Tyranny: Goddesses of Delphi

by Gemma Brocato

  He might be fucked in the head, but he believed her. The brooch had been the one detail that had tipped the scale in her favor. There was no denying the veracity of the Faberge mark on the back of the piece.

  Last night he’d powered up his laptop within minutes of walking through his front door. The image search he’d done had confirmed what he already knew. The brooch appeared in almost every official portrait of Alexandra. It was recorded as missing on the archival list of the Imperial Family’s personal effects. He was blown away by the fact he’d held the lost piece of history in his hand for a short time last night.

  The clock on his bedside table ticked steadily as he lay on his back. With his head on the pillow, one arm slung across his forehead, he’d hugged another pillow and wished Clio’s warm, pliant body occupied the space next to him. God, she might be mad as a hatter, but he dug her brand of crazy.

  Dust motes swam in the rays of light shining through his blinds. At least it was sunny outside. The light hit the pile of clothes he’d left in the corner. He needed a trip to a Laundromat, or to the appliance store to buy a washer and dryer. On top of the pile was an old sky-blue T-shirt he’d worn to the university’s rec center. The shade almost matched the color Clio’s eyes had glowed in the candlelight at the restaurant last night.

  His phone chirped with an incoming text.

  With a grunt, he rolled to his side. Shoving an arm under the pillow, he propped his head up. Anticipation climbed along his spine. It could be Clio. He snatched the phone from the bedside table, depressed the menu button, and tapped in his passcode. A message from his former boss popped up, begging him to contact her at the think tank as quickly as possible.

  He debated returning the call right away but decided hitting the shower was more important than hitting the return call command. The phone bounced when he tossed it on the mattress. Scratching his chest, he padded into the bathroom. As he closed the door, the phone pinged again. He might regret it, but he was going to douse himself in cold, head-clearing water before tackling a conversation with his old employer.

  Fifteen minutes later, he shoved his legs into a pair of jeans. Finger combing his hair, he moved toward the bed. He swept up his phone, jerked the comforter back into place, and then left his bedroom.

  In the kitchen, he grabbed a glass from the cabinet. The cranapple juice sparkled in the light from the window over the sink. While his sugary, carb-loaded breakfast, cinnamon sugar Pop-Tarts, toasted, he finally looked at his phone.

  Three more texts had come in while he’d showered. Disappointed that none were from Clio, he opened the last one. As he started to read the urgent message, the phone rang. The main number for the think tank displayed on the screen.

  “You’re in a God-awful rush to get in touch with me today, aren’t you?” he asked in lieu of a greeting. “What’s set your world on fire, Beryl?”

  “Have you stopped watching the news since you left DC, love?” Beryl’s voice purred in his ear.

  She’d always had a sexy, deep rasp when she spoke to him. When she’d whispered her first invitation to her bed, that voice had stroked his imagination and his libido. Now, it left him cold. Beryl might have been a friend with benefits, but by the end of his tenure with GeoPoly, she’d been no friend.

  He pushed away the memory of her long legs, athlete’s body, and her deliberate lack of support in the final month of his employment. “Of course not,” he answered. “I’ve been busy getting settled here. Haven’t tuned in for the past twenty-four hours. What have I missed?” Other than a chance to wake with Clio in his arms this morning. He sipped his juice and waited for her reply.

  “The Five Nations is on the move. As you predicted.” Her voice now held more of a peeved tone than its normal sex-kitten purr.

  His shoulders tensed. His predictions had been dire. “Have they hit the mountain road?”

  “That was their first move. From what we can detect on aerial photos, a refugee camp at the Bulgarian border has been razed.” Her dry, matter-of-fact comment pissed him off. Her delivery was distinctly inhumane considering she’d just relayed the fact that thousands of asylum seekers had been murdered.

  The fact his warning had come true made his gut pitch and roll like a helicopter without a gyroscope. He’d pleaded with Beryl and her immediate boss to step in with a sure-fire diplomatic solution. His idea would have saved all those innocent lives.

  He clenched his fist and slammed it toward the counter, slowing his trajectory at the last second so he barely tapped the Formica top. Pinching pain grabbed him behind the eyes, making his entire head ache.

