I used to have to catch a glimpse of said backside in our workout sessions—carefully, when he wasn’t looking or when I hoped he wasn’t. These days, I ogled openly, which got me warning looks, because Pritkin didn’t play around during training. And then escalating exercise— “an extra mile of jogging today, since you’re so energetic” —as a penance. One I took gladly, because it invariably ended with us in a closet or a spare hotel room, whatever bolt hole we could find, tearing each other’s clothes off like horny teenagers.

Yes, it was unmistakably the man I loved, here via some magic I didn’t understand. Like I didn’t understand what had happened a moment ago, when he’d just disappeared. Or, for that matter, why he and Mircea were showing up like this instead of coming in the flesh to help me.

I also knew that it didn’t matter. As good as it was to see them in any form, they’d come too late. I was losing.

My strength, already tested too many times, was all but gone. Zeus might be a world away, having to command his power through space and time, but he was managing really well. Better than well. I’d thought the distance might give me a small chance, and maybe it had.

But it wasn’t enough.

I could feel myself slipping away, my mental hands loosening on the silver threads, the drain starting in earnest as my resistance faltered. I didn’t have the strength to keep fighting, having already expended the small hit of power that Pritkin had given me. Right now, it didn’t feel like I had anything left at all.

And then Mircea bit me.

I felt the agony of a bite with no preparation, felt my blood spirt and then start to seep down my shoulder, felt confusion—Mircea was tidier than that, and blood was precious. Why was he wasting it? Why was he biting me at all?

Then I realized why.

“No!” I said, fighting against the pleasure that followed the bite, a rushing wave of it that almost cancelled out the pain. But there were more ways to hurt than the physical, and my mind, clear and determined a moment ago, was suddenly panicking.

Something that ramped up when ghostly hands joined the fight, closing over mine in my mental vision, and halting the slide of lightning through my fingers.

“No!” I repeated. “Take his power and you’ll poison yourself! He’ll drain you, too!”

“Then why hasn’t he?” echoed in my mind, in Mircea’s voice. “You already sent me power—a great deal of it. Why hasn’t he pulled it back, or turned it against me?”

“Because he hasn’t had time?”

“He’s had time; he hasn’t used it. Which means he can’t—”

“You don’t know that!”