Chapter Seventeen
Twelve hours ago, Wen was certain a glowing gold arrow in the middle of her chest would count as the most terrifying sight of her life. That and the kohl-lined glare of the dauntingly beautiful male who’d put it there.
What a difference a trip to hell made.
The hell into which she’d been brutally flung back. This time, without a chiseled seraph god to guide her out.
Her mind, barely clinging to sanity past the torment of her senses, grasped no other conclusion.
That was the power of the string, then? To play a tune so stunning but strange it sucked the self-control from her neurons?
To trap her limbs like a clown on a calliope, strapping her onto a burning carousel?
It wasn’t an exaggeration. Not now.
Someone detonated a bomb that felt like the sun had been hauled into the building.
She could only squeeze her eyes shut and weather the blazing brilliance with guttural prayers to any being who’d listen. Supplications she hadn’t uttered even when bleeding out on Natasha Korra’s foyer.
But back then, she hadn’t been so close to finding Genny. Also back then, she didn’t believe in things like gods actually heeding such pleas.
Back then, she had yet to meet the god of the sun himself.
The sun.
The god.
Holy shit. Apollo.
She couldn’t form any semblance of the words on her lips, but they burst in her heart along with the epiphany in her mind.
Nobody was trying to blow up the airport. The cacophony was him, calling down the power of his Phoebus from the sky itself. The fiery star gave him such a huge swath of influence over every realm, be it heaven, hell, or here.
But why did he utilize it now? Risking such a dazzling exposure of it? It couldn’t be in the name of rescuing the string. He didn’t need such a giant sliver of the sun to accomplish that.
Damn it, Glow Worm, you’re aware of that, aren’t you?
“I think I’m clear about that part, Little Monster.”
On their own, her eyelids flew open. Scorching light filled her vision, a thousand shades of yellow, gold, and white at once.
She winced, expecting pain and darkness to follow. That was how being struck blind always happened in Grandma’s Bible stories, and she had zero other points of reference for the experience. But the retribution took its time, manifesting so weirdly that her braced stance became a dorky stumble.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. She wasn’t supposed to see him anymore, let alone inside an aurora of bright filaments that nearly turned him into an extraterrestrial bride.
Totally fine by her. She’d gladly switch places and be his groom, if he brought the rest of the look with him down the aisle.
That stubborn chisel of his jaw. The feral flares of his nostrils.
And holy shit, that hunting knife edge in his brilliant greens, flashing like he’d lifted them straight from the forge so he could stab and burn her . . .
But he didn’t.
His plan turned out to be worse.
Once more before she could connect two brain cells and react, he dipped over and swept her off her feet. As in off her feet, with one of his hands in her armpit and the other under a kneecap. Also as in securing such a tight hold, she couldn’t twist free.
What the hell?
Though as her senses shrieked the protest, she attempted the break again. She wasn’t new to a guy attempting the Lancelot act. Knock it off, Your Godship. I can get out of here on my own two legs.
“Of which I have no doubt, Sweetheart,” he stated, once more widening her gaze and dropping her jaw, “but right now, you need to trust my prescience about our situation.”
It was time to bristle at him again. And a whole lot more.
But damn it, she couldn’t deny the proof he’d already offered about his full capacities here.
To a lesser degree, why was she still shunning the thirteen-year-old in the corner of her soul, begging for a chance to be manhandled by Olympus’s mash-up of Tarzan, Satoru Gojo, and the man-bun Instagram guy?
Especially the one so connected to his damn lyre string its power gave him the ability to hear her every thought now?
“Are you and your precious prescience”—what even was that, anyway—“really giving me any choice about the—aggghhh.”
Her scream didn’t just take over the snark.
It wiped every cognition from her mind and senses, worse than his stunning sun blast. This time, she couldn’t blame the shriek merely on his light and heat.
Who knew he had astral-grade speed for the maddening mix, as well?
Yes, he had moves; his taskmaster stride and let-me-drive-you-crazy hands were already committed to the core of her memory.
But the surreal zipline he took her on now . . . Holy cobalt hedgehogs, kids.
The length of the concourse zipped past in seconds, like arthouse movie scenes thrown through a warp speed hole, before they zoomed up on a real hole.
Hold up. No, what was this? A cave? A dungeon gate?
The aperture was dark and wide enough to be either, though she wasn’t given half a second to draw any clear conclusion.
Only after the gaping opening swallowed them whole did she realize they’d plummeted straight down an elevator shaft.
Fate granted her another miracle in the form of an extra two seconds to look back the way they came and see the elevator car above them, instead of below—but was that ultimately good or bad?
Answer: neither.
She should have known. No more than ten feet down, a funnel of fire and wind enveloped them with recognizable fury.
The maelstrom was so familiar, her limbs reacted with automatic instinct.
After tucking her head against his neck and wrapping her arms tighter to his shoulders, she twisted her lower body until their legs were entwined.
They fell deeper into the hot hurricane, buffeted then bolstered, until the fluorescent lights and solar glare from the terminal were pushed away for obsidian walls and cool breezes that smelled like midnight mist and—
Pizza?
That had to just be her belly’s wishful thinking, restated with a growl so obnoxious, she chuckled.
