Page 59 of Muzzled

“Completely her fault,” came a familiar voice behind her and she smiled, reaching back to reassure herself Ryan was actually there while she tracked the retreating shade on the rooftop. She felt his chin rest on the top of her head as he wrapped an arm around her chest. “How are you holding up?”

“Better now,” she sighed, leaning back as Logan lifted the piece for auction. “My ass has officially taken the shape of this chair, I have green pastel embedded under my nails that will never come out, and that damn thing has been crouched on the roof of the coffeehouse since you left.”

His hold on her tightened a moment. “I saw your texts,” he replied, his voice low. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. How’s the head?”

“Honestly?” she asked, watching Logan collect eighty dollars for her latest work. “Everything is still being held back, but it feels like it’s all moved forward. Closer.” She ran her hands through her hair and froze, remembering the oil pastels caking her skin. “Aw, damn. I just streaked my hair, didn’t I?”

He combed his fingers through her mane. “It’s a little more festive now and it complements the green in your eyes.”

Craning her neck to look up at him, she smiled. “Listen to you, Mr. Smooth Ta—” Narrowing her eyes at the condition of his face, she jumped to her feet, sending her chair skidding across the cement. “What the hell happened to you?”

“Had a little run-in with an irritated boss,” he replied, stilling for her when she rose onto her toes for a closer examination of the bruises forming on his cheekbones and around his left eye. As she gingerly touched the scratches crisscrossing his jaw, he angled away from her. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” she countered, her hands on her hips. “I’m going to kill him.”

Taking a step back, he rolled his eyes. “You are not going to kill him.”

“Then you do it.”

He retrieved her chair, collapsed it, and leaned it against one of the open cases. “No one’s killing anyone. We’re going to get you packed up, get you home, and make sure you’re all set for tomorrow.”

Silently following his lead, she began wiping down the tubes of paint and sliding the pastels back into their boxes, one eye on him as he made small talk with Logan and piled the unsold pieces away.

Even his movements looked bruised, every motion appearing laborious while he eased himself onto one knee to collect the final works. When everything was packed up, Logan waved his goodbye before he took off for the evening with promises to return by dawn.

Ryan hefted her supplies onto his back and held his hand out to her. “Shall we?”

She accepted reluctantly, glaring at the injuries marring his face. “We shall. And you shall tell me what the hell went down during the past eight hours.”

Giving her fingers a light squeeze, he led her to his car, where he popped the trunk and loaded everything before he got in and started the engine, his eyes scanning the dark rooftops. “Hades and I needed to work out a few things, and negotiations got a little heated. But we came to an agreement we can both live with.” He pursed his lips and pulled onto the road. “With the others coming in tomorrow, we won’t run into the issue of you being left to fend for yourself around the shade again.”

Shaking her head, she turned her angry stare toward the window. “The shade’s the last thing I’m worried about right now,” she muttered. “Hades had no right to do that.”

“He has every right,” he countered tersely. “I went after him first, he retaliated. But even if I hadn’t landed the first hit, he owns me. If he wanted to castrate me or kill me, he would be well within his boundaries.”

Her breath caught in her throat. “But that’s cruel.”

She could see him glance over at her in the window’s reflection. “It’s also forgotten,” he stated, ending the discussion. “After you’re set up tomorrow, I’ll head to the airport to collect the brats and give them a rundown of the city, the shade sightings, and maybe let them run loose in the parks until sundown. Provided the shade isn’t encroaching on you or your thoughts.”

Fixing him with a harsh glare, she did her best to bite back a smile. “The brats? Really?”

“You’ll understand soon enough.”

*

Ryan slipped outof Micah’s bed, feeling around the floor in the darkness until he found his jeans. Hiking them up over his hips, he glanced at the time on his phone before shoving it in his back pocket and hunting around for his shirt and shoes.

He hadn’t intended to stay more than a few minutes, maybe an hour, to get her art stash prepared for morning. But an hour had turned into two as they lounged in the dim lamplight, him dredging up old stories about his younger brothers and her filling him in on the festival gossip she’d garnered that day. And two had turned to three when she stretched out in her bed, her oversized shirt riding up on her bare thighs and giving him ideas that definitely hadn’t been on the night’s docket.

But she truly was addicting.

And he hadn’t had the desire to resist.

He rubbed his bruised jaw, grimacing at the pain still radiating from the spot Hades’s boot had made contact during their prolonged discussion.

The beatdown he’d taken had been a price he gladly paid for the addendum he had pushed for, a small but significant clause guaranteeing that as long as he fulfilled his guard dog duties with the loyalty and obedience his master had come to expect, Micah would remain free from Persephone’s interference.

When not even the threat of being chained to the side of Charon’s boat for a millennium had wavered Ryan’s determination, Hades had finally relented with a snarl and a kick.

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