He smiled faintly. “I maybe should have been more clear about this. When I said ‘My boss,’ I didn’t just mean my immediate supervisor.”
“Geez,” I said with a certain feeling of dread discomfort. “You’re introducing me to someone way up the chain, aren’t you?”
“Right at the top, I’d estimate,” Breandan said softly.
“Yeah,” Reed said, looking sidelong at the Irishman. “The founder of Alpha.”
“By all means,” I said with a feeling of surrender. “Bring him in.”
Reed scrunched his face up at me then slapped the door once as though to signal someone outside. “She.”
“Fine,” I said. “Bring she in.” I smirked. “Or did you mean ‘her’?”
“He meant her,” came the voice as she opened the door. She was fairly tall as women go and ridiculously elegant, even clad as she was in a pantsuit. “I am definitely a her.” She surveyed me with cool eyes, grey as a stormy sky, her hair a faded platinum that she clearly wasn’t bothering to conceal. Age looked good on her, better than on most women, but it was still obvious in the lines that had crept in on her face. As a young woman, she would have been considered stately, but probably not beautiful. As an older one, she looked commanding, severe, and not like someone whom my first instinct would be to cross. “It’s quite an event to meet you after all this time,” she said in a dry tone, sharp and crisp. “I must admit with everyone in the meta world scrambling to get hold of you over these last few months, I rather expected you’d be taller.” She let a smile show the irony, and it took me only a moment to realize she was joking.
“Thanks,” I said, not quite sure how to take that. “I tend to find that my stature makes people underestimate me.”
“No doubt,” she said. “But, before we begin,” she turned to Reed, “perhaps you’d like to make a more formal introduction.
Reed gave a subtle nod, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed almost comically. “This is my sister, Sienna Nealon,” he said to the woman, giving me a cool look as he did so. “Sienna, this is my boss—the head of Alpha.” She turned to face me as he spoke, keeping her arms folded across her chest, her suit not even creasing as she did so, maintaining the elegant lines. “You’ve probably heard of her before.
“Her name is Hera.”
Chapter 26
“I’m standing in the presence of a famous one,” I said dryly as I cast a look sideways at Breandan, who smiled weakly back. “Hard not to have heard of the wife of Zeus.”
She didn’t flinch, but I saw a flicker of amusement, tempered by annoyance. “Yes, I get that all the time,” she said, with an air of exaggerated patience. “Some of our mistakes are forgotten as quickly as they’re made. Unfortunately, that one appears set to haunt me until the end of the world.”
Breandan looked at her with his eyebrows raised about halfway up his forehead. “Sorry. Marrying Zeus was a mistake? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“Did I suggest that?” she asked wryly. “Let me make it more clear—it was a disastrous mistake, and one I wish I could take back a thousandfold. Not only was it ridiculously short-lived by the standards of our race, but every myth surrounding it at this point makes me seem like quite the shrew.” She rolled her eyes. “Now I’m the mythical equivalent of Kim Kardashian.”
I held my tongue, tempted though I was to make some witticism about myth being rooted in fact. I assumed I had matured in the last year because there was a time when I’d never have been able to keep from saying something as juicy as that. I knew there was still an insufferable smile perched on my lips, though, and Hera noticed it too. “I wouldn’t worry about it; you’re nowhere near as well known as Kim Kardashian, at least not to the current generation.” Well, it wasn’t as bad as what I could have said. I gave it a five on the harshness scale. If we were grading on a curve. “Bad reputations notwithstanding,” I said, changing the subject, “perhaps we oughta get to business.”
“Sure,” Hera said with a subtle nod. “Have a seat.” With a wave, she indicated my bed, which was the only thing other than the chair beside it that could be sat on in the room.
“No, thanks. I’d really rather stand after the last day or so’s action.” I didn’t intend to patronize her, but I’m sure it came off like that. I really just didn’t want to sit. Or feel like I was in her charge at all.