by Linsey Hall
“If I were you, I’d check the Garden of Hesperides.”
Jackpot. “Why?”
“Why, what?” He blinked, his eyes hazy.
“Why would I check the Garden of Hesperides?”
“Why the hell would you go there?”
Ah, crap. We were on a merry-go-round of drunk questions. And honestly, with the new dose of Raki coursing through my system, it wasn’t helping matters. “I’d go there to find Atlas. Will I find him there?”
“No, but you’ll find his daughters.” He blinked at me, then scowled. “Hey, that was what you wanted to know.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?” Yeah, that was what I wanted to know, but no reason to piss him off with my victory. Better to play drunk. It wasn’t hard. I swayed slightly, putting on a show. “I wonder if there’s anything dangerous in the Garden of Hesperides?”
“Oh yeah, loads of dangerous things,” Prometheus slurred as he held up a hand and pointed to one finger, about to count things off a list. “There’s the dragon, the—”
He swayed once more, then face-planted on the table.
Aw, crap.
I leaned forward and poked his shoulder. “Hey, Prometheus. Hey! You awake?”
He barely mumbled something. He was basically the equivalent of a godly rock.
Damn it.
Looked like that was all the info I was going to get out of him.
I turned to look for Maximus, who was sitting at the bar, staring at us with a frown. The dark-haired bartender was headed our way, her gaze on Prometheus. She didn’t look annoyed though. Far from it.
“How’s our big guy doing here?” she said.
“Um, not great? I think he passed out.” I felt a bit guilty. Clearly Prometheus was an alcoholic. While I’d needed the info to save the world, I didn’t want to add to his troubles.
Should have thought of that earlier, genius.
The waitress stopped by and rubbed his hair. He didn’t move. “Ah, don’t worry about old Prometheus here.”
“I feel like I should. He seems like he needs help.”
She scoffed. “Not him. He’s on a job, apparently. Said he had to wait here and help some girl. Give her some information.” Her gaze sharpened, and I realized that up until now, she’d looked a bit dimwitted. “Hey, could that girl have been you?”
Now it was my turn to feel a bit dimwitted. “Wait, what?”
“Did he help you?”
He had, in fact.
Hang on, had I just been played by Prometheus? Had he been waiting for me?
I’d definitely needed his help, and it was for an important cause. I had no idea how he’d known to expect me, but that was what seers were for. As for why he’d relayed the information in such a weird manner, I had no idea. Maybe he was just bored after thousands of years hanging around earth.
“Either way,” the waitress said. “We’ll watch out for him. Don’t worry a bit. And he already paid the tab.”
My gaze darted between her and him. “All right, then. Thanks.”
I got up and hot-footed it out of there, though my hot-footing was a bit leaden from all the Raki. By the time I reached Maximus, my head was really spinning. He stood up from his stool at the bar and gripped my arm gently, keeping me upright.
“Did you get what you needed?” He peered down at me, concern glinting in his eyes.
“Yeah, let’s get out of here.” I swayed my way to the door, Maximus keeping me upright.
The night air was brisk when we stepped outside, the city lights gleaming all around. The high rises in the distance looked like an entirely separate universe from this small, older part of the city.
I leaned drunkenly into Maximus, burrowing my face into his jacket to get a whiff of his scent. My head spun as I tried to remember why we were here.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
The repeated question jogged my memory. “We’re looking for the Garden of Hesperides. Atlas’s daughters live there, and maybe they can tell us where he is. Oh, and there’s something dangerous there. A...uh….a…” I scrubbed my hand over my face. “Damn it, I can’t remember what the dangerous thing was.”
“It’s okay. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” Maximus’s deep voice drew my attention upward.
I looked at him, struck dumb by how freaking hot he was. He stood in the shadow of the streetlamp, his features carefully highlighted by their glow. Broad shoulders blocked the light from hitting my face, though, and I couldn’t help but think of those shoulders looming over me in other circumstances as well.
