I let go of Jamaal’s hair and groped for the headboard. I hadn’t paused to examine it when Jamaal had carried me in, but I had a vague impression it was carved of dark wood and had some posts I could hold on to. Maybe if I kept my hands out of the fray entirely, I could keep them from wandering when they shouldn’t. I found a couple of handholds and latched on, still kissing him for all I was worth and holding him close with my legs.
I almost howled in protest when he broke the kiss, but he didn’t withdraw from me, merely cupped the side of my face in his hand and stared down into my eyes. With his erection pressed up tight against me, there was no missing his desire. Unfortunately, there was no missing the hint of fear in his eyes, either.
“I want you,” he whispered, then rolled his hips against me to emphasize his point. I gasped in pleasure and arched my back. “But you know I have . . . issues.”
I let go of the headboard long enough to run my fingers down the side of his face in a caress that I hoped was equal parts sensual and comforting. “I know. I don’t care about your issues. Tie my hands so I don’t get careless, and then have your way with me.”
A tremor ran through him, and he closed his eyes.
Shit. I was losing him.
“Don’t you dare stop now!” I said, clamping my legs even more firmly around him.
“You deserve better than me.”
“I’ll decide what I deserve.” I was somewhat heartened by the fact that despite his words, he was still rock hard against me. There was a part of him trying to withdraw, but it wasn’t all of him. “I want you inside me.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. I had an owner once . . . The scars turned her on. She—”
I shut him up with a kiss, gently taking hold of his lip between my teeth when he would have pulled away. Apparently, he found that sexy, because he momentarily forgot his objections and returned my kiss with an intensity that took my breath away.
He was panting heavily when he ended the kiss. “Have to keep my shirt on,” he said between breaths.
“Don’t care,” I said, and realized I was panting with need, too. Actually, I did care, but the time to talk to Jamaal about whatever had been done to him to make him so skittish about the scars was not now. I didn’t want him thinking about anything that might make him back off yet again, so I channeled my inner porn star. I’m not usually into talking dirty, but for Jamaal I was more than willing to make an exception. “Fuck me. Now!”
It’s amazing the effect those two little words can have on a guy. Jamaal forgot all about his excuses and apologies and explanations. He pushed up to his knees so he could get to the fly of my jeans, and he had them open and down before I could even offer to help. I’d have liked to have taken them off entirely, but he seemed in too much of a hurry and I wasn’t about to complain.
I groaned when he dropped his pajamas and I got a good look at his erection. I’d known from the feel of him against me that he was, shall we say, well endowed, but naked and ready for action, he was nothing short of magnificent. My fingers itched to reach out and touch him, to stroke the smooth hardness of him, but since I hadn’t let him pour out his whole tale of woe, I didn’t dare, not knowing what might trigger traumatic memories.
A shiver of need passed through me, along with a tiny twinge of anxiety. I’m no virgin, but my spectacular ability to fall for inappropriate or unavailable men meant I wasn’t the most sexually experienced twenty-five-year-old in the world, and Jamaal’s size promised an uncomfortable beginning. I hoped it wouldn’t hurt so much that I couldn’t hide it. The last thing I wanted was for Jamaal to feel even a twinge of guilt.
“Condom,” I reminded him as he stretched out above me, having barely remembered in time.
“Not necessary,” he assured me. “The lines don’t mix.”
I took that to mean that descendants of different divinities couldn’t have children together, which I stored away as something to ask questions about some other time. Right now, I was more than prepared to take Jamaal’s word for it. I spread my legs as wide as I could with my damn jeans and panties restricting the motion. Jamaal didn’t take me up on my offer to let him tie my hands, but he did pin my wrists to the pillow above my head. I had no objections.
I arched toward him in anticipation . . .
And felt like I’d been plummeted into a pool of ice-cold water when I heard a feline growl, way too close to me.
