Page 54 of Harbinger

Dione and her sisters exchanged a strained look.

Tension quickened Cassius’s pulse. “What’s wrong?”

Thetis scratched her cheek. “Our sister Menippe told us she saw what looked like a dragon appear in the Astrea Sea after the Nether tore. We thought she imagined it since we could find no trace of the beast.”

Tisiphone blinked. “Menippe? We were told this Nereid was some kind of noble who went by the name Meltem.”

“That’s her alter ego,”Thetis said sourly.“Menippe is our finance minister. Except she keeps abandoning her duties so she can go gallivanting on one of her adventures!”

The sea Goddess’s burst of divine power rattled the windows and sent the paperwork around the office fluttering wildly into the air. Amphitrite and Panacea’s faces fell as they watched the papers land in disarray.

“Sorry,”Thetis muttered, contrite.

“Is that why you guys are poring over these documents?”Tisiphone asked sympathetically.

“Yes.”Thetispinched the bridge of her nose.“She’s the best of us at this stuff.”

“Wait a minute,” Amphitrite interrupted dully as Tisiphone’s words finally sank in. “Did you say Menippe is back?”

“That’s what we heard,” Tisiphone replied with a shrug.

Cassius winced as Thetis’s cup cracked in her hand. This time, a veritable storm swept the room.

A vein throbbed in Amphitrite’s temple. “Why, that little—!”

25

Cassiusskirted around a bank of clouds and navigated a slipstream with Tisiphone as they kept abreast of Thetis and Dione. The two Nereids rode their winged seahorses, their brows furrowed as they glared at the mountains looming in the distance.

The peaks formed the western end of the vast range that made up the backbone of the continent. It was where Thetis and Dione suspected their sister was hiding.

“Why those mountains?” Tisiphone had asked before they’d left the palace.

Thetis had sneered. “She has a lair there.”

“It’s more a love nest, really,” Amphitrite had grumbled.

“She’s a screamer in the bedroom,” Panacea had explained bluntly at Cassius and Tisiphone’s puzzled looks. “Honestly, it used to scare the palace maids senseless. She decided it would be best if she indulged in her carnal desires elsewhere.”

“Half her adventures are bedhopping ones too,” Thetis had added darkly while Cassius flushed and Tisiphone smirked. “I swear, I don’t know where she gets her sexual appetite from.”

Morgan’s face had sprung to Cassius’s mind at that.

“Still, those mountains are quite far,”Tisiphone had muttered.“Why didn’t she just get a place in the capital?”

“She did,”Amphitrite had replied morosely.“We received complaints from that district that a banshee had established her nest in a noble’s mansion.”

Panacea had sniggered before sobering in the face of Thetis’s accusing stare.“Sorry.”

The mountains soon became towering, snow-capped peaks blanketed in thick, evergreen forests. Thetis landed her seahorse on a bluff some ten thousand feet in the air, jumped off her mount, and stormed toward a crack in the cliffside. Tisiphone, Dione, and Cassius followed.

The crack they entered quickly widened into a tunnel lit with ornate lanterns and filled with the heady fragrance of incense. A low murmur reached them. The words became clearer after they negotiated several twists and turns and finally came in sight of the exit.

It belonged to a female who was clearly enjoying herself.

“Oh!Oh, yes!Right there!Ah!Deeper! Harder!Hmmm!” the voice gasped and moaned. “Don’t stop!”

Cassius slowed. Heat flooded his cheeks. Dione slapped a hand over her face. Thetis looked like she was about to explode.

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