Chapter Sixteen Kion
Chapter Sixteen
Kion
Fuckkkk.
As they exit the local magistrate precinct, mounting their stymphs—Taissa looks really damn funny, taking a running start in the cramped parking lot to do the High Mount—Kion wonders who he pissed off so badly to be cursed.
Nobody he’s known has ever been cursed. That’s archaic stuff, “petty” stuff.
The magis they spoke to promised to take their case to the DMR and CCB after paying a call on the emo síceach to confirm his and Taissa’s report.
There’d been relief in the magis’s eyes, maybe that the NCL Stymphs weren’t so shitty, after all.
Bill Dodds will be notified—effective immediately—and they’ll see where to go from there.
Chances are, they still have to play, cursed or no. But maybe Bill will be a bit more lenient about dissolving them.
Fuck, Kion still feels so stupid. Writing all of this off as a bad case of the Blunduns. What kind of captain is he? What kind of coach? The flight back to the Nexitory atop their stymphs is silent. He can tell that Cho is deep in thought. So is he.
It’s not just the curse that’s bothering him. It’s that síceach. Is that really Taissa’s type? Can’t be, can it? He’s as far from it as possible. Not that it matters. At all.
But he can’t stop thinking about it.
And about how her aura was pink. How both of theirs were.
When they finally land, Kion and Taissa are sure to give their Wingeds a good rubdown in the stables, underneath Yggdrasil.
Neither of them speak. Taissa doesn’t even look at him, so focused on Cronus.
After stomping out of Alun’s, she’d hastily grabbed a takeaway bag of fish-and-chips and now she’s staring at her Winged as he rips through the grease-stained paper and stabs the fried cod with his beak.
“Cho,” he finally says, just as the stable doors burst open and Niamh, tottering on unnecessarily high pumps, rushes in.
“Did you hear?” the elf gasps, flouncing toward them, tablet pressed to her chest. Kion’s mouth thins.
So word of this curse has already spread.
He opens his mouth to tell her that they’ve just come back from the station when she thrusts her tablet into his face.
“Wily Witch wants the two of you to come in for an interview and a photoshoot for their front cover!” As Niamh squeals, clearly delighted, Kion’s mouth drops open.
That’s definitely not what he was expecting her to say.
He was expecting something more along the lines of, We’ve been invited to a vigil for the cockatrices. Wear all black and look as miserable as you feel.
“Your ugly mug? On a magazine?” Cato snarks.
Kion swats at him.
“And,” Niamh continues, basically glowing with exuberance, “they’re looking for the two of you to officially and exclusively confirm your relationship.”
Taissa clears her throat. “Doesn’t this seem a wee bit insensitive? So soon after the Dust Bite?”
Exactly what he was about to ask.
Albeit more polite.
Niamh touches her bandaged forehead with one manicured hand.
“Well, um, yes…But honestly, it’s because of the Dust Bite that Wily Witch is seeking this exclusive.
The tragedy gave us a ton of exposure. People online have been speculating about the two of you, and one of the paparazzi photos reached nearly fifty thousand likes.
Maybe some good’s come out of this. As callous as it is to say,” she hastens to add when Kion pins her with a glare.
The colorful flowers threaded through her blonde hair seem to momentarily wilt.
“Plus, they’re offering significant compensation. ”
Kion runs his tongue over his teeth. The síceach’s ridiculous fee has made a dent in his already-shrinking wallet. “How much?” he and Taissa ask at the same time.
She types up a number. Shows them.
“Each,” adds Niamh.
Merlin’s shriveled balls.
Kion clears his throat while Taissa emits something between a gasp and a croak. “All of this? For a few photos and an interview?” he asks, slightly disgusted.
Fuck’s sake, there are people who don’t make this amount in a year. Maybe two. Maybe three.
To his dread, Niamh suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Ah, the photos will be more of the…risqué…variety?” Her voice tilts up at the end, as if to lessen the blow.
“Risqué,” repeats Kion softly. Even to his own ears, his quiet voice sounds deadly. “Define that.”
The elf shifts from foot to foot. “Well, it is Wily Witch…”
“Please don’t say we have to be naked,” says Taissa.
Silence, except for Cato’s cackling a moment after the silence stretches just a little too fucking long. After a moment, Taissa’s stymph joins in, too. Merlin. They’ve gone and bloody joined forces. He shoots the stymphalians a look of warning.
“Niamh,” Taissa urges, voice growing louder, “just tell us we don’t have to be naked.”
Niamh’s attempt at an honest, trustworthy smile is laughable. “Er…you don’t have to be naked?”
Ah, fuck. They definitely do.
