Chapter Eleven
“Rizon?”
Why she echoed the syllables as if Apollo hadn’t been as clear as a lighting strike about them, Wen didn’t know.
Bullshit. Of course you know.
Because didn’t stammering it like a dumb doll make it as unreal as a plastic toy? Because if she didn’t full-throttle it like he had, would that reverse this crazy plot twist and set her free from facing the truth?
Running from reality was only for fairytales, and the last time she’d believed in one of those, Grandma had still been alive.
The world had been nothing but popsicles in the summer and their campout for the Hollywood Christmas Parade every December.
Genny always hated sleeping on that damn sidewalk.
Genny.
The syllables were jumper cables for her new urgency.
In seconds she revved upright then into the foyer next to Apollo.
Hunched and shivering just outside the front door was a guy with a face she vaguely knew, if only because he was featured on so many entertainment industry gossip sites.
Thanks to Ito’s extortion, she’d hit up all of them at least twelve times a day for the last three weeks, throwing her algorithms into the gutter.
Now, she knew every detail about every celebrity concert ’fit, hairstyle, and breakup, as well as every so-called idiosyncrasy about this guy: known to the rest of the world as rising rock stud Reks Byrd.
Ohhh, if those paparazzi crews could see him now.
The only thing on the rise about the pauper in front of them was the dirt on his form-fitting leathers and the shame in his dingy, tired eyes.
He spared them from that part by dipping his head and wiping his nose on a sleeve of the white T-shirt he wore beneath a grommeted vest. Parts of the grime in his heavy dark stubble rubbed off along with whatever gunk was mixed with his snot.
“Rizon,” Apollo prompted. “I asked you a fucking question.”
The demigod went as pale as the gutter waif he resembled. Wen wondered if the guy was about to pull out a bowl and beg for porridge. Instead, still racked from head to toe by violent shudders, he raised his head and met Apollo’s steady glower.
“And you are owed an answer, Your Godship.” His voice was parched and petrified. The desperation of the sound, even coming from a hostile informant, might have usually impelled Wen to the kitchen for a glass of water to slip to him. Snakes hissed better when they were a bit hydrated.
She didn’t care if this reptile shriveled like his own skin in the sun.
His fraud, lies, evasion, and cowardice were why her sister had become Ito’s hostage.
Why Genny was still hidden so well, Wen still didn’t have a single bead on her location.
None of her sources, from high-rises to back alleys, could scrounge up anything either.
His crimes were also why she’d had to leave behind her eight best men at the mortal level of DeLux, not knowing whether they’d survived their major ass-kicking courtesy of the demigod Hercules.
So no, she didn’t care if this demigod looked like his tonsils were wrestling with a gecko’s nut sack.
“I—I owe you an apology, Excellency. I—I did take the string to your lyre.”
The tonsils she’d gladly assist Apollo in ripping from his throat now.
“I—I am sorry, Godship Apollo. Sorrier than I can ever show—”
“Oh, the ways I’m going to prove you wrong about that.”
Apollo’s drawl was so bitter and savage, Rizon choked for long seconds. When the demigod finally summoned his voice again, tears shivered beneath its surface.
“I . . . I was afraid, Apollo. I messed up, and bad. Admittedly, I shouldn’t have tried to handle things on my own, but I felt like such an idiot with getting myself into such deep gambling debt with Nao Ito, of all people.”
“Hold up.” Apollo underlined the order by cocking his head, peering at the demigod as if certain he’d spot Rizon’s dishonesty.
Again Wen was there, sanctioning the thought with her glare too.
“Gambling debt? You snuck into my palace and took my treasure because a roulette ball didn’t plunk your way? ”
“A—A poker hand, actually,” Rizon confessed, working the balls of his hands against each other.
His fingers didn’t seem to mesh as well, a recognition that led her sights to his fingers: all eight of them.
The demigod’s left pinky and ring finger were missing.
“I, ermmm, promised to pay it back once the European concert profits hit my mortal bank account, except there was a dispute with the tech crew not getting paid right, and then a bunch of fans who got trampled in the pit and had medical bills . . . ”
The asshole was obviously ready for a longer ramble, but Wen lost her patience and bit out, “So what happened?” She couldn’t handle his sob story when Genny was approaching a whole month without her meds.
Luckily, they were the kind that took forever to build up, so the withdrawals might not be hitting full force yet.
Yet . . .
Rizon looked ready to roll his eyes at her, likely assuming she was nothing but Apollo’s side piece for the night.
And men wondered why she hated the idea of long-term hookup calls?
She and Apollo hadn’t even groped below beltlines, and here she was, fighting for relevance with this bowl of cheap ramen.
Go ahead, asshole. Give me a reason to make me barbecue your dick then feed it to you in cute little slices.
“What do you think happened?” Rizon finally groused back. “Ito sent a shiny squad of his kyodai to visit. Except when I bled in gold as well as red, they dragged me in front of the big boss within minutes.”
“Which probably saved the rest of your hand,” Apollo commented. “But not your true identity.”
