by Nadia Aidan
She hesitated at first as she hooked her arms beneath the crook of his knees as he’d done to her only moments ago.
“Will this hurt you?”
“As it hurt you the first time I took you? Yes.”
“But I thought that… I thought…” She blushed a deep red.
“That I’ve lain with men?” he asked and when she nodded he replied, “I have, but not in a very long time.” He did not add that it had not been his choice. That he’d never wished to spend his days and nights pleasing either men or women. So little of his life had been his choice. So few things within it he’d chosen.
“But I’ve never allowed a woman to do this to me, so I imagine it will hurt some.”
“If you’ve never used this, then why do you even have it?” she asked, gesturing down at the harness she now wore.
His smile was gentle, patient. “People own artwork and sculptures that they never use. This is the same for me.”
She did not look at him as if that was a strange statement, but he did not know if she truly understood either. He’d lived his life with sexual desire as his constant companion so he’d begun collecting tools of pleasure more out of habit than anything else. As he’d said, just like artwork, he admired such objects, though he did not use them.
“I do not wish to hurt you.”
“You are wrong, Selena… You do.”
She seemed to want to argue, or to disagree. He did not care. Seizing her hips with both hands, he pulled her forward, a small moan dying in his throat when the slick wet tip of the rubber shaft nudged his hole.
She moaned as she pushed inside him, and he imagined the pleasure she felt. The leather and rubber pushing together to brush against her clit, trapping it, applying a steady, constant pressure as she sank her way inside him.
His cock wept a single drop of pre-cum, and he wrapped his firm hand around his hard staff and stroked himself as she filled him.
Selena watched him closely, her cheeks flushed, her lips slightly parted. He could have drowned in the deep pools of her eyes, could have died from the pleasure of her stretching him.
He experienced a dull, throbbing pain when she was seated fully inside him and her eyes widened with a soft gasp, followed by a gasp of his own.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked, already retreating, but he gripped her hips firmly, sending her ploughing back inside him, eliciting mutual moans that blended together.
“Fuck me,” he rasped harshly, directing her hips until she grasped the rhythm, the age-old pace that joined their bodies, that bonded them.
A fresh urgency raked through him with stroke after sensuous stroke and the blood in his veins grew hot, pumping molten lava.
Her desire and sensuality matched his, and he responded to it…welcomed it. With soft murmurs and faint words, he encouraged her until her strokes quickened, her body straining for the release that his sought.
He pumped his cock faster.
He took her thrusts deeper.
He called her name, squeezing his ruddy length in the palm of his hand, fisting it tight until she found that soft sensitive spot deep inside him and he exploded, his semen pouring from his body in thick ropes against his belly as he came on a splintered cry.
Selena watched him, drinking in his passion, her eyes glittering with satisfaction at his release. Only then did she seek completion.
Sweat dotted her naked body, her breasts swaying gently.
“Come for me, Selena,” he urged, his hands finding her hips to quicken her thrusts, until she tensed against him, above him. Her hair brushed across her shoulders as she threw her head back and orgasmed on a long ragged scream, her eyes clenched shut.
She collapsed against his body and he wrapped his arms around her, stroking her back, listening to the soulful serenade of her heart beating in time to his.
He wondered if she noticed this herself, if it amazed her as much as him that their breath mingled in harmony and their hearts beat in unison. If she did notice, he wondered if she would think anything of it. Would she understand the complexity of such a thing or dismiss it?
The girl he’d fallen in love with would have been awed and pleased by such a thing. He gathered that the woman he held in his arms would not feel such stirring emotions. If she did, she’d deny them, hide from them, pretend they didn’t exist. After all, that’s what she’d done for the past sixteen years.
She soon pulled out of him and removed the harness to fall asleep beside him, still nestled in his arms. It was a long while before he moved, but, when the sun inched higher in the sky, he forced himself to leave the bed.
She was still twisted in the white satin sheets of his bed after he’d showered and dressed, and Adonis decided not to wake her. The night before had been a long one, full of mysteries and shrouded in danger.
He knew last night was only the beginning.
He slipped from his chambers and took the stairs to the first floor, where he was surprised to be greeted by a message from one of his guards so early in the morning.
His brothers—they wanted to speak with him. Already, they were on their way.
He grabbed a quick breakfast of fruit, sat down at his dining table and waited.
It did not take them long to arrive. He was surprised to see that Apollo was not with Ares and Eros.
“He is still with Serena,” Ares answered him after taking a seat across from Adonis.
He wondered how his brother was managing that—being confined in Serena’s presence, labouring under the intensity of his need for the woman, battling against his desire even as he waged his own hellish war with his guilt. Adonis understood perfectly what Apollo was going through.
He worried for him.
“Do not concern yourself with Apollo.”
Adonis’ inquiring gaze narrowed on Ares.
“I know you well, brother,” Ares responded to the question in his eyes. “You do not have to say a word for me to know that Apollo’s well-being concerns you, but he can take care of himself, just as he can take care of Serena.”
“Besides,” Eros interjected, “we have far more pressing problems to concern ourselves with.”
