Now that he’s seen you, he’s probably hunting down your house at this very moment. We can’t go there, either. Do you live with your father?”
He shook his head. “No. I live in an apartment in town- near the college.”
“Well, that’s something good at least. We won’t have to worry about your dad. And we won’t have to explain your upcoming absence.”
“My absence?” he raised an eyebrow.
I swallowed. “You’re going to have to stay away from your family for a bit. You don’t want to lead Mormo to them.”
He nodded. “Good thinking. Where should we go?”
I studied his face for a second. He was handsome, calm and perfectly willing to believe everything I had just told him as fact. His hazel eyes returned my stare without flinching and I found that I could get lost in his eyes. They were truly beautiful. I shook those useless thoughts from my head. Thinking like that wasn’t going to help us right now.
“You know,” I pondered, looking around us once again. “We could just stay right here for the time being. It’s remote, there is no one here right now and there’s quite a few buildings we could stay in.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Here? We won’t have beds, a kitchen… did I mention beds?”
“Were you expecting a Four Seasons?” I snapped grumpily. “I can conjure just about anything you can think of, including a pillow-top king size bed, if that’s what you want. If you’re into retro things, I can get you a waterbed. If you want cutting edge, I can get you one of those foam mattress things that don’t bounce. Whatever you want, I can do. You won’t be exactly roughing it.”
“Seriously?” He looked impressed. “You can create an entire king size bed out of thin air?”
I felt exasperated, but reined it in. There’s no way that he could possibly know what I was capable of. Sighing, I studied the line of buildings to our left. There was a row of empty restaurants, a house of mirrors, a medical check point and a haunted house. I zeroed back in on the haunted house. Perfect.
“Come with me,” I murmured, walking straight toward it.
Brennan stayed by my elbow as we approached the spooky gray-sided home with the faux rickety steps. I knew from experience that the stairs were designed to creak as you climbed them. During the season, bats and cobwebs hung from the porch, but it was bare now and completely clean.
“Here?” Brennan asked incredulously. “You want to sleep in the haunted house? Aren’t you afraid of nightmares?”
I looked at him dubiously. “Seriously? I’ve seen things in real life that would make your head spin. There’s nothing in this house that could possibly scare me unless my father is standing on the other side of the door.”
I pointed at the black painted door and it flew open, banging into the wall behind it.
“And he’s not,” I observed. “So, we’re good.”
To his credit, once again, Brennan didn’t even flinch at the use of my other-worldly abilities. Instead, he grinned.
“I’m going to enjoy getting to know you,” he announced. “This is going to be fun.”
“Fun?” I questioned. “Do you enjoy getting chased by a psychotic madman?”
He shook his head. “Nope. But I enjoy camping out with beautiful women.”
He beamed a huge smile at me and I couldn’t help but feel warmed from the inside out. He thought I was beautiful. And why did that make me so happy? Most men found me beautiful. Why did Brennan’s opinion matter so much?
I sighed. Because he was probably my soul mate. I had a feeling that I was going to get tired of using that as an excuse for everything, even if it did turn out to be true.
We stepped inside and except for the light shining in through the two front windows, it was completely dark. We were in a large foyer, but it was hard to see anything else. The darkness was shadowy. I snapped my fingers and the lights came on.
“Impressive,” Brennan acknowledged. “But maybe we should have left it dark. The ambience in here is sort of spooky-chic, don’t you think?”
He was right. The empty, quiet amusement park attraction was creepy, to say the least. And not creepy because of the decorations, but creepy because of the stillness, the emptiness. It was meant to be filled with screaming patrons.
The track that the little train cars traveled on was quiet, the cars apparently stored in another room. I carefully stepped over one metal rail and walked quickly along the track. There had to be a bedroom of sorts in this place.
Brennan followed behind me and I felt his presence with every breath that he took. It was as if we had an invisible tie that bound him to me or vice versa. It pulled us towards each other and it was difficult to resist.
At the end of a darkened hallway, the track passed through a grotesque bedroom taken straight from an old horror movie. A mannequin hung from a noose, dangling in the middle of the room. Red blood-like paint was splattered all over her. Her lifeless eyes seemed to watch us as I examined the rest of our surroundings.
A dusty bed was pushed against the back wall, covered in plastic black spiders. Perfect. Nothing said a good night’s rest like arachnids, fake or otherwise. Another dead ‘body’ was lying on the floor next to the bed in a pool of dried red paint. Apparently, this room was meant to portray a murder scene.
“Charming,” Brennan muttered.
“My thoughts exactly,” I answered. “Let’s clean this place up a bit, shall we?”
I pictured how I wanted the room to be, with a fluffy clean bed, roaring fireplace, picnic basket full of food and lush carpet. Immediately, it was so. I kicked off my shoes and wiggled my toes in the soft rug beneath my feet.
