Chapter Seven
She’d dreaded and anticipated this. The latter was purely selfish, since Apollo’s interior design aesthetic was really as eclectic and elegant as she remembered.
Who was she kidding? The dread was just as selfish, though not for the obvious reasons her brain pulled up.
As soon as her libido volunteered for the job instead, she had her actual answer.
Being back here, with him, also meant being alone with him. Not that she was about to obey any of the illicit instincts he tempted from her bloodstream all over again. Only now, with her body fully healed, all the heat flared at double the intensity . . .
Shit, shit, shit.
Because yeah, she was physically okay—just not mentally ready for the stupid abstinence.
All the necessary nos . . .
But everything about him, from the growly vibes to the commanding stride and even that dirty rumpled suit, suddenly made the belly of Hell her number one vacation spot.
She’d never longed for a week on the sand without zinc cream before, but an Apollo-style sunburn suddenly seemed the perfect sting to crave.
Burn me.
And of course, of all the thoughts she didn’t need right now, especially when backed up by his incessant energy and strict words as he towed her back across his living room.
And now the way he whirled back around on her, his stare full of green fire, his every step like a dancer determined to set off a dozen stage fireworks.
The effortless power of his thighs, flexing so flawlessly against his slacks, had her psyche spinning and her head rolling—up to the moment she noticed exactly where he was headed with her.
“Ohhh, ssshhhiii . . . ”
She managed to blurt it and pull away with the same resolved breath. At the same time, Apollo countered with a matching sound then a newly piercing stare.
“Irowen. There’s no need to be so—”
“The hell there isn’t,” she snapped.
“Irowen.”
“Seriously?” She backstepped harder, almost tripping over the high-pile rug that marked the boundary to the next room. “In what world do you think I’m voluntarily stepping foot into an atrium with you again?”
Not after what he’d done to all seven members of her team, just a few hours ago, in the similar enclosure back at DeLux.
Not after what he’d probably have done to her, as well, if she hadn’t gotten lucky with her aim of the falmouth capsule.
Landing the vial in Hercules’s thigh—okay, crotch—had bought her valuable distraction time, enabling her to bounce out of there undetected.
No way would she get so lucky this time.
Just when that dread was louder in her ears than a Huey touching down in the glass cube next to them, there was a new interruption in her brain—resonating like the barest of whispers in a silent night.
Wen Steed. Greetings.
She jerked around. Peered deeper into the corners of the bigger room with the thick carpet. Unless she’d been hailed by a ghost, albeit one with a wry wrinkle in its psychological summons, the walls were literally talking to her.
You need to just trust this guy for now, okay? What was that you called him earlier? Glow Worm? Yeah, if we had time to knock back a shot and a bowl of teriyaki crickets, I’d peck you with proper props for that. But right now we’ve got bigger bugs to boil, yeah?
“Stop.”
She rammed the heel of a palm against her temple before wheeling around. Apollo waited in the same spot as before, just as regally calm and gallingly gorgeous.
“You,” she accused. “This—” Then twisted her hand, turning it into a pointer at her brain.
“You’re doing this, aren’t you?” Though the voice was nothing like his.
That kind of snark was something special.
Still she stood nearly toe-to-toe with a god practically as powerful as Zeus himself.
Surely Olympian auto-tuning was now a thing in this day and age . . .
Now that’s just rude. And jump-lusioning. And wrong.
The voice in her head sounded off again, just as she and the sun god locked stares. He flinched, but only to display open irritation at the wild slang their invisible “friend” had just brandished.
“Jump-lusion isn’t a word,” he retorted into the air over their heads. “And teriyaki crickets aren’t food.”
“Thank you,” she muttered.
“But if you want to talk about garlic-chili crickets, especially from that little joint we found in Bangkok back in eighty-four—”
“No.”
As she spat it, the voice from her head—or the walls or wherever—joined with the same word. She drew breath to demand the odd spirit grow some ghost balls and show themselves, but no way would her voice cooperate once a new storm of sound erupted inside the condo’s atrium.
The tumult was easy to identify, since she’d heard the same thing an hour ago in Hollywood Hills.
At the time, she’d thought the mini murder of crows just a wild creation of her imagination.
She’d been half-alive and delirious, so it’d made perfect sense to watch as Apollo gestured at the birds as if actually conversing with them.
But that was then.
