Chapter Six
No, he wasn’t happy.
Erebus stared in shock at Sera, blindfolded and tied to the corner post of the bed. Firelight flickered over the smooth skin of her belly and the gentle features that made her look more like an angel than a warrior. But it wasn’t her sexy-as-hell body or even her looks that held him entranced right now. It was her words.
“Zeus destroyed your people?” he asked. “Who were your people?”
She pursed her lips, every muscle in her body tight. And for a heartbeat he was sure she wasn’t going to answer. Then she said, “Atlanteans. I’m from Atlantis.”
No fucking way...
“I thought you were a nymph.”
“I am,” she said with a frown. “Don’t you know anything about genealogy? Atlanteans are descended from water nymphs.”
Holy shit...
“My father was the first knight of the queen’s guard,” she went on when he didn’t respond, still clearly perturbed. “My mother was a handmaiden in the queen’s castle. When my father discovered that the queen of Atlantis was having an affair with Zeus, he warned her Zeus would tire of her eventually and that the affair would not end well. She ignored him. My father was worried about Zeus’s intentions regarding the queen, so to keep his loved ones safe, he smuggled me and my mother out of Atlantis and into the human realm. Half-breeds from the Russian Misos colony took us in. My father was duty bound to return to the queen’s guard and couldn’t stay with us, but it was only a few months later that we got word his fear had come true. In a fit of rage, Zeus destroyed Atlantis and all who dwelt there, including the queen and my father. Not long after that, Zeus’s Sirens showed up looking for us. They slaughtered my mother and many of the half-breeds who tried to protect her. The leader of the colony managed to hide me away during the attack, but I spent the rest of my childhood knowing I was the last of a race that had been nothing but collateral damage to the King of the Gods.”
Erebus’s heart rate slowly increased as he listened to Sera’s story, and though disbelief churned in his brain, he was already racing back over everything he’d ever heard about the utopian society of Atlantis. He knew Zeus’d had a hard-on for the Atlantean queen and her realm. He also knew that the queen had strung him along, giving him just enough to appease him—in this case, as Sera had pointed out, her body—but that she’d refused to give him what he really wanted, which was the entirety of her realm to command and corrupt.
“How did you remember all that?” he asked. “Every Siren recruit has her memory wiped before her training begins.”
Her shoulders stiffened. It was a very subtle reaction, but he caught it. And he didn’t have a clue what it meant.
“I don’t exactly know,” she said, a touch of her anger gone. “I just know that I overheard Athena and another Siren talking about Atlantis one day in the mess hall. Their discussion about the Atlantean queen triggered something in my memory. As soon as my training was finished that day, I rushed to the Hall of Sirens and researched everything I could about Atlantis. And the more I read, the faster the memories rushed back.”
Humans thought the utopian society of Atlantis was a myth. Those who believed it had actually been real thought it had been destroyed thousands of years ago. But Erebus knew the truth. Atlantis had been a thriving, advanced, self-contained realm hidden in plain sight in the human world, and it had continued to exist as recently as a hundred years ago. Atlantis had only fallen to destruction very near the time Hades lost Erebus in that bet that had plucked Erebus from the Underworld and dropped him on Olympus.
His hands grew damp against the back of the chair, and he pushed to his feet. “If what you say is true, it means you’re not a twenty-three-year-old nymph Zeus randomly chose for his Siren Order.”
“No. I’m not.” Her jaw tightened again. “I’m a hundred and fourteen years old. After about eighty years with the half-breeds and no repeat attack from Zeus’s Sirens, the leaders of the colony figured Zeus didn’t know about me. They decided it was safe for me to leave their walls. Even though I’d lived as one of them, I’d never felt as if I belonged there. And part of me wanted to leave. To live near the ocean, as my people had for thousands of years. I ventured out across Europe and finally settled on an island off the coast of Italy. I taught music to children. I built a life of my own surrounded by humans who had no idea who or what I really was. And I met a man who made me feel safe. But that safety was fleeting because Zeus found me there. He was screwing some human on that island and spotted me walking on the beach one day. His Sirens killed the human I’d been living with, destroyed my music studio, and wiped my memories. And then they took me to Olympus and told me I was a twenty-year-old nymph with no family who should be grateful she’d been chosen for the Siren Order. But there was no randomness to my being there. Zeus knew exactly what I was. He knew who I was. And instead of just killing me like he did my mother and the rest of our people, that sick fuck got off knowing he’d turned me into the very thing that had destroyed my entire world.”
