Chapter 8

Stefan was enjoying the sight of Nicki so flustered. He shouldn't be, but he was. Her awkwardness had started, he was certain, with the clothing. He got the feeling that Nicki didn't wear pants very often unless they were technical tights meant for scaling a mountain. But she looked exactly right, felt exactly right sitting across from him. He watched her over the rim of her glass, content to let her gather her thoughts.

It appeared to take her a moment to process his words. She frowned. "Why would I be angry?"

The question was genuine, and he answered it as forthrightly. "You heard me accuse you of being unable to follow orders, clearly. I'm sure there's more you overheard as well. My concerns about your fitness for this role, certainly."

"Well, you'd have no way of knowing what I was really like, based on the experience you've had so far," she said, shrugging. "I've done everything I can to annoy you. But this—" she waved her hand around the dining room. "This is different. This is a job. I'm on your team, and when you're my team leader, I follow your lead. To the letter."

He lifted his brows and noted the stain of another blush crawling up her cheeks at the unintentionally forceful words.

"You know what I mean," she mumbled, then she brought up her head, as if to be sure he understood. "You tell me to stay on this boat, I stay. I've got my laptop and Kristos showed me how to connect to the yacht's satellite Wi-Fi system. I'll post a couple of times today, and more tomorrow, with a few of my old stories from last year's tournament updated for filler so it appears I'm exactly what I'm supposed to be. I have a great underwater camera Kristos gave me for underwater photography if that works with your schedule, but if it doesn't, I'll stay put."

Stefan watched her soberly. "In other words, you'll follow my directives."

"Absolutely," she said. Then she sighed. "Look, I know you think I'm a liability on this trip. And I…" she appeared to rethink her statement, then pushed forward. "And I am, to some extent, because I'm new to all of this. I get that. But I'm your cover. Like this sweater." She tweaked the sleeve. "Here to put a good face on things. I'm not going to get in your way, and I'm not going to do anything to embarrass you. I'm not an idiot. I'll learn the ropes and keep quiet."

He snorted. "I should have assigned you on a mission when you first arrived at the palace."

Another woman would have winced with embarrassment, but Nicki simply shrugged. "You should have. I'm a lot more useful than you give me credit for."

He leaned forward. "I'm intrigued by the possibilities," he said, his words barely a murmur. A wild urge overtook him, so quickly that all rational thought flew out of his head. In front of him was no longer a team member, an American, a guest of the royal family. It was the woman he'd held on the beach. A woman who tasted of joy and sunshine, sea and life.

He spoke before he could restrain himself. "So if my instructions were for you to make love to me, would you do it?"

Once again, Nicki surprised him. She leaned forward with equal ease, giving him a broad wink. "If that would move the mission forward, absolutely."

His brows lifted. "And whose call would it be on what was required for the mission?"

"Ultimately yours." She grinned, ruining the seriousness of her tone. "But I get to be in the room when the king reads your debriefing report."

A broad smile creased his face as well—and Stefan considered that. He couldn't seem to stop smiling at this woman. Nicki sat back, far more relaxed than when she'd first sat down. She continued grinning as well, and she picked up her sandwich again and bit into it with more gusto.

She'd barely swallowed before she lobbed her next conversational bomb. "So, since you now know how much I'm willing to contribute to the mission, how about a little more information—about yourself, I mean." She waved her sandwich at him as he stiffened. "Relax. I get that you can't tell me all the super-secret details about what we're going to do, but surely I can know a little bit more about, you know…you."

He settled back in his chair. He'd been informed that Emmaline had advised all the Americans about the unusual natures of Dimitri Korba, chief of the ONSF, and himself. But he also knew from Dimitri that there was no depth to the information. Emmaline had shared that they were demigods, but Lauren hadn't known what that meant. Clearly, Nicki still didn't.

"I could tell you that the Crown has expressly forbidden me to share the details of myself," he pointed out.

She dropped what was left of her sandwich on the plate and leaned forward. "You could," she agreed. "But where's the fun in that? It's not like I'm going to tell anyone. If I did, you'd bounce me from the mission, and there's no way I'm letting that happen. Besides, it's your secret. I can keep secrets."

Her words struck him with unexpected force. She could keep secrets, he thought. He didn't know why she needed to, but that didn't matter. She could.

"Fair enough. What is it you want to know?"

"Well, gee." She propped her elbows on the table. "For starters, how about everything? Like, what does it even mean to be a demigod? Are you immortal? Are you like super strong, or can you fly or leap tall buildings in a single bound?" Her eyes rounded. "Is Superman a demigod?"

"Technically I think Superman"s an alien."

"Totally not as sexy. But come on, come on, answer the question. Like, how old are you? Because you look about maybe 33 or so? Give or take?"

"Then I age well," he said. "I actually present as 35 years old, but you"re right, demigods do age differently than ordinary mortals. We are not immortal. We can grow old and die, but it takes us a lot longer."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How much longer?"

