Chapter 4 #2
She shook her head no and let it drop. However, she didn’t drop the semantics game he’d started. “I need a point of clarification for this little question-and-answer session before we begin.”
He inclined his dark head, letting her proceed. “Seems we may need to set some ground rules. I don’t think any question I ask you at any given point in time should count.”
“Fair enough. How about this? We determine a set number of questions we get, total, and we create an indication for when the questioning begins or ends.”
“Twenty questions.” E figured everyone, even gods, knew that game.
“Agreed. But twenty questions total. Ten for you and ten for me.”
She nodded, brain whirling to come up with the best possible questions she could think of in the moment. His deep, silky voice whispered, “Let’s get started.”
“Yes, but give me a minute.”
He shrugged those massive shoulders and she thought of how wide and tall he was, even in this human form. Which brought her to her first question. “Why and how do gods hide?”
He tsked her way but a spark of amusement lit his brilliant green eyes. “Tricksy E, using compound questions. We did not specify, so I’ll allow it.”
Plutus leaned back into the black leather seat and turned his head her way. It seemed intimate, like he lay in a bed and looked over at her. She brushed off the idea, and the sexy as hell images it conjured, as he began to talk.
“I assume you know the history of what happened to the supernaturals when they decided to expose themselves to human society.”
E sure did. Bloodshed, hunts, general chaos and mayhem, all at the hands of humans. Humans didn’t like things that were not like them, and they’d proven it time and time again – with supernaturals and other humans alike.
“But that was centuries ago.”
“E, E, E. You know such impulses do not easily die. However, to answer your question of why, first: humans hunted us long before they hunted other supernaturals.”
She stared at him, wanting more. Needing more. But she wasn’t about to give up a question to get it.
He grinned, as if he knew how she struggled not to ask, and gave it to her anyway.
“There is a reason so many stories exist about ancient gods from so many cultures. Because we exist, and at one time, we existed out in the open. Then the humans discovered we were not as invincible as we appeared. What followed was many battles, lots of blood, and many lives lost on both sides.”
He sighed deep, his mouth turning down in a frown as if he’d been thrown back into a bad memory.
Something in her wanted to soothe those lines on his achingly beautiful face, and she caught her hand as it raised to do just that, clasping it tight in her other and setting it firmly in her lap.
Plutus noticed and stared at her lap for several beats before he continued.
“We convened, as we gods so like to do, and came to a decision: we would hide. It took a great deal of magic to make humans think we were myth, but after they thought it, the idea easily passed down from generation to generation. We went about our business, hiding away, or in plain sight, from then on.”
A long, silent minute stretched and he chuckled.
“You play the game well, E. Let me answer your how question.” He began to undo his black silk tie, and E became fascinated by the shape of his hands and the pop of his veins, as he pulled the knot down and unbuttoned the first few buttons on his crisp shirt.
A hint of bronze skin gleamed beneath, though it did not have the golden sheen it had earlier.
He snaked two of his long, deft fingers into his shirt and pulled out a necklace.
It wasn’t shiny and expensive looking, like his tie clip and cufflinks.
A skinny brown leather cord, slightly frayed and worn with age, held a dangling bronze medallion.
There were markings on it, but in the faint light of the backseat, E couldn’t see it clearly.
Curiosity took over and she leaned forward, grabbing the medallion and pulling it, and him, closer to her face. “It looks to be Greek.”
“That it is,” he purred, so close his breath fanned across her face, smacking her with his delicious smoke and whiskey scent so hard she slammed her eyes closed in defense.
“Sorry,” she muttered, dropping the necklace and shoving herself as far back in her seat as she could go.
Plutus stayed where he was, leaning into her space. “You never need to apologize for your impulses with me, E.” She was certain he meant more than just her impulse to learn or know, but she kept her mouth zipped.
He slowly eased back into his own seat but kept himself turned toward her, his long legs hitting her own when they stopped and started in the NYC traffic. “My turn.”
Plutus made a big show of thinking, tapping his strong chin and tilting his head this way and that. Then, he asked, “Why did you dye your hair pink?”
She blinked at him. Not a hard-hitting question, which surprised her. From what she’d experienced so far, he seemed the calculating sort. E also had to tamp down the urge to ask if he liked it or not. She wasn’t going to waste a question on something unnecessary, even if it wormed through her gut.
“Well, my hair is blonde. A dirty blonde, but blonde. I have no problem with it per se, but in college I started dying it various colors. I liked pink the most, so I kept it up.”
He stared unblinking, and she knew he wanted more specifics, just like she had. She also knew he wouldn’t ask, not during their little game of twenty questions. She decided to give him more. He’d given her blood and terror. E could give him this little bit of herself.
She pulled one side of her hair back and around to expose the left side of her neck.
The scars were faint but visible, running from beneath her left ear down to the top of her shoulder.
They were far back enough she hid them easily from most people, but she didn’t hide them from Plutus.
“When I was fourteen, I was trying to make popcorn in a pot because our microwave was broken. There was an accident, hot popcorn kernels and grease flying everywhere. I turned my face in time, thank god, but I was left with this. I eventually got tired of all the questions, even after I healed, and long hair covers them effectively.” She gestured to the old scars she was used to after so long, then flipped her hair back in place.
“So, I don’t like to cut my hair above my shoulders.
Which means dyeing it is the only option I have to do something different with it. ”
Pluto’s hand whipped out, curling around the left side of her neck.
As he pulled her close, he tilted her head to the side with his surprisingly strong, firm thumb.
She let him, and shuddered out a breath when he began to trace the outline of her scars.
Then, his face moved in, and his nose butted against her neck.
She felt the touch all the way down in her core and she gasped out at the riot in her body.
Half a second later, Plutus was back in his own seat, his nostrils flaring and his eyes glowing green. Not just the brilliant green they were, but literally glowing with a green light. “You have no reason to hide,” he ground out. “We all have scars, some more visible than others.”
E shrugged and thanked whatever other gods might be around when the car suddenly came to a stop and she heard the driver’s side door open and close. “Game over,” she whispered as Plutus’s door opened from the outside.
His white, human teeth flashed. “Not yet.”
She watched him exit and immediately turn to take her hand. It was a horrible idea on so many levels, but her body inched forward and she took what he offered, however much that might be.