Pressure built in Erebus’s chest. Pressure and warmth and an emotion he’d felt in the tunnels below this castle only days ago but hadn’t understood. A feeling he knew now wasn’t just sexual. It was rooted in a connection he never could have predicted that bound them together.
She tensed as he moved toward her, hearing or sensing him, he didn’t care which. And when he lifted his hand to her soft cheek and tipped her face up, she sucked in a surprised breath.
But it didn’t deter him. Heat flared in his belly. Heat and life. Without hesitating, without asking, he lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
She froze. Didn’t kiss him back. Didn’t even move. But he felt the jump in her pulse against his skin, and he heard the tiny moan she tried to stifle echo in his ears like fireworks.
He didn’t demand more. Didn’t coax her mouth open to deepen the kiss. Just let go of her jaw as he softly skimmed his lips against hers again and untied the blindfold from her the back of her head then tugged the ropes free at her back.
He half expected her to push away as soon as she was free, but she didn’t. She lifted her hands to his chest and broke their kiss, drawing back just far enough to peer up at him with confusion and heat in her cerulean eyes. Eyes that were the same color as the seas around her homeland.
And filled with so much damn heat his blood pounded straight into his groin.
“W-why are you kissing me?”
“Because I didn’t know.” He lifted his hand back to her face and caressed her silky cheek. “Because I now understand. We’re the same, you and I. The last of our people. I thought the reason I couldn’t get you out of my head was because you were just better at seduction than any of the other recruits I’d trained. But I know now that wasn’t the truth. The truth is that my soul recognized yours long ago, Sera. I was just too blind to see what was in front of me.”
The lines in her forehead deepened and were so damn adorable he couldn’t stop himself from pressing his lips against them and inhaling her sweet lemony scent.
“I’m older than Krónos,” he confessed, moving to her temple. “I’m a primordial deity, spawned from Chaos.”
Against his chest, she gasped. “Th-that makes you nearly five thousand years old.”
“Older.” Gods, he liked the sound of that gasp. Couldn’t wait to hear it when she was in the throes of ecstasy. “I existed for many years before Gaia and Uranus created the Titans.”
He shifted his fingers to the soft skin of her nape and gently massaged, part of him still unable to believe all that she’d told him, another part shocked he hadn’t recognized their connection sooner. “The primordial deities had no idea the Titans were power hungry, thus they had no defense against the Titans when they were stripped of their human forms. My father, my siblings, they all ceased to exist as I had known them. But me... Krónos kept me as I was because he wanted my darkness. He wanted to use it to control the other Titans. And he did for a very lon
g time. Until his own children overthrew him.”
She drew back once more and gazed up at him. Questions still swirled in her hypnotic eyes, but he also saw awe. An awe that electrified him.
“I don’t remember my life with my family,” he said. “Just like Athena does with the Sirens, Krónos stripped my memories so I would never question my servitude to him. Then he bound any powers I had that were stronger than his. Unlike you, though, I’ll never regain those memories. What I know of my past came from Hades. After Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon overthrew Krónos, Hades kept me for himself. I was duty bound to serve him in the Underworld. He’s the one who told me of my past. And he made certain to point out how lucky I was to still be alive. But he didn’t do so to educate me. He did it so I would never be inclined to release Krónos from his prison in Tartarus, and so that I would never fall victim to Krónos’s lies and deception.”
Her mouth fell open, but it was the empathy he saw swirling in her spellbinding eyes that cut right to the heart of him.