His brother’s statement raised his eyebrows, while the pictures Eros slid across the table furrowed his temple.
“If the nuns knew I’d taken these they would have confiscated them, but Ares managed to keep them distracted long enough.”
“Who is it?” Adonis studied the photograph of a mangled corpse, blackened and charred. The person was unrecognisable.
“We don’t know.” Ares shrugged. “The nuns believe it to be Selena. We did not see fit to correct them.”
Adonis froze. “I take it all of the nuns are accounted for so it cannot be one of them.”
“Everyone but Selena has been accounted for. And, since the fire began in her room, everyone believes her to be dead.”
Adonis nodded even as he wondered why someone would fake Selena’s death when there were others who knew she still lived. That question plagued him as he began to sift through this turn of events, this new puzzle that was now spread before him.
“Did you find anything else when you searched the convent?”
“If you’re asking did we find another ring, then yes.” Eros brandished a ring fashioned out of the same platinum and boasting the same diamond pattern as the other two rings. “It was near the bed, not far from the body, but obscured from view. We only found it upon closer inspection of the corpse.”
Adonis stood from the table. “It’s a message.” A clear one. A threat to him, to Selena and her sister…to all of them. That their stalker had struck in the holiest of places was a bold statement that said Selena was not yet dead, but soon she would be, and there was nothing any of them could do to protect her, to stop him. There was no place safe or sacred.
Ares joined him on his feet. “A message from whom?”
“That I do not know, but it is obvious the message is meant for all of us.”
A silence descended upon the room, drawn out and oppressive.
“You think he is alive,” Eros said finally, breaking through the silence with a hushed voice, as if speaking such a thing too loudly would bring the man they all feared into existence.
Adonis looked at his brother Eros, whose golden beauty was as fair as his own. “I don’t know.” But that was the only explanation for it all—for any of this. Adonis thought it, but he did not say it. He didn’t have to. They knew.
Dieu —their adoptive father. He was alive. He’d come back from the dead to terrorise them, to haunt them, to do what he’d promised he’d do with his dying breath—destroy their lives…destroy them all.
Chapter Seven
Silence—ominous and oppressive, it stretched between the three brothers as they sifted through the prevailing thought.
Silence…soon broken by a gut-wrenching scream that rent the air.
Their adoptive father had plucked four boys from the streets, taken them in and redefined their entire existence. Trained in the incongruent arts of love and war, they’d been courtesans to the wealthy elite…but also spies, as well as assassins. It was the instincts of the latter that propelled them into action.
Adonis took the twisting labyrinth of stairs that led to the second floor two at a time, with his brothers on his heels.
Another scream sliced through the air and it had its intended effect of ripping his heart open.
The entire second floor was a long hallway with mirrors at each end, the staircase and banister to one side, and three doors leading into a different part of his private chambers on the other.
They each tried one door, only to find them all locked. Adonis kicked one of the doors open without much forethought or hesitation and rushed inside. Upon entering his living room, he did not immediately glean the source of Selena’s distress but he smelt it—acrid smoke.
He followed the charred scent, letting it lead him into his bedroom where the smoke thickened and a scorching fire blazed with menacing intent just beyond the door to his bathroom.
The fire was steadily encroaching upon him, the smoke making every breath he took harsh and ragged. He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve as he wove a path through the dancing flames that stretched towards him.
All of a sudden, droplets of water pelted his face from over his shoulder, subduing the fire as he inched closer to the bathroom door. He didn’t turn around, though he suspected one or both of his brothers were filling containers with water from the other bathroom and hurling it at the fire in an attempt to aid his journey. And his journey was an arduous one, seemingly taking him forever to cross the small space to the bathroom door.
As he drew closer, the thumping sound he’d heard upon entering the room grew louder. It was Selena, desperately trying to escape the bathroom, which for a brief moment caused a tendril of fear to curl inside his belly as he worried about what was on the other side of the door.
He called out to her.
“Adonis?” The relief in her voice threatened to still him…that she’d called his name nearly buckled his knees. It had not escaped his notice that up until that moment she’d refrained from using his name. He wondered if she’d even realised what she’d just done.
“Are you all right?” he called.
“No, I am not all right!” She sounded indignant as if she thought he was being absurd. He almost smiled. “Your bathroom is on fire and I cannot seem to put it out. And the door is locked.”
“Stand back,” he shouted, deciding not to tell her that there was also a fire in his bedroom.
“I’ve already tried kicking the door open…”
Her voice trailed off when the door crashed in upon itself, yielding beneath the force of Adonis’ booted foot.
He didn’t waste a moment to gloat as he swept her into his arms, tucked her within the folds of his suit jacket and barrelled out of the room into the living area.
Despite his brothers’ attempts at quashing the blaze, tiny flames flickered on the shoulder and arms of his jacket as he rushed from the room. After setting Selena down, he snuffed them out before they could burn through.
There was a flurry of activity within the living room as half a dozen of his guards rushed inside with extinguishers in their hands, and without a moment’s hesitation proceeded to put out the blazing inferno in his personal quarters.
