by Alyssa Day
Then he’d started to take on the experienced men and women, egging them into the sparring ring with nothing more than a sardonic glance as challenge. For the past hour, he’d taken them on two and three at a time. Never using any special Atlantean powers or magical tricks, although she was well aware he had those in his arsenal.
Simply fighting with hands and feet and wooden practice weapons, he had taken on and defeated every man and woman under Grace’s command, experienced fighters and rank newbies alike. All but Sam, who’d just sat there with his dog, watching. When Alexios had turned to him, Sam had shaken his head, grinning, and refused to play.
She’d stood and watched Alexios for every single minute of those bouts, unable to tear herself away although surely there were plenty of things that needed doing. His shirtless torso gleamed in the reddish-orange glow of sunset, the tanned skin tight over his muscled chest, abs, and arms. Even his back was a work of art, with muscles so defined that she caught herself wondering if her tongue could trace the intriguing curves and dips of delineation. She’d never seen so many scars on a man, though. Not just his face, although the left side was badly damaged. But the many gouges, slashes, and crookedly healed wounds on his shoulders, chest, stomach, and back told her the story of some of what he’d been through.
An odd tattoo rode high on his left bicep, a circle through a triangle with what looked like an arrow piercing both. She glanced at her own tattoo, forced upon her by the Fae. No, Alexios’s wasn’t an arrow. A trident, perhaps? It seemed likely.
Alaric, the Atlantean priest, was a healer. Certainly he’d healed Alexios over the years. Probably many times. And she’d seen for herself what happened when Alaric took it in his mind to heal somebody. Look what he’d done for Michelle when that vamp had ripped out her throat. There wasn’t a mark left to show that Michelle had nearly died; to hear her talk, Alaric was a cross between David Beckham and Gandhi.
Frankly, the priest nearly scared the pants off Grace. There was something about him. Something so dark and deep that she didn’t think any light could ever penetrate far enough to touch it.
Not the point, though. The point was that if Alexios looked like this, even after he’d been healed who knew how many times, what kind of unimaginable battles had he fought in his lifetime? She couldn’t even imagine it—couldn’t imagine having the courage and endurance to go back to the fight, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to suffer so much.
No, she couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t want to. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? She’d spent most of the past three days trailing after Alexios like a starstruck bimbo, instead of the tough and smart rebel commander she was supposed to be.
Maybe if she just slept with him, she could get him out of her system. That was her new plan, anyway. Yeah, that should do it. Either that or make her so sex-crazed she’d never climb back out of his bed.
Disgusted with herself, she shook her head to clear it of any and all fantasies involving Alexios and caramel syrup. She spun around on her heel to head for her office and smacked headfirst into the chest she’d just been lusting after.
“Damnit! I wish you’d quit sneaking up on me,” she snapped, realizing she was being unfair but not really caring.
His laughter rumbled up from his chest, and she caught herself leaning forward, inches away from touching her lips to that lovely, glistening skin. Horrified, she stumbled back a step and probably would’ve fallen if he hadn’t caught her by the arms.
“I was just coming to report in, Commander,” he said sardonically. He wasn’t even breathing hard. It was completely annoying.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re mocking me. I don’t like it. You know you don’t have to report in to me. We’re allies. Also,” she asked, frustrated beyond common sense, “why is it you always make me feel like I have a stick up my butt? I’m not like this with anyone else but you.”
She watched in fascination as his beautiful blue eyes darkened to nearly black, but then suddenly realized she’d given far too much away with that comment. “Um, never mind. I didn’t mean—it’s not important. I have a lot of paperwork to do. Good night.”
She tried to pull away, but his grip tightened on her arms.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said, his voice rough. “You wanted me to spar with the troops. I did so. You’ve got a few good men and women here, a few that will be good with training, and a few who need to take up a different line of work. We can get together with Sam tomorrow, and I’ll tell you which are which. But for now, you and me.”
“I don’t think I need you to tell me—” But her indignation faded away when she realized she was reacting to his high-handed tone and the thoughts—okay, fantasies—she’d just been having about him. The truth was, he could judge this kind of thing far more quickly than she could. “Okay. You’re right. Now you can let me go and . . . wait. What?”
Her brain had finally caught up with her ears. “What do you mean, you and me?”
He slowly slid his hands down her arms to her elbows and then released her. But instead of stepping back, he stepped forward until he was most definitely invading her personal space.
There was no way she was backing down. She lifted her chin. “I said, what do you mean, you and me?”
He bent down to the ground, leaning so close to her that his golden hair brushed against her chest. She’d never been so glad of her thick leather jacket that shielded her breasts from the touch of his hair. Or so she told herself.
Standing up, Alexios handed her a wooden practice sword. “Can you handle this, or would you prefer daggers?”
