A grin. Nina was grinning. Not scowling. Oh, the world really had tipped on its axis.
“Gods versus Vampires picnic of 2012. Remember that shit? Took Apollo out like he was GD wearin’ lace panties and a bra. Good times, my friend.”
Khristos barked a laugh, his head falling back on his shoulders, revealing a strong neck, thick with cords of muscle. “That’s right! That was one helluva play you made, too. Talked about it for days.”
Nina slapped him on his broad back while an astonished Ingrid and Quinn stood frozen and watched. “So what’s goin’ on here, man? Ingrid tells me Boobs McGee is Aphrodite? Seriously? Like she didn’t have big enough rose-colored glasses sitting on that snooty nose of hers? What in the ever-lovin’ hell have you done, Khristos?”
Khristos stood back and jammed his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Me? I didn’t do a thing. She did. She nicked the apple with her teeth, and you know what that means.”
Nina lifted her dark sunglasses and rolled her eyes, the strip of zinc oxide beginning to melt on her nose. “The golden one? Aw, duuude.”
Khristos threw up his hands. “Honest to God, I look away for one minute and bam. It’s partially my fault. I was a little distracted—”
“With a hot, leggy blonde, no doubt?” Nina asked, her grin facetious as she moved to the shade beneath a column.
Khristos rolled his eyes, but his face split into a gloriously handsome grin. “I tried to tell her not to touch it, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Quinn knew she should speak up, say something in her defense, but she still wasn’t over the fact that Nina knew this man.
“What the hell was the apple doing here in the first place?”
Khristos looked up at the column and shrugged. “I only set it down for a minute. We had some kind of weird tremor, right, Quinn? Maybe a mini-earthquake?” he asked her. “And it fell on the ground and she grabbed it up.”
Quinn’s mouth dropped open.
Khristos shook his head. “Never mind. She’s still a little shell-shocked. You know, the whole body change? I know it’s a delicate subject with women, but as I explained earlier, you know what the gods were like back in the day, right? Ample bodies and lush curves were all the rage. Anyway, the apple fell from the column and then, well, you know the rest.”
Nina nodded then nudged Quinn with her shoulder. “Did he tell you not to touch the apple, doofus?”
Quinn frowned, not liking the ugly guilt she was experiencing. “Well, yes…but I thought he was nuts. I mean, I thought maybe the apple was some rare artifact he was trying to steal. I tried to get it away from him, but in our struggle, I nicked my tooth on it. I thought by keeping it from him, I was saving all of Greece!”
“See?” Khristos said, hitching his angular jaw in her direction.
Nina nodded, her next words laced with typical Nina sarcasm. “Job well done, Indiana Jones.”
Oh, blame, blame, blame.
Nina brushed her hands together as if she were over this. “Then we’re good to go. And thank Christ, too. I thought I was going to have to spend another piece of my damn eternity codling one more cockadoodie whiny woman. But you can take it from here, right, Khristos?”
Wait. Nina was just going to leave her here with her big, big boobies and an utter stranger-slash-alleged-god who said he had to teach her how to be Aphrodite?
Aw, hell no.
She was terrified of Nina. Every time she ran into her when she and Ingrid had a study date, she literally shook in her shoes and avoided her like the plague or, if forced into her company, sat quietly as Nina scowled at her.
But what if Khristos wasn’t being completely honest, like Ingrid said? What if, even though he knew Nina, she didn’t really know-know him? Did you ever really know a person? Wasn’t it true that when serial killers were revealed, all the people who knew them in their everyday lives were all in total shock because they never suspected a thing?
Nina was a beast, but she was the beast Quinn knew, and if something went awry, she wanted the vampire on her side.
Which meant—let the begging and scraping commence.
Chapter 4
Nina stopped dead in her tracks and gave her what Quinn decided was the scariest face ever. “Stop hanging on to me like I’m the last prom date on planet earth, for crap’s sake! He’s not gonna eat your face off, but I will if you don’t get the eff off me.”
Quinn backed off but still hovered at Nina’s elbow. Somehow, Nina seemed like the best bet. She’d lost count of how many times Ingrid had reminded her of what a badass Nina was.
