“I didn’t mean it,” she said in a rush of words, an ache settling in her neck from looking up at him.
He smiled, and despite the objective beauty of his mouth, her skin broke out in frightened gooseflesh. “Well, don’t worry. I didn’t mind. I was rather impressed, actually. Death by crab dip. I’ll have to remember that one.”
His low chuckle was like ice water down her spine. Then his words hit home, and she gasped. “Death?” No, nonono. She shook her head.
Eurus tilted his to the other side, still holding her in place with his hidden gaze. He reached out and fingered a length of her hair. “I heard how you praised the winds of fall. I think I misjudged you.”
“What? No. I didn’t…” She shivered as a cold breeze snaked around her. At the edge of the parking lot, the new spring growth on the trees stood perfectly still.
He braced his hands against the car on either side of her. “Yes, definitely misjudged you.” His nose grazed her temple and she reared back as much as she could, which wasn’t nearly enough. He leaned in closer. “Mmm, there is something so interesting about your scent. I think I’m going to need a taste of you, Miss Ella.”
Ella’s throat went dry, which was good because the sudden shock of it cut off the rolling nausea. The momentary relief unleashed a new sensation—anger. She shoved against him. When her hands made little progress, she turned and crashed a shoulder into his rib cage, sending him back a good step.
But it didn’t have the desired effect.
He grabbed at her hands, lashed them to his chest in one gloved hand. His touch set her skin to crawling. “Yes. Hit me. Touch me. No one ever touches me. They’re too afraid. But not you, right? Show me what you’ve got.”
The taunting fueled her anger into rage, white-hot and explosive. She fisted her hands in his coat and wrenched her knee up between them, hoping, praying.
He shifted his thigh and turned his hips, chuckling darkly as he sandwiched her body against the car’s frame. “Really, love,” he sneered in an all-too-knowing voice. “Like I wasn’t totally expecting that. Points for playing dirty, though.”
Ella shuddered, from his tone, from their proximity, from the repulsive ridge of flesh grounding into her stomach. Jesus. He was getting off on this. The reality of her situation pressed in on her, literally. He had a good eight inches and eighty pounds on her, not to mention the powers of his evil godhood. She had no defense here, no recourse.
Still pressed against her, he nuzzled her cheek. “There it is. Nothing like human fear in the evening.”
Ella huffed out a breath, her teeth chattering from the adrenaline rush. She hated the reaction, but couldn’t control it. “I’m not afraid of you, Eurus,” she spat.
“Is that so? Then what’s responsible for these delicious pheromones, Ella? I might come just from smelling your terror and feeling your body shake.” He thrust his hips against her.
She clenched her teeth together to control the gag squeezing her throat. “You’re just a big fucking bully. You might hurt me, but I expect that. It’s predictable. I’m scared for Zephyros. You said he was dead. I don’t believe you, but he is hurt, and that scares me.”
From head to foot, a wave of ice cold shot right through her body. Her muscles went tight at the frigid shock of it.
Eurus sighed. “Zephyros. What a fucking bore. You’re right, he’s not dead. But he’s not returning for you. Think he’d really let me do this if he was coming back? If he wanted you?” A wet, open-mouthed kiss fell against her ear. “He doesn’t want you. Just like your husband didn’t want you. Just like your brother wanted to get away from you. And your parents.” He outlined her ear with his tongue, his heavy breath sounding right against her face. “Besides, Zephyros doesn’t have the luxury of accepting your little defect. He requires an heir, and you can’t really give that to him, can you?”
Ella sucked in a gasp and wrenched her head to the side. Tears pooled in her eyes and the bottom dropped out of her stomach as Eurus gave voice to her worst fear.
He stroked her hair, fisted at the back of it. “Nobody wants you, Ella. Except me. And you know what I want most? Do you? I want you to fear me.” He bit her ear. Hard enough to make her want to cry out, but she resisted and bit her tongue. Blood spilled into her throat, a good distraction from his mouth all over her neck.