Grace didn’t bother to bristle at the question. She’d fought alongside Alexios and had also seen over the past few days that he made no unfair assessments based on gender. He assumed nothing, but watched and surveyed until he had a good idea of the trainees’ capabilities. The heavy wooden practice swords they used were too much for most women, who didn’t have the arm strength to match a man carrying a sword.
Grace wasn’t most women.
“I can handle it just fine. But you’ve been out here fighting for nearly three hours. It would be a little unfair of me to take advantage of you in your weakened state,” she said sweetly.
His face changed, going dark and almost primitive. He stepped forward again, backing her up against the inner wall of the courtyard until nothing but a breath separated them. When he spoke, his voice came out almost in a growl. “I don’t think you understand, Grace, and I’m tired of fighting it. I want you to take advantage of me. I want to take advantage of you. I want to use the tip of my dagger to slice through your clothing until I have you bare underneath me. I want to put my hands on you, and my mouth on you, and I want to pleasure you until you beg me to take you.”
She gasped, the heat from his words sizzling through her body as if he’d actually done the things he’d described, and when he bent his head to her, she lifted her face for his kiss. She wanted him. She needed him. Like he’d just said, why fight it?
But he stopped, an inch away from her lips, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “But I won’t. I can’t. I’ve sworn vows. So no matter how much you tempt me, or taunt me, or tell me that sex is no better than tennis, I can’t take you,” he said savagely. “But I can spar with you. So get that pretty little ass in the ring.”
With that, he spun around and strode off toward the practice ring, slashing the wooden sword so fiercely through the air with every step that it made a whooshing, whistling noise; a counterpoint to the fierce beating of her heart in her chest. Only his scent remained, a lingering trace of sea and sandalwood. A sudden crazy longing to find his discarded shirt and carry it away to sleep in swept through her, and her body literally trembled with the force of it.
Three days. She’d had three long days to watch him, study him, try to discover his true self. His hidden self. Three long days of almost constant contact, and she’d learned nothing that she didn’t already know
, hadn’t known within five minutes of meeting him.
He was a warrior.
A true warrior. A man so deeply committed to protecting others that he put his own life on the line as easy barter over and over and over. Fiercely loyal, extremely intelligent, and calm and secure in his own strength. In his own worth. In all the time she’d known him, she’d never seen him lose control.
Until now. Over her.
He’d let her see that she held power over him, and the knowledge seared through her on a wave of breathtaking desire. Maybe they could forget the sparring. Maybe if she marched over there and planted a huge kiss right on those sinfully elegant lips, he’d change his mind about whatever “I’ve sworn vows” meant.
She’d already taken the first step toward him when she reconsidered. Took a deep breath to clear her head. Not yet. For now, he’d thrown down the proverbial gauntlet. She could either pick it up and face him in that ring, or she could run. Back away. Get while the getting was good, if she had any sense at all.
She thought about it. Nope. Guess not.
“Get ready, Atlantean. I’m about to show you what a descendant of Diana is made of.”
Chapter 8
Alexios knew it was crazy to jeopardize their working relationship, especially when he was on orders from Conlan and Ven to make this alliance work. Crazy.
Yeah, well, maybe crazed was more like it. Ever since he’d first met Grace, fighting with Quinn’s team in St. Louis, something about her had stuck under his skin. Beneath his calm control.
That kiss.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, although of course she was. Even now, stalking toward him with fire in her eyes and defiance in every line of her body.
Especially now.
She stood, biting her lip a little, shining in the late afternoon sun like the goddess she claimed as ancestress. The cool sea air whipped at the edges of his hair and he impatiently brushed it back, wanting nothing to interfere with his vision.
Grace’s hair was firmly controlled, like every other part of her. All that long, silky hair was pulled back in a tight braid and coiled around in one of those weird twisty things women did. He wanted to see her hair loose, wild, and unbound. He wanted to see Grace that way, too.
She stripped off her bulky leather jacket and dropped it on the faded winter grass of the courtyard. Without her coat, she wore only a long-sleeved red T-shirt over faded jeans. If anyone had told him a century or two ago that an article of clothing farmers wore to plow fields would become the sexiest thing a woman could put on her body, he would have laughed. But the way that denim hugged the curves of her ass put thoughts in his mind that he had no business thinking.
Ven had been right. Alexios needed the gods to help him, because he was out of his mind to spar with her. He had a terrible feeling that hand-to-hand combat was exactly the wrong way to force himself to quit thinking about Grace, naked.
Grace, in the moonlight up on the parapets. Naked. Gloriously naked, riding him, with her hair unbound and whipping behind her in the night breeze.
Naked.
He shook his head to try to dislodge the thoughts, but she saw him and got the wrong idea. “What’s the matter? Did you change your mind?” she taunted. “A little too tired after all, tough guy?”