"Children who are born with the blood of gods in their veins, age normally until their 20th year. Then, if they commit to serving as a demigod, they go through a brief ritual that changes their bodies, and simply allows them to age more slowly and stay healthier, not as susceptible to all the damaging impacts of the environment and the aging process."

She stared. "You get healed? Like your bodies are healed of anything bad and you"re given some magical mojo to slow down your biological clock?"

The question held an unusual urgency, but he"d experienced this before. He'd had a hard time wrapping his head around it himself when the option was first presented to him. "Yes, in a manner of speaking. Now for every 10 human years, my body only ages one."

"One?" She scrunched her face. "Oh my god, you're going to make me do math. So that means—no way. You're actually 170 years old? No wonder I kicked your ass in swimming."

Stefan barked a laugh, but his heart thudded hard, his adrenaline spiking. He hadn"t realized how much he"d been tensing himself against Nicki's reaction to his age. More than anything else, it proved difficult for people to handle, especially people he wanted to get naked with. But as always, she turned what should be a major revelation into a point of competition. And he was just fine with that.

"I seem to recall that wasn"t exactly what happened."

"Yeah, well, clearly after 170 years, your brain"s not as sharp as it used to be, even if your body is still pretty fine." She grinned. "So, okay, you"re super old but don't look it. What else? Obviously Dmitri is pretty built, but are you both equally strong? And can you fly? And who…like, what god are you dedicated to or whatever? Lauren said that Dimitri was one of Zeus"s offspring, but I"m not getting a Zeus vibe for you."

Once again, he couldn"t help the smile. "Do I even want to know?"

"Well, let me think. You"re smug, smart, cunning, and yeah, light on your feet. Super fit and good reflexes, always a plus. And you know a bunch of languages, I bet."

"All of them, to some degree."

"And so modest." She rolled her eyes. "Do you work for a male or female god?"

"Male. As demigods go, they tend to present in the same sex as their patron. It's not impossible for there to be crossover, but it's trended that way."

"And you would have had plenty of time to study those trends." She made a face. "Seriously—a hundred and seventy years? Like… that's straight up Industrial Revolution, Victorian England, colonization all over the place, wars…like, all the wars forever. And you were a diplomat through all that, for royal family after royal family, fading in and out like a freaking vampire."

He held up a hand. "Except I can function in daylight. And enjoy actual food."

"And you've got a way better tan," she agreed, tilting her head as her eyes unfocussed a little. "Still…"

Stefan watched her process it all, her mind rabbiting from detail to detail. She wasn't the first woman he'd shared this information with…but she was the first in a very long time. He was beginning to remember why discretion had always seemed the better approach.

Once again, though, Nicki surprised him, shrugging off the monumental realization as she snapped her fingers. "I mean, we gotta go with Hermes, right? Because no way Poseidon would put up with your slow-ass breaststroke, and you're too quicksilver for the rest of them. Am I right? I gotta be right."

"Got it in one," he acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. "And before you ask again, no, I can't fly, not in the sense you're probably thinking. My affiliation with Hermes does help me travel quickly, but the only flight I can imagine is between realms."

She blinked at him. "Realms? Like, Earth and…what, Olympus?"

"Yes, as well as Earth and the Underworld."

Her eyes rounded. "Really? You can visit Hades whenever you want?"

"I can—though to be honest, Hades isn't the best company."

"You know, I think that's totally unfair. He's got access to all the world that ever lived, he is legit beneath the ground so he knows where everything is buried—including some kickass treasure, I gotta think—and he's like, all dark and mysterious and shit. He can't be all that bad." She grinned. "Could I meet him—him, or any of the gods?"

"You…could. Not Hades, perhaps. Mortals don't trespass easily into his realm unless and until their time on Earth is up. But the others, quite possibly."

"That's so cool!"

Despite himself, Stefan laughed. He decided not to share the other elements of Hermes's abilities that he could tap: the luck, the manipulation, the uncanny ability to pick up another person"s thoughts and certainly their emotions. That last had only happened a few times early in his journey as a demigod, with women he had loved and then watched grow old. He'd learned to become more detached after that, but that wasn"t anything he wanted to share with the effervescent Nicki Clark. Not yet—probably not ever. He didn't want any clouds to mar the sunshine in her eyes.

He jolted a little at the poetic thought, also very much unlike him. Clearly, it was time to refocus on the reason for this trip together.

"You do realize that I might have to ask you to remain behind, except when we are on PR stints in Ala?ati proper. The Turkish Secretary of Ministry and Culture has agreed to meet us and?—"

"Oh, him," Nicki said, wrinkling her nose. "I was hoping he'd gotten run over by a bus since last year's windsurfing competition." She grimaced. "I'm sorry, that wasn't very diplomatic of me. I promise I won't talk out of turn in Ala?ati."