What was the reasoning for now?
“Oh, no.” Her repetition, a kneejerk reaction to that thought, nearly erupted as a gasp. “The voice. It . . . wasn’t him.” She swung her bugged-out gape from Apollo to the animal that’d landed on a central perch in the atrium. “It was you.”
The crow straightened as she came closer by a few steps. Ha. As if his corvid version of a military salute, atop the burnished brass roost, was going to change her mind about getting any closer to the enclosure than where she cautiously stopped.
Captain Kaw Kleos at your service, ómorfi kyria. Our anax reached out while you and he walked over from the Café. We know about the urgency involving your sister. So honestly, I’m only here to help.
“And flirt? Badly?”
Apollo’s slice brought the causticity she needed but the reality she didn’t. Damn it, he was actually doing what she couldn’t—or wouldn’t? But this wasn’t an animated sing-a-long. Bantering with the birds wouldn’t win her a team of house cleaners and a prince’s kiss.
What? Are you saying she isn’t a beautiful woman, dear leader?
Even if that banter was pretty damn charming . . .
“Shut up,” Apollo groused, ducking his head to hide his tense jaw beneath the fall of his hair. Or was it a camouflage tactic for something else? Something like a telling flush?
Ah, fine. Perhaps we will choose to ignore him then, sweet Irowen.
The remark, as ridiculously embarrassing as it seemed even thirty seconds later, was a blessing in disguise. Wen seized the chance for her own awkward head drop, rasping beneath her breath, “Easier said than done, soldier bird.”
And yes, it was only a rasp—she’d swear that on her own proverbial grave—yet here came the moment she learned that even cemetery-safe whispers weren’t safe from the ears of an Olympian god.
And now it was her turn to own the cheeks full of embarrassing color, especially as Apollo puffed up, flashed a smug smirk, then flicked the gold band around Kaw’s leg until it tinged.
Only then did she notice the embossed symbol on the cuff: a design that must’ve been Apollo’s insignia, with its sun encircling a lyre that turned into an arrow point at the bottom.
Since Kaw was the only member of the squad with the band, he’d likely worked his tail feathers off to earn it: a feeling to which she related all too well.
As well as the feeling of getting nothing but a finger flick for it.
But hadn’t she just done the same thing to the bird with her internal judgment? Written off him and his team before she knew anything about their skills? Abilities she’d already written off as fantasy, despite walking in here with a god she’d accepted as the real deal.
Maybe that was her first—or twelfth—stupid move of the night.
Clearly, his Glow Worm Godship didn’t need her stake in his truth.
He’d already bought and drank every drop of his own press, down to the last arrogant dregs.
Ignoring him was a realistic goal, after all—and now, even blissfully doable.
She was spry about proving it, stomping forward then barging her shoulder against his chest as she wedged directly in front of Kaw herself.
In her periphery, Apollo doubled down on his told-you-so chuckle. She’d never had so much fun reacting like a guy was wrestling twenty sticks of chewing gum at once.
On the other hand, Kaw deserved every concentrated effort of her fresh-born humility, including the respect beneath her new words.
“I’m very grateful for your dedication, Captain.
And before you think of saying it”—she flung up a hand, fingers determinedly spread—“this isn’t just about ‘doing your duty’.
That goes for all of you.” She went on, during a round of nods for the crows on the other perches, “This extra request from Apollo couldn’t have been an easy burden to accept, on top of the ongoing hunt for Nao Ito.
But my sister . . . she’s unique in a lot of ways, okay?
Some of them are more complicated than others. ”
Since she took care with the description, thinking over every word like a White House press release, she allowed herself another second for a scrupulous sigh. And then: “Needless to say, every passing minute is going to be harder for her.”
And me.
There was the part she nearly didn’t add, even silently. But she thanked herself for taking the risk as soon as she looked back up. Yet this time, not at Kaw.
Was Apollo’s hearing good enough to penetrate to her thoughts? It felt exactly that way as he continued the bond of their stares, his lagoon greens gaining depths she didn’t expect or know what to do with.
How could he be such a cocky douche to Kaw one second but then peer over like he felt every aching inch of her heart the next?
Was every deity from his mountain this gratingly confusing?
And why was she so furious about not knowing that answer?
And how did the feeling get doubled solely from the man’s kingly step forward, an authoritative lever now raising his head?