  “Bet you’re sorry you didn’t listen to me sooner.” He couldn’t help baiting her. Any hope for a peaceful resolution seemed unattainable at this stage in the game.

  “Let’s not get into a pissing contest here, Jax. We’re ready to listen now. We need your help.”

  He scoffed. “What if I don’t want to help?”

  “I know you better than that.” The purr was back in her voice.

  Helping Beryl would help Clio as well. And that fact was more persuasive than anything Beryl, or her boss, or even the President himself, could offer. He’d do it to save Clio from an eternity as a disgusting, squawking bird.

  He bent at the waist, propped an elbow on the counter, and rested his forehead in his hand. Was he crazy to believe in the Muses? In gods and goddesses? He pushed the thought to the back of his mind as the seconds of weighty silence spun between them.

  “Jax?” Was that fright he heard in Beryl’s pinched voice?

  “If I help, it has to be on my terms,” he told her. “You’ll come to me. And you’ll implement whatever solutions I deliver. And I have free range to bring in whomever I need to accomplish the task. Understood?”

  “I’m not sure I can agree to those terms.”

  “Then we don’t have a deal. Goodbye, Beryl. And good luck.” Jax rarely played politics and less frequently played hardball, but when he did, he pulled out his balls of steel and a cast-iron cup for his jock strap.

  “Wait!” Panic edged her voice. “Fine, I’ll convince everyone we have to do it this way. Tell me when and where to show up, and I’ll bring the whole damn tank to you.”

  God, he liked winning.

  If she brought the whole department, they’d need a decent size space to work in. One that could offer privacy and the level of available technology that would support their operation. The Ancient Civ room at the DCU library was exactly the spot they needed.

  “We do this in Delphi.” Where he could keep Clio safe from a future as a bird. He hoped. “I’ll need you to contact a couple of people and grease the cogs. And you’d better tell your tech staff they’ll need to go wheels up by the end of the day.”

  “Just fax me a list of people I need to contact. The plan is already in motion. Your secure log-in to the system has been restored. You’ll need a couple of hours to get through the latest reports.”

  “You were pretty damn confident I’d do this, weren’t you?”

  “I’d hoped,” she said. After the space of several heartbeats, she continued, “I’ve missed you, lover.”

  “Let’s get one thing straight, Beryl. I’m not your lover anymore. We’re more over than that sad reality TV program you liked to watch.”

  “We’ll see, Jax. We shall see.”

  As far as he was concerned, there was nothing left to see. He shoved the juice back into the fridge. Sex with Beryl had been cold, almost robotic. Touch here, stroke there, moan loudly, dig deeper, insert tab A into slot B. The woman had known how to manipulate his tab. But that was no way to have a love affair as far as he was concerned. Like he was nothing but a—a tool.

  With Clio, every second, every movement, every breathy sigh and satisfied moan, had been spontaneous and energizing. That was what he was looking for in his life. He found he craved the woman as much as he craved the sex.

  He started a pot of coffee. While the rich, aromatic blend brewed, he powered up h
is laptop. Even though it was July, the morning was cool enough to sit on his screened front porch and catch up on the entire Bulgarian situation. Without the complete background, he’d never find a solution that worked for all parties involved. And finding a workable resolution when the governments of six nations were in play might be harder than finding Waldo, or solving one of those Magic Eye puzzles.

  By noon he was wiping sweat from his brow. The climbing temp forced him to relocate inside his air-conditioned house. Sitting at his kitchen table, he’d made a reasonable dent in the mountain of documentation on the secure server. Most of the information was useless, just snippets of conversations or e-mails that some security agency had flagged as suspect. But a few trends began to coalesce. Recognizable patterns fell into place like a jigsaw puzzle.

  But frustration mounted as he continued to miss something from the big picture. The work was numbingly tedious and his back, shoulders, and ass ached from sitting still for so long.

  Someone pounded on his front door, and he heard it open before he could rise to answer the summons. Only one person he knew would be bold enough to enter his home without an invitation.

