I scowl, but decide that I’m in too good of a mood to pursue my usual plan of attack.

“So what did Damian want?” Phoebe asks, drawing her gaze away from Griffin.

I tell them what the headmaster said about my parents coming tomorrow and Griffin asking the gods for a favor—and leave out the part about returning the stolen book.

“That’s great,” Phoebe says, and her gaze shifts immediately to Griffin.

He nods several times, like he’s bouncing the idea around in his mind, before saying, “I have to go.”

He looks at Phoebe, like he’s asking her permission.

She swats him on the shoulder. “Yes, go,” she insists. “Right now.”

He gives her the kind of smile that girls—yes, even not-so-girly girls like me—dream of getting. In a flash, Griffin is gone, probably zapping himself to Mount Olympus to make a plea for his case.

“I hope Damian is right,” Phoebe sighs as she leans back against the seat.

“Daddy is always right,” Stella insists. “Especially about these things.”

As Stella starts listing her dad’s qualifications for being right, I lean my elbows on the table and take another swipe at my ice cream. It’s melting fast and I have to lick quickly to stop all the drips.

When I twist around to make sure I caught them all, I see Troy watching me. His eyes are intense and full of something I’ve never seen in them before. Interest.

“What?” I ask, kind of breathless.

He just smiles and shakes his head, but under the table I feel his fingertips tap my knee. Everything goes still around me. Without moving any other part of me, I reach down beneath the Formica surface.

I hesitate a moment—making sure I really want to do this, I really want to cross this line—before reaching forward and slipping my hand into his.

“It’s never been Adara,” he whispers. “Always you.”

As Phoebe and Stella bicker across the table, Xander watches them with undisguised amusement, and Griffin asks the gods to unsmote his parents, Troy and I stare at each other, barely breathing. Then he smiles. And I smile. And everything about both of us relaxes.

I go back to eating my ice cream, happier than I have been since . . . forever.

When Troy squeezes my hand, I squeeze back. Finally, it feels like everything is falling into place exactly how it’s supposed to be.

I’ve been waiting long enough.

Excerpt from Sweet Venom

Read on for more action-packed adventure where

MYTHOLOGY

meets

MODERN LIFE

CHAPTER 1

GRETCHEN

Hydras have a distinctive odor. It’s somewhere between the acid tang of burning hair and a boat full of rotting fish. You can smell them from miles away.

Well, you can’t. But I can.

Some beasties smell mildly unpleasant; others could peel paint. Hydras definitely fall into the latter category.