Jamaal cursed and shoved me aside, putting himself between me and the five-hundred-pound tiger that had suddenly appeared on the bed beside us. I rolled off the side of the bed, frantically pulling up my pants as I did. Sita growled again, the sound just short of a roar.
“I did not summon you!” Jamaal shouted at her.
Staying out of sight might have been my wisest choice, but I couldn’t help peeking up over the side of the bed. Jamaal was on his knees, his arms spread wide as if that would block Sita from getting to me. We both knew she could jump right over him if she wanted to. He hadn’t bothered to pull his pajamas back up, and I saw that his backside was as scarred as the rest of his torso. He reached out as if to touch Sita—which he seemed to need to do to put her away—but she danced out of reach, baring a very intimidating set of teeth. Her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness of the room, and they locked on me like laser beams.
Jamaal moved to put himself between us again, trying to cut off her line of sight, but I didn’t want him getting hurt because of me, and I worried Sita wasn’t above taking out her temper on him. The idea that she’d just appeared out of nowhere without being summoned wasn’t what you’d call a comfortable one. I wasn’t about to cower while Jamaal took the heat for me, so I rose to my feet and glared at the tiger.
“Jamaal has a right to a life, Sita,” I said. “You can’t keep him entirely to yourself.”
“Shut up, Nikki!” Jamaal snapped at me as Sita growled her disapproval. “Just get out of here while you can.”
There wasn’t much I could do to help, but leaving Jamaal to face an angry tiger by himself didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Of course, staying and getting mauled didn’t sound so great, either.
I shook my finger at Sita like I was scolding a small child. “If you hurt him, I swear to God I’m—”
Sita interrupted me with a roar that rattled my teeth.
“She won’t hurt me,” Jamaal said with conviction. “Now get the fuck out of my room.”
There were a lot of things I wanted to say just then, but I swallowed them all. Jamaal said he hadn’t summoned her, but could I be sure that was entirely true? We’d taken some slapdash steps to avoid triggering his issues, but maybe it hadn’t been enough. Maybe we’d avoided the conscious issues, but the unconscious ones were deeper and more insidious. So insidious his subconscious had called for Sita to intervene. Maybe he would have to talk through whatever had happened to him in his slave days before he would be able to let someone get so close again.
Or maybe Sita was as out of control as his temper had been, before he’d learned to summon her.
I knew I couldn’t help him. Not right now, anyway. I didn’t want to leave him to face Sita’s wrath alone, but I suspected my continued presence would just make her more angry.
Mentally promising myself that this was not over, that I was not going to give up on Jamaal no matter how difficult the situation, I slowly backed out of the room.
I was awakened in the night by another blast of thunder. I was surprised to discover that I’d fallen asleep at all, considering how long I had tossed and turned, searching for a solution to the Sita problem—one that didn’t involve Jamaal having to shut one or the other of us out of his life. And wondering if he was just one more on the list of unavailable men I was destined to fall for.
I rose from my bed and went to the window, hoping to see that it was pouring down rain, but the sky was clear enough that I could have counted the stars if I’d wanted to. I wondered how big the clearing was going to be when Anderson had finished ve
nting his pain and rage. Hopefully, we’d still have some woods left.
I slept only fitfully after that, waking up every forty minutes or so, brooding about Emma, and Jamaal, and my most recent brush with death. By 4 A.M., I was lying in bed debating whether I should try to get some more sleep or just give up and get out of bed. The decision was taken out of my hands when the phone beside my bed rang.
Phones ringing at four in the morning are rarely a good thing. The only person I’d given my land line number to was Steph. The last time she’d called so early, it was because the Glasses’ house burned down.
Dread pooled in my stomach as I sat up and turned on the light. I blinked in the glare, trying to see the caller ID before picking up the phone.
My hand was halfway to the phone when my vision cleared enough for me to read the caller ID: Cyrus Galanos.