He dragged his fingers back to her face and gently traced the sleek line of her jaw, mesmerized by her all over again because he never thought he’d ever meet anyone in the long years of his life who knew what it was like to be alone. “What Zeus did to you was wrong. What he did to your people was wrong. I know what it’s like to lose everyone and to be the last of your line. If I had known about your past...” His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips. “If I had known, things would have been different. I never would have let you be hunted. After all you’ve been through, agápi, you deserve to be cherished and protected. Because you’re special. Precious. You are the epitome of rare and irreplaceable and unique, and I won’t ever let anyone hurt you again. I’ll do whatever I have to do to keep you safe. I vow this to you here and now.”
Shock rippled through her eyes, and then those eyes darkened to a warm deep blue just before she lifted to her toes and pressed her mouth to his.
He opened to her kiss. Slid his fingers into her hair and stroked his tongue against hers. Drew her scent and taste and essence deep into his soul. Into a place he hadn’t known existed until this moment. Into the very core of who he was and wanted to be.
And as her hands slid up and around his neck and she tipped her head to kiss him deeper, he promised himself that no matter what Zeus or any of the other ruling gods wanted, this time he wasn’t letting her go.
* * * *
She shouldn’t be kissing him. She knew she shouldn’t be kissing him. But Sera couldn’t make herself stop.
He tasted like darkness, like sin, like seduction and salvation. And though she knew there was a chance he could be lying to her, that he’d just made up that entire story to coax her into bed, something inside her believed him. Something in her heart went out to him. Something in her soul latched on to his and was unwilling to let go.
He wasn’t the emotionally closed-off minor god she’d convinced herself these last eighteen months he really was. He was the male she’d fallen for all those nights ago on Olympus. The one who’d been able to ignite passion in her with just one look. The one who’d been able to melt her with a single touch. The one whose words had echoed in her head for months and months after he’d left her bed.
Agápi...
She was wrong. She had heard him say that to her on Olympus. In the dead of night—on their last night—when she’d been drifting to sleep and he’d been wrapped around her like a warm blanket. She remembered it now. Remembered it like it was yesterday. Couldn’t believe she’d ever forgotten.
She kissed him harder. Pulled her body flush against his so there was no space left between them. And groaned at the thick, heavy pressure of his arousal growing larger against the bare skin of her belly.
“Sera...” He turned her away from the bedpost. Nipped at her bottom lip. Kissed her cheek, her jaw, and breathed hot over the sensitive skin behind her ear as he maneuvered her to the side of the bed. “Sweet, stubborn, sassy Seraphine.”
Emotions closed her throat. Made her desperate to touch him, everywhere. She grasped the T-shirt he wore, drew back from his lips, and wrenched the garment over his head. He did the same to her tank, then reached for her face and pulled her mouth back to his, all the while groaning as her bare breasts grazed his chest.
Her nipples hardened. Electricity arced between her breasts and into her sex. He wrapped an arm around her waist and lifted her up onto the mattress, then knelt over her and claimed her mouth. Claimed what was left of her resistance as well.
It was wrong. She knew it was wrong. She’d only told him a fraction of the truth and was sure if he discovered the rest he wouldn’t be frantic to take her and taste her and have her at all. But she couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to think about the consequences. Didn’t want to think about Zeus or Hades or what anyone else wanted. She only cared about this. About him. About holding on to the absolute pleasure only he’d ever been able to draw from her and giving it back to him tenfold while she could.
She arched up to meet him, licked into his mouth, and opened her legs so he could press that heavenly erection right where she wanted it most. A groan slid from her lips as he rocked against her core, but all she could hear in her ears was the word more.
Her hands slid down his chiseled abs and found the button of his jeans. She flicked it free, then slipped her fingers beneath his waistband to graze the carved vee of his hipbones. He groaned into her mouth, pulled his arm from around her waist, and closed his hand over her right breast. Pain and pleasure shot from the spot and arced straight between her legs, causing her to rock against his length and tremble with primal need.
