“Shockingly, yes. Thank you for the charm.”
“You should wear it constantly. The more you use it, the better it will be. It tunes to you.” He set the tumbler on the desk and unscrewed the cap on the vodka with a twist of his wrist. The seals crackled as they broke and clear liquid draped itself across the ice like a lover as he poured. He set the bottle on the desk and grabbed a chair. She knew that chair, knew it was heavy, but he spun it around to the side of her desk without even a grimace of effort and sprawled his long, lean body into it.
He waved for her to proceed and Karma arched a brow at the single glass. “If you think I’m getting trashed while you stay sober, you’re crazier than I thought.” If she hadn’t been watching him, she wouldn’t have noticed the minute hesitation, the way his eyes flicked to the side. He didn’t want to drink it. Of course. “I should’ve known. What’s in it? What did you spike it with?”
His hand shot out like a snake striking, snatching up the glass. He’d thrown back the contents and slammed the glass back onto her desk with a clink before she could do more than blink. “There? See? Harmless. But you’re right. It’s bad form to drink alone.” He flicked his fingers and a second glass appeared beside her right hand where it rested on the desk.
He filled her glass, then refilled his own, but she was getting better at seeing beneath his bluster and Prometheus looked uneasy. He lifted his refilled glass, arching a brow when she didn’t raise hers to meet his toast. “Watching for signs of cyanide poisoning?”
“I’d pegged you as more of an arsenic guy.”
He snorted. “My God, did Karma just make a joke?”
“Why are you so nervous, Prometheus? What’s in the vodka?”
“Distilled grains, if you believe the Russians.” When she made no move to lift her own glass, he lowered his own. “I don’t generally imbibe, okay? Alcohol tends to affect me rather strongly. The last time I drank, I accidentally summoned a demon because at the time it seemed like a good way of getting your attention.” He raised his glass again. “But I’m willing to take one for the team. To prove my good intentions.”
She looked at the bottle, still dubious, but starting to feel like a fool and prude for resisting. “How does this work?”
“You drink it.”
“Cute.”
“That’s all there is to this plan, Karma. You drink, you relax, and I help you figure out how to go with the flow rather than fighting the tide of your own power all the time. Simple. Which is good because if I’m gonna be hammered too, we probably should avoid plans with a lot of moving parts. Just think of me as the tour guide for your powers. I’ll drive the bus. You sit back and take in the sights.”
Simple. Simple sounded good. So did letting someone else be responsible for keeping her afloat for a while.
Karma lifted the vodka, pressing down the shiver of misgiving that seemed to tingle through her fingers and up her arm. The first mouthful of vodka kissed her tongue and then punched her in the back of the throat. She shook her head sharply, fighting down a cough as her eyes started to water.
Prometheus chuckled. “You get used to it.”
She glared at him and defiantly took another swallow. This one went down easier, just a twitch of her chin betraying the way it kicked as it slid down her throat. Prometheus silently toasted her and took a sip from his own glass.
“Why does alcohol affect you so much? Is it because of your heart?” She frowned, studying him. He looked normal. You would never know it was only magic keeping him alive. Like a vampire. How alive was he? “Do you eat? I mean, I know your heart doesn’t pump your blood, but is everything else about your physiology normal?”
“I can get it up, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Her face flamed. “That is not what I asked.”
He gave a low, dark laugh and took a long drink. “I eat. I drink. I even sleep on occasion. My hair grows and when I try to grow a beard, it itches like a bitch, same as any other guy. The difference is the more magic I use, the more it sort of speeds up my body. I need to eat more often, shave two or three times a day, and I might as well be narcoleptic if I’m really burning hot, cuz I’ll pass out and wake up fifteen minutes later ready to do it all over again. So while I get drunk fast—one more of these and I’m gonna be singing show tunes—I also sober up fast.”
“What happens when you don’t use magic?”
He smiled. “I always use magic.” Their glasses refilled with a wave of his hand, the level in the bottle dropping in concert.
“I bet you couldn’t go one day without casting a spell.”
“And you would win that bet.” He shrugged, unapologetic.
She’d expected him to puff up at the challenge, but he tipped back in his chair, rocking it onto the hind legs as he swirled the vodka in his glass, calm and utterly unoffended. She really didn’t know this man. He’d been her greatest frustration for months, but what did she really know about him?
“What kind of name is Prometheus?” The vodka made her tongue feel loose and easy, words spilling right off it.
“Titanic.”
“But why call yourself that?”
“The man who stole fire from the gods and gave it to the masses, then was doomed to lose internal organs as a punishment? Somehow it seemed fitting.”
“But Prometheus. Don’t you ever wish your name was Steve or something?”
“You probably fantasize about being called Beth, don’t you?”
“Katharine, actually.” She blinked and frowned at her glass—she’d never told anyone that.
He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re no Kate. People like us need names that could never belong to anyone else.”
“People like us. What does that even mean?”
“Demigods.”
“You’re saying one of your parents was a god?”
“Fine, I’m not a demigod by the strictest definition. Maybe just a minor deity. But demigod has such a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
“You aren’t a god, Prometheus,” she said dryly. “Demi or otherwise.”
“I guess that depends on your definition. What is a god anyway? I have the power to bend the world to my whim. Isn’t that godlike?”
She ignored the question, realizing he was trying to pivot the conversation away from his past. There was so much more she wanted to know. “You changed your name after you traded your heart?”
“About that time, yeah.”
“What was your name before that?”
“That’s a useless question.”
“Why?” She noticed she was holding the charm he’d made for her and dropped it over her neck. It settled against her breastbone, warm and right, expanding her sense of calm.
“I’ve been Prometheus for longer now than I was ever known as anything else, and it’s more who I am than any other identity ever was. You won’t know me by looking back there. In all ways that matter, I was born a little over nineteen years ago.”
He rocked his chair and drained his glass. Karma sipped her drink. The vodka wasn’t kicking anymore. It slid down smooth and easy, warm and welcome. The glasses kept refilling on their own and now that she thought about it, the glass felt different in her hand, bigger. Or maybe it was her hand that felt different. Tingly and sort of swollen—like there was a delay between her skin and the nerves, a padding that filtered everything she touched.
And her lips, they tingled too. She ran her tongue over them, fascinated by the feel. She might be drunk. Was Prometheus drunk too? She looked at him, wondering if his lips felt tingly and flushed like hers. He looked relaxed, tipped back in his chair, his lead lolling back loosely as he rested his drink against his stomach. He nagged at her about relaxing, but he didn’t let his guard down around anyone else either. It was ingrained, that distance he kept between himself and the rest of the world.