Titans of Chaos

He quirked an eyebrow. "The ones who were at my bedside in the hospital might not believe thatMr. mac FirBolg is so filled with affection."

"You can tell them anything you want. But tell them this one point: Any faction that tries topressure, harass, or threaten us will make us go straight into the arms of their opposite faction.

"Tell ambassadors from Chaos that you still have us under tight control, but that we have beenmoved from the school grounds to another area, and that you occasionally let us out for fieldtrips. If you need our help, in any limited extent, to help put on a charade that will continue to foolthe chaoticists, if we can help in a way that will not expose us to danger from you, we will not beopposed to negotiation on that point. We will decide that on a case-by-case basis.

"In the meanwhile, you can now present yourself to the other Olympians as the man who has thechildren from Chaos in your pocket. I assume you will be able to parley that into some sort ofadvantage. All you need to do is keep them away from us."

He said, "Let me see if I understand the two sides of your offer. If I cross you, you have my headon a platter. If I help you, I receive a powerful advantage that raises me in eminence above mybrethren, and makes me almost equal to my superiors."

I realized in that moment that, nude or not, I no longer felt shy in front of this man.

Exposing everything now, I put my hands on my hips and threw my wet lank hair out of my eyeswith a toss of the head. It was one of those arms-akimbo, toss-of-the-head kind of moments. Theycome up so rarely in life, and it is worth a good nose-in-the-air head-toss when they do. "If youranswer is no, go ahead and try to grab me. If the answer is yes, you can just leave by the samewindow you came in by."

He pondered a moment, stroking his mouth. I think the fact that I flaunted my breasts made himnervous. I was not doing it coyly, or to arouse him, but to show disdain. My lack of fear madehim... not afraid, exactly... but wary. A chess player seeing a coming checkmate.

Boreas said, "If you agree to live without making any obvious use of your powers, I can agree.

Chaos has spies and agents among us; we only have a limited ability to hide the evidence of youractions."

I said, 'The Queen Elizabeth made it to home port, with no record of any deaths, and no scratcheson her."