Realizing what she was doing, she sat back, heat roaring over her face.
Fingers caressed her cheek. “Mmm, that blush is sweet, and so warm. What caused it?”
How could he see her blush in the dark? She almost asked, but then his touch disappeared, and it was all she could do to restrain a whimper at the loss. “Uh, I was just…nothing.” She shook her head. Something very strange was going on here, and she had to figure out what it was. “Will you stay for a while?”
Pause. “I can’t. I shouldn’t.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated.” His tone was full of regret.
“Does it have to be? I’d like you to stay. And I think…” She swallowed the rest of the sentence, not wanting to push too far.
“What do you think?”
Emboldened by the soft challenge of his words, she said, “I think you’d like to stay, too.”
“Do you, now?” Toward the foot of the bed, the mattress shifted. He blew out a long, weary-sounding breath.
Had he sat down? Victory surged through her. “Thank you,” she said in a small voice.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, his tone serious.
Still, Laney smiled and a sort of giddiness rushed through her, like she was on the verge of an amazing discovery. “Okay. Since you’re here, any chance you’ll answer some questions?”
“Depends.”
“Fair enough. So, hold on. I want to get comfortable for this.”
He chuckled. The sound of it was deep and rich and sent a delicious shiver over her skin.
Slowly, Laney resituated herself until she could recline against her headboard. Trying to get a pillow under her knee made her moan in discomfort. These stitches couldn’t come out soon enough.
“Here,” he said in a low voice. His hands brushed the side of her knee as he positioned the cushion for her. She sucked in a breath, the heat of his touch lingering on her skin. “How badly are you injured?”
“Oh, uh…” The last thing she wanted was to make him feel bad. “It’s nothing that won’t heal.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but are you in pain?” His tone was suddenly intense.
It occurred to her that she should be afraid that she’d awoken to find a strange man in her bedroom, but she hadn’t once felt that particular emotion. It had been the same way that morning… “A little. It’s not as bad as it was.”
“I’m sorry for having frightened you.”
Man, she wished she could see his face, feel the contours of his skin with her hands. “Thanks. Um, which leads me back to those questions.”
“Persistent thing, aren’t you?”
She tucked her hair behind her ears. “Is that bad?”
“No. Go ahead.”
His light shifted, spread lengthwise across the bottom of her bed. “Did you just lay down?”
“Do you mind?” Now the weariness was in his voice.
Actually, she really liked the thought of it. She wished she could see the full picture of what he looked like sprawled across her bed. Maybe she should turn on the light—seeing a little of him was better than none at all. But she was half afraid of scaring him off. Instead, the image of that muscular shoulder popped into her mind’s eye. She imagined him sprawled across her bed shirtless… “No, make yourself comfortable. Here.” She tossed a pillow toward him.
“You don’t need it?”
“Nah. I have about eighty-two pillows. I’m kind of pillow crazy.” She cringed. The thought of seeing him half naked apparently gave her a case of verbal diarrhea. Awesome.
He chuckled. “I’ll remember that. So, are pillows what you wanted to talk about?”
She grimaced. “No. No, they aren’t. I want to talk about you.”
“Hmm,” he said softly, just loud enough that she heard the low sound.
“Are you okay?”
Pause. “Yes.”
She traced the edge of the small bandage wrapped around her palm and decided to just go for it. “Did you…fall through my barn roof?”
Longer pause. “Do you want the truth or the rational answer?”
There was a difference? Suddenly, the air in the room felt alive with some unnamed energy. The hair on her arms stood on end. “Truth.”
“Then, yes.”
I knew it! There was never a tree! Her scalp prickled. Laney swallowed, hard. “Okay. Okay. Um…did you fall through my roof as a man?”
His light, his body, shifted closer. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember everything that happened that night.”
A wondrous excitement skittered down her spine. “Because of the fight?”
“Yes.”