Brennan stared at me in astonishment.
“You’re kind of handy to have around, you know that?” He tried to act cool and nonchalant, but I could see the truth in his eyes. He was shaken. And just a little bit terrified. As if to distract himself, he strolled over to the picnic basket and rifled through it, popping a ripe strawberry into his mouth.
Wanting to prove a point, I blurred into motion and pinned him against the wall. With my mouth hovering a scant inch over his, I spoke very softly, very succinctly.
“I don’t want you to mistake something,” I murmured against his lips. “I’m very dangerous. Don’t forget that. It is something that I can’t help. I am very, very drawn to you. Perhaps we are soul mates, perhaps we aren’t. I guess time will tell. But in the meantime, we need to tread carefully. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
His chest was hard beneath my fingers, the muscles tight and sinewy. He gazed down at me, his hazel eyes golden in the light.
“I don’t think you want to hurt me,” he observed. “So I’m not all that afraid. And besides, I’m a demi, too, remember?”
I almost snorted as I backed up just a bit. “You’re a demi who didn’t even know that he was a demi until today. You have no idea how to tap into your abilities or your strengths. You’re the same as a mortal at this point.”
His gaze flickered. “But I am mortal. Right?”
I nodded. “Yes, you are.”
Confusion flitted across his features. “And you’re not?”
“No. I’m not. Because both of my parents are immortal, I am immortal too. You would have to appeal to Zeus for immortality.” I gulped, because the sudden thought of being separated from Brennan for eternity caused my chest to constrict.
I felt his breathing quicken beneath my fingertips.
“I don’t want to be away from you,” he admitted, mirroring my own thoughts. It brought a lump to my throat that I couldn’t swallow. “Not for a day and definitely not forever. How would I go about appealing to Zeus?”
“You’d have to travel to Mount Olympus in the Spiritlands,” I told him. “But we don’t have time right this moment. For now, we should probably concentrate on acquainting you with your skills.”
He looked at me with interest. “I’m ready any time you are.”
“I practice magic on a full st
omach the best,” I quipped. “Let’s eat first.”
He shrugged and grabbed my hand, pulling me back to the picnic basket.
“I can’t help but notice that there’s only one bed,” he said slyly, grinning as he eyed it.
“Because only one will fit in this room,” I explained. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“I would never,” he replied a little over-zealously and I laughed.
“Never?” I raised an eyebrow doubtfully.
He laughed, a throaty, sexy sound that made my heart palpitate.
“Well, maybe I will at some point,” he admitted. I had to laugh at his honesty.
“Well, for today,” I began, “We’re going to work on your skills. You’ll be too tired for any of your ‘ideas’.”
“We’ll see about that,” he replied cockily, swaggering back to the picnic basket to grab another strawberry.
I smirked. Within an hour, he’d be begging for mercy.
Chapter Seven
“So, how much longer do you want to do this?” Brennan asked calmly.
He wasn’t even a little bit out of breath. I was drenched in sweat from my mental exertions and I could quite literally kill for an ice cold drink. But I didn’t want him to know that.
I leveled my gaze at him. He stood with his arms crossed across the room, his tanned brow furrowed.
“Are you tired?” I asked innocently.
“No,” he answered. “But I’m hungry.”
“I need for you to master this,” I insisted, gritting my teeth. “As you saw today, traveling god-style is the best way to go. It’s saved my butt a hundred times.”
He shrugged. “It doesn’t appear that I can do it.”
“That’s because you’re still thinking like a mortal,” I mused. “You’ve got to open your mind and start thinking like a god. You’re the son of Apollo, after all. Maybe we should focus on other abilities and come back to this one. Have you noticed that you’re able to do something special? Something that normal people can’t do?”
“There are a few things,” he admitted. “But I’ve always tried to put them out of my mind- tried to pretend that they didn’t happen.”
“Like?” I prompted.
“Oh, you know…” he drawled. “The normal stuff. I can heal faster than the average person. I don’t get hurt as often. Sometimes, I can see something that is about to happen. It plays in my head like a movie and then it actually occurs.”
“So, you can see the future and you heal at a supernatural rate,” I repeated. “Is that it? Because I thought it was going to be something impressive.”
He grinned and I sucked my breath in. By the gods, he was handsome. I would chalk that up to another gift inherited from his father. I just wouldn’t point it out to him.
“Is there anything else?” I asked, somewhat nervously.
“Perhaps,” he said slowly. He finally seemed a little nervous. “Sometimes, very rarely, I can make things happen. I don’t know how, but I think about something and it just… happens. Maybe not exactly as I imagined it, but it still happens to some degree.”
“Interesting,” I breathed. He could not only see the future, but he could make it happen, too. That could certainly come in handy.
“Maybe,” he acknowledged. “But the problem is, I apparently haven’t mastered it. It doesn’t usually work.”
