“It’s all right,” I said unevenly. “You . . . won’t hurt me.”
But he didn’t believe it, was already backing down, was sinking away from me. And I realized why as Pritkin’s head dipped again, his lips drawing runes whose meanings I’d never known on my skin. I’d always thought those symbols were to enhance sensation, but I’d been wrong. Goose pimples retreated as he painted my skin in magic, heat cooled, the light bled back to simply light. And I cried out at the loss.
“No! I don’t want you to—”
But he wasn’t listening. He’d become afraid to feed, to take what he needed so badly. Afraid to be who and what he was. Rosier might have been wrong about some things, but he’d been right about at least one. Pritkin wasn’t human. And trying to be so was killing him.
“You can’t hurt me,” I said, my hand in his hair. And there was enough of that other still there that he rubbed up against the touch, like a cat. Thoughtlessly sensual in a way that Pritkin never was.
“I could. I did—” His fear bled through the words, raw and anguished, and my conviction answered it.
“No. Not now.”
I had been afraid my whole life, but there was nothing left to fear. Nothing for either of us. And I’d rather die by his hand than Ares’.
“Take what you want,” I said steadily. “Take everything.”
And the power roared back.
I could see it when he finally entered me, in sunburst flares of pleasure exploding across my vision. Could hear it in the blood roaring in my ears as I writhed under him, struggling to accommodate his size. Could feel it with every movement, slow and stuttering at first, as if he was as overwhelmed as I was, and then with longer, surer strokes that made me squirm and cry out. And then lock my legs behind his back, pulling him farther into me, pulling him as far as he would go.
Until his heart beat, strong and sure, at my core. Until we moved together as one. Until, instead of riding the power, we were swept up by it, carried off with it, into a maelstrom of light and force and sensation.
I cried out, and heard it echo in his throat. Saw our shadows splashed on the ceiling of the tent, as if there was a fire burning inside instead of out. Saw it grow brighter and brighter, until the light burst into a thousand fractured rainbows, whiting out the shadows and spilling out the door.
And then I saw, not with my eyes anymore, but with my mind: power sweeping around in a huge arc, like a glittering wave. Or an ocean, I realized, watching the enormous span of the Pythian power shimmering and dancing as if under a distant sun. I saw it all, just for a moment—
Before it came crashing down—on Pritkin.
I screamed, afraid that it would hurt him, would rip him apart. And maybe it would have, except that all those years, all that lonely starvation, had done something, hadn’t it? The incubus part of his soul had withered and shrunk, barely clinging to life. It was hollowed out now, empty, a vast, echoing cavern full of exactly nothing. Waiting—
For a tsunami.
Like the one that was pouring into Pritkin. It would have killed another incubus; it should have killed him. But the great void at the heart of his being took it gladly, more perhaps than any other incubus had ever taken, because no other of his kind could fast for so long. And instead of killing him, it reanimated a part that he’d almost forgotten, one that suddenly remembered how to feed, how to love, and how . . . to magnify.
A second later, I found out exactly what a starved incubus of the royal line can do when presented with a banquet. Because all that power, doubled or tripled or whatever it was now, came roaring back. I cried out, in agony and ecstasy—and disbelief, because I’d never felt anything like it. And because I’d assumed it would rejoin the Pythian power, where it came from. But it didn’t.
It came back to me.
Suddenly, I could see the light shining out of my pores, feel it screaming through my veins, taste it in my throat as it bubbled over into laughter, insane, impossible laughter because it was good, so good, so much. Too much, overwhelming my body, mind and spirit, the feel of him surging into me, the strength of him under my hands, the emotions I’d denied for too long, all of it.
So I sent it rushing back into Pritkin, who magnified it again and sent it back to me, beginning a thrumming, heart-stopping, explosive cycle that went on and on until I thought I would die from it, die and not care.
And then climax ripped through me, and the world exploded.
I vaguely understood that the tent had just been torn away, blown off by the hot desert wind flooding all around us. Dimly saw the trees above thrashing as if in a hurricane, every leaf shining like a floodlight was beneath them. Distantly knew that this was dangerous, so dangerous, because I was human; I couldn’t hold this much power. It was why the Pythian power was separate from its hosts. We borrowed it when needed; we didn’t inhabit it, or it us. We wouldn’t have lasted a day if we had, before it burned us up.
Like this was about to do to me.
Because Pritkin had just given it back, everything he could, one last time. And then rolled off, gasping and stunned, his body shaking from his own climax, and from the strain of holding that much power. Because he wasn’t meant for it, either.
We couldn’t handle it, neither of us, not even both of us. I had to get rid of it. I had to get rid of it now.
And there was one obvious target.
I looked up at Ares, so huge, so strong, so powerful, towering in the skies above us. And knew I couldn’t take him, not even now. I had power, yes, enough to fight him, enough to hurt him, but not enough to win. I needed a god to fight a god, but I wasn’t one. I was just Cassie Palmer.
And yet Johanna had come back for me. . . .
