Page 13 of Wildfire

“HERMES!” Lysandros’s shout brought him up short, but he bit his lip to hide his grin.

He waited then, while Lysandros caught his breath and asked, lowly, “Did you fuck Professor Pratt?”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. I mean, you’ve seen him, right? You’ve obviously seen him. Jaw like Adonis—you remember Adonis?” Hermes groaned and shut his eyes. “Searing hot lips. Kisses like he wants to fucking devour you.”

All the sudden, Hermes was sporting a half chub, alone in his apartment. But when he shut his eyes he was transported back to the bathroom at Hysteria, Wilder looming over him, stroking him hard and fast, leaving no quarter. With a moan, he arched his lower back off the wall.

And Lysandros’s answering groan brought him right back to the present. “You’re impossible, Hermes.”

“Mmhmm.” Hermes wasn’t much interested in explaining himself to Lysandros anymore. He was thinking about the cold bathroom wall on his back, the hot line of man down his front, the way Wilder had manhandled him like he just couldn’t stand to let Hermes gain ground. And he fuckinglikedthat—how demanding and entitled Wilder was, how even when Wilder did have the upper hand, Hermes could muss up his cultivated perfection and leave his mark on him.

He wanted to think about that. Not Lysandros and his stuffy boyfriend and young dead mages.

“Hermes,” Lysandros snapped, and Hermes was beginning to think this conversation would consist entirely of his own name, spoken in varying degrees of exasperation. “You need to get here. This affects the school.”

“And your boy toy.”

“And Theo, yes.” How novel. After watching for millennia as Hades and Persephone wound ever more tightly around each other, it shouldn’t have been surprising that Lysandros would jump into this relationship with both feet. Once upon a time, he’d wanted to do the same with Hermes, but Hermes had had no interest in that—limiting, stifling, all-encompassing relationships. With a father like his, how could Hermes believe that there was anything at all to be gained from setting unrealistic expectations on romance?

He could hear the annoyance in Lysandros’s voice when he pressed on. “If this is affecting the school, affecting mortals, we have an obligation to try to help.”

Hermes fought the urge to roll his eyes. There was no such thing. The gods had stopped helping mortals ages ago. You had a few noteworthy exceptions—Hermes himself even had his moments—but he was less concerned for a few dead students than he was with what was happening to their souls and what kind of problems that would cause him down the line.

“We don’t, Lysandros. Help them if you want, but you’ve got Athena at the school. If she wants to mount a defense of questionably talented mortal mages, let her. I’ve got my own shit to worry about.”

With that, he hung up on Lysandros.

And he really did think that would be the end of it. Right up until he heard his name, spoken in that low, resonant godly tone that demanded Hermes’s attention as Olympus’s very own messenger boy. “Hermes.”

He ignored it once. But then Lysandros called him again. And again. It was like someone had stuck Hermes’s head in a bell and used it as the clapper—resonant and aching and—

“Okay, holy fuck!” Ten seconds later, and Hermes was standing in the hall at Banneker College of Magic. He slammed right into Lysandros, forearm pressed against the god’s chest to shut him up. Lysandros’s lips twitched, just barely, in victory.

“You are so goddamn persistent, I swear by all the fucking gods—”

The sound of Lysandros hitting the wall outside Ward’s office must’ve startled the people inside. A moment later, Theo was peering outside his door, a heavy scowl on his face. Then behind him, tall and gorgeous as ever—like one of the goddamn Hemsworth brothers—Wilder Pratt stuck his head out.

When his eyes caught on Hermes, he marched out into the hall. “You need to come with me and talk to the police,” he snapped.

Hermes threw back his head and laughed. When he swung his foot back, Lysandros took the opportunity to extricate himself from Hermes’s grip. Didn’t matter; Hermes’s attention had already turned.

“Look at me.” Hermes held up two fingers, pointing toward Wilder’s eyes. “You looking at me, hottie-with-a-body?” He was already. In fact, he was glaring.

Hermes waved his fingers around his own face. “I. Me. I donottalk to the police. They’re pretty much useless, and they’re definitely useless here. So fuck off, Pratt.”

Oh, that only made him glare harder, and Hermes felt a little thrill at ruffling his feathers. He’d get mad, come at him, and Hermes half wanted him to. Wasn’t like Wilder could really hurt him, right?

“They have been riding my ass fordays—” Wilder ground out between his teeth.

“Not my fucking problem,” Hermes snapped.

The professor was glaring at him like he meant to burn Hermes alive, and maybe the whole school with it. Weird, how that only made a thrill sing in Hermes’s veins, golden ichor rushing through and heating his skin.

With a long exhale, Ward leaned against his doorframe, thumbs hooked in the pockets of his brown trousers, and shrugged. “Isn’t it, though? I mean, you’re supposed to help the dead, right?”

Wilder blinked like Theo was talking crazy. To mortal ears, he probably was.

Hell, even Hermes couldn’t account for how nonchalant Ward was in the face of the very real possibility that Wilder would tear the building down in a pillar of flame.

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