“A fight that took place…in the…” Man, she was going to sound so stupid. “In the sky?” She grimaced and awaited his laughter. It never came.
“Do you really want these answers, Laney?”
She shuddered out a long breath. She’d gone all the way down Weird Street and made a hard left onto Crazytrain Avenue. Except, something told her, as crazy as it seemed, it was also real. And if, just if, what he was telling her was real, it was also the most amazing thing she’d ever encountered. “Kant said, ‘Dare to know.’ So, yes, I want the answers.”
“You’re throwing Prussian philosophers at me now?”
She bit down on a grin, but he probably couldn’t see her reaction anyway. “Yeah, why not? I’ve always liked that motto. And…”
“What?”
She lived alone, worked from home, and didn’t have that many occasions to leave the farm, especially since she couldn’t drive anymore. Once, she’d had dreams of the world, went to college, expected to marry. Now, her life was the definition of sheltered. Chrys was the most interesting thing that had happened to her in recent memory. Maybe ever. Not that he needed to know all that.
Plus, she recalled the sadness she’d felt as she’d knelt next to the winged horse, worried that he was lost and alone and injured… Something about him reminded her of those feelings, even now.
“Well, to be honest, I want to know you.”
His golden light seemed to flare. “Rock on, then,” he said in a voice that sounded almost raspy. “And, the answer is yes.”
“Yes, as in, you fell through my barn roof after having a fight in the sky?”
“That about sums it up.”
Adrenaline flooded through her. “This is…this is…I don’t even know.”
“Maybe that’s enough questions for now.”
“Just a few more. Please? You’re the only one I can talk to about this without risking a one-way all-expenses-paid trip to the psych ward.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want that.” Did he wear a smile to go along with the amusement in his voice?
She forced herself to focus before he ran out of patience altogether. “Okay. Who were you fighting?”
“Hmm. My brother. But that’s all I’m saying about that.”
Laney yawned, hoping she hadn’t offended him. “All right. So, uh, this next question’s a doozy.”
“Hit me.” He shifted again, and she almost went for the light, just so she could see exactly how he was laying. But for this next question, she wanted the cover of darkness.
Here goes nothing. “Are you a Pegasus?”
When she was just about sure he wouldn’t answer, he said, “As in Pegasus, the horse-god son of Poseidon and Medusa?”
Holy crap, he’s taking me seriously? At least, I think he is… “Um, honestly, I don’t know that much about mythology. I just know that the winged horse was named Pegasus.”
“Well, in mythology, not all of the winged horses were Pegasus.”
Her scalp prickled and the hair on her arms rose. “Holy crap, Chrys, what are you saying?” she whispered. When he didn’t answer right away, she pushed on. “Okay, I’ll rephrase the question. Are you a… No. Can you also be a winged horse?”
…
Chrysander lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. He should really go. Chase Eurus whi
le the trail was hot. Actually, he should never have returned in the first place. But the sound of her distress had reeled him back into her room. And then he was talking to her, touching her, making himself comfortable on her bed, soaking up her warmth and her smile and her laughter.
It all felt…so damn good.
Good like Chrys hadn’t felt in who knew how long.
Still, Eurus had to be his main focus right now. And he was getting away. Chrys groaned and tugged his hands through the wavy length of his hair.
“You don’t have to answer,” Laney said.
Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts. Was she actually willing to accept the idea of him as a man who could also be a horse? Over the millennia, Chrysander had found humans eager to rationalize away anything that didn’t fit their version of reality. Why would she be any different? He blew out a long breath. “It’s not your questions that bother me.” Hell, he wanted to answer them. Which meant he should really summon Livos and go.
Her movement on the bed drew his gaze. She pulled the pillow from beneath her knees, slung it to the side, and eased herself into a laying position on her stomach. “Then what does?”
Chrys heard her question but his brain scrambled. The pajama shorts she wore were tiny and made her bottom look so freaking…delectable. He could almost see himself getting up, tugging her hips to the edge of the bed, and sinking deep, deep inside.