Which was why I reached out, not with my human hand, but with a much more ephemeral one. And grabbed not the air, but something beyond it. Because Jo had seen what I couldn’t, that there might be one more trick up my sleeve. Not the Pythian way, and not from my mother’s blood. But something far more human.
Because I had a father, too.
So I reached out a spectral hand and ripped open the fabric of time. Not in the small, barely there way, like when I tagged along with a ghost. But in a great gash that tore across the entire length of the battlefield, like a jagged arc of green lightning.
It spilled a long line of illumination onto the bloody scene, a cascade of ghost light, pale and gleaming. And swarming. Not with dozens or hundreds, but with thousands of ghosts, all of them fleeing ahead of another god, a dead god, one who emerged back into the world, his mind set on revenge, his eyes searching for me.
Until he saw what towered above me.
And just like before, Apollo forgot the snack I represented, in the face of the banquet on the horizon. I blinked, and the next time I looked, the real battle was raging, this time between two gods. One who had thought he was about to win, and one who knew he was about to die, unless he drained his foe quick enough to make it a fair contest.
Neither of them thought about us.
Neither of them cared about us.
Just as they never had.
But oh, we cared about them. As demonstrated when, far in the distance, there appeared a shimmer of blue. And was answered, on the other side of the battlefield, by a brief, blinding flash of light. And then, closer in, close enough to flash me a smile, a shining demigod held out a hand.
And a black, burnt, pathetic-looking stick came tumbling through the smoke and fire, straight into it.
No, I corrected myself.
Not a stick.
A staff.
I huddled over Pritkin, looking at the reflection of the battle in a nearby puddle, as three beams of pure elemental magic hit the thrashing duo in the sky. Apollo never even seemed to notice, too focused on draining Ares to pay attention to anything else. And maybe still too ghostly to feel all that much.
But someone else did.
It wasn’t a roar this time, but a scream: of pain, of outrage, but mostly, of incredulity. That such paltry creatures could hurt him, that they would think to turn his own gifts against him, that they would dare. And that they were winning.
Because Ares was powerful, yes, almost beyond belief. But he was also currently besieged on all sides: by the ropes and snares of Pythian power, by the great maw of the storm behind him, by Apollo’s hungry ghost. And now by three god-forged weapons, wielded by masters of the elements.
But underestimating the god of war was never a good idea. A second later, the blue dot of the shield winked out, going dark and dim. I didn’t know why until a beam of pure energy boiled through the air and hit the staff in Caedmon’s hand, shattering it into a hundred pieces. He staggered back and went down, hurt, but I wasn’t sure how badly. But that was two prongs of the attack gone, and only one remained.
And as luck would have it, it was another of us paltry humans who stood alone.
And maybe that was what did it, made Ares look away before his next blast landed. Made him turn toward his other tormentor. Made him careless.
I only know what I saw. In the middle of a great battlefield, a tiny figure on a spotted gray horse faced a towering god. And lifted his miniscule sword high, straight into the line of fire. Where the reflection of his blade, god-wrought and mirror bright, sent Ares’ own power hurtling back at him, completely overwhelming and utterly unexpected.
And tore the battling gods to shreds.
Chapter Sixty-one
I awoke dry-mouthed and disoriented, and with a vague sense of panic. So, just like normal. Until I started to get up.
And felt something brush against my arm.
My nerves were so raw I would have screamed, but my teeth were still firmly clamped on my bottom lip. So I jumped instead, and rolled off the bed, and whirled and saw—
Absolutely nothing.
For a moment, I just stared about in confusion at the empty, darkened room, pulse pounding madly. And then I felt it again. A soft, barely there touch against my hand, like the brush of a feather.
Or like the brush of silken curls on a little girl’s head, I realized, finally looking down. At the two- or maybe three-year-old child standing in the spill of light from the bathroom. And wearing a little white nightgown that made her look like an escaped cherub.
I sat back on the bed, weak-kneed and shaking, and she crawled into my lap.
And promptly fell asleep.
“I’m sorry,” Tami said from the doorway, her gaze on my face. “But she said you needed her, and she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“She’s three,” I said unsteadily, hugging the warm little body. Which snuggled closer and muttered something indistinct.
“And I thought she might have a point,” Tami added dryly. “Those vamps always say the same thing: she’s fine. She’s good. She’s strong. You could be bleeding out and I think they’d still say that.”
“Weakness is the worst insult in their culture. They’d feel like they were betraying me to admit—” I broke off, because I didn’t want to admit anything, either.
Tami didn’t call me on it, but her expression was eloquent. “But it makes it a little tough to determine if you are, in fact, okay,” she finished.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay.”
She came over to take the child.
“She’s fine,” I said, holding on. I’d woken up to enough blood and death lately. Seeing her instead was . . . nice.
“Come on, then. You can put her to bed.”
“Where?” I glanced around. “We don’t have any cots.”
“We don’t use cots anymore.”
“Then what do we use?”
She smiled.
