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“You already promised to murder my enemies as part of my payment,” she said.
“Ah, but I’ll keep killing this one until he stops rising.”
“Really?” Neeka beamed at him, and Rathbone barely stopped himself from preening. “And what will you do if I pick your kingdom instead and give you the boot?”
“Wage war to win it back,” he replied without heat. “I believe you intended to ask me about my childhood.”
Neeka waved her fork in his direction. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? Hooking me with multiple lures to, what? Divide my focus? Well, it’s working, you dirty sneak. I’m unsure which bait to gobble. No, you know what? I’m going with the childhood. Tell me everything!”
Her enthusiasm nearly drew a smile from him. “I was born in the heavens, my father a personal guard to Hera, who is my mother.”
“Seriously?” The oracle popped a grape into her mouth. “This story just got more riveting. Do go on.” She didn’t say anything else upon discovering his link to a royal Greek, just shoveled more food into her mouth as if too captivated to risk a change of his mind.
“She kept me in a private realm, hidden from Zeus. Upon occasion, she visited me.” The best and worst days of his existence. He remembered watching her with the mátia, longing for her to see something good in him. To praise him. To hold him. But she’d only ever found fault.
Why aren’t you as fast as your father?
You aren’t worth the trouble you’ve caused.
How I rue the day I conceived you.
“She wasn’t fond of me.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I trained to become her guard, but she was taken captive soon after my eighth birthday. A year later, Hades learned of my existence and came for me.”
Sympathy softened Neeka’s lovely features. “I’m sorry,” she told him with a tone just as soft. “Well, I like young Rathbone already.”
“What were you like as a child?”
“Sickly. The reason my mother disliked me from the beginning. Honestly, I think she latched onto the first excuse to execute me.”
Needing to touch her, he slid a knuckle along her jaw. “Harpy children experience illness?”
“Not usually, but sometimes the different mix of species takes time to harmonize.”
“Look at you now. Perfectly harmonized.”
Neeka gifted him with a soft smile and leaned into his touch. The heat of her skin sent arcs of electricity through him.
“I once heard someone say parents know how to push our buttons because they’re the ones who sewed them on,” she said. “That might be why I prefer zippers.”
He snorted, then frowned. A snort? From him? Amid such a serious topic?
Confused—not vulnerable, never vulnerable—he focused on the meal, eating the fruit off his plate. But every bite settled with the finesse of a lead ball. He thought the same might be true for her. She no longer ate with gusto but stared down at the remaining morsels.
He shouldn’t have initiated this conversation. Something else had shifted between them. Something major. He just didn’t know what it was or what it meant.
He—sensed a presence. “We’re about to receive a visitor,” Rathbone informed her, jumping to his feet. His chair slid behind him, scraping over the floor.
Neeka stood as well, clutching daggers he hadn’t known she carried. Impressive.
Between one blink and the next, Erebus appeared in the doorway of the dining room, his spirit bound by chains once more.
“Enemy!” the oracle shouted, her adorable wings accelerating to warp speed.
“No need to attack,” the god said with a patient smile. “I’m not staying long. Just thought you’d like to know the Astra have hired the Unwanted’s mother to search for the remaining bones. She’s homing in on one now.”
Neeka went still and pale. “They did what now?”
Rathbone stiffened. “Anything else?”