“Wow, you’re pretty,” I slurred.
“Pretty?”
“Well, maybe not pretty.” Drop-dead gorgeous, more like. Lethally sexy. Fallen angel broody hot.
I couldn’t help myself. I leaned upward and pressed my lips to his. Heat and desire shot through me, straight to my core. It twisted, tying me in knots and making me desperate to latch myself onto him.
So I did, throwing my arms around him and kissing him for all I was worth. My tongue snuck inside his mouth, and he groaned low in his throat, sounding almost like an animal.
His strong arms reached around my back, pulling me toward him so that I was pressed against the full length of his hard chest. My head spun with desire and need.
We should have sex. Right now.
Like, right here.
He groaned again, then pulled back, separating his mouth from mine. “We can’t do this right now.”
I almost screeched my indignation, but my brain was moving way too slow to even get the noise out. Wait, why couldn’t I speak?
Why could I barely move? I felt like I was existing in water, swimming almost.
Oh yeah, drunk as a skunk.
Maximus moved me back from him just slightly, carefully holding my arms to keep me upright. “You’re a bit too drunk. Once you’ve sobered up a bit, we can revisit this.” The corner of his mouth tugged up at one corner. “Hopefully you’ll still think it’s a good idea by then.”
Oh, I will.
I wanted to say the words, but they wouldn’t squeak out past my lips. Even worse, my stomach chose that moment to lurch.
Oh, hell.
Suddenly, my lethargic muscles got a shot of adrenaline, and I could move. I was filled with a sheer, animal panic induced by the horrifying vision of puking on my hot sorta-boyfriend’s shoes.
I turned, jerking away from his grasp and leaning over to heave Raki up onto the sidewalk. Impossibly, it burned even more going in this direction, and I regretted my stupid plan to drink answers out of Prometheus.
When the last of the Raki seemed to have left the building, I stood, wobbly.
Concern creased Maximus’s brow as he pulled a water bottle out of his pocket and handed it to me. “Here, I got this from the bar.”
He held on to me as I stood shakily, drinking the water. It felt like actual heaven going down my throat, and I figured he was pretty much the biggest genius in the world to have remembered to grab the bottle.
“I thought you took the Sober Up,” he said.
“I did. I just drank waaaay too much.”
“Do you have any more?”
“Yeah,” I slurred. Clearly, puking didn’t really help the drunkenness. What was in my blood was already there. “Pink vial, in my belt.”
His fingertips moved lightly over my potions belt, and he tugged out a little glass vial and held it up in front of my face. “This one?”
I nodded, my head feeling very bobbly, then drank the last of the potion. My mind cleared a bit, but I was still a lightweight. The alcohol wasn’t entirely out of my system, but at least the Sober Up would prevent alcohol poisoning. I might have had nine drinks, but I had a feeling they counted for more than one alcohol unit each. Who knows how much I’d really had?
“Come on.” Maximus wrapped an arm around my waist and tugged me along to walk beside him. “Let’s find a place to stay the night so you can sleep this off.”
“Faaaan
tastic idea.” I stumbled, almost face-planting.
Maximus swept me up into his arms and strode down the street. He was so warm. So lovely. So…
Blackness took me.
Chapter Seven
A beam of sunlight dragged me from sleep. At first, I thought it was the devil himself, shining hellfire into my eyes. Then I realized it was just the morning sun, streaming through the windows and landing right. On. My. Face.
Groggily, I opened my eyes.
At first, I could see nothing.
Then there was just a broad expanse of male chest. I blinked, confused, and nearly lunged backward. Then I caught sight of Maximus’s face, dead asleep.
Oh. Him.
Well, that I could get down with.
But what were we doing, naked in bed together? Wouldn’t I remember something like that?
And what the hell was digging into my rib cage? Wincing, I peered down. Crap, it was my bra. Under my shirt.
