Page 86 of A Subtle Scar
“I…well, I suppose that makes a lot of sense. Modeling it after the stars. If you are human,” Charon said. The leftover slices really looked mouthwatering, but there was no time for that, not now.
I looked at Hermes. “You know what, I’ll just go and get you that bathrobe, you can teleport me to the station, and we can talk about this some other time.” On the phone, ideally.
“No,” Hermes said. “I’ll get dressed, you can have breakfast, and Ronny can put on that robe because he looks good in it. We’ll all be ready to continue with the crime solving in about ten minutes.”
“We made a deal yesterday, didn’t we? I don’t need your help with this one, and the babying ended at midnight.”
Hermes closed the distance between us. Fuck. I wanted to fall forward into him, into his arms, and I wanted—no. I wasn’t like that. I didn’t do this kind of thing, breakfast, emotional attachment, wanting and longing for a partner. Or partners. I couldn’t.
“Baby, the deal you made was for spoiling you with food and drink and comfort until midnight, and it bound us to fully support you in this case.” He grinned at me. “We are in no way hindered from taking care of your every need as much as is necessary.”
“Very necessary,” Charon added.
A chair scraped, moved across the floor by magic, and Hermes pressed me into it. “Ten minutes, baby.”
Why do you keep chasing me, Vinnie?
I sighed. “Fine. Cold pizza for breakfast and Ronny in a bathrobe. Sounds good to me.”
Hermes snickered, and Charon turned purple.
“Oh, no, you do not call me that, darling,” Charon said. “Don’t you, ever. And you—” he pinched Hermes in the butt cheek. “—get your gloating ass out of my kitchen before I bend you over one knee.”
Hermes teleported away, but not before winking at me. Which was maybe a little sexy, and maybe I liked that he did that.
“Darling,” Charon said and bent over me as he placed the stolen plates with the leftovers on the table. “You seem happier this morning. I’m glad.”
He brushed a kiss against my lips, a quick, sweet gesture that was over quickly, too quickly.
I watched open-mouthed as he sauntered out of the kitchen and back upstairs. He’d even heated the pizza for me, had used his magic to do that, and I imagined I could taste that in the food. Immortal magic, warm and soft and strong.
It would be so easy, getting used to this, and trusting that things could always be like this: two sexy gods, being sexy together and sexy for me. I’d finished almost two slices when I realized that I’d not had any of the haunting dreams that often found me when I slept in a bed, not here, and not in the hotel. Not once in the arms of these two gods.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Iwasverytemptedto assess the situation at the police station before I went back to pick up Ronny and our boyfriend. I might’ve done it, but it would have meant being parted from the two of them longer than was necessary, and I didn’t like the idea of that.
Not having the first clue of how to get our boyfriend from very upset (last night) to not upset at all (hopefully soon) wasn’t a skill I had yet. It was an uncomfortable feeling, this weakness, and the least I could do was to stay with Chandler and Ronny.
As a result, I found one of the nicer Oxford shirts I owned—I wasn’t going to take any more complaints about my tees—and headed back to pick up Ronny, who—fuck him very much—was wearing a skin-tight eggplant-colored tee with a semi-sheer lace skull embroidered on the chest above yet another set of skin-tight fake leather pants. Between him and our cutely frowning boyfriend, I was never getting rid of that boner.
I took us all to just outside the broom closet that was the necromancy office. The necromancer wasn’t there though.
“Thanks. You can just wait here,” our boyfriend said.
Ronny and I exchanged a look and followed him. He noticed and narrowed his eyes at us, his lips pressing tight, but he didn’t complain. Clearly, his fondness for Ronny and me was growing quickly.
Detective Rice’s office was just across from the necromancy one, and Chandler rapped his knuckles against the door twice before walking right in.
“Hey.”
“There you are,” Detective Rice said. “And the boyfriends. Might be helpful. Follow me, we have them in interview rooms.”
Chandler nodded and stepped aside. “Right. Lead the way.”
Detective Rice spoke while she showed us to the interview rooms. “Dr. Lesker, our psychiatrist, tried talking to them, but that’s more because that is protocol. Deacon set up a warding circle around them. He tells me he’s not sure about whether breaking the marionette binding would cause any damage to the two women, and we agreed to let you decide.”
“We should be able to dissolve the magic without causing any untoward effects,” Ronny said.
