Page 53 of Muzzled

“At admitting he’s got a crush.” She laughed, refusing to let him off the hook. “Your ego cannot possibly be that fragile.”

“Ego aside”—he swallowed and looked back at the water—“there’s a complicating factor to any ‘crush’ I may or may not develop that makes it a moot point.” Examining his sandwich intently, he shrugged. “And surprisingly, it isn’t Persephone.”

Curious, she crawled off of her blanket and onto his. “If it isn’t Persephone, what else could it be?” As he chewed slowly, she gave his knee a quick squeeze, grinning when he glared at her and shuffled back. “I’ve been crushing pretty hard on you for a few weeks, despite the fact I have some messed-up spirit from the Greek underworld following me around, so spill it.”

A slight flush rose in his cheeks as he set his sub down. “Everyone has a lifeline, and those lifelines are spun, dispensed, and cut by the Fates. Atropos being one of them,” he said pointedly, reminding her of the canvas she’d created. “Lachesis dispenses the thread. Bo and Lach had a fling, which he ended in typical Bo fashion. She wasn’t quite on board with that, so she broke protocol and did some pretty serious damage to his love line. Long story short, Bo slayed a dragon for Sage and Lach wasn’t able to undo the damage she’d done to his line, so I traded mine for his.”

She gaped at him. “A dragon.”

“Big one. Two heads,” he confirmed, leaning back on his elbows. “So with his thread now woven into my lifeline…” He trailed off and glanced over at her. “You have enough going on with the shade worming into your head and Seph keeping you in her sights. You don’t need to have the ramifications of another vengeful goddess’s issues coming down on you.”

Stretching out beside him, she put her arms behind her head and closed her eyes. “Slayed. A dragon. I cannotwaitto meet your brothers.” When he didn’t respond, she opened one eye and smiled at his deadened glare. “Oh, come on. Dragon slaying is very, very cool.”

He put the uneaten half of his sandwich back in the cooler. “Yeah, I can’t argue that. Bo earned his thread.”

“Your thread,” she corrected, still wrapping her mind around the idea some deity could actually end her with the snip of her scissors. “Do you regret it?”

He mimicked her position and looked at the sky. “The hunt for the Pirithous has taken most of the past millennium. I’ve been heeling for Hades and Seph for ten times that. And unlike Bo and Alex, I’ve been good with my place.” He went quiet for a moment. “Bo wouldn’t have survived without the trade. So, no, I don’t regret it.”

Chapter Twenty

Ryan shot tohis feet, his eyes still adapting to the evening sun as he scanned the flats. Micah’s purse, their cooler, even their empty water bottles and soft drink cans were exactly where they’d been when he’d closed his eyes in the mid-afternoon heat, her arm draped across him. He yanked his shirt off in case he needed to shift on a dime and jogged toward the grassy hills, cursing the abundance of footprints in the sand while he scoured the area for any sign of her, his heart thumping in his chest. “Micah?”

“You’re up!” she called as she emerged from a clump of bushes and held a pile of twigs up in triumph, completely unaware of the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “And half naked.”

He took a deep breath while she wound through the stones and weeds, bending to add to her collection every few steps. “You should’ve woken me up,” he replied, the anger in his voice drowning out his worry. “What are you doing?”

“Preparing for a bonfire before sunset,” she said, gesturing at a small bundle of sticks by the river’s edge. “Now calm down. I was, like, twenty steps away from you.”

*

Picking up hisdiscarded shirt, he shook the sand from it, his heart still pounding in his ears. “Guarding you is a hard enough job with Seph and a rogue shade wandering around. I don’t need you going off and getting lost to add to that.”

She froze in place, the muscles in her shoulders tensing before she got on her knees and added her twig collection to the pile. “I don’t remember asking you to take on the job of guarding me,” she stated, keeping her back to him. “In fact, I don’t remember needing a guard at all until you started coming around.”

He drew in a deep breath as the words hit him, all the doubts he was carrying about what he’d brought into her life echoed back to him with her perfect accusation. “I…I’m sorry.”

After adding the last of the twigs to the pile, she stood and turned to him, her eyes hard. “Sorry for what? That you’re the reason you even have the job or that you feel obligated to do it in the first place? Because either way, you’re fired. I hereby release you of all responsibility for my safety. Absolved of accountability. Completely free of the burden. How about that? Does that work better for you?” She booted the small pile of sticks over and stormed toward him. “This business relationship isover!”

“It’s not a goddamn business relationship!” he yelled back, his controlled temper snapping as he snatched up her purse and handed it to her, pausing long enough to brush the sand off. “If it was, it would be a fuck of a lot easier and a fuck of a lot safer!”

Picking up the cooler, she passed it to him, her dark eyes flashing. “Then stop trying to make it one. And stop swearing. It’s not you.”

Hefting the cooler bag onto his back, he ran his hands through his hair and kneaded the tense muscles in his shoulders. “I apologize. I’m frustrated and I misspoke.”

“You and me both,” she grumbled, picking up the empty water bottles. “Turn.” He could feel her opening the side pocket of the cooler. “It just sucks to hear the guy you like refer to you as a job, like you’re some kind of assignment he’s enduring.”

His stomach sank as the empty bottles were shoved into the pack. “You aren’t a job. Or an assignment,” he muttered, guilt cooling his temper. “Though you’d be in a better position if you were.”

“Your cryptic mumbo jumbo isn’t doing you any favors,” she said tersely, giving the cooler a good smack for emphasis. “So, either explain, or I’m walking home.”

She stood beside him while he collected his thoughts. “First of all, we’re ten miles from your suite, so, no, you aren’t walking home,” he opened, looking out at the darkening water. “And second, although I never really considered having any relationship outside of business before, it’s completely off the table now that I’ve taken Bo’s line.” Shoving his hands into his back pockets, he rocked back on his heels. “With the damaged love line, the Fates were aligned to keep Bo and Sage apart. To keep her from choosing him. To keep him from his ‘happily ever after,’ I guess. But the real kicker is that if Sage successfully fought the Fates and chose him, her death would have been imminent to ensure Bo’s line followed its path.” He looked over at her. “Taking over his line means I took over his fate, and I’m not exactly eager to take it for a test drive.”

Her lips pursed as she watched the setting sun. “What if Persephone was the damaged line for you? Ending a billion centuries of holding out hope for a goddess has to be a pretty big kink in the ol’ love thread.”

“If it was, I would probably feel something more than relief and ambivalence,” he replied, frowning at the truth in his statement. “I probably wouldn’t be feeling quite so annoyed by her game either.”

“You know, if I hadn’t seen the whole hound thing for myself, I’d be pretty damn certain this was your way of ensuring I understood you were available for nothing more than a fling,” she grumbled, kicking a small pile of sand onto his feet. “The most absurd ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ ever concocted.”

---