Page 68 of Hercules

“That maybe some people are right, and parts of the organization have been turned around to assist instead of extort. The interpretation has been changed by intention. By the conscious will of those who hold its power.”

Through every stage of his explanation, Lo’s spine stiffened. Her muscles shifted, pushing against the reasoning—the too damn sensible math—he was all but feeding her like an A-plus cheat sheet. Which meant she had to rise up here. A-plus this shit.

“Are you saying…”

But still.

“I mean, are you honestly comparing hell to the most notorious organized crime syndicate in—” The dive of her heart synched to the dip of her voice. “Oh, yeah. Of course you are.”

Herc slid his head to the side before leaning in, a mild order to heed his searching stare. “Because I’m making sense?”

She squirmed again, inserting more emphasis. She hated deliberating with an audience present; it was why she hid behind five cups of coffee during critique night at writers’ group meetings. But this man and his patience of the ages… damn it.

“Okay…just so I know I’m getting this right,” she said at last. “If Reks—Rizon—makes it all the way down here with Natasha, his purpose isn’t just going to be hellfire hot tub sex and facials from demon babes?”

“Why summon them?” One of his expressive brows kicked up. “When the dickhead can just turn her into the same thing?”

She kicked her head up, vaguely realizing this was what a lightning jolt must actually feel like. “Hold up. What did you just say?”

CHAPTER 19

And there was the information he’d vowed not to deliver like a teddy bear strapped to a Mack truck grill.

Too late now.

The reproof was bitter in Herc’s brain as he watched his poor little wildcat dissolve into the exact texture of that windblown toy. No longer defiant and pressing, her stance wilted. Her face surrendered to the last element he ever wanted to see there.

Fear.

It was as right as it was trite, a word that fit better than any others. A truth that gonged with feral force. This was the very real version of the stuff. The kind that could only be generated by a mortal, though felt by any sentient creature within miles. It was what lions, tigers, and midnight muggers fed on.

And what Lois’s nervous system was clearly turning into a full feast.

The predator that ate into every inch of her windpipe, turning her eventual reply into sawdust that choked out his own senses.

“Herc?” Though it was a pushy demand on her lips, she stepped back by a couple of jerky steps. Her laugh, though mordant, was just as unsteady. “Okay, come on, Lion Man. Everyone knows the rules on that one. Demons can’t be made from living beings. For Nat to even qualify, she’d already have to be—”

Stuffed animal comparisons had never suited a moment more. As the woman crumpled to the floor exactly like a depleted plush, he yearned for a massive vacuum just so he could dump it all back into her.

Empty yearnings. The Underworld didn’t offer prime delivery—or the luxury of glossing the truth as something it wasn’t. If Rizon was really planning to whisk Natasha Korra to the Underworld and snuff her mortality in service to his mad plan, Lois would be going back to work for an actual hellspawn.

He grimaced from the thought but force-fed its acceptance into his senses. Because whether he liked it or not, Lois would be returning to that realm sooner—much more than later—in exactly the way she’d arrived. She’d be a female of gorgeous flesh and precious blood, vital of spirit and full of life, ready for everything mortality would bring…

Because he vowed it.

As his true thirteenth Labor.

If she wasn’t staring up at him with such horrified force, he’d be tempted toward an acrid laugh. After all his killing and capturing and stealing, the shittiest feat he’d have to complete was letting go.

Letting her go.

“Herc?” She clutched his biceps, but not in the take-me-back-to-the-bedroom-again-now kind of way. He gathered that from two seconds of the worsening anguish across her face. “Tell me I’m not assuming the worst here. Please tell me…”

His new tension, twisting even the muscles under her fingers, led to her desperate trail-off. Though a huge fraction of that strain was his craving to seize her in return, holding her so close that they both couldn’t breathe, he didn’t move. And ordered himself to tell her why.

“Matia mou.” Though it wasn’t going to emerge without his own pathetic gravel. “You deserve better than aphorisms.”

Her head notched up another inch. He was ready for the new invasion of her gaze but not the weapons with which she launched it. Sure, the terror and shock were still there, but why did she sweep his features as if inwardly converting her brain into a scanner? As if committing his every pore to memory? Even the smile, just seconds long, as she did so? A smile that accomplished what none of her others had.