Which meant there’d been no hanky-panky. That was actually a good thing, because if it was going to happen, I certainly wanted to remember it. I was damned sure I’d remember it with Maximus, even if it was bad. Mostly because I’d be so shocked it wasn’t any good. So shocked I’d probably tell my grandkids about it. Well, there was once this really hot guy, I could imagine myself saying in a creaky voice.
Okay, maybe not. That wasn’t quite PG-13.
But if he was naked and I was not, and I couldn’t remember…
I must have been drunk.
I wasn’t that hungover, thank fates, which was a miracle from the heavens. Hazy memories of a bar, glasses of white stuff, and a surly man filtered through my mind. Prometheus.
Okay, so I’d gotten some info out of him. That was good. Then Maximus must have dragged me back here, semi-conscious or possibly unconscious, and we’d slept it off.
Speaking of, where was here?
I craned my neck, careful not to bounce the bed and disturb Maximus, and caught sight of a nice hotel suite. There were two large beds, with three tiny figures curled up on the other bed.
The Menacing Menagerie. How had they gotten here? I didn’t remember them showing up. At least they were asleep.
I turned back to Maximus, who looked so good in the morning light. The sharp planes of his features were relaxed in sleep, his full lips parted just slightly. His lashes were so damned long that I was jealous, but mostly I just wanted to lean up and kiss him.
I nearly did it, too. Then I caught a whiff of my own breath, and holy crap.
This time, I did lunge backward, desperate to get away and into the shower. I wasn’t quite as graceful as I’d planned to be, and instead of sneakily sliding across the bed and making my escape, I crashed to the floor, dragging the bedsheets with me.
Well, hell.
“Are you okay?” Maximus’s voice was thick with sleep.
Cheeks burning, I peeked up over the side of the bed. He wasn’t, in fact, totally naked. It was almost worst. He wore some kind of tight black shorts that made my imagination run wild and my cheeks heat even more.
Since there was no chance of me gracefully rising to my feet and him forgetting what had happened, I considered just wrapping up in the sheet and rolling across the floor into the bathroom.
Maybe he wouldn’t see me then.
Okay, nope, crap plan.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I struggled upright, the sheet wanting to keep me in a pile on the floor. “Going to grab a shower.”
My whole body had to be red as I hurried into the bathroom. To his credit, Maximus didn’t laugh. Or if he did, he did it quiet enough to keep my pride mostly intact. I appreciated that. A real solid dude, that one. Just acting like me on the floor in a pile of sheets was totally normal.
I showered as quickly as I could, washing away the mild effects of the hangover. Since I couldn’t find my clothes and what I’d been wearing was definitely dirty, I put on the cushy hotel bathrobe and felt quite fancy. By the time I made it out into the suite, Maximus was dressed in a change of clothes that he’d probably conjured. The suite was much larger than I’d realized, with a little couch and table and a magnificent view of the city.
The table was covered in pretty much every breakfast food imaginable, along with a lot that I’d never even seen before. Maybe it was Turkish. My tongue tingled.
“Where did all this come from?” I drifted over as if I were in a trance, my stomach gurgling a waltz to accompany me.
“Room service is quick here.”
“I bet, in a swanky place like this.” My gaze moved over to the Menacing Menagerie, who all sat on the bed now, eyes riveted to the table. “You guys can share, you know.”
Romeo waved his hand. No, no. You go first.
“No need to stand on ceremony.”
No, really. If you eat first, then maybe mess the plates around some. It’ll be more like trash.
Poppy and Eloise both nodded, their eyes bright with excitement. The little blue flower tucked behind Eloise’s ear trembled.
Mess them up good. Romeo grinned, his white teeth gleaming.
“All right, then.” They were weirdos, but they were my weirdos.
Maximus and I sat at the table, and my brain stalled temporarily at the sight of all the offerings. How in the world was I supposed to choose?
“Just eat some of everything,” Maximus said, as if he’d read my mind. “That’s what I plan to do.”
“This is fantastic.”
