South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi)

  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?

  Maybe he felt like he’d taken advantage? After all, he’d been the one to initiate the kiss, so he must’ve felt attracted to her, right?

  Laney stared at the shifting patterns of light and shadow on the ceiling and sighed. It had been so damn long since she’d last been with a man. Four years. That wasn’t a dry spell—that was the freaking Sahara Desert.

  It was a problem she didn’t know how to fix. She couldn’t go anywhere to meet anyone without Seth’s assistance, and Seth didn’t do much to help her attract members of the opposite sex. In fact, just the opposite. Half the time, people assumed they were a couple. But, as much as she loved him, she didn’t feel that way about Seth. Never had.

  Not to mention, she was sorta hardwired to expect guys to decide she was too much to deal with. That had certainly been the case with Ryan, her last lover and boyfriend of two years, who had dumped her because he couldn’t handle her deteriorating condition. They’d met in college while she’d still possessed a large percentage of her central vision and before she’d gone totally blind in her left eye. By the end of their relationship, she’d been down to ten percent of her central vision in her left and about forty in her right. He’d always been so supportive, she never realized that he was actually freaking out. He’d seen the writing on the wall, and he hadn’t liked it.

  One thought about the night he’d said he wanted to talk about their future and that old humiliation swamped her. In her secret heart, she’d been expecting a proposal. Instead, he broke up with her. It’s not you, it’s me.

  At least his rejection had made moving back in with her grandfather an easy decision. And thank God she had or she never would’ve been here to share the last year of his life. She wouldn’t have traded that for anything.

  But Ryan’s reaction was a damn good reason to put the brakes on her runaway libido where Chrys was concerned. If her RP turned off a far-from-perfect man, she couldn’t see why it would be any different with…whatever Chrys was.

  Ugh.

  Annoyed with herself, Laney eased her legs off the bed. “Some guard dog you are,” she muttered to Finn, who pushed himself up with a grunt and laid his head on her knee. She gave him what he wanted and scratched his ears for a while. “Okay, out of the way, you.” She rose and reached for her cell phone on the nightstand, but what caught her attention was a spot of yellow light.

  The feather. He’d returned it to her after all. Warm pressure filled her chest. This was further proof that Chrys existed. That he’d been here. That she wasn’t losing her mind.

  Smiling, she clutched it to her chest. As she held it, she inhaled the faintest hint of that incredible scent she remembered from the previous night. The feather tickled as she brought it against her nose. God, that smell is amazing. A thought came to mind and she couldn’t resist. She moved to the bottom of the bed, about where she thought Chrys had been laying, and lifted the covers to her face.

  The blanket was absolutely permeated with the scent of the sun and the summertime air and the richness of growing, fragrant things. It was the scent that had surrounded her as they kissed. She would’ve bottled it if she could, she found it so appealing. And, was it just her imagination, or was this part of the blanket warmer? She rubbed it against her face and a shiver ran through her, like when he’d stroked her cheek.

  I am never again washing that blanket. The thought made her chuckle. Who needs the blanket if you have the man? her mind helpfully added.

  Yeah, well, she’d asked him to stay, hadn’t she?

  Where the hell was he, anyway?

  In the bathroom, Laney cleaned up and changed her bandages. She’d almost walked away from that job and left her hand uncovered, but at the last minute it occurred to her that she had absolutely no way to explain to Seth, should he notice, how her hand had healed so completely so fast. And he’d notice, all right. So, with a twinge of guilt over the lie, she wrapped clean gauze around her palm.

  The one Chrys had apparently healed by blowing his warm, ticklish breath against her skin until she’d been hot and breathless. She couldn’t even let herself think about the idea of him using the same treatment on her leg without her pulse spiking. God, if kissing him got her this worked up, she couldn’t imagine what she’d feel if anything more ever happened.

  As if.

  The part of her brain shouting that she was freaking crazy, that all of this was totally nuts… Well, she boxed that up nice and tight. If being almost blind taught her anything, it was that sometimes things were more than what they seemed at first glance. A whole lot more.

  “Where are you?” she asked her kitchen after she finished breakfast. Great, now she was talking to herself. But she couldn’t help it. All morning she kept expecting Chrys around every corner.

  She settled in at her desk and opened her latest project—her bimonthly column for an international magazine for the blind. Each column featured a person successful in their job, who also happened to be vision impaired. Her document opened across a pair of computer monitors with huge screen magnifiers that made it possible to make out what she typed. When her vision ultimately deteriorated, she’d have to invest in some good voice recognition and screen reader software. This column was about a really interesting massage therapist…except she just couldn’t concentrate on him.

  Where was Chrys?

  Why had he said he’d stay if he had no intention of doing so?

  Was he coming back?

  One thing was certain, she’d better pull herself together before she saw Seth or he’d know right away something was up. And no way could she tell him any of this. Not if she wanted him to continue to support her independence. He’d never believe her. And why should he? Everything about the past week had been way, way outside the bounds of normal.

  Focus, Laney. Right. Another couple hundred words and she’d have this thing wrapped up. She replayed part of his interview to get the quote she wanted. She’d no more started to type when a knock sounded at her front door.

  Finn raised hi
s head, sniffed, and growled.

  Laney pushed out of her chair. “Now you’re going to guard the place? When someone knocks at the door instead of just appearing in my room in the middle of the night?” She hobbled down the hallway and through the kitchen, gritting her teeth the entire way. Strictly speaking, she’d been walking more than she was supposed to, and she was feeling the sting of it.

  The knock sounded again.

  Who the heck could it be, anyway? She rarely had visitors. And anyone who came for horse or farm-related business either met up with Seth directly or made an appointment with her.

  She pulled open the front door and scanned to see who was there.

  On the other side of the screen door stood an unusually tall woman. Surrounded by a deep red light.

  Laney’s heart tripped into a sprint and her scalp prickled.

  She didn’t know what that red glow meant, but instinct told her it was nothing good.

  “Can I help you?” Laney managed, her narrow vision focused as much as she could on the woman’s drawn face. Finn pushed his body against her leg, whining and growling low in his throat.

  “I hope you can,” the woman replied in an accent Laney couldn’t identify. “I am looking for Notos.”

  “Who?”

  Finn put himself in front of her, his agitation escalating by the moment. The woman tilted her head to the side, as if she was assessing Laney with that severe expression and stony gaze. She wore some kind of a scarf over what seemed to be unusually full hair.

  “Notos. He was here. The other one, too,” she scowled.

  Laney shook her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” Finn backed into her, like he was trying to push her away from the door. She patted his rump. “Stop it, Finn.”

  “Ah. Yes, right.” The woman narrowed her gaze. “How about the name Chrysander? Is that one more familiar?”