Page 48 of Apollo

Yes, even after bulldozing his mojo with a line like that.

Yet there was the thing about bulldozers. They had to prepare for a lot of dirt clods and rocks.

He could do the rocks and dirt thing. Especially when shoring them beneath his full stare of true offense. “And you know how that comment sounds, yeah?” he tacked on in a growl. “You really think I’ll do it, don’t you? That I’ll be more than happy to clock out on you and welch on everything, after getting what I came for?”

“Oh my God.” A fast yip of laughter left her lips before she suppressed the sound with pressed fingers. “Did you just use welch in a full sentence?”

“Don’t run me to ground about this, Irowen. We made an agreement. Work together and get back our treasures. My string and your sister.”

“I hear you, Grampy-kins. Loud and clear.” Though she was gentle about the volley, the corners of her mouth still quirked like she actively controlled a giggle. “Though I’m hardly the one who ran us to ground, if you catch my River Styx drift.”

Her demonstrative arm sweep, as smug as a cocky river captain or rogue pirate, had him fuming like a fucking prissy schoolmarm. Damn it, she even gestured in the right direction of the river, giving Lois Lance the chance to saunter over with aggravating interested in their exchange.

But he wasn’t here to be fodder for the impish writer’s next screenplay, and made the point clear by hurling a fresh grimace her way. That accomplished, he succeeded in smoothing his rejoinder with admirable diplomacy.

“Do you need something in particular, Ms. Lance? Because if you don’t mind, Ms. Steed and I have unfinished logistics to figure out, and—”

“Ah,” the petite female inserted, rising on her toes like a modern version of Baby Houseman from the Dirty Dancing classic. “That makes all of us, then.”

So much for reining back the frown. “All of us?” he snapped. “Who? Doing what, now?”

“Unfinished business.”

She thumbed back to where Herc still tried to make small talk with her father. To be honest, Apollo had been sympathizing with his brother’s tension, assuming Herc’s jitters stemmed from the situation itself. A Japanese father, newly reunited with his daughter, who now likely assumed the obvious from Lois’s bedhead hair and beard-scuffed neck? Complete no-brainer for the stress levels—or so he’d thought.

“While it’s awesome we got your goods back without any civilian casualties in the terminal”—Lois circled the index finger of her same hand in the general direction of his pocket containing the lyre string—“now at least a hundred humans saw what they saw and likely snagged footage of it too. Of course, a lot of folks will probably write off our little action scene as artificially created entertainment, but—”

“No.” He was still perfectly James Bond about it, cool and prudent, but Lois jacked up her eyebrows just the same.

“No?”

“No, there won’t be stories told or footage posted.” He patted his front pocket like he’d become Hermes with exclusive orders from Zeus. “As soon as I snatched this back from our friend Natasha, I switched the string’s spell from the mortals’ minds to their devices. All the gathered data on those devices from the last hour has been wiped.”

“Whoa.” Lois’s gaze flared wider. “Nice move, Polo Pony. Remind me to call you when I’ve botched a script pitch call to a bunch of Tinseltown fat cats.”

“We can talk, as long as you agree to ditch that damn nickname.”

He kept it even and polite, minding how Herc’s attachment to the petite mortal had obviously swelled past protective interest over the night’s course. As if he could blame his brother for the wild leap. Fate had chosen one hell of a bizarre juncture in which to activate the unwitting wiles of both these women. And yes, fate was the most logical explanation for it all. He couldn’t very well blame the enchanted string which had spent most of the hours at thirty-five thousand feet over the Pacific.

This was all the purest magic he’d ever experienced.

The wildest—and most wonderful—experience his heart had ever been through.

No. No.

Not his heart.

Certainly that was the case for Herc, who couldn’t stop glancing at Lois as if she’d dissolve into cursed smoke if he didn’t, but his own situation was different. He hadn’t spent the last ten years as a miserable celibate, atoning for a crime he’d been hexed to commit. If the pretty little scribe had helped boost his brother’s pulse rate for reasons besides moving rivers and slaying hydras, she already had his stamp of approval.

Now, a new truth occurred to him.

Lois Lance could be of even better use.

Not that his heart still clamored for answers about Irowen’s strange change of energy toward him.

It was bizarre, right? They’d made a pact, damn it. The whole you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-try-to-stick-to-just-your-back thing. Technically, if also coincidentally, he’d kept his commitment about that—so far. The places where he’d touched her, at his place . . . not her back.

But hellfire, so much of everywhere else.