* * *
“Oh, holy shit.”
“That’s what I said,” Tami told me as we stepped off the elevator after a short—like very short—ride. “Nice, isn’t it?”
“Nice,” I repeated, my lips going numb.
“I know, but you’ve got to see past the decor. The woman has no taste at all. But we’re in the process of dealing with that,” she added, looking satisfied.
I turned around and tried to get back on the elevator. But Roy, the southern redhead, was blocking the way. “She’s going to kill me,” I told him, trying to sidle past.
“Naw, she needs you,” Roy said, turning me around, and steering me into a much bigger, much more opulent atrium than I boasted. “If she liked you, she might still kill you. But if she needs you, you’re golden.”
“Until she doesn’t need me anymore.”
“Yeah, but the way things are going, that might be a long time,” he said cynically. “May as well enjoy the perks while you’ve got ’em.”
And the perks were . . . the perks were nice, I thought, staring around at the finest of marbles on floor and columns and walls. At a glorious star pattern expertly inlaid into the floor. At the softly chiming chandelier overhead, glittering brightly enough to almost blind me after the dimmer light of my suite. And at the impressive double doors to the casino’s finest penthouse, guarded by two more vamps who were trying to appear casual, but whose lips were twitching worse than Roy’s.
And then openly grinning, as one of them caught my eye. “About time we got some decent accommodations around here,” he told me.
“Define decent,” I said, feeling a palm leaf, from a potted plant that I was sure had to be fake.
But no. Just perfect. Like the view when Roy threw open the huge double doors.
“Decent,” he said, and ushered me into a scene of majestic luxury and utter insanity.
Dante’s finest penthouse had always been breathtaking, but it had definitely received an upgrade from the last time I saw it, going from Vegas glam to something approaching mansion status. Or maybe palace status, since after I was unceremoniously kicked out a few months ago, the resident in chief had been none other than the current consul and uncrowned queen of the vampire world. Who lived like the crown was already firmly perched on her beautiful brow.
“No, no—open that one next,” Tami said. She strode ahead and was now standing in the middle of the living room, ordering around a couple of senior masters like she’d been born to it.
Her weave was up in a curly ponytail today, which didn’t even reach the shoulder of the nearest mountain of vampire flesh. Not that it mattered. Vamps had long ago adjusted to the idea that size did not equate to power. And judging by the look the two guys exchanged over her curly updo, they’d already learned that it was easier to just go along with the tiny woman with the huge attitude. Because a second later, one of a number of square, flat wooden crates was pried open, and the front fell off to reveal—
“What is that?” I asked, staring in disbelief at the painting inside.
“What does it look like?” Tami asked, sounding satisfied.
I knew damn well what it looked like. “You have to take it back!”
“Like hell I’m taking it back,” Roy said. “I almost ruptured something lugging all of them up here.”
“Lugging them up from where? Where did you get them?”
“Oh, you know.” He grinned. “They were just hanging around.”
“So was this one,” a cheeky fourteen-year-old named Jesse added, carrying in one of the hula girl posters from the tiki bar downstairs.
One of the very scantily clad hula girl posters.
“Nice try,” Tami said, stopping her son with a hand on his chest.
“But you said we could decorate our rooms any way we want—”
“I also said I’m trying to cut down on the tacky.”
“It’ll be in my room. Nobody’ll see it! Not like those things,” he added, nodding at a bunch of statues being hauled in from the balcony.
Or what had bee
n a balcony. But the expansive space had been enclosed since I last saw it, with curving windows arching overhead like a solarium, and plants, columns, and statues framing the pool. It looked like a Grecian grotto—or maybe an Olympian one, I thought, staring as a familiar visage was carted past.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Part of the tacky,” Tami said, frowning at it. “We’re fighting the gods and she’s decorating her garden with them? And whoever heard of a painted statue?”
“Used to be all the rage, back in old Rome,” Marco said, coming in from another room. “Painted clothes and skin, shells for eyes—so they’d glisten—and decked out in flowers for the festivals. Idea was to make them look like real people, not those creepy white things they fill the museums with.”
“Then why’d they make so many of the other kind?” Jesse asked.
Marco shrugged. “They didn’t. The paint just wore off.”
“Tami,” I said grimly. “Why. Are. We. Here?”
She blinked at me. “You told me to manage things; I’m managing them.”
“Yes, but—”
“And first priority was more room. Two dozen people stuffed into a three-bedroom suite? And that was just the girls. I’m surprised the fire marshal wasn’t out here—”
“Probably too scared,” another vamp said, heading out the door with a statue tucked under each arm. And having to perform a balletic move to avoid the two guys in painters’ whites coming in with cans and a ladder.
“Mural in the master. Get rid of it,” Tami told them shortly.
“Wait. What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I want to know,” Jesse said, starting to follow them.
Until Tami caught him by the collar. “Aren’t you supposed to be entertaining the kids?”
“Jiao’s got that covered.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
He pursed his lips. “Probably not.”