Page 39 of Hercules

Herc could always tell when it did, nearly to the second. Whether he was facing a mortal in a night club or a divinity on a battlefield, it didn’t matter. Every creature, great or small, defaulted to the same tells. A click of their composure, from nodding at the blah-blah-blah about his Labors to the plug-in about why he’d accepted them from Apollo in the first place. The conclusions that were impossible to hide, followed by questions that were impossible to ignore—for them and him.

Especially now, with Lois Lance and her new stare. Though he’d endured this kind of scrutiny before, her wide wonder was the most uncomfortable of them all.

But he couldn’t change the channel on her. Not even if he wanted to.

So get on with it, dickhead.

He made short work of a terse inhalation. Ordered his gaze to latch back onto hers. And finally muttered, “Okay, let’s just get it out of the way. The honest answer is, I don’t know.”

Her tiny jolt was still significant. He almost pushed a mental rewind of the last minute, wondering if he’d somehow struck her. Panicking that he had. Hating that it wasn’t his first time for such ruminations. But when a guy had gotten possessed by enough dark forces to slay his family in cold blood, ruminations were also reality. They had to be.

“The honest answer?” Her irked tone was still a sweet melody to his ears. A strong one, far from belonging to someone who’d endured a thousand plot twists in less than two hundred minutes. “To what, exactly?” she persisted, deepening his dilemma about how to preface his response.

Not because he was vexed or angry or irritated.

Because he was fascinated.

No. The woman fucking entranced him.

Okay, it was probably the dressed-up version of confused as hell, but for now, the pretty stuff stayed.

Fascinated. Entranced.

And, he inwardly added, justified.

At this point, after connecting that tidbit about Herc’s pathology, most houseguests would be stomping to the kitchen to look for a fifth of Reyka and a pint of Häagen-Dazs. But here she was, this stubborn little sass, proving females could clench jackhammer jaws and wield power drill stares. Those were before the ultimate message, defining the lines of her shoulders like matching planks of balsa. The fact that they went so well with her little leather dress was beside the point. Way beside.

Reluctantly, he ordered his head out of his ass—and far from the fit of that dress against her luscious curves—and back to the grim subject at hand.

“Honestly I have no idea if I’ll fall under another murder spree spell again.”

There.

He’d done it.

But was reminded exactly why this was never easy. Nor ever would be.

By themselves, the words were outrageous. Even ridiculous. He always made a serious effort at not taking them seriously at all, but no way was the permanent knot in his throat going to give up half a chuckle. Not for that. Never because of what the implication had already robbed from him. He owed Meg that much. He owed the kids even more.

So, this time was no different than the others.

He simply stood there, as rooted to the spot as the woman before him, forcing an awkward swallow around that aching mass beneath his Adam’s apple—and waiting for her to cut loose with the laugh. She’d succumb to it any second, as everyone did. The humor to drive away the discomfort—and all the darker stuff layered beneath that.

Her demeanor hardly faltered.

Hell, her posture barely did. With the board-stuff shoulders and that hardhat protocol, she took only the barest of pauses to process the weight of his words.

At last, with a small but heedful nod, she returned, “Well. Have you had to deal with things like…that…more than once? Since the…first time?”

“You mean the night I murdered my family.”

No sense dancing around it or seeking candy-coated alternatives. The woman was still standing here, right? Facing him, and this grisly truth, when she could’ve done that dancing herself. Even addressing it, despite the color it blanched from her in the doing. Even looking ready to accept his answer, no matter what it was.

No.

He wasn’t ready to accept things now. At least not that angle.

So…was it? Her angle? From the very beginning, perhaps?