“What?”
“He said that he told Dahlia and Tad to break up.”
I grabbed my purse from the passenger seat and pulled my cell phone out. I dialed Tad first. He answered on the second ring.
“What’s up, sis?” His cheery, upbeat voice told me everything I needed to know. Dahlia hadn’t broken it off with him.
“Can you meet me at Vanilla and Honey?” I asked.
“Um, aren’t you supposed to be on a date with Remo?”
“Never you mind about what or where I’m supposed to be,” I snapped. “I need to try out some new recipes, and I need a taste tester who isn’t afraid to tell me when something tastes bad.”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.” He hung up, and I hit the “End” button. I looked at Ernie.
His blue eyes were sad. “I’m sorry, Alena. I really am.” I nodded and he flew at me, wrapping his arms around my neck. I hugged him back.
“Thanks, Ernie. You’re a good friend. I think.”
He snorted. “Don’t go there. I’m on your side, even when it looks like I’m not. You know that.”
I nodded. I did know that now. Being in the Greek pantheon, Ernie—Eros to those who knew their history—was pulled in multiple directions. And to keep his wings and skin intact, he played all sides of the field. He had ties to multiple deities, and they didn’t always treat him well if they thought he was disloyal. So he’d learned to keep under the radar the best way he could, which sometimes left him right in the middle of fights and arguments among the gods and goddesses. I’d not understood at first, but I realized he really was on my side. For the situation he was in, he did the best he could.
I started up the Charger and pulled into traffic. Two streets down, a set of police lights flicked behind me in the early-evening light, beckoning me to pull over. I groaned. “Like I need this tonight. I wasn’t even speeding!”
Ernie leaned back in the passenger seat as he went through my purse. “Yeah, but I’ve no doubt that Officer Jensen just found out that you and Remo are no longer an item. You should never have rolled him; that cop is more than half in love with you. Not that I blame him, even if you hadn’t rolled him.” He winked as if that would make his words easier to swallow.
“I didn’t have a choice, and I didn’t know he’d already been rolled by a vampire!” I pointed out. Officer Jensen worked for Remo, as one of his human servants, in a way. Because the good officer had been charmed, or influenced, or whatever the vamps wanted to call it, that made his mind susceptible to other forms of influence. Like, say, from a siren who had no idea what she was doing with her abilities. So he’d gotten a rather large dose of influence from me. More than enough to make him think he loved me.
I pulled over, turned the engine off, and rolled down my window. The early-February air was chilly, damp with rain waiting to fall but overall quite fresh and lovely. A perk to being a Drakaina: not being bothered by extreme heat or cold.
Officer Jensen strolled to my window and peered in, and his chocolate-brown eyes swept over me and Ernie. “License and registration.”
“Seriously?” I stared up at him. “For what? I wasn’t speeding.”
His eyes narrowed. “You want me to take you in? I can do that, if you like.”
With a grumble on my lips, I reached over to my dash, opened it, and grabbed my registration. Next came my newly minted driver’s license. Okay, it was temporary, just a piece of paper with a black-and-white photo of yours truly laminated on it, while I waited on the new color-picture version to come through in the mail. But it was mine, and that was all that mattered.
I handed it to him. He looked it over, checked the registration, and handed them both back to me. “Glad to see you are following the rules now.”
There was a weight to his words that made me narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means. I told you he’d hurt you. I’m glad you broke up with him,” he said, not backing away from the car an inch.
I blinked several times. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
“That you broke it off with him. He said you didn’t want anything to do with him.” Jensen tipped his head. “He said that you were looking for your own kind.”
My jaw ticked and my eyes burned. Why would Remo blame me for this? Wouldn’t he want the other vampires to think he’d cut me loose? I mean, he had, but even if I had broken up with him, wouldn’t he have wanted to look like the tough guy? I couldn’t make sense of what he was doing.
“Are we done here?” I kept my voice even, without a single indication of the confusion I felt.
“Alena, we are friends. Even though I work for him, I want you to know that I will help you if you get into trouble again. I care about—”
“I’m not getting into any trouble,” I snapped. Well, the truth was I knew that I had more trouble coming. Hera, Greek goddess and estranged wife of Zeus, had a serious hate-on for me. She was earnestly trying to find a way to kill me by any means necessary. I’d defeated two of her chosen heroes, Achilles and then Theseus. One I’d maimed and the other I’d killed. Now she was raising another hero to face me, and she’d already set him up with a pet to help take me down. I didn’t know which hero she’d called on this time, but I did know what creature she’d had created, because Merlin had shown her to me.