Page 14 of Taking Orders in the Underworld

“If I get you your lyre, the one the Muses cast in the stars, and I could find a way to make sure that you were allowed to roam freely thereafter together … would you come and play for us?”

“Yes,” Orpheus agreed. “For someone who would clearly do anything for that which she loves, as my Eurydice did for me, I would.”

CHAPTER SIX: Yesterday’s sorrows and a promise of tomorrow

Nyx had come for Nika at precisely the hour mark she had promised, only for Nika to get home and find an unwelcome visitor on her family’s doorstep.

“What in the Underworld areyoudoing here?” she asked Tomas, who was waiting beside her father on the paved stone staircase that led up to the giant black doors of the family home.

“This young man says he knows you, Nika?” Erebus answered, blocking the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

Before Nika had a chance to think of a story off the top of her head, Tomas butted in.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Garth wants you back, Nika. You have to know the restaurant isn’t the same without you there.”

Nika narrowed her eyes at him. “You shouldn’t have come here. I can’t believe Garth would be stupid enough to send you here looking for me.”

A faint blush formed on Tomas’ cheekbones, his skin alabaster enough it looked like fine rice paper.

“He didn’t send you, did he?”

Tomas rubbed the back of his neck.

“Nika, is this guest unwanted?” her father interrupted.

She waved him off. “No, no, it’s fine. Just Tomas telling me something I already knew.”

She stared at him, her thin lips pursed, willing him to be smart enough to read her mind andwalk awaybefore …

“Well then, why doesn’t he join us for dinner?” Nyx suggested.

Tomas swivelled on his heel and faced them. “I’d be delighted, Mr and Mrs, uh, Lord and Lady, uh …”

No one offered Tomas an answer until the uncomfortable silence engulfed them all.

“Just get inside,” Nika pushed at his shoulder blades and marched him passed her parents.

For some reason her parents decided to hang back, undoubtedly to figure out who the weed-like dryad was to her. No matter. It gave Nika enough time to pull him aside in the long foyer with the high ceilings and into a broom closet.

“You need to leave.Now.”

“Why? Your parents are perfectly happy to—”

“Because you’re going to ruin everything.”

“Ruin what?!”

“My parents don’t know that the restaurant is suffering,” Nika hissed. “They think I’m here on some kind of,marketingmeeting. You’ve already dropped me in it by saying that Garth wants me back!”

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t question me, that’s all you need to know. Now I need you to leave.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Tomas said, puffing out his chest slightly. “You’re not the boss of me, right now. I came here of my own free will to find you, and I’ll be damned if I don’t go back to the others with news of you. And I’ll tell you another thing—”

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