"You know him? Hasan Omir?"

"Well enough. He's kind of a pig, you ask me. Not too surprising, given his position and the kind of power he wields, and the fact that he was dealing with an international clientele of women in bathing suits. But yeah."

Stefan frowned. "He'll be our primary contact in Ala?ati. The ministry has taken a heightened focus on tourism in the area. Will that pose any difficulty?"

"On the contrary," she said. "He's a fan—or he was. I met him last year at the competition. It's sponsored by the PWA. Professional Windsurfers Association," she explained as he quirked a brow at her. "That makes it a big deal, and there's something around ten thousand competitors there every year, not to mention spectators and tourists. So Omir was on hand, and because I both competed and put up stringer reports for various windsurfing and extreme sports blogs, he was all over me. I don't expect much has changed."

He didn't like the sound of that at all, but the secretary was a problem for another day. "We'll be arriving at our initial destination at night, a small island off the coast of Ala?ati. Does your camera work for nighttime photography?"

"According to Kristos, it totally does. But he's never tested it, and I've found it's not always ideal to try out new tech in unfamiliar waters. I'm not sure how much attention we'll want to draw to ourselves, especially if people are expecting the videos to go live mere hours after I take them."

"You don't seem like you're one to avoid the limelight."

"The limelight, no. The light from crackling electrical fires—that's a little more worth missing out on."

"We'll have the men test it first. They're usually game for a light show."

She shrugged. "Your funeral."

Stefan's phone buzzed in his pocket, and Nicki pushed her seat back. "I need to catch up on my feeds, actually. Is one of the sitting rooms okay, or would you prefer me to stay in my cabin?"

The request was made completely without artifice, and Stefan experienced a surge of possessiveness, a need to not let Nicki out of his sight, or out of his reach. To see if she would bend in his hands, or break, or simply melt like burnished mercury, too quick and ephemeral for him to hold.

"A moment," he said.

Nicki stopped in place as he checked his phone. Cyril. They hadn't been gone but an hour and already he was getting tagged from the palace. But he didn't have to respond immediately to the chief advisor. Cyril could wait. For these few moments, he could imagine that there was no op that might open the door to an international incident or the crushing private loss of a family lived all over again.

He could simply imagine he was on a private yacht with a woman who confounded him at every turn, yet who he wanted…needed to touch again.

He stood and Nicki waited for him to reach her.

Looking down at her, his need to respond to Cyril faded further into the background. "I confess," he murmured. "I'd very much like to continue our conversation from the beach yesterday."

She wrinkled a brow at him. "That wasn't so much a conversation. Conversations generally require words."

He paused, waiting for her to catch on. "Perhaps you could show me."

Nicki's smile grew wider as realization dawned. "Is this one of those things that will move the mission forward?" she asked, her clear blue eyes warming with interest.

"It's a simple request." He kept his words bland. "If you find you're unable to complete it?—"

"Oh no." Nicki continued grinning as she placed her hands on his chest, bracing herself against him as she lifted to her toes. The pressure was warm, and far more welcome than he'd expected. "Far be it from me to take issue with a command order. Especially from a demigod."

She brushed her soft lips against his once, twice, exploring his mouth with hers as he bent his head nearer, allowing her to move at her own pace, touching, tasting—searching. He felt more than heard her heart rate kick up, but it did so with a quickening rush as Nicki exhaled softly before following her breath with her lips and kissing him again.

He couldn't wait any longer. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her tight. He suddenly wanted more. Far more. As much as Nicki would give him, in fact, right here, right?—

His phone buzzed again.

"You know, you should probably get that," Nicki murmured against his lips. "There could have been a bomb that went off or something in the capital city, forcing us to go back."

"O?ros has an entire security force to attend to such matters."

"Yeah, well, maybe the queen wants a particular souvenir from Ala?ati. You'd hate to not get her the right snow globe."

"That would indeed be a travesty." Nevertheless, Stefan kept his arm around Nicki as he swiped for his phone. He connected on the third try.

"Sir," he said as Nicki went silent in his arms.

"How much of a briefing have you had on Nicki's physical capabilities?"

Clearly overhearing, Nicki sucked in a soft breath beneath him, and even Stefan blinked. Then his own adrenaline jacked as her hands slid down his waist, swirling to the front of his trousers to where his erection tented his trousers. "Extensive, sir. Everything is well in hand."

Whether it was something in his voice or Cyril understood that this wasn't an avenue to pursue, the advisor moved on. "Very well. Let her know there are both wet and dry suits in her size aboard, but the tanks aren't sized for someone of her frame. She'll need to stick to snorkeling. Also, there are several other issues to discuss in terms of what she should and should not do once you reach Ala?ati?—"

Nicki stood back with a forced smile on her face. He frowned at her, but she now regarded him far too seriously.

"Problem?" he mouthed, and she shook her head, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek.

Then she was gone.