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Technically it hadoccurred during a battle, though it was so much more embarrassing than a merewar injury. Reluctantly Shaw nodded her head, breath catching in her throat asKaleb’s hands neared her knee.
“The knee, huh?That sucks.”
“Tell me about it.It’s taking forever to heal and the Med team are next to useless. Massage. Icepacks. Heat packs. Creams. Rest it. Exercise it.”
“Actually, I thinkI have something that belongs to you.” Kaleb reached into his pants pocket,pulling out the item that had been resting on the passenger seat of Shaw’s carthat he’d automatically pocketed and kept with him ever since.
Frowning, Shawstared at the small silvery piece of fabric Kaleb held up, she didn’t know whathe was talking about, though it did look vaguely familiar. Then he unfolded it.“Oh, Olrun gave me that. It’s supposed to be a support bandage.” Which shetotally would never wear. Give her enemies a visible sign of weakness to preyupon? Never.
“It’s amazinglylight.”
“You shouldprobably wash your hands after touching it. It’s made by the Kil’tiark, whosecrete that stuff out their butts. Hey, what are you doing?” Shaw tried topull her leg away from Kaleb but the space was too awkwardly cramped. Beforeshe knew it, he’d managed to wrap the damn material around her knee and wassealing the edges closed. Fine. Fine. She’d rip the bloody thing off once… hey,where did it go? No, no, she could still feel it but she just couldn’t see it.Olrun had been right, the material did mimic skin insanely accurately, even herdarker tone.
“Wow.” Kaleb wasimpressed, finally allowing a huffy Shaw to reclaim her leg. He sensed therewas more to the tale of this knee injury but he decided to hold off fromdelving deeper into the topic for the moment. “Moving on, do you want to fillme in on the game plan for today? Will you be pitching woo? Headlocks? And whatrole do you intend me to fulfil? Arm candy? Please say arm candy.”
“What are youtalking about?”
“Well, I’vedelivered on the potential pool of Godly clients and then some, if I might justtake a moment to pat myself on the back.” Shaw’s green eyes widened indisbelief as the Demon actually proceeded to reach back and give himself a pat.“Now I’m intrigued to hear your grand plan to get a select few to sign on thedotted line.”
“There’s no grandplan. I’ll just ask them.”
“Will that scowlbe on your face when you do so? Hey, just asking, no need to give me the death look.Okay then. Sounds like you have a… non-grand plan to walk up and ask randomGods at a wedding to sign on as Valkyrie clients.” Kaleb grinned, totally notintimidated in any way as Shaw’s scowl deepened. “What could possibly go wrong?At least tell me you have some business cards on you?” He took the handful shehanded over. “They’re in the shape of an axe, how novel, and the words arewritten like spilled blood. Someone in your art department has a wicked senseof humour.” He noted Shaw’s scowl didn’t budge. “Or perhaps no sense of humourat all. Hey, just a thought, maybe we should copy this design for the babyshower invites. I’ll text Jenna.” Kaleb pulled out his phone, texting away,before checking his messages and then playing a few games on his phone,thankfully with the volume off. After ninety minutes had passed, he finally putthe phone away. “Okay, the speeches should be done. Time for you to get towork. If you need me, I’ll be at the bar.”
Shaw rolled hereyes to the heavens, praying for guidance from Freyja. Should she separate theannoying Demon’s head from his body here, in the privacy of the linen closet?Or wait until she had a few more items on Stephanie’s to-do list crossed off?
She was rockingthe list. One and a half items ticked off already and it hadn’t been thirty-sixhours yet. Quite frankly, other than signing his name on a piece of paper, whathad Kaleb’s contribution been? He’d looked up some stuff on his phone. Andtalked… a lot. Shaw totally had things covered from here on out. She’d show himhow a Valkyrie got things done.
***
“I… They…Dismissive… Snobby… Elitist… Patronising…”
“Problem?” Kalebenquired, signalling the closet bartender to pour a large ale, handing it overto the spitting mad Valkyrie.
“They’re allassholes!” Shaw knocked back half the ale, releasing a deep thankful sigh ofappreciation.
“I did try andwarn you.”
“No, you didn’t. Atno stage did you say my plan was doomed to failure.”
“Okay, so I didn’tuse words as such but you had to have heard the tone.”
“I thought thatwas just you being… you.” Shaw finished the ale, signalling the bartender foranother. “They’re so busy blathering on about how important they are, they’retalking over one another. If you try to interject, they just lift their noseshigher in the air and wave you off, like you’re some lesser life form.”
“If you can cutone off from the herd you might stand a chance, but when they get together likethis it generally just devolves into everyone trying to out God one another.Although you could try Apollo, poor lad, doesn’t look like his date is goingaccording to plan.”
Both glanced overat the golden God taking a series of selfies on his phone, trying to get justthe right angle and light to highlight his cheekbones. His date sitting besidehim looking bored and getting steadily drunk. Shaw hurriedly shook her head. “Iwant to work for Gods, not start a war with the Deities when I kill one ofthem.”
Damn it, her planwas not going to… plan. And the Demon wasn’t helping, was he? Propping up thebar, looking all kinds of gorgeous in his tuxedo. Hold on, he had promised tohelp, hadn’t he. Although she’d kind of rejected his gesture of help earlier.Damn. Damn. Damn.
“Your turn.”
Kaleb winced asShaw slapped him on the back encouragingly. “My turn to do what?”
“To get some Godclients to sign on the dotted line.”
“No, that’s yourjob. I don’t even rate arm candy status, remember?”
By the Sword, hewas going to be stubborn. “Well, congrats, Cupcake, you’ve made the bigleagues. Go out there and schmooze those Deities. Here, you’ll need these.”Shaw handed over some business cards. “Three, maybe four of the upper echelontypes would be perfect.”