Apollo didn’t register either sound, preoccupied with setting her back on her feet—theoretically speaking.
While he didn’t clutch her as close as a body pillow on a stormy night, no way did the guy look ready to give up his hold at her waist.
Nor, she readily admitted, did she want him to.
As he splayed his long fingers along the back of her ribs and guided her down the new Underworld avenue where they’d landed, she was very fine right where she was—and yearned to stay for more than a few seconds.
But their journey hadn’t been a private charter.
Good news: neither Natasha Korra nor Nao Ito showed up as their travel mates.
But that was also the bad news. By this point, Wen was ready to jump on Ito like an enemy ninja, breaking his arms as she threatened the same to his neck.
Now that the oyabun was, more or less, just an arm’s length from the artifact he craved so much, her job was done and he owed her Genny’s safe return.
For now, she’d have to swallow the frustration and again play nice with Hercules and Lois.
Well, at least with Herc. The pair had arrived from their own version of the portal with an extra passenger: a handsome older man dressed exactly like one of Ito’s lieutenants.
The guy’s energy was equally as daunting and formal, to the point Wen balled her fists and hurled a prickly glare at him.
But less than a minute later, after watching Lois and the guy exchange tender words and a hug that solidified him as either her father or her really affectionate boss, she relaxed her fingers.
Thankfully, the new affection on Hercules’ face confirmed her first impression.
Holy shit. Was that how they made it out, then? Was one of Ito’s men actually Lois’s dad?
Her answer came in the form of Apollo’s affectionate chuckle and fresh squeeze at her waist. Lois wasted no time in darting a bewildered gawk up at his gorgeous, smiling profile.
The portal between them and the concourse had closed with a loud and defined slam, absolutely shutting in Lois and Hercules down here—
Causing an equal boom of confusion throughout Wen’s psyche.
If the string was still back up on the Haneda concourse somewhere, and Apollo was already in here, how did he still glean from its power with the woo-woo mind tricks?
Unless, on their Hermes-worthy dash to the elevator shaft, her glowy god had collected a souvenir from their adventure?
The second her brain came up with the twist on his nickname, Apollo chuckled. And as soon as she perked up at him because of that, he dipped his head to guide her scrutiny away from his face—and down to his crotch. While she didn’t hate that particular plot twist, she openly wondered about it—
Until her sightline fell below his waistline.
And once there, fixated on the telling glow from his front pocket.
A glint much like a strand of cow gut infused with the aura of a god.
At least a dozen quips replaced the bewilderment across her brain, everything from nastier takes on Glow Worm to is-that-an-enchanted-lyre-string-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me. Before she could decide on just one, Apollo issued an affable grunt toward his brother.
“Zeus’s mangy toes, I live for moments like this.”
“Shut up,” Herc snapped, though both syllables vibrated with more fraternal fondness.
The warmth spread across the big guy’s rugged features, as well, making the demigod look like an adoring lion with his ladylove princess as he turned back and pressed closer to Lois.
As the pretty little writer gave in to her own end of their magnetic pull, Wen couldn’t help a small smile.
She knew a solid case of smitten when she saw one. Yeah, even after just one night.
When people were thrown together by the craziest circumstances, with no idea if they’d be blessed to see another sunrise, crazy ideas felt like the best dreams to live.
What she wouldn’t give to do exactly the same.
Wouldn’t it be lovely to surrender to the lusties—perhaps even more—for a perfect male of Olympus?
Perhaps even a god who’d built a VIP atrium for his crows, nurtured green and gold gardens even in Hell, actually thought the kohl around his eyes hid the truths of his heart, and—
So many other things that didn’t matter.
That couldn’t. Not ever.
But especially not now.
Not when she stood here and gulped against hot, jealous tears as Lois and her father spoke quietly with Hercules.
Yes, as the three of them already appeared like the beginnings of an odd but closeknit family.
Though their laughs were unsteady, their gazes and their touches were tight and sure.
They were together and planned on staying that way.
Together.
The word stampeded her mind. Stabbed her chest.
Would she and Genny ever know the word again?
Now more than ever, that answer lay in no one’s hands but hers. And no way, despite the exhaustion and hopelessness weighing her limbs and shredding her heart, would she rest on that conclusion.
She clung to the conviction even when swinging back around at Apollo, determined to demand he portal-push her ass back out to a random sidewalk in ōta. From there, she planned on tapping every Tokyo-based sourced she had to restart the stress of hunting for her sister all over again.
She’d stand firm about it, damn it, no matter how newly beautiful he looked in the beguiling light of this Underworld neighborhood.
But a funny thing happened on the way from her mind to hard reality.
Yes, the same crazy truth in which that gorgeous godship could pluck thoughts from her mind then morph them into sharper daggers in his steady greens.
After that, mold them into double hammers at her psyche.
Throbs which felt like playful love taps compared to the command of his hand around hers.
The aggravating male was not letting go of her any time soon.
No more time for that frustration, though. Not when it was blowtorched away by her shock while watching him use his free hand to tuck the lyre string fully back into his pocket.
In the two seconds before he made the whole thing vanish, he rubbed the sheep gut just long enough to send her one line of a firm telepathic message.
Hey, Little Monster. High time we go find your funny sibling scamp, hmmm?