Page 34 of Lovesick Gods (Lovesick #1)

There were several businesses they hit, one after the other.

Cho was as smooth as ever asking how things were going.

Some of the proprietors said very little and that was that.

Some quietly mentioned the cops hanging about or one of the Dunkirks, to which Cho made a point of responding that he needed to know the second the man showed up again. Even fewer of them asked about Danny.

“Oh, he’s new,” Cho would say. “Just giving him the fifty cent tour.”

Danny smiled but didn’t say anything. If anyone thought he looked like a cop in his neatly pressed blazer and trench coat, none of them voiced it. After all, he was with Cho.

It was after the third mention of Dunkirk that Danny realized Cho was usually the one to ask about the guy first, so between stops, he asked, “Which Dunkirk is giving you trouble? I thought the Irish—” but Cho shook his head.

“No questions, remember?”

There must be a territory war going on. Interesting. Danny would have to keep his ear to the ground.

For now, he focused on gleaning what intel he could—and juggling the various items some of the shop owners insisted on giving them.

Cho hadn’t been lying though; not once did he ever ask for anything; the people just kept trying to give him stuff.

Usually food or something new from their shop. But never, ever cash.

A few times Cho was able to deflect having to accept the gift, but the other times, Danny merely added to his burden. He had several bags to carry, some at least he could consolidate into one, by the time they reached a convenience store near Cho’s apartment.

Danny wasn’t immune to how the people of the neighborhood acted around Cho. None of them seemed afraid. Intimidated maybe. Respectful for sure. But Cho didn’t usually resort to fear. He preferred showmanship.

It was the long game, Danny told himself, as he clung to the belief that none of this—not even the young woman helping her grandmother at the local bakery who looked at Cho like some sort of savior—meant Cho was anything but bad news.

This wasn’t goodness, protecting these people.

It was killing them with kindness, just like what Danny was doing to Cho.

Sure, it proved Cho didn’t need to be taken down like Thanatos—he wasn’t evil and he did care about the city—but that hardly made him good.

Hardly made him exempt from a little payback.

Hardly meant he didn’t deserve exactly what he had coming when Danny was through with him.

Angry voices struck their ears as soon as Cho opened the door to the convenience store.

“Open the register!”

“Wrong neighborhood! Nothing for you! Go, go!” an accented voice Danny took for Middle Eastern answered the young-sounding assailant.

The cashier counter was further into the back, but he and Cho spotted the commotion right away. Cho paused to roll up his sleeves, and a frosted mist rose into the air from his iced-over hands.

“ Cho ,” Danny hissed.

“No questions. No interfering,” Cho answered just as quietly as he moved forward with slow, clipped steps.

The robber had a gun pointed at the cashier, who Danny could see had his hands raised but was inching toward a shotgun behind the counter. It was visible from Danny’s angle, but not from the robber’s.

Readying himself to intervene, regardless of what he’d promised Cho, Danny wasn’t sure how old the robber was—he had a ski mask on—but his voice made him sound about fifteen.

“Problem?” Cho asked, spreading his arms to show off the sheen of ice climbing to his elbows.

The robber whirled around, pointing his revolver at Cho then back at the cashier. Danny saw the moment when the young man registered who it was he was looking at—the way his eyes widened beneath his mask, hand trembling worse than it already had been.

Cho held up a misting hand to quiet the cashier when the man rattled off something Danny didn’t understand. Just how many languages did Cho speak?

“Not at the point of no return yet, kid,” Cho said, all ease and guile and fluid motion forward.

“Now you know what Rashid meant by this being the wrong neighborhood. But I’m forgiving.

Put down the gun. Walk out the door. Stay away from my streets.

And we won’t have a problem. Try something, however, and well…

you wouldn’t create the most fashionable ice sculpture with that mask, but I can make do. ”

A thrill shot up Danny’s spine at hearing the more theatrical voice Cho used as Prometheus.

Rashid was still inching toward the shotgun. Cho noticed as well and subtly shook his head. This could get messy fast, but Danny knew he was faster.

Cho was faster too, apparently.

Rashid vanished beneath the counter. The robber turned his gun toward Cho, but Cho charged forward to intercept the kid’s swing and caught his wrist in his left hand, while his right hovered in front of the young man’s face like a threat. Danny never had to move a muscle.

Pulling himself and the robber down just as Rashid rose from beneath the counter and fired over their heads, Cho was up again the next moment as if he’d been expecting that. He backed the kid against the counter while Rashid looked on in horror at having nearly taken Prometheus’s head off.

The robber’s gun clattered to the counter with Cho pinning him, the chill of his touch on the kid’s wrist seeping into his jacket, making him hiss.

Cho ripped his mask off with his other hand, icing the fabric in the process so that it crumbled like snow to the floor when he dropped it.

Fifteen, all right. Maybe seventeen at most. And terrified.

“I won’t be seeing you in my neighborhood again, will I?” Cho said low and dangerous.

Even the kid’s breath came out frosted. He shook his head as he quivered beneath Cho’s weight and frigid touch.

“Good.” Cho stepped back, raised both hands while receding his ice until almost none of it remained, and gestured at the door.

The kid took off without looking back, leaving his gun behind.

“Rashid,” Cho put his hand on top of the handgun before Rashid could reach for it, “what did I say about being so trigger happy?” He spoke more like chiding a child than a grown shop owner, and the man dutifully set his own gun aside.

“Thank you. And be more careful next time. I’m rather fond of my face. Now—”

“Sir, I have something for you, sir,” Rashid spoke quickly.

“Rashid, I don’t—”

“Please, sir, please,” Rashid said and ducked through a back door before Cho could protest further.

Danny realized he still stood where he’d stopped when they first entered.

He’d barely even felt the breeze of the kid run past him, he was so focused on Cho and how flawlessly he’d handled the situation, like there was never a moment when he didn’t have complete control, even when things went south.

Cho looked back at him expectantly, and Danny took a few careful steps forward as he considered the building rush of—he didn’t know what he was feeling right now, but he knew it felt good. And exciting. And demanding .

“It’s not as if I’m one of the good guys,” Cho said, like he needed to excuse his behavior.

Cho was a villain. Danny couldn’t forget that. But he skirted the line between vile and virtuous enough that Danny could skirt the line too.

He set the bags on the counter. “Let’s go back to your apartment.”

“I have one more stop after this.”

“Skip it.”

Moving into Cho’s space to make sure he was being very, very clear, Danny met Cho’s curious stare without blinking.

“I want you to fuck me ,” he said, low and quiet and rough. “Right. Now.”

Cho shuddered. Swallowed visibly. And eyed the tease of skin at Danny’s collarbone where his shirt opened.

Rashid came back and Danny stepped away, reclaiming the bags so they could make their exit. The cashier had a bottle wrapped in brown paper—wine or whiskey or something—that he handed to Cho with a flutter of words in that other language. This time, Cho didn’t try to reject the gift.

“And Rashid, if you really want to make this up to me, do me a favor. Give Teresa at the liquor store a message for me.” He mentioned Dunkirk again, said he needed to know the moment anyone spotted him.

“Of course, sir, Mr. Cho, sir,” Rashid said with a dip of his head.

“Thank you.”

They left the shop swiftly after that and Cho led them into an alley. His building was only a block or two down, but once they were safely out of eyesight from anyone on the streets, Danny grabbed hold of him around the waist and lightning jumped them straight to his apartment.