Page 11 of A Subtle Scar

“Well met indeed. The helldog is yours?”

“Ach, she’s her own but has Cerberus as a daddy, and that cute but cursed poodle who watches over Lucy’s lad as a momma.” He turned to me. “Thoughts on your drink?”

“Love the undertone of heather,” I told Hades.

It earned me an approving grunt. “Good man, Chandler. Discerning taste.”

Charon looked at me in a thoughtful way when I nodded.

“Well, you can have a bottle of the blended I am test-running. I’ll have Lucy bring it over or ship it straight. Charon, water of Styx?”

“That’s very cliché,” I said.

“Just very peaty,” Charon said. “Not everyone can handle that.”

“Aren’t different flavors just the spice of life?” I asked.

Charon leaned in. “Yes. Yes, that is exactly right. Say, you’re certain you don’t enjoy the subway? I could take you. Maybe not Brunswick, but there are other places that have a lovely subway system. Prague. Prague’s underground is…beautiful. Stunning.”

Hades poured Charon his drink, looked back and forth between us with a lopsided grin, then moved down the bar again.

“Vacationing isn’t my thing, really. Sorry about that.”

Something golden caught my attention. The broad guy from the cake room had followed me here—or had just come in for a drink himself. He was standing in a corner, a long-stemmed cocktail glass with high grenadine content in hand, and watching me. It wasn’t the kind of attention that creeped me out or made me pull some defensive magic, but he was making love to me with his eyes for lack of a better term.

“I always thought humans were exceedingly fond of travel. It’s one of the things I adore most about humans,” Charon said.

I turned my attention back to the mythical ferryman. “Then you won’t adore me.” I sipped some more of my whiskey. “I used to travel, but these days, I work.”

Charon tilted his head. “Why’s that?” he asked. “Why’d you stop traveling? The world is such a big place.”

My heart thudded, but I had learned how to keep calm. And smile. “It’s just what I do,” I said.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then said, “Maybe I can convince you otherwise.”

I grabbed my glass and slid off the barstool. “Maybe. But not today.”

I wasn’t running. That wasn’t something I did. But by the Jacuzzi, a door led out to the garden, and past the naked people in the water, the night fell quiet and the spring air was pleasantly cool.

I sipped my drink alone and stayed there for a long while.

Chapter Four

Iwasnotpleasedto have been rejected, but at least the fact that Ronny had been rejected as well made it sting less.

“What did you say to him?” I asked Ronny as I slid into the chair the human had just abandoned.

“Me? Nothing. You were ogling him, and that’s why he left.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I was trying to catch his eye. I was admiring him. Humans like him want to be admired,” I said because that was obvious from the tailored suit and the perfect hair. He’d also been perfectly shaven, and his cologne the classy, timeless kind that would linger on your sheets.

Ronny snorted and finished his drink. “Hades? Another.”

“Sure, you old drunk,” Hades said and came over. “And a cocktail for Hermes, right?”

I finished the grenadine and whatever else that remained in my glass. “Yes, please. Make it strong. Set it on fire. Surprise me.”

Ronny rolled his eyes and shook his head. The eye roll was good. He committed to it, turning his head with the movement and engaging his eyebrow and forehead muscles.