Page 19 of Hercules

She mentally stored the information out of curiosity and nothing else. Or so she inwardly retorted at her scoffing brain before confirming to the guy, “Done. But there’s only a bunch of airplane booze bottles in here. And this tequila looks very expired.”

“Because it’s not tequila.”

“Eh?”

“Bring me two of the bottles,” he ordered. “Better make it three. Damn it, these guys really knew what they were doing.”

Doing about what? And how do I know you don’t mean him more harm?

Lois almost went there aloud, despite the urgent tension still consuming every inch of big brother’s regal face. But what if she did? None of her TV scripts were medical procedurals for very good reason. She could squirt antibacterial cream and slap on a bandage from a drug store box, but the damage to this big guy’s thigh was going to need wound care beyond her comprehension. And…stitches?

Holy crap. Probably stitches.

And here she was, seemingly absconded to Edward Cullen’s house with a bat cave overlay—irony not missed, but she couldn’t afford the laugh right now—with only one ally to her name. So if Prince Bloody Hair wanted the musty Cuervo—or whatever it was—he was going to get it.

“Open all three,” he instructed as soon as she returned. This time, she didn’t waste any time with even a private eye roll. She couldn’t. Not being this close to how pale his brother was getting. How shallow the breaths wheezed from Hercules’ lungs.

“What’s happening?” she asked again. “What’s wrong with him?”

Apollo—she couldn’t keep identifying him by his blood loss, no matter how weird this shit with the mythological placeholders was getting—still didn’t give her a response. He was all about the thick yellow liquid now. Trying, with tormented determination, to force the stuff past his brother’s lips.

“Herc,” he uttered. “Open up, you stubborn shit. Come on.”

But as soon as some of the amber ooze got through to his brother’s tongue, Hercules obliged with a surefire sign of life. A guttural, Greek-languaged something for which Lo needed no interpretation. Nevertheless, he was going to provide it.

“Eeeaaanh.” The croak underlined his violent but clumsy upswing, his punch barely missing his brother’s jaw. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Shut up,” Apollo muttered, snatching his sibling’s open jaw with matching aplomb. Just as smoothly, he emptied the rest of the bottle down Hercules’ throat. “You really want to die?”

“Are you really asking? Shit!” The hard consonant brought a colorful spew of the second bottle’s contents, which Apollo deftly snuck in during his brother’s yell. “By the stars and their bastards, Polo Pony, if you dare come at me with that third one—”

Too late. But he had no way of seeing that because of his brother’s raised knee, until the last few seconds before the bottle was rammed to his lips—

And he fought back.

With a fresh fist, flailing up toward his brother.

With more inhibited vision, not seeing that there was something in his way. Lois’s face.

“Eeeaaanh.”

More irony she couldn’t acknowledge with more than a drive-by thought—this time, because it was drowned by a storm of dizzy stars. A stab of adrenalin. A flurry of disorientation.

The pain didn’t smack until after all that. Weirdly, it brought words with it.

“Errrm. I really don’t think he likes it.”

“And I really don’t think I care.” Apollo demonstrated the point in a new way, hefting all the way to his feet while his brother’s head clonked to the travertine floor. “That’s poison, in his leg. That shit’s going to drain his system.”

“Of what?” Lois countered. “The woman, back at the club…she called it falmouth. Doesn’t that equate to a fungus of some sort? Why is that going to—”

“It’ll leech him of his immortality.”

“Apollo,” the male on the floor yelled. “There’s this human thing called TMI!”

“His…immortality?” Lo couldn’t help the snicker on her lips. It helped with fighting the nervous twist in her belly. Tonight was officially on record as the oddest happy hour she’d ever been to. “Ah. Sure. So are you guys going to start calling me Elena and yanking out the stakes to claim your turf? Which one of you is Stefan and which one—"

“Neither,” grunted the male next to her before pushing to his elbows. The new position gave a clear shot for the new glare at his brother. “No stakes. No more threats. And no more lectures. Because we’re already on my turf. Which means he’s leaving.”