With the fire now subdued, his guards returned to him, awaiting further instructions. Having none, Adonis nodded to his men, dismissing them. He waited until the door closed behind the last of them to check on Selena.
She sat in the chair closest to him. Her hair was in disarray, her skin flushed red, but—with the exception that she was only wearing a towel wrapped around her body, and Ares’ dark suit jacket now draped over her bare legs—she did not appear unduly distraught, as if she faced near death experiences every day. He gave a mental shrug. In a convent? He doubted. But, with Selena, one never knew.
“It is as I feared,” Ares said. “Selena is not safe here.”
“She is not safe anywhere,” Eros responded.
Adonis shot them both disapproving looks. With one hand he stroked Selena’s thigh through the jacket separating skin from skin. That she welcomed his touch with soft eyes did not go unnoticed by his brothers, but only one was overly troubled by the bond that had begun to form between them.
“I promised I would protect you and I meant it.” Adonis spoke quietly to Selena, although, with the unnatural stillness of the room, his brothers heard every word. He was grateful they remained quiet—Ares especially, who was of the opinion that, no matter what any of them did, Selena’s death was inevitable.
She looked at each of them. “Who would want me dead? The truth,” she demanded. “If you believe it is my father then do not spare me. I need to understand why.”
Her eyes implored them to tell her the truth, but the events from last evening to this morning had revealed to them two things—what they’d thought was the truth was no longer certain…which meant they did not, in fact, know who was terrorising them.
“To be honest, we don’t know what is true any longer,” Adonis replied.
“Well then, tell me what you thought before and what you believe now.”
“Later,” Ares interrupted. “When we are somewhere safe, somewhere secure.”
“I thought you said I would not be safe anywhere,” Selena challenged.
“And you will not be, but there is one place where only one person would dare to harm you and, if he comes there, then we will all know the truth, just as we will all be prepared for him.”
Adonis shook his head, Eros joined him, but Ares was resolute.
“There is no safer place,” Ares insisted, and the sharp assertion in his voice brooked no argument. Both Eros and Adonis knew that tone well, and, if Selena didn’t, she was still wise enough to follow suit and remain silent.
It took Selena and Adonis only minutes to gather what few things they possessed before they departed his home to the one place he’d sworn he’d never return to. A place that ironically now offered him a safe haven, when it had once been his prison of hell. A place that haunted his nightmares and even now stirred the contents within his belly.
He’d sworn to never return, but for the love of one woman he would brave even his darkest fears.
* * * *
La Ville des Dieux had once been La Ville de Dieu —the city of God, one god, known only as Dieu.
His arrogance had been astounding, his beauty spellbinding. He’d taken the most beautiful of boys and turned them into men. He’d taken the strongest of boys and made them gods.
They were not gods, none of them, not even Dieu, but the people who lived within his territory had treated him as such. He’d been feared by all. His word was the law, and everyone who chose to make their home or livelihood within La Ville de Dieu had understood that and respected it.
Dieu’s home pierced the very heart of the city, its looming towers and forti
fied buttresses of grey stone were as ominous and imposing as the man himself. Le Siège d’un Dieu, as it was known, gave the appearance of a medieval castle overlooking its territory. As if it was the very seat of God, which it proclaimed itself to be, it sat upon a natural plateau in the centre of the city, buffeted on one side by a small natural lake and a series of jagged hilltops on the other.
Though it had never needed the fortifications of its natural position, Dieu’s home was a strategic feat for anyone who dared to enter. At least that’s what Adonis was counting on. Whoever sought to do them harm would certainly take a moment to reflect on the wisdom of waging an attack upon them while they were in residence.
The security his adoptive father’s home offered was the only reason why he’d agreed to come back. He glanced down at the woman who was curled up within the covers of the bed that had once been his. The security this place offered her was the only reason.
Their father had been dead for over a year. Except for the guards who patrolled the grounds and the inner sanctum as if it was a sacred museum, and the weekly cleaning staff who kept the place free of dust and vermin, Dieu’s home had been vacant ever since.
It was vacant no more.
Adonis closed the door to his old chambers and joined his brothers in the main den. Though it had been many years since he’d set foot in his father’s home, the ornate furnishings were the same as he remembered. A large portrait hung above the black marble fireplace of a perfectly handsome man with blue obsidian eyes, so dark they appeared violet. Dieu. Adonis felt a chill along his spine. Even in death, even though he knew the portrait was still and lifeless, he could not shake the feeling of being watched, of being stalked by the very man who’d both saved his soul and destroyed it on a careless whim.
“Selena is asleep,” Adonis said as soon as his brothers’ eyes lit upon him.
“That is good,” rejoined Ares. “Hopefully she will still be asleep when we return—”
“I will not leave her.”
Adonis did not miss the scowl that crossed his eldest brother’s face. His brother thought him foolish in his love for this woman who would only cause him pain. Adonis thought Ares foolish for thinking such a thing when he’d never known love. Yet, if he ever did, Ares would finally understand that love was both reckless and foolish and it was the greatest gift a man could ever receive.