Suddenly, the memories of his dreams blurred with reality, and he remembered the incredible scorching heat of her center. He knew it’d only been a dream. He knew it. But the hardness and the tightness of his body made it clear a part of him thought the memory real.
Or at least willing to find out how reality compared to the dream.
Almighty Zeus.
But then his gaze dragged downward, to the length of bandages covering the back of her calf.
She was hurt, and it was his fault.
“Can I have my feather back?” she whispered.
“Your feather?”
She smiled, and it was so genuine. “My feather.”
Her feather? The idea that she claimed a part of him as hers skittered over his skin, arousing and frightening. The combination of reactions fascinated him. “You have a very nice smile, Laney.”
And, bingo. That lovely blush colored the apple of her cheek again. He could feel the heat of it from where he lay, which suddenly felt too far away.
“How do you know I’m smiling?”
“My eyesight is strong.”
“Hmm.” The skepticism in that soft murmuring made him grin. He couldn’t believe how well she was handling what he’d so far revealed. Was it her open-mindedness that most intrigued him? Her acceptance of his truths? Maybe it was that she’d helped him at his weakest moment?
Or, was it that hers was the first skin-on-skin touch he’d enjoyed in…he couldn’t even say how long?
Chrys dug into his pocket and retrieved the object in question. Slowly, he rolled toward her, coming to settle in the middle of the bed. Her eyes went wide and he wondered how she saw him so well. She’d never once suggested the lights, yet she seemed to track his movements like she could see him plainly. That he could see her wasn’t surprising; his eyesight was as strong in the dark as in the day.
“Maybe I’ll make you a trade,” he said, spinning the feather by the spine.
“For what?”
“Feather for your hand,” he said, the idea unleashing an urgent need in his gut. “Your injured hand.”
“Why?”
“Dare to know, right?”
Slowly, she extended her arm across the space between them.
Strictly speaking, what he was about to do violated the rules about the use of divine magic in the human realm. He’d seen firsthand the punishment his father meted out for such an infraction. Then again, Chrys hadn’t been able to find his father in a few months. And, given Chrys knew about the firestone, his father needed to be equally worried about what Chrys might do. Any way you sliced it, the god had far bigger things to worry about right now than one of his sons healing a human. He touched the bandage and willed it away.
Laney gasped and withdrew. “What did you…how did you…?”
“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. In fact, I just want to make it better.”
When her hand crossed the mattress toward him a second time, she was trembling.
Chrys cradled the back of her hand in his palm. She was soft and small and warm. His skin tingled with the sensation. Instead of wishing to rush through so he could stop touching her, he found he wanted to touch more of her. “Just hold still, Laney.” He dragged his forefinger along the crisscrossed string that held her wound closed. With a thought, it disappeared. Laney sucked in a breath as he lowered his head and pressed his lips to the cut. There was that scent again, of warm oranges. Did all of her smell—taste—this way?
What he wouldn’t do to find out.
Calling on the heat at the center of his being, Chrys inhaled and blew gently on the cuts. After so many days in the Hall of the South Wind, Chrys’s body was strong with healing energy, something his basic nature gave him since marshaling the lush life of the summer season was part of his job. He blew his warm, healing breath until her wound closed and his cock was rock hard between his belly and the soft bedcovers. It took everything he had not to follow the healing by worshipping her skin with his lips. And tongue.
“What did you do?” she said in a low voice, like she was trying not to disturb.
“It was my fault. I just wanted to fix it.” His voice sounded raspy with need, even to himself. But it was a fucking phenomenal feeling to fix something rather than to destroy. For once.
