Page 59 of Apollo

“He’s right,” she said, turning back to reach trembling fingertips for Apollo’s. As soon as he turned the touch into a full handclasp, she found the strength to utter the rest of the words pressing so deeply on her heart and mind. “He’s right, Glow Worm . . . and I’m desperate.”

It was agony to emphasize that by looking and directly into his eyes, but she clenched her teeth again and made it happen.

“I—well, I have to ask for your help again. Just one last time. Apollo . . . I have to beg for it.” An aching gulp consumed her throat. “You have no reason to say yes. I know that. I know what I said about tidy goodbyes and clean breaks—”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You said what, now? Kaw turned the intrusion into real sound, repeating his annoying squawks until she almost gave up and hoped Apollo would get the general gist. But apologies, especially sincere ones, weren’t like doing the dishes. Giving up before things were done just meant a colder, dirtier mess later. You’re welcome, Grandma. See; I remembered that one.

“I know I wasn’t graceful or tactful, okay?” Hiding the stress-bumped pace of her tone had grown totally impossible. “But at the time, I really did think it for the best. Still, tacky is tacky and ham-fisted is—”

“Irowen.” Apollo gave back as good as he got this time, with his strict fingers across her lips but his eyes doing waltzes of quiet delight. She barely refrained from glowering back. What the hell could possibly be so amusing? And did she even want to know? “We’re talking about your family here. Your awesome Genny. If there were no other reason than that to help you, I could and I would. And as for your ham fists”—he took advantage of their tangled fingers to lift her hand between their chests then use his other one to coax hers into an awkward ball—“this is a hell of a weird ham, but I’m sure it’s delicious.”

It took a megaton of willpower to avoid bursting into a laugh. Oh yes, despite the pit of acid she still called a stomach and the stressed mess of her brain. Also yes, right here on a turbulent airport sidewalk in a land she hardly knew, with a chortling crow as witness to his master’s show of—

What?

Honestly, what was the man going for here, especially now?

Not just right now-now, with Genny in the wind. But the larger now, as in his Jack Harkness act getting him anything past a fast roll in the sheets before he moved on to Olympus business and she went home to catch up on grocery shopping and toilet cleaning? Granted, said roll would be a trillion dollars’ worth of fireworks fantastic; they’d already settled that point with blazing clarity. So why did he now bend his head toward her knuckles as if ready to double down on the seduction by caressing them with his lips?

And why, for half a conflicted second, did she want to let him?

“Kaw.”

Probably for the same ineffable reason she stabbed that at his godship and herself, simply using the bird as a handy target.

“Did you say you could use some more actionable details about Genny? Shouldn’t we be getting on with that now?”

Okay, and that part too.

The most important part.

Yes, Kaw replied, adding a nod toward Apollo. Though be assured, I’ve already dispatched the whole squad throughout Ōta. But we’ll be more efficient about it with the advantage of further intel.

“Excellent,” Apollo returned. “And agreed.” He was succinct—and too damn sexy, without even trying—about it, already clicked back into his corvid commander-in-chief mode. “Except I’m not comfortable continuing this briefing where we stand.”

He made nothing easier for her libido by enforcing his point with a protective arm around her shoulder, let alone how he leaned in and shielded the proximity of their faces with his hair. All of that prefaced his ultimate weapon against her ability to form words: the return of his voice to its low, enthralling music of a cadence.

“Those three black town cars, idling asoko no akai enseki . . .” He nodded imperceptibly, including Kaw in his speculation. “What do you think, Kleos? Shiny-pretty yakuza storage tanks?”

“Asoko no akai . . . ” Wen quickly decoded his Japanese phrase. “Over on the red curb? What red curb?” she demanded. “Where?”

“Do not turn,” Glow Worm instructed, adjusting their positions so it appeared like they were snapping a couple’s selfie. Sure enough, his flipped-around camera phone screen showed only the tops of their heads—with a background of four sizable SUVs back-to-back along an illegal curb about fifty yards down.

She groaned and fought to keep her shoulders from sagging. “Well, goody. Anyone order up a shit sandwich?”

Or a KPop group arriving from Incheon? Kaw ventured. No disrespect intended, Anax. But we have had at least one sentry out here since you and Irowen transported inside, including your dip back to the Underworld. In all that time, not a single person has exited or entered those vehicles. If the cars truly belonged to Nao Ito’s goons—

“He and the henchmen would’ve left the terminal by now,” Wen finished on the same logical trajectory. Still, Apollo didn’t slacken his tension.

“Unless they had to figure out what to do with Natasha.”

The blood drained from her face. When it kept heading south, leaving nothing but shivers in its wake, she fought back with equally cruel logic. “What to do with her? Come on, smart god guy. You know as well as I do that movies are mere mortal constructs, and dumping a body in a luggage chute isn’t as easy as—”

“Of course I do,” he bit out. “Though even if I didn’t and decided to steal the pleasure of ending the woman away from Ito, vaporizing a world-famous pop idol in the middle of an international airport concourse isn’t something the Acropolis would overlook.”

So much for preventing a chill in her bones. “Shit,” she blurted, as more realization struck her synapses. This male, so touchable and relatable in so many ways, was a child of Olympus itself. If he messed up, he faced the wrath of his father: the highest god of them all. No wonder he was such a testy tight-ass sometimes.

“But that bastard obayun is crippled by the exact same rules,” he went on with the hunts of a smirk. “Ito can’t just drag Korra into a random corner and eliminate her. Too much footage from too many security cams now, showing them in conversation. But he doesn’t have the option of leaving her behind either.”