His words lit off a firestorm in her brain. Loneliness. Grief. Abandonment. Humiliation. Guilt. Shame. It was like he reached inside her head and plucked every hurtful moment from her memories. He stroked them, worried at them, twisted them around until she was drowning in them. Until she didn’t know which way was up or down.
“Oh, don’t believe me, Ella? I feel you resisting the truth of my words. What I say might not be pretty, but it’ll always be true. How ’bout a test? Hmm? Would that help?”
Ella didn’t respond, couldn’t. She was literally trapped in the mental box he’d painted her into with his words, with his touch. Some part of her was conscious that her turmoil was likely the result of the chaos Zeph had said Eurus enjoyed creating. But she could only hold onto that piece of information for mere seconds before she was flung once more into the dark maelstrom of her worst fears.
“Just a little insurance,” he rasped, his nose brushing hers. “Then, I’m going to call our boy, and you’re going to see how he reacts. Moan for him, Ella. He comes.”
Outside the mindfuck he’d trapped her in, agony shot through Ella’s hand as it crumpled inside his crushing grip. Eurus’s mouth devoured hers, smothering her screams, his hand pulling the back of her hair. Ella could neither resist nor participate. Her mind had closed in on itself. Her body had numbed out against the pain. Protective measures that left her an unwitting actor in Eurus’s little show, of which she was suddenly aware because, there, in the middle of her box of fears, she saw Zeph standing on the edge of the parking lot.
Watching them kiss.
Hearing her moan.
Seeing her give herself so freely to the brother he hated.
With a roar and a crash of what sounded like thunder, Zeph disappeared.
And so did Eurus.
The car held her upright for a long moment, enough to hear evil laughter ring through her skull. Her knees buckled like soft butter on a hot day, and she went down, hard, onto the gritty pavement. And blessed nothingness overcame her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Owen Winters barreled off Interstate 50 onto Rowe Boulevard, and it was the first time the speedometer had dropped below 90 miles an hour. Two hours before, the closest thing he had to a father appeared on his doorstep, agitated and concerned. Boreas, the Supreme God of the North Wind and Winter, rarely asked for help. So when he did, Owen gave it, freely.
And thus he found himself driving into Annapolis, Maryland, looking for…he wasn’t sure what.
Boreas feared that something bad was brewing between Owen’s uncles Zephyros and Eurus, and it seemed to center on a human woman in whom Zeph had taken an interest. That news was shocking enough, but to learn that this person was important enough to tip the simmering feud between the two brothers into outright fighting was downright baffling, not to mention the harbinger of even worse things to come.
As he hit a traffic circle surrounding an old church, the skies opened up. Rain slashed down and pounded on his new Porsche Panamera. Thunder and lightning exploded in the sky overhead. Damn it all to Hades, this was no natural storm. In it suddenness and ferocity, it had Zephyros written all over it.
Regret squeezed Owen’s stomach. Earlier, he’d debated flashing here in his elemental form. It would’ve been a hell of a lot faster. But as a demigod now, that mode of movement exhausted his power in a way that would’ve been dangerous if some sort of preternatural battle was going down here.
He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all. He had more to lose than ever before in his eons-long existence. Megan, Teddy, the baby on the way. But he had another family, an older one, who apparently needed him now. He couldn’t very
well turn his back on them. And, at over seven feet tall, with swirling fur robes, and a long-ingrained habit of floating above the ground, it wasn’t like Boreas could pop into the little town to assess the situation on his own.
At the next light, Owen checked the GPS and headed down the hill. Midway, something niggled at his consciousness, pricked to get his attention. He frowned and surveyed the dark, quiet street through the rain-streaked windows. At the stop sign, he debated. Right over the drawbridge or left into town? His senses flared, demanded he turn left.
Owen swung the car toward Annapolis’s downtown. Extending his mind, he summoned that sensation, almost a signal—though weak—and followed the oddly powerful scent of it. Suddenly, it spiked. He hit the brakes hard as he passed a parking lot on his right. Throwing the car into reverse, Owen tore backwards into the lot, the heightened alert of his body reflected back at him through the glow of his eyes in the rearview mirror.