“How do you know he won’t eat my face off?” she asked as the group made their way up the sidewalk to her small basement apartment.
Upon Quinn deciding her trip of a lifetime was officially over due to her new powers—and the discussion had with Khristos about how she couldn’t be trusted to know what true soul mates looked like in her fragile, heartbroken state—Nina demanded they come back to New York immediately and consult with Marty and Wanda before Khristos took over.
So now two things weighed heavily on her mind. What exactly did Khristos mean when he said she wouldn’t know two soul mates if Cupid threw them at her? And how they’d gotten here—without an actual plane—was still hard for her to form complete sentences about.
“FYI, speaking from my vast experience in face-eating, faces can be a little bony. I prefer other parts of a body, like a nice, fleshy upper arm,” Khristos growled from behind her, his tone teasing.
Quinn jumped, tucking her light sweater around her as though the flimsy material would protect her from this hulk of a man. Gone was her bravado, now replaced with sheer terror. Ingrid had filled her head with so many vivid images of demons and Hell and vampires running amok, Quinn couldn’t shake them.
She stopped by the big maple tree just before her apartment building and turned to face him, keeping Nina close. “Listen, I don’t know what goddesses teach their offspring, but where I come from, my mother taught me never to trust strangers, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re a stranger. I don’t care if you come with a recommendation from the Masters of the Universe and the FDA, you’re still a stranger to me. As a result of your stranger-ness, I now have lady pillows like a porn star and I glow. So, until I feel more comfortable—back…off!”
Khristos didn’t seem at all offended. In fact, he merely chuckled and motioned for her to go ahead of him. “My apologies. I thought Nina was a good enough reference.”
Stopping when they reached the stairs leading down to her apartment, Quinn dropped her carryon bag, letting it thump with a satisfying crunch to the hard, semi-frozen ground. “I hardly know Nina, and what I do know of her is enough to give me nightmares for a hundred years.”
Had she said that out loud?
Nina popped her lips, her eyes narrowing under the fluorescent streetlights. “I’m sorry, Lite-Brite, but wasn’t that you back in the Parthenon, clinging to me like some damn leech, begging me not to leave you alone with big scary Khristos? I’m all the nightmare you got right now. If I were you, I’d shut that yap of yours, and I’d shut it now.” She leered down at Quinn, making her shiver a cringe.
Yep. She’d said it out loud.
Honey. You get more flies with honey than vinegar, Quinn, her Aunt Rachel had always said. Reaching up, her fingers shaking, she patted Nina on the shoulder before snatching her hand away. “That was rude of me.”
“The rudest,” Nina said before growling at her and snapping her teeth.
Headlights shining in her eyes as a big SUV drove up forced her to squint and back away from Nina.
Ingrid clapped her hands in delight. “It’s Marty and Wanda!”
Nina rolled her eyes before slapping Khristos on the back. “If you thought this one was a pain in the ass—wait. Marty and Wanda are the champions of ass pain.”
But laid-back, easygoing, hotter-than-hell Khristos rocked on his heels and smiled. What was with all the smiling? “Can’t wait.”
Marty a
nd Wanda fell out of the car in a cloud of hair and perfume, rushing to Ingrid and scooping her up in a hug. Their eyes, sympathetic with only hints of shock, locked with Quinn’s.
And then they were scooping her up, too, in vanilla-scented hugs and bangle bracelets clacking in the howling night air. “Oh, Quinn!” Marty said, rubbing her arm with a gentle hand. “How are you feeling? Do you need to talk about it? I wish Ingrid had contacted us instead of Elvira here. We’re far more sympathetic to the changes you’ll experience, and well, we don’t swear nearly as much.”
Nina leaned down and looked Marty in the eye, flipping her middle finger up into the air. “Oh, eff you, Pretty-Pretty Princess. She’s here, isn’t she? Not a hair on her head out of place and her boobs even managed to stay inflated, all nice and poofy, just like I found her. I’d say that was damn well the best display of sympathy ever.”
Wanda sighed, poking Nina with a gloved finger between her shoulder blades. “You. Quiet. Now.” Reaching for Quinn, she hooked her arm through hers and smiled.
Wow. She was pretty—for a halfsie.