“I mean…” The elf blows a blonde strand out of her heart-shaped face. “They’re looking for some provocative shots. Not, like, porn—”
“Small mercy,” mutters Taissa, who has suddenly gone pink. Kion’s own ears are burning.
“—but tasteful,” finishes Niamh. “The two of you in, maybe, sheets. Things like that. You know. Seductive.”
“You should see your face right now.”
“Shut up.”
“No. This is funny. A piece of art. Even better than that comedy show Tanaka put on last year—”
Kion closes his eyes and prays to Merlin for mercy, taking one deep, steadying breath. The stable’s air smells like leather and wood. When he opens his eyes again, Niamh is looking at him with a damnably expectant expression. He realizes she’s asked if they’ll do it.
Fuck, Kion wishes he still had his agent to field these ridiculous requests; to make demands and call people ugly words for him. But bottom-rank Minor League players don’t get swanky agents; nobody will waste their time on the lowest of the low. So all he has is Niamh.
“Please?” the elf begs, suddenly looking hopeful.
Kion knows that before Taissa strutted into Pinion-upon-Keat’s Nexitory, Niamh was on the verge of losing her job.
She was going to be the next to go, after the janitors, kit boys, coach, assistant coach, bus driver, masseuse, and groundsman.
With no even halfway decent press, and the tabloids calling his team “roadkill,” Bill Dodds was on the verge of letting Niamh go.
Everybody could tell. It’s a bloody miracle she’s held on for so long.
“All the shots will be tasteful, I promise.” Ah, shit. She’s pulling puppy dog eyes.
“Give us a moment, will you?” Kion mutters, and Niamh nods, backing up a few paces. “Further. Further. Further…”
Niamh looks distinctly unamused as her back hits the wooden wall. Only then does Kion turn to Taissa.
“I say no,” he bites out. “We have a curse to look into.”
“Think of the money, Locke,” is her hushed rejoinder. Ah, fuck. Cho’s eyes are wide. He can basically see pound signs sparkling in them. “And with all you just spent on Alun’s reading…It’s easy cash, don’t you see? We talk about how ‘smitten’ we are with each other and take a few photos—”
“Provocative photos,” he reminds her through his teeth.
“Heh,” says Cato. “He-he-he-he. He-he.”
Cronus seems to be smirking. As much as Kion can tell.
The look Taissa gives Kion is withering.
“Locke, this isn’t the kind of money you pass up.
Besides, I don’t think Bill would let us.
Niamh asking seems more like, well, a courtesy.
It’s in our contracts that we ‘do hereby agree to act in accordance to the necessary steps to ensure beneficial press for all parties involved; including, but not limited to, the pretense of a relationship between…’ ”
Kion grimaces, but part of him is reluctantly impressed.
He barely read the terms of agreement between them before signing it, but even if he had, there’s absolutely no bloody way he’d remember it as perfectly as Taissa.
She’d had a green tinge to her aura, that síceach had said: high intellect.
And she’d known how to draw a bloody Untold glyph.
Right. So maybe, yeah, he’d assumed that she was…well, not dumb, not Cho, but maybe not smart, either. And he’s feeling like a massive, massive arsehole for some reason right about now. He’s assumed a lot of shit about her over the years. Maybe he shouldn’t have.
Maybe there’s more that he’s assumed that’s…wrong.
The thought is unsettling. His skin crawls.
“Locke,” Taissa prompts. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Listening. Yeah.”
The glare she gives him is scathingly dubious. “We’re doing it.”
“Fine.” He doesn’t let himself think too long about what kind of pictures they’ll be taking together.
And he’s not imagining himself tangled up in sheets with her, or what one of her toned legs would feel like hooked around his underneath the covers.
Damn it, the last thing he needs is another Stiffy Disaster.
Not that she gives him stiffies.
Anymore.
Fuck. No. He means—
“Locke,” Taissa says as Niamh—slowly and ominously, in his opinion—makes her way back toward the duo, “you look like you’re constipated.
Or either thinking really hard about something.
Which, by the way, I didn’t know you could even do.
” As he glowers at her, she turns to Niamh.
With grim resolution, she says, “We’ll do it. ”
The elf’s face lights up, and those flowers in her hair bloom back to life. “Perfect!” she squeals. “I’ll respond right now; they’re asking for you in three days. They’re wanting to get ahead of the curve and all. They’re afraid The MorningStar will beat them to it. Oh, you two, this is fabulous!”
“Yippee,” says Taissa wearily, just as the Nexitory’s loudspeaker crackles far, far overhead, hidden by the branches of Yggdrasil. There’s one in each section of the Nexitory, and now, Bill’s voice screeches from the heavens like some kind of angry deity.