Page 58 of The Arcane God

“I just have never met daemons before,” she said, looking up at him. “Are they all as…large as you and Ty?”

Turner smiled, huffing a small laugh. “Yes, actually. Most of them.”

“Hm,” she said, ambiguously. Did that please her or not? Fuck, he wasn’t sure. “And you have a…Power too? That is what I have heard about daemons, at least.”

“Yes, we have Powers. Once we reach the age of twenty-seven.”

“Show me,” she said, as if she expected him to do her bidding.

Turner gestured at the wolf on his shoulder. “I’ll have to put this down first,” he said.

She nodded at him. “Of course.”

Grunting, he lowered the wolf back down onto the snow-covered forest floor.

He wondered vaguely if she’d been this curious and demanding with Ty, but he assumed not. He was the more approachable one out of the two of them; maybe that was why she was asking him.

Not that he minded, though.

He raised his hand aloft, wiggling his fingers at her in a showy way. Her eyebrow quirked up. “I dare you to impress me,” it seemed to say.

He smiled at her skeptical reaction as he crouched down, lowering his hand into the ice-cold snow. Then he allowed his incendia to concentrate in his palm. Within seconds, the snow around his hand melted straight through to the bare ground, and he looked up to find Xena staring at him, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Heat?” she asked. “Heat is your Power?”

“We call it incendia, but yes,” he explained.

“How…convenient,” she said, seeming very pleased by the idea, as a devilish corner of her delicate mouth tipped up. The movement transfixed him for minute as he found himself staring at her lips, until he realized how impolite that was and looked away.

“And you?” he asked, trying to distract from the moment. “You can Change into something? Tell me about that.”

She shook her head. “Not yet, not until my Awakening.”

“Oh, right,” Turner said, remembering what Kaya had told them about stryx only being able to Change after their Awakening at age twenty-seven. But based on the way this woman looked, she had to be close to hers. “When will that be?”

“In a few days,” she said simply.

“So soon,” he said, smiling like an idiot. “Are you excited?” Truthfully, he was horrible at talking to girls, or boys—anyone he was interested in, really. He’d never been good at flirting like Ty, or mysterious enough to attract them like Steig.

But then she smiled back at him.

Fuck, it was beautiful. The way her face lit up and the sensuous curve of her lips as the corners raised made butterflies swarm in his stomach.

Goddamn it, what the fuck was he doing? Not only was this woman stryx, but he had no idea if she was interested in him at all—likely not. He needed to chill.

“Yes,” she said, not sounding excited in the slightest. “I am. Especially since I may be given a Gift as well.”

“A Gift?” Turner asked, feeling confused.

Then it dawned on him. She had one green eye, just like Kaya. And Kaya had said her and Max’s daughter had been away on a hunt…

Double fuck. This was Kaya’s daughter—Ty’s half sister.

“Yes, my mother is a witch. I believe you know her.”

“I do. She’s…” Wait—did Xena know about Ty? Had they realized what they were to each other when they’d met? Iblis—Turner did not want to be the one to spill those beans unintentionally. “She’s been very welcoming,” he finished lamely, leaving out any extraneous details about how they knew her as he bent back down to pick up the wolf.

“I saw those creatures you came with…the ones in the cave,” she said idly, walking around him again and making him follow her with his eyes. “What are you saving them for?”