“Alena, I’d like to speak with you,” Smithy said, his resonant voice muffled slightly by the thick door.

Ernie grinned at me, his eyes going big and wide with glee. “Open it up, girlfriend. Things happen for a reason. Which means he’s here for a reason, I’m sure of it.”

Except I didn’t know how to explain to Ernie that Smithy, as handsome as he was, and as strong as he was, didn’t flip my switch like Remo did. Not by a long shot. Really, honestly. Didn’t do it for me.

Liar, liar, pants on fire, a tiny voice sang to me. I recalled all too easily the feel of Smithy’s rock-hard body under my hands when I’d been half-gooned on the punch at Zeus’s pool party. To say he had a nice body was a serious understatement. Not that I’d noticed it.

I ignored my inner voice. “I don’t want to talk to you. Talking to you got me into trouble with your wife, and now she’s trying to kill me, if you’ll recall.”

“You were in trouble with her long before you fell into my lap drunk as a nymph at a frat party.”

I blushed, thinking that I had indeed had my face all but planted in his crotch at the pool party. Dang, I had hoped he wouldn’t bring that up. “That wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know the punch was spiked.”

A low rumble of a laugh rolled through the door. “The punch is always spiked, Alena. Lesson number one of the pantheon.”

“I thought lesson number one was never ask for trouble.”

He laughed again. “Fine, lesson number two, then. The punch is always spiked.”

I rubbed my hands over my bare arms, knocking back the goose bumps that his laugh had raised. I forced my feet to move, strode to the door, and jerked it open.

Smithy’s blue eyes raked over me, and I grit my teeth against the way my body reacted. “What do you want?”

He didn’t step forward, didn’t push his way into my space. “I came to give you a warning. I know which hero Hera is calling up this time to face you.”

I swallowed hard. “How bad is it?”

His eyebrows rose even as his jaw ticked. “Bad, worse than the other two combined. May I come in?”

I was being silly. He wasn’t going to throw himself at me. He had the same issue I’d had only a short time before. He believed in his marriage vows, even though his wife, Aphrodite, had no problem working outside of them. He wouldn’t make a serious move while he still had a wife. Smithy was a faithful man. Something I couldn’t say for Remo.

No, do not go there, Alena.

I moved to one side and held the door open for him. He stepped through into the light, and I got a good look at him. His scars were still visible, all the marks of being a blacksmith for thousands of years burned into his forearms and even a few places on his neck and collarbone. Then again, those could be scars from fighting too; he was a warrior from way back when the pantheon was nothing but warfare and chaos. Not that things had changed much, really.

I clamped my fingers together with the sudden itch to touch those scars. What was wrong with me? Ten minutes before I’d been sobbing my heart out about Remo, and now here I was considering just how Smithy’s skin would feel under my own.

A soft voice whispered to me inside my head, and I recognized it for who it was. The Drakaina side of me had been speaking up lately.

You are a siren, and that means your libido is high, and not easily quenched. Your nature recognizes that you are no longer attached to the vampire, even if your heart has not yet accepted it.

Great. Just what I needed.

Smithy walked to the far side of the room and eyed up the stove, even going so far as to flick the gas burner on. He ran his fingers through the flame twice before he flicked it back off.

“Showing off?” I reluctantly closed the door behind me. If it hadn’t been for the mob of Firstamentalists out front, I would have left it open. Maybe it could air out the growing pheromone clouds in the small room. I glanced up at Ernie, who’d plunked himself on the shelf that held the spices, right next to the cupboard with the liquor. He was remaining remarkably quiet, his blue eyes watching us closely.

Smithy turned with a tight smile on his lips. “I like that you work with the flame, and not just an electric heat. A real flame has a flavor of its own.”

I shrugged. “It gives a more even heat distribution, which is important for a lot of recipes.”

“No spikes and drops. No ups and downs, just a steady, burning heat,” he said softly.

I clamped my hands behind my back. I didn’t think he really was talking about the stove. Even I wasn’t that dense. “True enough. Then again, to get a good caramel, you need to bring the ingredients just to the edge of a burn before you get the right texture and flavor. It’s the only way to bring out the sweetness.”

Good grief, what was wrong with me?

His smile widened. “Caramel?”

I cleared my throat. “I’m a baker; caramel is a big part of that.”

“No, you’re a Drakaina.”

Oh, and there was the cold water I needed to cool my jets. “Don’t tell me what I am; I am more than aware of it. Besides, I am a baker at the core.”

“You can’t change what you are, Alena. No more than I can. No more than I will ever be free of her,” he said.

There was a sadness in his voice there that I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to feel bad for him . . . because I understood all too well what it was to be married to someone who didn’t love you anymore. Someone who just wanted to use you for your gifts and talents and would cast you off at the first hint of not getting their way.