“And you never wondered about these things?” I demanded. “You never once wondered why you were different? Why you could do things that your friends couldn’t?”
He scowled. “Of course I have. But what answers could I possibly come to on my own? Being the son of a god isn’t exactly a logical conclusion.”
“I suppose not,” I answered tiredly. “There are several things that it looks like we should work on. I really wish that we could get my mother’s help. She’s very good in situations like this.”
“Then why don’t we?” he suggested. I tried to ignore the way his black shirt was clinging to his muscular chest. “Why can’t we?”
“I’ve already explained this,” I replied grumpily. “I can’t let her find us. She wants to take me to Hades to have the curse removed. I can’t let her do that. I just don’t trust him. My life is rather important to me. I don’t trust Hades with it.”
“So, let’s go to your mother, then,” he offered. “We can travel to… wherever it is that she lives. And the second she acts as though she’s going to try something, you can whisk us out of there with just a little wriggle of your nose.”
“I’m not on Bewitched,” I sighed. “And I’m not sure that I would be strong enough to get us out of there if my mother tried to prevent it. She’s very powerful.”
“And you love and trust her,” he pointed out gently. “I think that she would respect your wishes enough to comply with them. Really. I mean, clearly she loves you. She’s been searching for you. Can’t you trust her enough to try?”
He knew exactly which buttons to push and I cringed. It was true. My mother loved me more than anything in the world. And Brennan’s idea was almost a good one. If we appeared to her in her home in the Spiritlands, perhaps we could appeal to her to just help us and let us leave.
“Maybe,” I answered cautiously. “I wonder…would it be better to surprise her or gain her cooperation first?”
“And how would you go about doing that?” he answered curiously. “Don’t tell me that she has a cell phone.”
I rolled my eyes. “No. The goddess of witchcraft does not have a cell phone,” I answered wryly. “But she visits me in my dreams. If she comes to me tonight, I’ll bring it up.”
“Interesting,” he replied quietly. “You can visit other people’s dreams? Then you would find mine fascinating lately. You’ve been in all of them.”
My heart beat faster. “You wouldn’t continue with the same dreams once I was there,” I explained. “I would just fill up your mind and we would have a conversation, just as if I was there in person.”
“But you are here in person,” he murmured, crossing the room in four long strides to stand in front of me. “You’re right in front of me.”
“Yes,” I murmured, running my hands upward on his chest. Sliding my fingers along his neck, I leaned in to kiss him, but the startling desire to suck out his soul caused me to drop my hand and quickly step away.
“What is it?” he asked, his eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong? Why do you always do that?”
“There are more things that you don’t know,” I answered weakly. “Things about me. And I don’t know that I want to explain them right now.”
“Now is the very best time,” he answered firmly. “I think I have a right to know.”
He took a step toward me, but I gestured him back. He stilled in his tracks.
“Maybe,” I acknowledged. “But that doesn’t mean that I want to get into it right now.”
“Please?” he added, his handsome face uncertain. Somehow, that boyish quality did me in. Despite myself, I felt my heart soften. “Tell me about you,” he continued. “Everything.”
I sighed. He was right. If he was going to be close to me, he deserved to know.
“My full name is Empusa,” I began softly. “You already know who my parents are. I was born immortal. You know that I am cursed because my father traded my soul for his own freedom from the Underworld. What you don’t know, is what that curse entails.”
I glanced at his face. He was watching me intently, standing motionlessly just two feet away. I could reach out and touch him—I ached to do it- but I clenched my fists instead. I had to get through this.
“Go on,” he urged quietly. “Tell me.”
I nodded. “In order to stay immortal and young, I have to steal mortal souls. I have to breathe them in. In order to stay alive in between, I have to drink mortal blood.”
He froze, absolutely still, his eyes widened. “You’re a vampire?”
I shook my head quickly. “No. Of course not. The vampyre are legends, not real. They were create
d to make sense out of nightmarish events that mortal minds couldn’t process otherwise.”
“You mean, like your father drinking their blood?” Brennan raised an eyebrow. “I assume that your father was like this before he transferred the curse to you?”
I nodded miserably. “It’s possible that my father was the true source of vampire legend,” I conceded.
He moved to me, pulling me to him. He placed his hand on my chest. “Your heart beats,” he observed quietly. “So, you’re not a vampire.”
“I told you that,” I replied. He nodded.
“Your skin is warm,” he pointed out, as he slid his fingers along my arm.
I nodded silently, not trusting my voice. I hadn’t realized how nerve-wracking it would be to expose myself to Brennan. I trusted him and he could stomp on that trust if he wanted. I had never felt so vulnerable.
“Are you tempted to steal my soul every time that I’m near you?” he asked quietly.
Lifting a hand, he brushed it across my cheek. I wanted to melt into