Wen pulled in air through her nose. “So, Ito suddenly didn’t want concert money for interest anymore.”
She scored a direct hit for the truth of it, if the new anxiety on Rizon’s face was an accurate sign. Sure enough, the demigod defended, “He suggested other things first, you know. Poseidon’s wreath, even one of Cupid’s arrows.”
“Fuck.” Apollo dropped his forehead against a cradle of his fingers.
“But I talked him down to the lyre string,” Rizon jabbered, panic overtaking his waterworks. “It was minor, small, and easy to transport. Ito only wanted it for the novelty and rarity. He’s a collector, you know.”
Wen spurted a sharp laugh. “And you believed that?”
Rizon wheeled toward her, ferocity firing in his stare. “It’s barely a meter of stretched sheep’s gut. There are six more like it on the instrument! I had no idea that—”
“What?” Apollo dented the doorjamb with one emphasizing pound of his fist. “That what, you moronic malakas? That because it’s not a golden treasure, it isn’t imbued with the full powers of your Phoebus, the sun god supreme?
The forces that mortals have no fucking concept how to use?
That in the wrong hands could mean some very bad things for their entire realm? ”
The demigod fell to his knees, shaking harder at the words Apollo used in place of his fists.
Rightly so. Wen shook too, struggling to remember the male who’d just held and kissed her with such needy tenderness.
That incarnation was long gone, replaced by this .
. . god. A vengeful one. Not just a sexy sorcerer who could bulls-eye her with glowing arrows and summon tornado transporters.
A freaking divinity who looked ready to level a city or five because of his displeasure.
Thankfully, Rizon appeared to have figured that out too—or at least she assumed from his cowering shoulders. A premature choice. As soon as the milkweed raised his head again, impatience and insolence defined his wan features. It wasn’t a good look for him.
“I made a mistake, Godship. I understand that, and I fully own my foolish lapse. I have made the brave decision to come clean about it, falling on your mercy and beseeching your kindness for a subject who has never strayed from your service before.”
“Okay, jab a pin right there.” Though Wen managed to wrap the line in rose petals, she jabbed a look at the demigod full of thorns. Openly suspicious ones. Her instincts weren’t kidding. That arrogance didn’t do a damn thing for the slick little sleeb.
“A . . . pin?” Rizon flung it like his own accusation. “Into what? Your Godship, you know I don’t mind whatever mortals you enjoy consorting with, but I do take offense to one of them speaking out like this in front of you.”
“Uhhh . . . ” She leaned out from Apollo’s shadow with a pointed cock of her head. “Not exactly accurate there either, buddy, but we can fix that.”
Rizon grunted. “Excuse me?”
She wouldn’t get a better cue than that, so she stepped fully between the two males. If that defiled some Acropolis lah-dee-dah-ry, Apollo would have to deal. This was for his own good. His own gut already had to be checking him about this bizarre stunt from the twitchy demigod.
“Okay, now I’m dishing the disrespect right in front of the big guy,” she offered. “But hey, what a coincidence. Rizon, my darling, so are you. What do you say we compare notes?”
“What are you talking ab—” The schlub huffed and narrowed his eyes with an impressive air of insult. No, why are you even still talking? Do you not realize that your pretty head has left the Godship’s pillow? Or bedroom floor. Or wherever he last fucked you. In any case—gleerrgh!”
Though Wen was denied the treat of introducing Rizon’s trachea to the new sound, she happily gifted the experience to Apollo.
Perhaps a little more than that. On the satisfaction scale of watching his pissed-off profile, with his laser-etched jaw and flaring nostrils, happy only moved the needle halfway.
Holy shit. She’d seen enough men in their primal state to know they could often be more stunning when seething, but his Olympian blood was a gamechanger for it right now.
This little episode was going to be more fun than she first thought . . .
“Apologize.”
But only if she could talk Apollo out of committing the murder beneath his low threat.
“Do it, you filthy putanas yos. Right now. Apologize to her.”
So much for the diplomatic plan.
“Hey.” She clamped as much of her hand as possible to the shelf of his shoulder. “Hey. Apollo. Let him go. I can handle this.” By bracing her stance wider, she finally gained enough traction to dislodge his hold on the gasping demigod. “I said I got this. Plus, he’s no good to us as a corpse. Yet.”
Rizon faltered from her last line, which perfectly destabilized him. Now he’d tip harder and break faster. Every instinct in her body already screamed that they desperately needed that speed.
“All right, demigod,” she stated. “Your turn now. Go ahead. Make me shut my mouth, step back, and get lost so you boys can properly talk. It’s as easy as giving back what you took from Apollo, right? Surely that’s what you’ve come back to do in exchange for his mercy and kindness?”
It was easy to draw out both the words, since the supernatural guys reacted like every pair of mortal men she’d ever met.
In one way, their jolt of incensed energy was vindicating, but she didn’t have time to gloat.
They had to get to the bigger truth now, readily out-zapping every moment that led up to its utterance from Apollo’s terse lips.
“But you can’t do that, can you, Rizon? Because you don’t have the string anymore, do you?”