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Disappointment spread over her expression. “Wow. Just when you think you know a guy, boom, you discover he’s a low-down cheater.”
He popped his jaw. “Mere minutes ago, you tried to set me up with a nymph,” he reminded her with gritted teeth.
“Yes, but that was before I knew you lacked any sense of loyalty.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. It was going to be a common occurrence in her presence, he was certain of it. “I’m not cheating. Lore helped me pick half the stable’s members.”
Neeka pretended to have a heart attack. “You opened the stable of unfaithfulness while she lived? Oh, your poor concubines. Do they know they’re placeholder bangs?” She fluffed her hair. “Mymale will want me and only me, and that’s a fact. Not that I’m ever gonna couple up. Nope. Not me. Not ever. I’ve got better things to do.”
Why so determined to remain alone? And whydidhe desire other women despite being wed to a fated wife? Why had Lore encouraged it rather than keeping him all to herself, as Neeka intended to do with her consort?
Rathbone ground his teeth. The last two questions had the same obvious answer. Because they were gods, their thoughts on a higher level than those of a common immortal. So why did his nerves remain pricked?
“While you did your top-notch oracling,” he grated, “did you happen to locate another bone?”
“No, but I’m on the cusp, probably. I just need to connect with your love story, as previously mentioned.” Twisting a fallen lock of hair around her finger, she batted that thick fan of lashes at him. “About your stable—”
“No more talk of the stable. I want results.”
“Sure, sure,” she muttered, sliding her gaze from him, effectively ending the conversation. “Oh! How wonderful.”
She skipped across the room to trace an anatomically correct heart hidden within the wall mosaic he’d designed and mounted himself. Another of his romantic gestures.
Watching her elegant fingers graze the image drew another growl from him.What is she doing to me?
Neeka turned to waggle her brows in his direction. “My kingdom must have this pattern in every room, or I’ll revolt.”
She liked his work that much? Something warm and soft unfurled in his chest. He opened his mouth to respond, only to remain quiet when he sensed the impending arrival of an ally. Since he acknowledged a single ally, he pivoted toward the door, awaiting Hades’s entrance.
The other king materialized in the open frame, wearing a perfectly tailored three-piece suit.
“Hello, Uncle,” he said. Though he’d never tried to hide their familial connection, few beings recognized it. Fewer still knew Hera, Hades’s sister, had birthed Rathbone. She’d never cared enough to claim him publicly.
His lungs squeezed.
“Don’t ‘hello uncle’ me. You have five seconds to—” Hades noticed Neeka and went quiet. When his dark gaze returned to Rathbone, he arched a brow in question.
The sovereign’s appearance hadn’t changed a bit over the centuries. But then, neither had Rathbone’s. In disposition, however, they’d both transformed. While Hades had mellowed, his temper becoming harder to prick, Rathbone had graduated from an eager youth desperate to prove himself worthy of his royal status to a warrior assured of his power.
“I hired her,” he explained.
“And she agreed to be hired?” Hades asked with a chiding tone. “Willingly?”
“She did,” Neeka responded, whirling away to dig through Rathbone’s sock drawer. “Even though she’s being discussed as if she isn’t in the room, an activity sure to set her nerves—and therefore your lives—on edge.”
Rathbone tracked her with his gaze, ensnared by the gracefulness of her movements as she aimed for his desk to rifle through a stack of papers. By the mystery she presented. The challenge.
“Have you forgotten I’m here,Nephew?”
He blinked with surprise. Yes, he had. “I can guess. Come. I’ll show you what you wish to see.”
He removed his shirt, freeing the mátia, which immediately jerked to the oracle. Rathbone tossed the material into the hamper near her thigh. He trusted Hades, despite the male’s hatred of Lore, but that wasn’t a reason to relax his guard.
Or he tried to toss the material in the hamper. Neeka caught the garment without facing him, brought the cloth to her nose and sniffed, humming with delight.
Hot, frothing desire gripped him.
“This is humiliating,” Hades muttered. “For you.”
