Chapter Five #2
She reached and gulped his water too. “Why are you and your brother suddenly so obsessed with Natasha Korra?” she blurted before putting the glass back down. “And don’t gawk about that like I grabbed your ass in front of the queen, Glow Worm. I’m right and you know it.”
He rolled his head back a little, seemingly searching for a more regal way to regard her. To her dismay, he succeeded. Damn prince-angel-Olympian-god.
“I’d still love to hear out your logic,” he finally murmured, as low and smooth as silk moss along the figurative stone walls of his shoulders. She stared at them longer than she should’ve before snapping back to the damn point.
“I’ve been tracking the woman for nearly a month, and the two of you would’ve definitely shown up in my vicinity before tonight,” she asserted. “That said, god brothers or not, you took down all seven members of my team with boggling precision. That stuff’s only possible because of obsession.”
She leaned forward, intensifying her stare while finally sliding the cocktail tumbler back across to him.
“So, what’s up? Why her? Why now? Unless she’s some deity in disguise, as well? Oh, shit.” And suddenly, she couldn’t lean back fast or far enough. “Do I really want to know?”
He mirrored her move, though with greater grace. “Nothing to know.” But gave himself away the next second, clenching his jaw the same way he capped the water glass with tight fingers. “It’s not her.”
Wen’s brows crunched toward each other. “Wait. What? Not her . . . how?”
“We’re actually after Reks Byrd.”
“Her boyfriend.”
That much of the situation was common knowledge by now; it was usually the first factoid that every website and artificial knowledge portal spat out for searches about Korra.
The pop starlet herself was probably sick of the predictability—or perhaps the opposite.
To many, fame by association was just as heady a drug as the actual thing.
“Her boyfriend, who’s a bunch of rungs higher on every industry ladder, for sure,” she finally added. “Which means his own security is probably off the chain, so getting to him via her isn’t shabby logic.”
After a few seconds’ worth of scrutinizing her deeper, Apollo murmured, “That’s also why you’re seeking her, yes?”
“Hunting her,” she corrected. “Seeking is what people do when there’s time to waste at events like this. Which is probably why I’ll be the first and last headhunter to sit in one of these chairs, being served boozy elderflower.”
Apollo’s next sip on his own “boozy” drink was a long, deliberate one. “Sounds a lot like you’re contemplating a taste, Little Monster.”
“Check your read on the room, Glow Worm.” She nodded toward her untouched alcohol. “Well, at least the table.”
Extremely unnervingly, he eased his jaw. Circled the rim of his glass with one of his tapered index fingers. “Headhunter. Interesting.”
She looked over his shoulder again. This time, for a longer stretch. “You’re not surprised.”
“And you’re not wrong.”
“Of course not.” Her attempt at the sarcasm landed more like a bad crepe than a gourmet pancake.
Back to all-business, then. “You had it figured out back at the mansion, didn’t you?
The Spanish Inquisition vibes were clear, even after you stopped my lungs from fighting over collapsing from your arrow. ”
And that was what he surrendered a soft chuckle for. Figured. “Olympian antiquities in the clutches of mortals is rarely, if ever, a good business practice.”
She sniffed. “No way did I have clutching on my mind about that thing, my friend. And do you really expect me to buy the antiquity thing too?”
No chance she was getting a viable answer about that, since she was certain he’d stopped listening after her first assertion. The wider smile that cruised the hills of his upper lip was her stunning validation.
“Friends?” he returned, equally as smooth and sure. “We’re friends now? Okay. That’s cool.”
“Because . . . ” She lilted her tone to imply the question.
Once again, his features barely twitched, as if he’d pre-memorized her script. “Because it makes everything easier, right? No need for the awkward, angry banter. We don’t even have to worry about the hate sex phase.”
She’d taken another sip of her water. And at once, spat it back up. “And moved on to what?”
“Friends.” He hitched one shoulder, though managed to make it look so good she wondered if hate sex was thoroughly off the table now.
“The kind who trust each other. At least enough to share who hired them to headhunt the pop star, with syringes of falmouth to take out anyone who tried to get in their way.”
Sudden awareness pinched both her shoulders. “Is that what that stuff is called?” Now that she connected the label to the weird liquid in the special guns that Ito had handed off to her and her men, it all seemed to make thematic sense . . . . . . sort of. “And what exactly is it?”
His smile faded. “You weren’t specifically informed?”
She pulled in a big breath in lieu of shaking her head. “There was a ten-minute tutorial on how to use the syringe guns that you saw us with. During the same session, Ito informed us that if we encountered any opposition to securing Korra, bullets wouldn’t be as effective as the green goo.”
“Ito.” He repeated it with such force, she wondered if he’d registered anything else in her statement. Or if it even mattered. “Do you mean Nao Ito? The yakuza boss based in the heart of Tokyo?”
Cue her unhinged eye flare. “You know him?” And was that a good or bad thing?
“I’m the god of truth, healing, and the pursuit of knowledge. That means keeping tabs on the humans who seek to thwart them.”
Though his every word was sure with conviction, his expression pursed into a stunning scowl—though not necessarily a surprised one.
Wen tilted her own head, as if doing so would adjust her focus on the thoughts behind his expression.
It had nothing to do with his flawless skin, high forehead, and intense eyes. Nothing at all . . .
A mental ka-boom struck. “What if Ito’s also after Korra just to get to Byrd?” Which made more than a ton of sense. “Though considering what he’s paying me for her alone, that almost doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless he already knows why we’re after Byrd.”
He could’ve admitted to first-degree murder with less tension in his tone. She clung to that figurative thread, letting it pull her forward by several inches, until she had a clear visual on the near-neon glints in his brilliant eyes.
“Why are you?” She leaned in deeper, making sure she could gauge the changes in his gaze too. “I mean, after him?”
Only then did she scoot back again, certain that the skips in her pulse rate were more from her new realization than the stunning uncut jades of his gaze.
Olympian antiquities . . .
“Okay, hold up,” she snapped out. “Rephrase. What does Reks Byrd have that you and your brother want?”