“Won’t even touch the sides,” I told her, staring ahead. “I’m sure I’ll be able to drink you under the table with ease.”
“Not a hard task.” She laughed. “I don’t drink that much.” The man behind the bar returned with my order, and Charlotte smiled. “Tyler, sweetheart, this is Grayson.”
“Another one of your new colleagues?” Tyler asked with a thick Irish accent.
“Got that right.”
He leaned across the bar and offered his hand. I regarded it for a second before I gripped it and waited for the rush of feeling, but it didn’t happen and I remembered the cuff on my wrist, dampening the divinity in my blood.
“Nice to meet you, Grayson,” he said. “Don’t let this one boss you around.”
“I’m sure there are no worries about that happening,” I muttered.
Tyler did not know who I was. He did not know who the other eleven were. That was the way it had to be down here.
“Excuse me while I join the other recruits,” I said.
Grabbing my drink from the counter, I turned back to see Ignacio in conversation with Elva. There went my company for the night. I’d rather not spend the evening with Elva, Goddess of death. That would be adding fuel to the rumour mill. We’d suffered through almost a millennium of attempted matchmaking, but the truth was we had little in common.
A hand slipped into the crook of my arm, and I looked down to see Sloan had attached herself to me. Her stomach was swollen as she marched towards the end of her pregnancy. This would be her fifth child. No surprise when her gift left her responsible for fertility.
“Gray, come and join us.” Sloan steered us towards a table where Hunter, Larkin, and Erik sat together. She tossed long, sandy blonde hair over her shoulder as we walked.
I would have put up a fight, but Sloan was someone I rarely argued with. Her soft-hearted nature and patience had always won me over. I was glad my little brother had found her and welcomed her into our lives and our family.
“I was wondering when we’d be seeing you,” Larkin said. This was a woman I had little patience for.
“Come sit with us, Gray,” Sloan said as she let go of my arm to join her husband. I sat on the other side of Erik and took a drink from my glass.
“Oh! Look at that!” Larkin said with a smirk, pointing at my wrist. “Hunter mentioned you might still be cuffed, but I didn’t expect to see it. Like a dog on a leash. How precious!”
I gritted my teeth. “Shut it, Larkin.”
“I never thought I’d see the day that a mortal told you what to do,” she said gleefully.
My hand gripped the glass tumbler tighter.
“Larkin,” Hunter cut across us. “Enough.”
We both looked to Hunter, who wanted to defuse the situation, and Larkin let it go, allowing us to all drift back into conversation.
I promptly zoned out when they started to discuss the project, and my eyes scanned the room until I found Scott. She was talking to a group of others, and Holden stood a hair too close to her than would be polite and professional.
“What are you looking at?” Erik’s voice was at my shoulder.
I answered without thinking, “Her.”
Erik’s bright blue eyes landed on Scott and Holden before a smile came to his face. “He longs to be with her.”
I almost choked on my sip of gin. “Excuse me?”
Erik, the youngest of us brothers, was gifted with responsibility for love, desire, and sexual attraction. Between the three of us, we were kept busy with prayers.
“That guy next to her,” Erik said with a nod at Holden. “He’s harbouring feelings for her. Relatively intense.”
I let out an unattractive snort. It didn’t surprise me that Holden held feelings for her. I’d witnessed the way the man wanted to mark his territory. The phone call earlier had just about confirmed that he wanted me nowhere near her. An unnecessary challenge in a bid for her attention, and there was no doubt who’d win.
“Who is she?” Erik asked curiously.