“Oh, agápi.” He trailed a path of fire from her lips to her jaw, down her throat and across her collarbone. “You feel so good. So much better than I remember.”
Her heart fluttered, a reaction she warned herself she needed to contain. She could feel. She could enjoy. She could give and even take. But she was not going to fall in love with him again. She couldn’t and still survive.
Wrapping one leg around his hip, she rolled him to his back on the mattress. Surprise registered in his sinful eyes as she climbed over him and straddled his hips, lowering the heat of her pelvis against his already straining cock. A surprise that quickly morphed into eager anticipation.
Her palms landed against his chest. She pushed her weight back and ground herself against his groin. His eyes darkened, and between the layers of fabric between them, she felt the pulse of his need right where she wanted it most.
“Is this what you remember?” She trailed her fingers to his nipples and gently squeezed the dark tips.
“Oh yes.” He rocked up to meet her downward thrust. His hands shifted to her hips as she teased and rolled his nipple, and his fingers slid beneath the waistband of her thin cotton pajama bottoms. “Keep doing that, agápi.”
She had no intention of stopping.
Her skin was shades lighter than his, ivory where his was obsidian, and she loved the contrast. “What else do you remember?” she asked, moving to torment his other nipple, continuing to rock and grind and rub against his swollen erection.
“I remember your mouth, agápi. Devouring me.”
The husky sound of his voice, the rolling heat filling his eyes, it all coalesced inside her to make her absolutely ravenous. Before he could push her pajama bottoms down her ass, she lowered her mouth to his nipple and laved her tongue all around the pebbled tip.
He groaned, lifted his big hands to sift into her hair, and arched up against her. “More.”
She moved to his other nipple, licked and laved, then scraped her teeth over the sensitive tip. He hissed in a breath and flexed his hands, trying to pull her mouth back to his, but she easily slid from his grip and trailed her lips lower, across his carved abs, over his belly button, and down to lick the soft skin just above the open waistband of his jeans.
His stomach caved in. She shifted back, pushed his legs open with her knees, and climbed between them so she could grasp hi
s waistband and tug his jeans down his thick thighs.
His cock sprang up, hard and thick and proud. Her gaze shot right to it, and her mouth watered as she tugged his pants the rest of the way off, dropped them on the floor, then climbed back onto the mattress to take her first sinful taste.
Her tongue brushed the flared underside of the head, and he groaned deep in his throat, his heated eyes watching her every movement. “Oh, yes, agápi. Do that again.”
She licked all around the head, savoring the taste of him, then closed her lips around him and sucked.
This time, his groan was a mix of pleasure and pain, and when his fingers threaded into her hair and tightened, she took the hint. She drew him deep, wiggling the flat of her tongue along the underside until he breached the opening to her throat.
“Fuck, yes, Sera.” His big hands helped drag her head back so the tip of his cock almost slipped free of her lips. Then he flexed his hips and thrust deep all over again. “Suck, just like that.”
She remembered exactly what he liked and gave him precisely what he wanted. Used her tongue to drive him wild. And while he fucked her mouth with long, deep, penetrating strokes, she relaxed her throat and trailed one hand down to scrape her fingernails against his balls.
Pure pleasure tightened his features. Her breasts grew heavy as she watched him. Her sex throbbed, and the erotic sounds of pleasure he made as he used her mouth filled her ears, making her ache to bring him to a blistering climax so she could taste his release on her tongue. She sucked, licked, took him deep again and again and let him use her however he wanted. His fingertips tightened against her skull, and she felt his cock swell in her mouth. His thrusts grew faster, deeper. Relaxing her gag reflex, she gave herself over to his desire and let him breach her throat. And when he grunted and plunged in even harder, she swallowed all around the head, knowing it would send him right over the edge.
His whole body shook, and he grunted through his release. She didn’t let up, continuing to suck and lick and swallow until there was nothing left. When his hands finally released her and his massive body relaxed against the mattress, she slowly worked her way back up his length, flicked her tongue around the head one last time until he twitched, then released him.