“I’m Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson, and we’re here to help. Now, let’s get you inside where you can warm up and we’ll chat over some tea, yes? You drink tea, if I recall what Ingrid said correctly, right?”
As Wanda led her down the flight of stairs to her apartment, Quinn couldn’t help but find her strangely soothing, in her slim-fitting taupe trench coat and silky turquoise-and-brown scarf. She smelled of good things—warm, kind things—and Quinn was instantly drawn to her.
Quinn nodded, reaching into her purse to dig for her keys, to no avail. “I can’t find my keys.” But she sure knew how to find an apple.
Nina groaned. “Move,” she ordered, parting the group and skipping down the steps to grab the handle on her door.
The other two women yelped, “No, Nina!” just as she mutilated Quinn’s doorknob with her long fingers.
Mutilated. As in, pulverized with a mere turn of her wrist, the heavy metal so twisted, it dropped and fell to the ground with a loud clang.
Oh, cripes.
Nina’s defiant black eyes found Quinn’s as though she were daring her to complain. Her raven eyebrow rose while she waited for Quinn to react. When she didn’t—because hello, throat-puncher alert—Nina grinned and said, “After you.”
She traded off clinging to Nina for clinging to Wanda. If nothing else, she was softer for the clinging, and she didn’t gnash her teeth at her.
Pushing her way through the door, she flipped on the lights to her very tiny living room and sucked in the familiar air of home, her eyes scanning the pastel colors and bleached white walls. She’d worked hard to make this space hers, using her favorite colors—pale blues and white—and decorating it with all the things she loved, like roses and hydrangeas and sheer curtains with lace.
“Jesus. Did Barbie die and leave you all her shit?”
Naturally, someone like Nina would find her tiny abode, decorated in various shades of white and muted blues, distasteful. She probably had deer antlers and beer mugs hanging from the walls of her castle.
Marty rasped a sigh as she pulled off her ankle-length coat in royal blue, and hung it up on the coatrack in the corner. “Not now, Night Dweller. Quinn’s had a long day. Go make that tea or something. Can’t you see the poor woman’s teeth are chattering?”
Her teeth were indeed chattering, the harsh winds of mid-fall in Manhattan a far cry from the heat of Greece. Quinn spread out a shaky arm. “Please, make yourselves comfortable.”
“On what? The Barbie couch? Can I sit next to Ken?” Nina asked with a cackle.
Wanda unfurled her scarf and shook it at Nina. “Knock it off. Not everyone finds BOGO velvet wall art from the flea market and lava lamps appealing. Now go make tea, so the rest of us can help Quinn sit and catch her breath.”
Marty wrapped an arm around Quinn’s shoulders and squeezed. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. I know Ingrid kept you at arm’s length because of…well, you know—us, but we’ve heard so much about you and how you’ve helped our Ingrid out in your art history classes. It’s nice to put the face to the topic of many conversations.”
Quinn nodded. She could only imagine the conversations her stupidity over Igor and love and romance had evoked. Ingrid was always mocking her for it. Turned out she was right.
Suddenly exhausted, all she wanted to do was climb under her fluffy comforter and sleep off this Nina-lag. “It’s nice to finally meet you, too,” she mumbled, leaning into the warmth of Marty’s side and letting her lead her across the room.
Marty smelled as nice as Wanda, and she dressed as if she’d fallen out of a copy of Vogue, with her skinny jeans, royal blue knee-high boots, and dolman-sleeved purple and pink sweater. Her hair glistened all shades of blonde under the dim glow of Quinn’s end table lamps, falling down her back in beachy waves.
Her hands were gentle when she drew Quinn to the couch and sat her down, tucking the blanket around her and ordering Ingrid to find some warm socks for her sandaled feet.
In a sleep-deprived haze, she let these people she didn’t know tend to her, forgetting they were historically considered heinous creatures and thinking only that she could sleep for days with this kind of attention paid to her.
When a firm hand, warm and gentle, reached for her foot and unhooked the buckle to her sandal, she didn’t open her eyes. She knew it was Khristos, but she almost didn’t care.
Almost—except for that tingle running along her calf as he eased her fluffy socks up and over her ankle.
