Firefight in Darkness by Katie Jennings

good to throw something. Especially when she had the pleasure of seeing an explosion of fire at every impact.
    After what must have been forty shots fired one after another in rapid succession, she crumbled to the floor, gasping for air. Exhausted, she curled into herself and reveled in her momentarily empty mind.
    Minutes later, she sprawled on her back and stared up at the ceiling of her room, trying to focus on her breathing. And as her heart rate and her breathing slowed, the thoughts returned.
    Why was Nova so convinced that Brock was using their mother? The man had only been back one full day, they couldn’t possibly know his intentions yet. And if they were just making assumptions about him, then they were fools. They knew nothing about him, other than what Balgaire had told them since they were children, and she could only imagine what that bastard had had to say about his rival. Not a single kind word about Brock had ever come out of Balgaire’s mouth, that she was sure of.
    She took a deep breath and hefted herself up off of the floor, feeling better than she had before. What did she care what Nova and Brogan thought anyway? It was useless to worry about things she couldn’t do anything about.
    And if Brock was just using Nyxa, she didn’t really see how it was any of her business.
    ♦ ♦ ♦

CHAPTER FOUR
    Maybe her expectations were too high. Or, better yet, maybe her father’s standards were just way too low.
    Whichever way she chose to look at it, the fact was that as the days progressed, she noticed him getting more and more distracted with his work.
    The first couple of days he was reading the books she’d given him, and when she’d quiz him on the terms he was doing fairly well. Not perfect, but good considering the man hadn’t had to learn something new in twenty, maybe even thirty years.
    But then it was like a light bulb switched off in his head. He started coming in later than their usual meeting time, nearly always dragging his feet like she was forcing him to be there or something.
    When she’d ask him a question, he’d get frustrated and annoyed with her, as if the last thing he wanted to do was actually work.
    Oh, and to top it all off, she could smell women’s perfume on him. He really just didn’t care anymore about working, and the fact that it had taken only one week for that to happen led her to believe she’d be working by herself after all.
    Deciding she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily, she left him alone with explicit instructions not to touch anything, and she went to see Thea.
    Ready to vent her frustrations, she burst into Thea’s lofty Garden room, mouth open and prepared to unleash all matter of indignities. But the moment she set foot inside, she heard a polite ‘shush’ from Sebastian, just in time for her to notice that Thea was busy talking to someone through a device resting on the small table beside her.
    Sebastian was relaxing on one of the nearby chaise lounges, a glass of raspberry tea in his hand as he eyed her, amusement clear on his face as he noticed the waves of frustrated energy she emanated.
    Resigning that there was little she could do but wait out the phone call, Blythe trudged over to where Sebastian was and plopped down beside him.
    Smiling serenely at her, he lifted a small plate crowded with tiny cookies and offered her one.
    With a sigh she grabbed two and settled herself down to wait.
    It wasn’t until she heard the man’s voice that she actually paid attention to Thea’s conversation.
    “I’ve got three demons and several humans who say they saw Dante at the Bellagio just two days ago. Now, I’ve checked the records and if he was there, he was checked in under a fake name. But, I did happen to get a lead on a Mercedes Benz that had been stolen out of the Bellagio lot just yesterday morning. I watched the security camera footage, and it’s our man.”
    He had a slow drawl to his voice that gave a southwest flavor to every