the door.
“I know you and I don’t know each other well,” Antonio said, “but if you could talk to Dyonne on my behalf, I’d really appreciate it. I mean, I’m the strongest fighter on Rhodos. I’ve trained under Master Arcas. I know you don’t know who that is, but trust me—he’s the best. I’m fluent in a dozen languages.”
And I was ready to scream.
It was rotten and it was wrong, but, I took Antonio by the arm. “If you can get your step mom to shift back in the next two minutes, I’ll get you a date with Dyonne.”
He broke into a grin.
“Mama!” he called. “Bee-sco!”
She swung her head from side-to-side.
“It didn’t work,” I told him.
“You will see,” he said.
She bent her head and began to shift.
“What did you say to her?” I asked.
He shrugged. “She wanted my cookies from the flight. You have a towel?” he asked.
I realized with a sinking feeling that she was going to be naked. Nobody needed to see that.
Luckily, Antonio seemed delighted at the idea of removing his blue dress shirt. The guy had amazing muscles. Great abs. He tossed the garment over Aunt Ophelia.
Oh well. I had to give him props for showmanship. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you planned that.”
“Me, too,” he said, displaying his chest, as he caught Dyonne’s eye. No doubt he was looking forward to his date.
***
By late afternoon, we managed to get all of Dimitri’s relatives assigned to rooms—not that they stayed there. The suitors were relatively under control (although I didn’t relish telling Dyonne about her date), and my mom was still in one piece.
I considered that a victory.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said, as we stood near the long tables on the back porch, watching the caterers bring in food for the fork and knife barbecue.
In all fairness, the yard looked pretty good. She had small twinkling lights strung up. The witches had tapped a keg and everybody seemed to be having an okay time.
But I could feel the tension rolling off Hillary. “There’s not enough to eat. The house smells like fireworks. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were having a frat party out here.” She sighed. “I wish your father were here.”
“He hates noise,” I reminded her.
She gave a small grin. “Good point.”
I had to give my mom credit. She was holding up well, all things considered.
Although I think the griffin in the foyer would have done her in.
“We’ve got cheese and bread in the house. We have olives,” I said. Plus, Hillary always ordered too much food.
“Lonny Hard Rider trapped some rabbits,” Frieda said, handing me a cup.
“There you go,” I said, raising a glass to my mom.
So, Hillary’s fork and knife barbecue turned into more of a roast rabbits on a spit kind of event, but everybody had fun.
Well, most everybody.
I kept waiting for Dimitri to show up, hopefully in human form, and join us. But he never did.
Diana caught me walking back from the front of the house, as if looking down the road would help flush him out.
“I don’t like it,” I told her. She of all people knew what kind of trouble he’d dealt with in the past.
She frowned. Didn’t try to sugar coat it, which I appreciated. “I thought I knew what he was doing, but it shouldn’t have taken him this long.”
“Tell me,” I said.
She winced. “I shouldn’t. It’s a griffin wedding tradition and I don’t want to blow it.” She took a sip from her cup. “But I am going to talk to him about it.”
“Thanks,” I said. I needed an ally.
***
That night, a thick fog rolled in from the coast. And still, Dimitri was gone.
We’d moved the party into the kitchen, and the sitting room. And the dining room, if you counted the Koum- kan game. I was never any good at Greek rummy, but Frieda was having a great time. Then again, she seemed to be more interested in one of the cousins than she did her cards.
I sat in a chair in the foyer, with Pirate dead asleep on my lap. He’d been out in the garden all day. I could tell from the burrs and bits of leaves and bark I kept finding in his fur.
He stirred, growling under his breath as he dreamed. His legs churned, as if he were chasing something.
I jerked suddenly when I saw a shadowy form moving through the wall of cloud.
Pirate’s eyes flew open. “I’m on it!” he said, flipping upright and nearly falling off my lap.
“It’s fine,” I said, as my own heart thundered in my chest. It was Dimitri. I could feel him reaching out to me. It confused me for a second, how he was reaching out to me. Then I realized he must have been using my energy—our combined strength—as a beacon through the fog. No doubt he could see lights in the fog below, but…
They didn’t have fog like this where he was from. I dropped Pirate on the cushioned chair. “Stay here.”
Of course, he didn’t listen.
I felt Dimitri’s harsh breath, the glide of air under his wings as he circled. “I’m coming,” I said, grabbing my switch star belt off the hall table.
Luckily, Pirate met up with Bob and a piece of leftover rabbit at about the same time.
“Don’t worry about me, Lizzie,” I heard him say as I banged out the back door of the kitchen.
I needed to guide him in before he impaled himself on one of the jutting iron spikes on the roof, or went crashing into a cliff.
The fog was dense, the night cool. I unhooked the Maglite from my utility belt and headed for the most open place in the garden I could think of—the herb beds.
I could only see about ten feet in front of me as I made my way past the box hedges and the fountain. I gave a small shudder as the laughing centaur rose up out of the mist.
Once I hit the lavender beds, I turned my Maglite toward the sky and began blinking it. On. Off. On. Off.
A trickle of sweat snaked down my back. “Come on, babe,” I said to myself as much as to him.
There was nothing else I could do. I certainly couldn’t see him. I hoped this would be enough. It had to be.
I felt rather than saw him land. He was a little farther out, toward the rose garden maybe. I ventured a step in that direction, then another. “Dimitri?”
It was the most isolating feeling in the world, like standing in the middle of a cloud. It was as if I could slip off the edge into oblivion, and no one would notice until it was too late.
I almost dropped my flashlight when he walked out of the fog like every fantasy I’d had rolled up into one. He was shirtless, his pants slung low over his hips. The tips of his dark hair curled under and a slick sheen of sweat coated his body. I wanted to devour him on the spot. Dang. “If I was only a half-minute earlier.”
He shook his head and kept coming. “Would have been the best thing to happen to me all night.”
