Tory waved her words away. "I feel fine."

Ash pulled the fries out for her and set them down. "I wouldn't have gotten anything for her that would cause her more pain."

Tory held the burger up toward him. "You want a bite?"

"No, thanks."

Looking at Pam, she gestured at him with the burger. "I swear he's living proof that air has calories. Otherwise he'd shrivel up to nothing."

"Oh like you have room to talk. If there was any justice in this world, you'd be bigger than my house. You eat like a man and you're skinny as a rail." Pam smirked at Ash. "My mother used to call her Jack Sprat when we were kids. Thank God her aunt owned a deli, though I swear Tory ate up all the profits whenever she worked there."

Ash laughed.

"Only 'cause Del makes the best koulourakias, kourabiethes and melomacarinas ever."

Pam smirked at Ash. "Did you understand a single word of what she just said?"

"Of course he does, he's Greek. Even if he doesn't eat, he knows the cookies. I'll bet his mother stuffed him full as a kid."

Ash snorted at the image of his mother cooking anything, other than world destruction. "Not really. My mom wasn't the Betty Crocker kind." Not unless it involved napalm or plagues.

A sharp gasp at the door made them all look to see Kim in the doorway. "What are you doing eating that!"

Tory and Pam pointed at him. "He brought it."

Making a sound of distress, Kim rushed to the bed to take the burger from Tory's hands.

Tory pulled it away. "Not on your life, Kim, and I mean that literally."

"You can't eat that right after surgery. It'll make you sick."

"Better the cow than your hand which I'm going to take a chunk of if you reach for it again. I'm hungry. You of all people know better than to come between me and food."

Kim whirled on Ash with a malevolent glare. "How could you bring this to her?"

"She said she was hungry."

Kim popped him hard on his butt. "Don't do it again! You clear her diet through her doctor or a nurse. You don't just bring food to someone in a hospital. Are you out of your mind?"

Ash was too stunned to even react as Kim went back to the sack on the tray and rifled through it.

"You two are awful, just awful." Kim started to roll the top down.

Tory glared at her like a feral lion. "You take that bag, Kim, and I'll make you regret it."

"Tory, be reasonable."

"My stomach wants food."

Kim held her hand up. "And when you're being attacked by vicious gastric pain later, remember I tried to stop you." She turned back to Ash who made sure his ass was covered. Literally. "If you two weren't being chased by homicidal loons, I'd order you out of here."

Ash backed up another step. "You're not going to hit me again, are you?"

"I ought to. If you were a couple of feet shorter, I'd take you over my knee." Kim made one last sound of disgust before she left them alone again.

Pam shook her head as she met Ash's gaze. "Want me to kiss your boo-boo and make it better?"

"Pam!" Tory snapped.

"Oh like you didn't have that thought, too. Relax both of you, I'm only kidding. Let me go calm down Nursezilla before she gets you two in trouble with your doctor."

Tory sighed as Pam left. "I am so sorry about my friends, Ash. I really did attempt to give them some home training growing up, but obviously it didn't take."

Ash laughed at her words. Truthfully, he found the ease they had in his company refreshing. Most people were either intimidated or frightened by him. Only kids seemed indifferent and treated him like anyone else on the street. "It's okay. I like them."

She took one last bite of her burger before she wrapped it up. "I better stop before I hurt myself. But it is good. Thank you so much for getting this for me."

"There's a ham sandwich, pickles, chips and yogurt also in the bag."

"What a sweetie you are. You really did get some of everything. You sure you don't want a bite?"

"I'm fine."

She handed him the bag. "All right then. How about I swap you the food for the journal?"

Ash hesitated. Since his name was all over it… I could tell her it's another name. True. She didn't know what the letters were. If he could convince her it was something like Archon and not Acheron, that would work.

Shrugging his backpack off, he unzipped the top and pulled the journal out. "Here."

She opened it where they'd left off. "Now where were we?"

"Ryssa was talking about her brother in Atlantis."

She drew her brow together in confusion. "Ryssa? How do you know her name was Ryssa?"

Ash tensed as he realized that his sister hadn't written her name anywhere in it. "Uh… I don't. I just gave her a name. It seemed more polite than calling her 'hey you, ancient chick.' "

She wrinkled her nose up at him. "FYI, I hate the word chick."

"Then I shall delete it from my vocabulary."

Smiling she put her hand on his arm and leaned against him. "You're so accommodating. Was this the spot?"

It took him a full second to catch his breath at the casual way she touched him. At the way her lips looked so inviting and sweet.

"Yeah," he said, forcing himself to look at the page.

She pointed to a line a few down from where he'd been reading. "I miss him?"

"Yes."

Her finger went to the next sentence. "He was sent away?"

"You're an incredibly fast learner."

"That's what my father used to say. His nickname for me was Athena."

Ash was surprised by that. She was nothing like the Greek goddess. "Athena?"

"You know, she sprang fully formed out of the head of Zeus. My dad used to say that I did the same thing and, like Athena, I gave my father a splitting headache." She smiled widely. "Show me a little of anything and bam, instant expertise. But this language is hard to learn. Beautiful, but difficult. Could you read in it for a moment so I can hear the way it lilts?"

Ash nodded before he obliged the request.

Tory listened to the inflections in his voice, mesmerized not only by how sexy it was, but by his intelligence. Before she could stop herself, she placed her hand to his jaw to feel the way his muscles worked while he spoke.

Ash paused at the tenderness of her touch and met her gaze.

"Don't stop speaking it," she whispered. "I love to hear your accent."

Little did she know he'd do anything she wanted so long as she touched him like this. He swallowed before he spoke again. "I wish Soteria. I wish I could make love to you like a human man. With no pasts to get in our way and no regrets. I would sell my soul for it."

Tory frowned at the words that seemed to come from his heart. "What did you say?"

"That you are an inquisitive imp."

She snorted. "No you didn't."

"Maybe, but you don't know for sure, now do you?"

She growled at him even though she enjoyed the fact that when he spoke in English, his accent was thick and lilting. "You know when you use that accent of yours, you could get away with murder." She pulled his sunglasses off, then folded them and put them in his pocket. "I like looking at your eyes."

"You're a very strange woman."

Perhaps, but there was something about him that made her feel warm and safe. She brushed the pad of her thumb over his lips. "Why do you hide from the world?"

"I don't hide from anything."

"Yes you do. The clothes you wear… they're your armor that you use to keep everyone away. You like to look dangerous and rebellious… it's like there's a part of you that thinks, if you give people a cause not to like you, then, when they don't it's okay because you were the one who decided they weren't allowed to like you anyway."

He started to pull away, but she stopped him.

"I would be a friend to you, Ash. A good one, if you'd let me."

Ash looked away as he remembered Artemis offering her friendship to him. "No offense, Tory, people say that with all good intentions. Unfortunately when the test comes, we inevitably fail it."