Maximus grinned up at me, his plate piled high. “I thought you’d like it.” He shrugged. “So do I. Room service like this is one of the major perks of the modern era. Along with plumbing, the combustion engine, and vaccines.”
“Pancakes are up there with vaccines?”
“What’s the point of living if you don’t have pancakes?” He grinned and took a bite of the aforementioned cake.
“You make a valid point, sir.” I turned to my food, thinking about the hardship he had lived through. I forgot about it often, since he seemed like a normal modern man most of the time.
But just like Prometheus wasn’t able to forget his terrible past with the eagle that perpetually ate his liver, Maximus would never forget his time in Ancient Rome. And I didn’t need to ask to confirm that it wasn’t the bad food or lack of electricity that he wanted to forget. It was the time in the Colosseum. His time as a slave whose job it was to murder.
But he’d escaped. He’d saved himself just like I would save myself. Like I would save the Amazons and the village and the whole world.
Because I didn’t have any choice.
I turned my mind away from such heavy thoughts before performance anxiety froze me solid.
The banquet spread out before me deserved my full attention, and I was determined to enjoy the feast that looked like something out of a movie.
I tucked into the buffet, barely stopping myself from eating until I couldn’t move. Between bites, I asked, “Did we get what we needed last night?”
“We did indeed, thanks to your quick talking.”
“And quick drinking.” I sipped some coffee that tasted like a dream. “Where are we headed?”
“The Garden of the Hesperides, to look for Atlas’s daughters.”
“Where’s that?”
“Beats me. I think it’s somewhere in Greece.”
“I can ask the Amazons. They’ll know.” I pushed back from the table and looked at the Menacing Menagerie. “Did I mess it up enough?”
Romeo shrugged. Not quite trash, but it still looks pretty tasty.
He hopped over to the end of the bed near the table, and I ruffled his head. “I know you like to work for your food, but today you can have a bit of a lie-in.”
The animals each took a chair and began to eat, really quite nicely. Eloise’s table manners were exceptional, in fact. The badger looked like she could have tea with the queen. Except, of course, for the fact that she was a badger.
I rifled through my dirty clothes to find my cell phone
and the card that Queen Hippolyta had given me, then dialed the number.
Within minutes, we had a plan. I hung up the phone and looked at Maximus. “We need to meet them on the roof.”
“The roof?”
I grinned. “We’re getting a ride.”
When the helicopter landed on the roof twenty minutes later, I had to admit that I felt a bit like James Bond. It would have been faster to transport, but our charms were valuable. And without knowing exactly where the garden was, we might not have ended up in the right place. Once we were done, we should be able to transport out.
“Damn, this is cool.” I grinned at Maximus.
He looked mildly green around the gills but nodded gamely.
The helicopter was sleek and black, and I’d have bet twenty bucks it had some kind of stealth equipment on it. The door slid open, and an Amazon leaned out, her blonde hair blowing in the wind.
She waved us forward, shouting, “Come on!”
I sprinted for the helicopter, ducking low under the whirling rotor even though I was pretty sure they were too high to take off my head. Better safe than sorry.
Wind whipped at my hair as I scrambled into the helicopter and buckled into one of the seats.
The pilot turned around, a big grin on her face. She looked about sixty, with brown hair to her shoulders and round dark sunglasses. “I’m Captain Neilson. We’ll have you there in a flash!”
Maximus settled in next to me, and the helicopter took off, the roar of the rotor blasting my ears as the city fell away below.
The Amazon who sat in the seat across from us grinned, tossing us some headsets. I put mine on, and the world went a little quieter.
Her voice filtered through the earpieces. “We’ll be there in about an hour. This bird is fast. So is Captain Neilson.”
The captain laughed. “Don’t I know it!”
“Are you both Amazons?” I asked.
“Not me, baby cakes,” Captain Neilson said as she piloted the helicopter toward our destination.
“Captain Neilson is the best pilot in the world,” the blonde Amazon said. “We hire her special.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Phoebe.”