He turned up the first aisle, and the car’s headlights swept over a hand lying limp on the ground. Unease swept through him, followed by certainty. This was what had unsettled Boreas. This was why he was here.
Owen drove past the body and parked the car. Ignition off, he blinked into his elemental wind form and soared up over the parking lot, sensing, surveying. That odd, powerful energy was concentrated here, though he couldn’t identify the source. Beyond that, neither human nor god hid here. The heartbeat radiating from the prone body was the only life force besides his own in the immediate vicinity. Before the crumpled form of the injured human, Owen resumed his physicality. His sojourn into the wind had been short, so it hadn’t cost him—much—though just enough to convince him he’d made the right decision in driving.
Crouched beside her, Owen stroked the rain-soaked tendrils of hair off the woman’s face. Out cold. In the dark, with the storm raging around him, he couldn’t make out her injuries, but her shallow breaths and elevated heart rate told him enough.
If this was the woman Zephyros cared for, why the hell would he leave her here? Why wouldn’t he have come for her?
With a gentle hand under her shoulders and knees, Owen lifted the woman from the ground. Shoulders bent over her, trying to shield her from the cold needles of rain, he jogged across the lot to the Porsche. Megan’s Jeep might’ve been a better idea, after all, but without question the Porsche got him here faster.
Door unlocked, he tucked the woman into the passenger seat. Her head lolled to the side. Owen bit out a curse. What looked like teeth marks marred the soft cartilage of her ear, and an angry bruise—good gods, was that a hickey?—formed a big circle on her neck. He imagined this was Megan. Lost. Alone. Abandoned and injured in the middle of a night-darkened parking lot during a raging thunderstorm.
His mind rejected the image out of hand, and an unbidden, fear-laced rage spiked through his chest. Around him, the rain turned to sleet and snicked against the car. Where the hell was Zephyros?
Owen closed the door, careful that she was clear of it, and sent the summons. Once. Twice. He growled his frustration and called out, “Zephyros!”
Nothing. No sensation of acknowledgement. No ripple of approaching energy.
Soaked through, Owen ducked into the car and debated. Something told him not to take her to a hospital, but it was a ninety-minute ride back to his house, assuming he didn’t hit traffic or an accident.
His gaze cut to the woman. Maybe she had some sort of identification, a driver’s license, that would tell him where to go. Cursing Zeph, Owen reached across the center console and searched a coat pocket. Then another. He unzipped the coat and victory flared through him when his hand brushed something hard and rectangular lodged in an interior pocket. The small neoprene wallet contained cash, a credit card, and a driver’s license. Perfect.
“I’ll take care of you, Marcella,” he said to the unconscious woman. At least he knew her name now. “Don’t worry.”
He typed the address into the GPS and took solace in the fact his destination was less than two miles away. Short minutes later, he pulled curbside in front of a small yellow house on a quiet, narrow street.
Owen lifted her from the car, trying to ignore the puddles they’d both left all over his pristine interior—Zephyros was so getting the car detailed for him—and dashed up the driveway to the porch.
No key. Man if he hadn’t had this problem before. He refused to let his brain linger on the unhelpful memory and scanned for hiding places. He found the key on his second attempt, resting on the molding above a window.
Getting the key in the lock was a bit of a juggling act, but soon they were in the embracing warmth of the house. Owen marshaled the wind to close the door behind them. And damn if Zeph’s energy and scent wasn’t all over the interior of the place.
He shook his head, beyond mystified and getting more pissed at his uncle by the minute.
There wasn’t much to the main floor, so he took the stairs in search of a place to let Marcella rest.
The first room he passed was a large office, the second a bathroom. He found the bedroom at the back of the hall.
Good gods, not only was Zeph’s presence palpable, it was crystal fucking clear he’d been with the woman. The scent of sex and divine energy clung to the sheets he settled her weight upon.
