Something sharp pressed into the small of Sophie’s back. Her eyes shot wide, and she sucked in a breath.
“You’re almost making this too easy,” a rough voice said behind her. “Give me the crystal, and you walk away from here. No mess. No questions. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?”
Piers dropped his arm from around her shoulders with such a hard downward strike that Sophie heard the knife clatter to the pavement. He yanked her hard at the same time, whirling her away. She dove behind the barrier overlooking the skating rink.
“Piers! Get down!” she shouted. A shot could go off any second. Why didn’t it? Too many people? Too conspicuous? If a shooting in the heart of New York City at Christmas ever got traced back to Novalight Enterprises, it would ruin a man already disliked by millions.
She glanced anxiously around the plaza. Maybe the gun was just to scare her into cooperating, and the man with the knife was supposed to retrieve the ice shard.
Piers stood between her and Novalight’s agent, the laser dot still there and trained on the back of his head now. The sight of it made her stomach flip over. Piers gripped the knife wielder’s forearm. He squeezed so hard the man grimaced. A second later, Sophie heard a crack.
The hired gun gasped. “Holy… Fuck!”
“Come after her again, and I’ll break your neck instead,” Piers growled. He threw her assailant six feet using nothing but one hand and the man’s mangled forearm.
Sophie’s jaw dropped. People all around them screamed and scattered. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. She decided on impressed. Who needed Thor? She had a freaking gladiator protecting her.
Piers turned to her just as the dreaded shot finally rang out. He winced and grabbed his shoulder.
She lunged for him and pulled him down beside her. “Are you hurt?”
“Not much.” He shoved her in front of him and propelled her along the barrier, both of them keeping low as they ran away from the ice rink and melted into the crowd as soon as possible.
“I’m looking at thatnot muchback at the room.” Her breath came hard and fast, the cold air stinging her lungs as they fled Rockefeller Center.
They should never have left the hotel. First, it was to eat, but she could’ve ordered room service, even at the exorbitant prices. Holiday sparkle definitely wasn’t required for the body to function. Neither were croissants. She’d just wanted one.
Sophie hated herself and her choices as they sped back to their room. She’d decided to play tour guide in the middle of a crisis, and Piers got shot for it.Shot!This wasn’t a game. And this wasn’t her life. Her life was teaching French to semi-motivated high-school students, cooking moussaka with her mother who lived practically next door, and too much Netflix.
“This isn’t my life,” she said aloud. “It can’t be.”
Piers slowed at the revolving door to their hotel, pulled her through with him, and dragged her into the lobby. His new jacket had a hole in it. She touched the dark material, finding it hot and wet.Blood. Spots swam in Sophie’s vision.
“Easy now.” Piers swept her into his arms. He kicked the button for the elevator.Kicked it!Still holding her, he strode into the first box that opened, elbowed the knob for the twelfth floor, and waited, hardly even breathing hard while she hyperventilated.
“You’ve been shot,” she panted.
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm?” Sophie tried to slip out of Piers’s arms, but his grip tightened. “We need to go to a hospital!”
“If this hospital is an eating establishment with meat, then I agree. Otherwise, we’re going back to the room to look at the Shard of Olympus.”
Sophie gaped at him. She’d gaped so much today she feared the expression would freeze on her face, and she’d be gaping forever. “Hospital food sucks,” she said as the elevator doors opened.
Piers strode toward their room at the end of the hallway. “Then we’ll avoid it. Croissants aren’t bad, but I’d need about fifty more of them.”
Sophie stared at his strong profile, starting to feel a little less woozy and a little more focused. The man needed protein. She should’ve known that just from ogling his fit, hard-as-a-rock body. “I’ll order room service.”
“Will there be cheese?” he asked. “Bread? Lamb?”
“I don’t know.” She’d been living off coffee and soup—and half a croissant—for days now. “I’ll show you the menu.”
He nodded. “Choices. Excellent.”
“How can you look so normal when you have a bullet in you?” The men she knew would’ve been squealing in agony. Even her brothers, and they were big and strong—Heracleidae, like she was.
But then, she also didn’t know anyone who could casually break a man’s arm and throw him across the sidewalk.One handed.
