Page 19 of Apollo

She rammed the heel of a palm against her temple before wheeling around. Apollo waited in the same spot as before, just as regally calm and gallingly gorgeous.

“You,” she accused. “This—” Then twisted her hand, turning it into a pointer at her brain. “You’re doing this, aren’t you?” Though the voice was nothing like his. That kind of snark was something special. Still she stood nearly toe-to-toe with a god practically as powerful as Zeus himself. Surely Olympian auto-tuning was now a thing in this day and age . . .

Now that’s just rude. And jump-lusioning. And wrong.

The voice in her head sounded off again, just as she and the sun god locked stares. He flinched, but only to display open irritation at the wild slang their invisible “friend” had just brandished.

“Jump-lusion isn’t a word,” he retorted into the air over their heads. “And teriyaki crickets aren’t food.”

“Thank you,” she muttered.

“But if you want to talk about garlic-chili crickets, especially from that little joint we found in Bangkok back in eighty-four—”

“No.”

As she spat it, the voice from her head—or the walls or wherever—joined with the same word. She drew breath to demand the odd spirit grow some ghost balls and show themselves, but no way would her voice cooperate once a new storm of sound erupted inside the condo’s atrium.

The tumult was easy to identify, since she’d heard the same thing an hour ago in Hollywood Hills. At the time, she’d thought the mini murder of crows just a wild creation of her imagination. She’d been half-alive and delirious, so it’d made perfect sense to watch as Apollo gestured at the birds as if actually conversing with them.

But that was then.

What was the reasoning for now?

“Oh, no.” Her repetition, a kneejerk reaction to that thought, nearly erupted as a gasp. “The voice. It . . . wasn’t him.” She swung her bugged-out gape from Apollo to the animal that’d landed on a central perch in the atrium. “It was you.”

The crow straightened as she came closer by a few steps. Ha. As if his corvid version of a military salute, atop the burnished brass roost, was going to change her mind about getting any closer to the enclosure than where she cautiously stopped.

Captain Kaw Kleos at your service, ómorfi kyria. Our anax reached out while you and he walked over from the Café. We know about the urgency involving your sister. So honestly, I’m only here to help.

“And flirt? Badly?”

Apollo’s slice brought the causticity she needed but the reality she didn’t. Damn it, he was actually doing what she couldn’t—or wouldn’t? But this wasn’t an animated sing-a-long. Bantering with the birds wouldn’t win her a team of house cleaners and a prince’s kiss.

What? Are you saying she isn’t a beautiful woman, dear leader?

Even if that banter was pretty damn charming . . .

“Shut up,” Apollo groused, ducking his head to hide his tense jaw beneath the fall of his hair. Or was it a camouflage tactic for something else? Something like a telling flush?

Ah, fine. Perhaps we will choose to ignore him then, sweet Irowen.

The remark, as ridiculously embarrassing as it seemed even thirty seconds later, was a blessing in disguise. Wen seized the chance for her own awkward head drop, rasping beneath her breath, “Easier said than done, soldier bird.”

And yes, it was only a rasp—she’d swear that on her own proverbial grave—yet here came the moment she learned that even cemetery-safe whispers weren’t safe from the ears of an Olympian god.

And now it was her turn to own the cheeks full of embarrassing color, especially as Apollo puffed up, flashed a smug smirk, then flicked the gold band around Kaw’s leg until it tinged. Only then did she notice the embossed symbol on the cuff: a design that must’ve been Apollo’s insignia, with its sun encircling a lyre that turned into an arrow point at the bottom. Since Kaw was the only member of the squad with the band, he’d likely worked his tail feathers off to earn it: a feeling to which she related all too well.

As well as the feeling of getting nothing but a finger flick for it.

But hadn’t she just done the same thing to the bird with her internal judgment? Written off him and his team before she knew anything about their skills? Abilities she’d already written off as fantasy, despite walking in here with a god she’d accepted as the real deal.

Maybe that was her first—or twelfth—stupid move of the night.

Clearly, his Glow Worm Godship didn’t need her stake in his truth. He’d already bought and drank every drop of his own press, down to the last arrogant dregs. Ignoring him was a realistic goal, after all—and now, even blissfully doable. She was spry about proving it, stomping forward then barging her shoulder against his chest as she wedged directly in front of Kaw herself.

In her periphery, Apollo doubled down on his told-you-so chuckle. She’d never had so much fun reacting like a guy was wrestling twenty sticks of chewing gum at once.

On the other hand, Kaw deserved every concentrated effort of her fresh-born humility, including the respect beneath her new words.