  “Jax? Dude, are you here?” Ian’s voice echoed from the front door all the way to his kitchen.

  “Back here,” he shouted. He arched back in his chair and rubbed his stinging eyes. He’d been staring at the screen entirely too long.

  Ian sauntered into the room. “Buddy, you should answer your phone occasionally. I’ve called once an hour since nine this morning.”

  Jax cast a glance around the kitchen. The pastry box and toaster still littered the counter. But no phone. Where had he left it? “Didn’t hear it ring, man. And when did you turn into a fucking needy girl. Calling every hour?”

  “Someone has to watch out for you.”

  “And you nominated yourself?” Jax smirked. Ian had been looking out for him since college. “I got kind of buried under a project. What’d you need?”

  Ian propped his back against the refrigerator and cocked his head. “Just checking in on you. Thought I’d see if you wanted to grab a bite to eat and catch the Demons game. First pitch is at three-thirty.”

  “Ah, God. I can’t.” He scrubbed a hand over his face then curled it around his neck, massaging the tight, knotted muscles. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food. Had he eaten anything since his Pop-Tarts breakfast?

  Ian pointed at Jax’s belly. “I heard that. What the hell are you working on, anyway?”

  Jax looked at his laptop where he had at least twenty different windows open. The dock at the bottom stretched across his entire screen, the icons miniscule. He pulled out the pen he’d stuck behind his ear and began flipping it around and over the back of his knuckles. “Nothing.”

  Ian barked out a short laugh. “Gotta call bullshit on that. Your eyes are bloodshot, like you’ve been staring at the screen too long. Is it porn?”

  Resting a hand on his belly, Jax heaved a big fucking sigh. “I wish. Dammit, I got sucked back in.”

  “To GeoPoly?”

  Jax nodded as he shoved his chair back. He stood next to the table and tried to rub sensation back into his ass.

  “Aw, shit. You worked so hard to leave that behind. Is this about the Five Nations’ sudden aggression?”

  “Watched the news, did you?” Jax hadn’t turned it on all day. Typically, the media distorted facts, and honestly, he didn’t need the distraction.

  “Haven’t you?” Ian stared intently at him, brows arched high, as if he’d never seen Jax before. Or this incarnation of him.

  “What the big five bastards have been doing in the past few days is anything but sudden. This clusterfuck has been on a slow simmer for years. It is a little odd that they’ve taken action at all. What made them move now?” That was the piece of information that Jax couldn’t find. A thought niggled at the base of his skull. Maybe the accelerated aggression had a supernatural cause. Could Pierus be behind it? He cast his glance to the counter again, seeking his phone. He needed to talk to Clio about the possibility.

  “The reports aren’t clear about that. But every media outlet has dedicated their entire broadcast to the situation. By the fourth time you see a clip of the carnage, it’s almost old news. By the twenty-seventh, you just want to throw shit at the TV.”

  “Truth.” Jax twisted his torso from side-to-side. His back creaked as he released the residual stiffness.

  “Got any beer?” Ian pushed away from the fridge. He jerked the door open and bent to reach for a bottle. He started laughing. “Jesus, Jax. You really were sucked in.” He righted himself and waggled Jax’s cell phone between his fingers.

  “I don’t remember putting that in there. But it explains why I never heard your calls.”

  Ian tossed the phone to Jax. “Mine, or six others.”

  Shit, he had missed a lot of calls. But at least the people who’d called from the think tank had e-mailed their questions and comments when he’d failed to answer.

  He quickly scrolled through the alerts on his home screen. Clio still hadn’t reached out to him. Disappointment and hurt flared in his gut. Christ! Who was being a fucking needy girl now? He pushed the sensation away as he accepted an opened Heineken from Ian.

  He took a long, satisfying pull from the bottle.

  Ian tipped his beer Jax’s direction. “So, lunch?”

  “What the hell. I deserve a break. Finish your beer while I answer this one e-mail from Beryl. She’s looking for a place to stay when she blows into town tomorrow.”

  “Wait a second! Beryl the Ball-buster is coming here?” Ian muttered a coarse word under his breath. The first time they’d met, Ian had developed a case of insta-hate for Beryl.