Lighting the lamp on the nightstand allowed Owen to get his first clear view of the woman. Very pretty. Almost wholesome. He frowned and peered closer. Her left hand was purple, swollen, and misshapen. A crush injury, if he wasn’t mistaken.
What the hell?
Careful of her hand, Owen tugged layers of covers over her body. Her clothes were saturating the bedding beneath her, but no way he would even think about changing her. He pulled the folded throw off the footboard and added it on top.
Ducking out of the room, he was already dialing.
Boreas picked up on the first ring. “What did you find?” came the gruff, serious voice.
“A woman named Marcella. Injured and unconscious in the middle of a parking lot in town. I found her address on her license. We’re at her place now.”
“Marcella? Zephyros called her Ella. Nickname, I suppose.”
“Probably. Would make sense. How’s Megan?” Hand tugging the wet hair off his face, he paced the living room.
“She is fine, Owen, worry not.”
“Can’t be helped,” he said firmly, which was why the only thing he’d asked Boreas in return for performing this favor was that he stay with Megan until Owen got back. He didn’t fully understand the situation he’d walked into, but he didn’t like it. And Boreas’s presence with his family was the only thing that made his separation from Megan remotely tolerable. “Things don’t add up here, Boreas.”
“How do you mean?”
“Zephyros’s scent is all over the woman’s house. He’s been with her. Recently. And”—he shook his head—“repeatedly, I’d guess. Good gods, I can’t begin to imagine the scenario in which he’d leave her hurt and unprotected in a dark parking lot.”
“Damn it. I better summon Chrys. Given what Zephyros said when I last saw him, he would not have done that. This has Eurus written all over it. Something has happened to Zeph.”
“Well, the sky’s damn near falling over here, so he’s around somewhere.” He lifted a curtain and glanced out at the street. Save for the pounding rain and streams running along the curbs, it was as quiet and still as when they’d arrived. “The woman’s hand is crushed and she never even stirred as I moved her, but my gut’s saying to keep her here, not to take her to the hospital. There’s something about her, Boreas. There’s an energy around her. Maybe it’s Zeph’s. I don’t know.” Owen fingered the iron amulet resting against his chest, an ancient piece that had belonged to his birth father millennia ago. “Damn mess.”
“Go with your gut. And stay on the alert. I’ll send Chrys your way as soon as I can find him.”
“Okay. Is Megan still awake?”
“No. Fell asleep about a half hour ago.”
/> “Hmm. Did she eat dinner?” he said, regretting not being there to take care of her.
Boreas chuckled. “Yes, Owen.”
“What? I need to know she’s okay.”
“I understand, son. And she is. They all are. You have my word.”
He sighed. “I know. Thanks. I’ll keep you posted.” Owen exchanged good-byes with Boreas and slipped the cell into his pocket.
At a loss for what to do, Owen returned to Marcella’s room. If it was his woman, he’d hope his brethren wouldn’t let her out of their sight. So he’d do the same for Zephyros and give him the benefit of the doubt. An oversized armchair drew him to a dark corner of her room, and he sank down into the embracing cushions.
He waited and kept watch as darkest night eased in to early morning gray.
…
Brilliant pain roared through Zephyros’s consciousness and poured out of him in the form of driving rain and buffeting winds. But the intensity was unsustainable. Exhaustion swamped the shocking agony and sucker-punching betrayal until he felt gutted, hollow, hardly there at all.
So damn hungry for affection and connection, he’d ignored every fucking warning sign. The odd influence she held over him. The repeated associations with the East. The too goddamned many ways she seemed absolutely perfect. Made for him. As if.
And he’d fallen so hard and so fast, he’d never suspected, when and if an attack came, it would come from her. Why he’d gone back to the human realm, he didn’t know. On some pathetic level, he’d held out blind hope his injury had been just a stupid accident. He’d seen the panic on her face, heard the concern in her voice. Or a close facsimile, anyway.
Now all he could see was the harsh truth staring him in the face. Eurus, all over Ella. Her, pliant and willing against him, passionate moans ringing out into the night.
That he was even surprised showed he never learned.