TWENTY-TWO
I was an emotional wreck when I got off the phone with Cyrus. I spent a few minutes indulging in a crying jag, a little piece of my heart breaking. When the worst of it was over, I went into the bathroom and splashed some cold water on my face. My eyes were red and puffy, and I had shopping bags under them from not sleeping. The hair around my face was wet from the splashes of water, and the hair that wasn’t wet was tangled and frizzy. I wanted to get into the shower and put myself back together, but there wasn’t time.
I threw on the first pair of jeans I could get my hands on and grabbed a warm, comfortable flannel shirt. Then I dug out my one pair of waterproof boots, nice and fleecy to keep my feet warm in the snow. I braided my hair sloppily as I made my way down the stairs to the second floor. The house was dark and quiet. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was now twenty after four. I’d wasted too much time having my pity party. The moon would set in less than two hours, and I would need every spare second of that time.
Of course, it was possible I wouldn’t survive relaying to Anderson what Cyrus had told me when he called. I wished Cyrus had had the guts to tell Anderson himself without using me as his messenger service. After all, Anderson couldn’t kill the messenger over the phone.
I hesitated when I reached the hallway leading to Anderson’s wing. We were forbidden from going into the east wing past his study, except in case of emergency. This was an emergency, but that didn’t exactly make me eager to trespass. Not with the message I bore.
I gave myself a swift kick in the pants and reminded myself once again that I didn’t have time for hesitation. I needed to be at my hunting best, and that meant I needed the moon.
Heart throbbing in my chest, I hurried down the hall. I wasn’t sure which room was his bedroom, but I made an educated guess that it would be next to the bathroom he’d stuck his head out of the other day. I didn’t know how I was going to break the news, and I didn’t have time to come up with a carefully worded plan.
I knocked on the door, rapping hard because I assumed Anderson would be fast asleep. “Anderson!” I called, hoping I wasn’t shouting so loud I’d wake the entire house. “Wake up! I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not asleep,” he answered, startling me, and moments later there was a glow of light around the edges of the door and the sound of approaching footsteps.
The door swung open. Anderson was still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed me that his bed was neatly made. I didn’t know what he’d been doing sitting around in his room in the dark, but I didn’t wonder enough to ask. He looked even more rumpled than usual, his beard bristling with scraggly whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave, his shaggy hair standing up straight in places and lying flat in others. His eyes were bloodshot, and there was a faint scent of stale alcohol clinging to him. That answered my question about what he’d been doing alone and awake in the dark.
“What is it?” he asked, and he didn’t sound as alarmed as a knock on the door at this hour of the morning should make him. He just sounded resigned and very, very tired.
I wished like hell I could turn around and leave him to his grieving. I wished I didn’t have to make him feel worse than he already did. Yesterday, I had wanted him to feel bad for what I saw as his cold-bloodedness, but now I wished I could spare him.
I decided to ease my way into the conversation by telling him the easy part first.
“I just got a phone call from Cyrus.”
A crease of worry appeared between Anderson’s brows. “That was . . . unexpected.”
No kidding. “Someone tried to murder him in his sleep.”
Anderson no longer looked so weary and apathetic. I didn’t know if that would turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for me, though I supposed even if he’d remained flat and dull-eyed, he would be fully roused and ready to embrace his Fury heritage by the time I was finished.
“Come in,” he said, turning his back abruptly and heading toward an armchair in the corner. I reluctantly followed as he sat and grabbed the pair of battered sneakers lying beside the chair. “Cyrus wouldn’t call you just to report an attempt on his life,” he said, shoving one foot into a sneaker. “Tell me what’s going on.”
I wanted to sit down. My knees were a little weak and trembly. But Anderson was sitting in the only chair, and sitting on the edge of his bed seemed too familiar and informal. I settled for grabbing one of the bedposts to steady myself, gripping it harder than was strictly necessary. Why the hell was I the one who had to have this conversation with Anderson? I swallowed hard.
“The guy who tried to kill Cyrus was a Descendant. One of Konstantin’s cronies.”