She flexed her fingers, carefully at first, then more vigorously when she apparently realized her hand was, in fact, healed. The wonder that lit her expression and eyes was the most amazing reward. “You just healed me. I don’t…I can’t even…”
“Shh,” Chrys whispered. He reached across the narrow gap of bed separating them and brushed her hair off her face. Black silk. He could imagine wrapping it around his fist as he…
She grasped his hand. Chrys sucked in a breath at the unexpected contact. No one ever touched him like this. His regular lovers knew not to. And he prevented his random fucks from doing so, in one creative way or another. She pushed herself up a little and pulled his hand toward her mouth. Her lips pressed and lingered against the heel of his palm, nearly mimicking what he’d just done to her. “Thank you,” she whispered.
The soft thrum of her pulse played against his fingers where she held him still. Chrys’s own pulse thundered in return. Without a thought, he was in motion, needing to possess, claim, take control.
He closed the gap between them, cupped her face in his hand, and kissed her. Aw, gods, her lips were soft and warm and eager. Sugared oranges on a warm summer day. Taking her wrist in his grip, he pressed her arm to her chest, gently trapping her as he leaned in further. She moaned into the kiss and opened her mouth, just a little. Unable to resist, Chrys’s tongue surged forward and found her tongue pressing and twirling and exploring right back. Almighty Zeus, she was so enthusiastic, accepting, warm.
He had to protect her. He had to keep her safe.
She twisted her shoulder to lay flatter on her upper back. Her bottom arm, now freed, slipped around his back. Grabbed tight.
Chrys gasped and reared back, his heart in his throat. Her hand fell away. “I’m sorry,” he managed.
She shook her head. “I’m not.” She looked away and her cheeks went hot.
He sat back on his knees. He hated knowing his fucking frustrating reaction had probably made her feel embarrassed and rejected. It wasn’t his intention. Not at all. Part of his body was screaming for him to dive back into her heat. But a bigger part told him to run far, far away. And he had the perfect reason to go—after Eurus. “You should go back to sleep, Laney,” he managed, cursing the raspy strain audible to his own ears. He ushered a soft, lulling breeze through the
room, the kind that conjured up lazy summer afternoons in a hammock, and mentally summoned Livos.
“But I don’t want to fall asleep.” She yawned.
“You’re healing. You need your sleep.”
“But you’ll disappear again,” she said, her voice suddenly groggy.
“I’ll be here.” In one way or another. “Don’t worry about a thing.”
Livos’s energy radiated from beyond the bedroom window.
The moment Laney’s breathing settled into the slow rhythm of sleep, Chrys materialized outside. “Stay here and watch over the woman. I’m going after Eurus. Anything threatens her, anything at all, and you summon me immediately.”
Chapter Eight
Laney gasped awake. Morning light brightened her room. “Chrys?” Finn whined and his tail thumped a good morning against the carpet. “Chrys, are you still here?”
Nothing.
“You said you’d stay,” she said. “And I’m talking to an empty room. Awesome.”
Disappointment warred with disbelief in her gut. She’d dreamed him. Again. Not surprising since she’d been dreaming of him and the winged horse so much. And damn could dream-Chrys kiss… Of course, last night hadn’t been real—
She gasped and looked down at her hand. No bandage. No cut!
Tilting her palm toward the light from the window, she still couldn’t really make out the scar, but when she ran her finger across her skin, she could feel it. He’d healed her. He’d freaking healed her. A deep sense of awe swamped her until she felt nearly dizzy with all the questions flooding her mind. She simply couldn’t wrap her brain around what had happened, how it had happened, and what Chrys…was.
Because he clearly wasn’t…what? Like her. She’d put it that way, for now.
Which also meant…the kiss was real. God, it had been so intense, the surprise of it, the way he’d held her, his incredible taste. A tingle of pleasure ran through her body and she trailed her fingers over her lips. She could’ve kissed him all night long and never tired of it. And, man, no matter how crazy it was, a part of her wouldn’t have been against even more.
But then the memory of his rejection chased the feeling away. Her stomach sank. Why had he ended the kiss so abruptly?