  “Yeah. They wanted me in DC, but I can’t leave right now.”

  “Would this have anything to do with a red-headed goddess named Clio?”

  “How the fuck do you know that?” Had Clio already confided in Ian? Or maybe the reporter sister Ian had mentioned had shared the information with him. How many people knew Muses actually existed?

  “Dude, you should see your face when you talk about her. It’s like you’re blinded by her light or something. If she’s half as hot as her sister, Polly, then she’d have to be a goddess.”

  Jax eased out a breath. It appeared Clio’s secret was still safe. “Well, she is pretty hot.” And insanely smart, and everything else that got Jax’s motor revving. That, and the fact her nudges affected his other head in the most delightful way.

  But what if the attraction he felt for her was only because of her mental prodding? Had she influenced him to fall for her? What if a relationship between them was part of a bigger scam to get him to help? She wouldn’t do that, would she?

  He brushed the doubt from his mind and focused on the e-mail he needed to send. “So, can you recommend a hotel in Delphi?? Because Beryl is most definitely not welcome to stay here.”

  “Send her to the Athenian. It’s nice, and the head groundskeeper is a hound. Maybe he’ll take some of her edge off.”

  Jax snorted out a laugh. No way in hell would anything, or anyone, reduce Beryl’s sexual appetite. But he’d leave it to someone else to try. Because for the foreseeable future, the only edge he had any interest in was Clio’s.

  Chapter 11

  “You don’t look so good,” Nia crooned as she slid onto the cane-backed chair across the café table from Clio. “Are you okay?”

  Ah, the sixty-four-billion-dollar question. “For crying out loud, Nia. Why don’t you just tell me I look like shit?” She rubbed her bleary eyes. Her middle child angst reared its ugly head, making her regret her harsh words. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night. I… This challenge has me out of sorts.”

  After she’d told Jax about being a Muse, he’d claimed an early morning meeting as a reason to not stay over. A tidy lie she’d chosen to believe, but nonetheless it had made her feel a little cheap and a lot dirty. And he’d resisted the idea of helping her with the challe
nge. Clio had fretted most of the night away. She worried she’d revealed too much. Or not enough.

  It wasn’t like the damn task ahead came with a road map.

  She took a sip from her coffee cup. The scalding liquid burned her lip, and she couldn’t help wishing Jax were around to kiss the sting away.

  “Hey, I wasn’t trying to be mean. I’m not Callie.” Nia curled her lips, part smirk, part grin. “So why didn’t you sleep?”

  “I had a date with Jax last night—”

  “What? Did you do the dirty?” Nia’s screechy voice drew attention from the other patrons at the coffee shop.

  Mortified heat swept up Clio’s face. She hit her sister with a silencing jab.

  “Ouch.” Nia pressed shaky fingers to her temple in response.

  “Be quiet. We are not going to talk about my sex life in The Daily Grind.” One nice perk of being a Muse was the ability to influence large groups of people. Clio broadcasted a mental message to everyone present to ignore what Nia had said and just go about their business. Once again, conversation rose from the tables surrounding them.

  Nia’s coppery curls glinted as she bobbed her head. “Sorry. I was excited for you. But if you didn’t sleep, it explains your haggard appearance.”

  “I had to tell Jax who I am, and why he needs to help. Except my nudges didn’t work on him. I’ve never had that happen before. I had no choice but to explain I’m a Muse.”

  Nia’s mouth popped open and her eyes widened, making her look like a Bratz doll. “Oh, my goddess. How did he take it?”

  “A lot better than I’d imagined. Seriously, most people would have called the asylum to arrange an immediate one-way ride to straight-jacket-ville. But Jax just took it all in stride.”

  “Will he help?”

  The shop door opened, admitting a blast of hot air and Polly. She waved to them and pointed to the barista as she proceeded to the counter.

  “Don’t know. I’ll explain after Polly gets her coffee.” Clio broke off a corner of her cranberry-orange scone and popped it into her mouth. Mmm, other than the salt on Jax’s skin, this was her favorite flavor in the world.