He leaned into her then and whispered, “Rest. I’ll be here when you wake up, Quinn.”
And somehow, that was strangely comforting.
* * * *
“Who is this smooshy face?” she heard Nina’s husky voice ask in a tone that almost sounded childlike and sweet. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe who’s such a sweet, sweet girl!”
Quinn’s eyes flew open, scanning the room. Buffy and Spike. How could she have forgotten about her cats? But it didn’t seem to matter, Nina clearly had it all taken care of as she scratched Spike’s hindquarters and rubbed her cheek against Buffy’s head.
“I told you—total mush on the inside,” Ingrid commented, nudging her shoulder with a grin.
Quinn pushed her hair from her face, assessing her surroundings. She was still on the couch. Rubbing her temples with the heels of her hand, she groaned. “What time is it?”
Ingrid patted her hand. “Midnight.”
Quinn sat forward with a jolt as everything came rushing back to her, but suddenly Marty was there, holding a cup of steaming tea and a grilled cheese sandwich, a warm smile on her red lips. “It’s okay, Quinn,” she said softly. “Everything is okay. Ingrid called your cat sitter to let her know you were home and as you can see, our resident Mistress of Evil-slash-marshmallow has everything under control. Now drink your tea and just relax.” She patted her thigh, and set her tea and sandwich on the end table before wandering off to Quinn’s kitchen, the heels of her boots clacking over the bleached white flooring of her living room.
Khristos was there suddenly, too, standing in front of her before sinking to his haunches, his face maybe even more beautiful in the glow of the lamp. “Better now?”
God. That voice. His voice did things to her stomach, warm and squishy things she rebelled against almost instantly. He was not allowed to give her warm squishies, and while this circumstance was indeed right out of a piece of fiction, it wasn’t romantic at all.
He had to go.
“I’m fine. Look, I don’t need a babysitter. You can go home, wherever that is.” Where did a Greek goddess’s son call home anyway?
“Um, no. I can’t just go home and leave you with the power of Aphrodite, Quinn. It doesn’t work that way. It’s an enormous responsibility, putting people together for life.”
“That’s why they have this thing called divorce. On the off chance you make the wrong decision.” Such an ugly word. As a
child of divorce, and a nasty, knock-down drag-out one at that, she’d promised herself when she married it was going to be forever, no matter what it took to keep it together.
Not that she believed in forever anymore.
Khristos clucked his tongue. “First lesson, and it’s a hard-and-fast rule. Never use the ‘D’ word. Aphrodite creates true mates for life.”
“You sound like an infomercial. Next you’ll show me how to cook an entire chicken in under ten minutes while you Oxy Clean my whites.”
He chuckled, low, deep, husky. “Matchmaking is nothing like cooking chickens, but it is a delicate matter, Quinn.”
She gaped at him. “Clearly, because your gods decided it was a smart idea to leave all the power of the most famous goddess ever in an apple in the Parthenon where just about anyone could get their hands on it. It’s obviously ultra-delicate.”
“And here we go,” Nina cooed to Buffy, one of Quinn’s late-night alleyway rescues from a Dumpster.
Quinn cocked her head in Nina’s direction, and she almost didn’t care if she bit it right off. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Nina’s eyes narrowed, glittering and fierce. “It means you’re finally hitting the grief crap. You know, the five-stages thing? Whining, crying, anger—which is usually first. I don’t know. It’s some bullshite Marty and Wanda feed everybody while they’re going through the change. We have a pamphlet on it. But they never give it to anyone—because that makes sense, and who the hell would wanna make sense when they can jump into your personal crap feet first and wallow in it with you?”
Quinn frowned, not understanding.
Nina rolled her eyes. “It means any second now, you’re gonna be a motherfluffin’ train wreck.” She looked down at Spike and grinned. “But don’t worry, little man. I’ll protect you from your crazyface mother.”
Was she any of those things? She hadn’t stopped to think about ramifications and everything that went with biting the apple. What were the ramifications, anyway?
What Khristos had said back at the Parthenon made no sense. How could he help her be the Goddess of Love when, if history served her correctly, the Goddess of Love didn’t do much but create havoc and make men fall in love with her?
Accidentally Aphrodite (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 10) Page 5