innocent look that hadn’t worn true on me since my mortal days. Roth seemed to take the bait, relaxing the thick muscles of his chest as he considered me. I only then realized how poised to strike he’d been, as if on a hair trigger. A tingle went down my spine as I thought of the raw power he possessed.

“I don’t deny you lack the strength of an immortal in the service of the gods. The wolf would never have gotten the upper hand if you were still connected to a god or goddess,” he said thoughtfully. My stomach sank at the remark, and I lifted my chin ever so slightly to try and salvage what little was left of my pride.

“I meant no offense, carissima. That was a mark in your favor.” A smile played at the corners of his lips.

I remembered how they felt on my neck, so soft and warm. Gods! If I could have slapped myself on the forehead right then without looking like a total moron, I would have. Of course he knows what to do. He’s an incubus! It’s his life’s purpose to seduce fools like you.

“Why were you cast out?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“And who you served?”

“Also none of your business.”

He frowned again, the dark of his eyes shining like obsidian. “If you aren’t an assassin, then what do you want with me?”

Yessss. He was curious. I could work with curious. Second stitch, coming right up.