Anderson looked up from tying his sneakers. “You say that like it’s some kind of surprise. I told you Konstantin has never trusted his children. I’m frankly surprised Cyrus has lived as long as he has. It might have seemed natural to him to step into his father’s shoes, but it was probably the worst possible thing he could have done if he wanted Konstantin to keep him alive. Having his child usurp his ‘throne’ is one of his biggest fears, which is why he’s killed all the others before Cyrus.”
“But Cyrus took over in name only,” I protested. I’d warned Cyrus myself that Konstantin would turn on him one day, but I still had a hard time understanding how someone could kill their own child. I don’t think there’s a more heinous crime in the universe.
“Doesn’t matter,” Anderson said. He finished tying his shoes, but remained in his chair, his body language fraught with tension. “Maybe Konstantin thought he’d be okay with it at first, but when he saw Cyrus taking over his role—and making some decisions he didn’t agree with—he realized he couldn’t stomach it. He might even think killing Cyrus would make the rest of the Olympians forgive his past mistakes and let him lead them again.” He raked his hand through his hair. I don’t know if that was a stress reaction, or if he actually thought he was finger-combing it. If the latter, he failed spectacularly.
“You still haven’t told me why Cyrus called you of all people. And why you’re at my doorstep at this hour of the morning.”
No, I hadn’t. And I didn’t want to. My throat tightened up on me, and I couldn’t think of what to say. I didn’t like the idea of sitting on Anderson’s bed, but my shaky knees wouldn’t hold me anymore, so I did it anyway.
I told myself I wasn’t really scared of Anderson. I told myself that I was having a hard time finding my voice because I didn’t want to cause him pain, and because I was enough of an emotional coward that I didn’t want to be there to see his pain. That part was true, at least as far as it went. But the truth was, I was scared. He was a freaking god! And anyone who has even a smidgen of familiarity with mythology knows that gods don’t act like human beings. They routinely kill the people closest to them, and they only sometimes show any remorse for having done it.
Despite my pathetic attempts to put on a brave face, Anderson couldn’t help but see my fear. I thought even that might make him angry, but when I sneaked a glance at his face, I saw only gentle compassion. I just didn’t know whether to trust it or not.
?
??You don’t have to be afraid of me, Nikki,” he said in a tone he might use with a frightened animal. “I can tell you have bad news to impart, and I promise I won’t kill the messenger.”
They were the right words, delivered in the right tone, and yet I still didn’t trust him. “I’ve seen your temper before,” I said, looking at the floor because I couldn’t bear to face him. “I saw you torture a couple of people to death. I saw you stand by and watch your wife being killed before your eyes because you were angry at her for betraying you. I saw what you did to all the trees in the clearing.” I didn’t even mention the times he had threatened to kill me.
He stood up and came toward me, and I had to fight an urge to jump to my feet and run. I was rather proud of myself for staying right there on the edge of the bed until Anderson was an arm’s length away. I would have had to look up to meet his eyes, but I felt no temptation to do so.
I practically jumped out of my skin when Anderson reached out and brushed his fingers over my cheek, tucking a stray lock of hair that had escaped my messy braid back behind my ear. The touch startled me enough to make me look up at his face.
“You have seen me get angry,” he said, and there was still that look of compassion in his eyes. “You have seen me be ruthless. You haven’t seen me truly lose my temper. I learned long ago how dangerous my temper can be. I did . . . terrible things in the old days, before I started consorting with humans. I will never let that happen again. That’s why I shut down like I did the other night. It’s what I had to do to contain myself.” He touched me again, a brief caress of my cheek.
“I would never hurt you, or your loved ones, or any of my people, in a fit of anger.”
I looked down, unable to think straight when he was looking at me like that. Maybe I was imagining things, but I thought I’d seen a kind of warmth in his gaze that was almost . . . intimate. Was I really seeing something telling in his eyes? Or was I doing exactly what I’d feared I would ever since my conversation with Maggie and letting the power of suggestion make me see something that wasn’t there? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t afford to think about it.