“I will never be too tired to take you,” he said, the impact of his deliberate dual meaning shimmering in the air between them.
She gasped—a small sound he almost missed—and tightened her grip on the practice sword. A rosy red flush tinted her cheeks, catching him off guard. So the warrior woman was a little shy. The contradiction entranced him, and he wondered if she’d blush for him in his bed.
But she entered the ring, so the time had come to focus. Grace would give him no quarter and he knew her to be a very talented fighter. Although he didn’t let it show on the surface, he was a little tired from three hours of sparring. With skill and luck, she could land a very hard blow to his head and to his ego.
But he had other plans for Grace, and though they did not—could not—include tasting her lovely body just yet, he had plans to do exactly that in the very near future. He and Alaric just had to talk first. About purification and vows and whether five years was long enough to heal a warrior who’d been so defiled he’d prayed for death.
It was time. It was long past time. Please, Poseidon, let it be time. Because for the first time in his existence, he may have found a woman he could not live without.
“Are we going to dance around all night, or are we going to do this thing?” Grace asked, slowly circling toward him, sword at the ready. “Is the big, strong Atlantean afraid I’m going to kick his ass?”
He laughed; he couldn’t help it. “I’ve faced far larger and more powerful foes that you, but I’ve got to admit none of them had quite your gift for sweet words.”
“Try to keep up, old man. I know we’re not in your century or anything, but we call this trash talk.” She grinned, her eyes sparkling. Whatever else may lie between the two of them, Grace really did love the challenge of battle.
He blinked as her words sank in. “Did you just call me old man?” He didn’t need to fake the outrage. “Old man? I’ll show you an old man.”
With that, he quit circling and closed on her, raising his sword and feinting left. She blocked him easily and parried right.
“Too easy, old man. You have a tendency to feint left, or didn’t anybody tell you that over the past few centuries? Maybe you need just a little more practice before you take me on.” Then, seamlessly executing a pirouette worthy of a ballerina, she whirled round and shot a high kick directly for the left side of his head.
He ducked and sprang at her, catching her around the waist in mid-leap. Before she could react, he pressed a kiss to her neck, breathing deep to take her unique scent into his lungs. She smelled of wildflowers and sea grasses. No delicate rose, she. He kissed her again, smiling at the rapid pulse beating under his lips, and then he jumped back. “This old man has tricks you never dreamed of, woman. Watch yourself, because I claim forfeit for every time I manage to get my hands on you.”
She spun around, crouching down into a battle-ready pose, sword held out in front of her. Her color was high, but he didn’t know if it were from battle or from his touch. Probably both. This was Grace, after all.
“And what about every time I get my hands on you?” she challenged him.
He smiled and let every single heated thought he’d ever had about her show in his eyes. From the sound of her startled gasp, he figured she’d picked up on his message just fine.
“I thought maybe we could play tennis,” he replied, mocking her earlier words. Then he raised his sword to go after her in earnest. He would give no quarter and make no concession for her sex or for her humanity. Right now, right here, she was his, and he was going to take her in the only way not forbidden to him.
“En garde, my lovely Grace,” he said. Then he charged.
Grace barely had time to take a breath before he was on her. Wooden swords smashing against each other, she and Alexios battled their way around the ring. With that unbelievably muscled body, deep blue eyes, and the golden hair brushing against his shoulders at every step, he looked like a pillaging Viking come to abduct the village maiden.
Lucky village maiden.
Wait. No. Focus. Resist the Viking, er, Atlantean. Show some pride, girl.
At least part of the time, she felt like she almost had him on the defensive, but whenever it happened she’d catch him watching her, holding back laughter. He was toying with her, and it was driving her nuts.
Worse, whatever crazy plan he had—whatever he was trying to accomplish with the constant touching—it was working. She was distracted beyond any coherent thought of strategy and reduced to hacking away at him like a novice.
Lunge and he would parry, then riposte. Feint, and he would block, circle around, and touch her again. Kiss her neck. Touch her hair.
She was breathing harder than sh
e ever had in a real sword fight, and he wasn’t even winded. It was him. All him.
He took advantage of her distraction and feinted left again. She blocked him easily but the feint itself had been a trick. He moved faster than her eyes could track and suddenly he was yanking her up against him, her breasts crushed into his chest, his sword falling to the ground as he used his free hand to unfasten her hair. The heavy braid fell out of its twist and he pulled the tie from the end of it.
“Why do you hide this hair?” He asked, his voice low and husky. A bedroom voice. She tried to answer, but her mouth had gone dry and words weren’t coming.
He lowered his other hand to her bottom and pulled her even closer until she felt the unmistakable hardness of his erection pressing against her. She felt him doing something to her hair but it barely registered until he pulled the long length of it, freed from its braid, between them and curled it around his hand.