Thales pulled the ballroom’s door open only to find Professor Harlow standing next to her father and his boss, facing the door in the still-filling banquet hall. Her hungry gaze slid down his body, making him feel like meat she wanted to sink her teeth into, uncaring that the meat had a mind and a personality connected to it. He felt violated. When he stepped in alone, her eyes narrowed. Turning away from her, hoping to avoid discussing his lack of a date, he scanned the growing crowd for any familiar faces.

     The sound of her stilettos, a slow clicking that made his skin crawl, grew louder as she crossed toward him and stopped.

     “My father wouldn’t be happy to learn you lied to his only daughter, Professor Milonas,” Professor Harlow said, her tone cold. “Where’s this date you said you were bringing?”

     His back still to the wretched woman, he mentally scrambled to come up with some type of plausible story that didn’t include telling her he only said he had a date to avoid having to come with her. Damn it, he hated lying, but he knew to admit the truth would see her try to do everything possible to ruin his reputation with his boss. He inhaled a deep breath, then braced himself to make something up and spun on his heel to face a woman he wished he’d never met.

      He let his lips curve into a cool smile. “Are you attempting to blackmail me, Sarah? How very gauche.”

Eyes narrowing, she lifted her haughty chin higher into the air. “Where is your supposed date?”

      He opened his mouth to say, he didn’t know what, when an unfamiliar female voice interjected itself into their conversation. “There you are, Thales. Camma is looking for you. I promised to keep an eye on the door in case you hadn’t arrived before us.”

     Turning his head in surprise, he saw a tall, beautiful blonde step up next to him. Unsure what was going on or who the woman was, he chose to go with it. No sense in staring a gift horse in the mouth.

     Inclining his head in a nod of greeting, he turned away from Professor Harlow with no small amount of relief. “I’m sorry you arrived before me. I’m not usually so rude, but my brother needed help with his algebra homework before I could leave.”

      The woman gave him a knowing smirk, her gaze flicking toward the other women then over his head, which he hadn’t experienced since he reached his six-foot one inch height at age seventeen.

      She lifted her hand as she spotted who he assumed was this Camma she’d mentioned. “Found her. Camma’s headed this way. And don’t worry, Danae and I aren’t going to crash your date. We were just dropping her off and agreed to stay until she found you. We’ll be out of your hair shortly.”

     He searched the crowd, pretending to know who he was looking for, both him and the unknown blonde ignoring Professor Harlow’s unwanted presence. The blonde smirked when his tormentor huffed and stomped off.

Turning to actually get a better look at his rescuer, he forced a smile. While she was beautiful in a blonde Viking goddess way, she wasn’t at all his type. And it wasn’t because she was at least an inch taller than him. No, this woman had a forcefield of tightly coiled energy surrounding her, giving him the impression of contained violence simmering just under the surface. He imagined he could see the image of a mythical Valkyrie superimposing her current form. Somehow, he couldn’t see her being content to sit and enjoy his sedentary hobbies with him.

     As if she could read his mind, she smirked. “We don’t suit. I’d chew you up and spit you out, then make you question your man card. And it would have nothing to do with the fact that you smell like sugar and oranges. You’d start some deep-thinking type conversations with me, which I would find annoying because it’d totally make me feel intellectually inferior. We’d end up hating each other within a week.”

     Telling himself that he needed to stop eating his favorite candy quite so often if someone could smell it on him, he lifted the collar of his shirt and sniffed, then looked up when he didn’t detect anything but his cologne. “You’re a bit of a brat, aren’t you?”

     She scowled. “Oh gods, please don’t tell me you’re a freaking know-it-all older brother? Because I’ve got two know-it-all older sisters already and really don’t need another sibling judging all my choices.”

     “Well, you did come to the aide of some strange man you don’t know. I could be some type of serial rapist. Or a psychopath that fixates on rebellious looking blondes.” His smirk grew into a full grin. “If I were your older brother, I’d definitely have a lecture or two to share with you about such thoughtless behavior.”

     “There’s no doubt now. Being reborn hasn’t changed your personality a single bit,” the woman muttered under her breath, making him jolt, then she looked at someone over his shoulder. “You’re just in time. He was starting the big brother lecture and I had enough of those the first time around to last me several more lifetimes.”

      Confused by her odd words, he turned to see two women approaching them. The second one was a brunette, but that was all he could have told anyone if he’d been asked because his attention was solely focused on the most beautiful red head he’d ever seen. Petite with small features and the perfect amount of curve under the floor-length Grecian-style dress draping her lithe figure, she moved with a smooth grace that made her appear to float. Her pale skin stretched over high cheekbones and highlighted familiar pale gray eyes that stared back hungrily, making him feel the exact opposite of the possessive hunger Professor Harlow had aimed his way. It was as if she not only knew him but had missed him desperately.

     The face Hades had shown him in his dreams flashed through his mind and the memory he’d always failed to grasp floated just close enough that his fingers could brush against it, revealing a brief glimpse of memory. “Agápi mou.”

     She stopped mere inches in front of him, their eyes locked, and whispered. “Thales.”

     “Do I know you?” he asked, because his dreams were just that. They weren’t real. He didn’t know this woman and she definitely wasn’t his love.

     Her gray irises darkened to slate as they filled with a sadness so deep, he had to fight the urge to take this stranger into his arms and comfort her. “Not anymore.” Her lips trembled as they curved into a soft smile. “But I hope to change that.”