"I told you nothing about her. Quit lying," Pan interrupted. He didn't seem pleased. But he did have possession of the axe Silenus had wanted to kill him with, which had to be a good sign.
"I'm so glad you're alive." Kat removed her hand from Hermes' grip and flung herself at Pan. She hugged him tightly.
Pan kissed her then, claiming her mouth as his reward for making it back to her alive. Kat stepped back and took the axe from him, noting absently the blade stained with blood. Amazingly, she didn't care. She tossed it aside and then kissed him back like her life depended on it. She almost forgot they had an audience until Hermes cleared his throat behind them.
Kat reluctantly pulled away. "Later." She winked at Pan and glanced back at his father. The same dark wavy hair and eyes, similar facial structure...yeah, Kat could see it.
"What happened?" she asked finally, bending to collect the axe she had dropped. It had a goat head in the middle, with curled horns like Pan's, slanted eyes, and a goatee. Strange lettering appeared here or there. Greek? It was really a remarkable weapon with its slightly curvy handle and semicircular blade. It looked like a combination of battle axe and movie relic. The sticky red-brown smear along the sharp edge chilled her as she finally let herself think about the implications.
Silenus had to be dead, and she should be upset. But...she wasn't. She gripped the axe handle tightly, her knuckles turning white.
"Be careful with that." Pan gently took the blade away from her. "You could have cut your stomach." He stared at her midsection with a frown. Then he squinted as though trying to see through her shirt or something. She started to feel self-conscious about it. Was she getting fat? Kat glanced down.
"What happened to Pavlo?" Pan asked suddenly, bringing her back to her senses.
"Melancton showed up after you and Silenus disappeared. He took Pavlo's body with him." Though she suspected he left some internal organs in the leaves.
"Which way?" Pan clenched his fists around the axe handle.
"Just leave it, Pan. Melancton said we shouldn't be bothered again. He didn't mean us harm."
"That's what Dionysus said before Silenus tried to kill me, and possibly you. Sorry, but I don't believe a word either has to say. Melancton is loyal to Dionysus."
"Is he?" Hermes asked suddenly, but it had sounded rhetorical. The Olympian studied his fingernails. "Hmm. I guess he is, if you say so." He motioned for them to leave. "Go converse whilst I give Hades a call. He'll send Cerberus to collect Silenus while I personally escort his filthy soul to the Underworld. The last thing you need is him haunting the woods." As an afterthought he said, "Should probably take Pavlo too while I'm at it."
"How is a dog going to col—never mind. I don't want to know." Kat's mind was on overload with processing all that had happened. When Hermes left them, she whispered, "He takes souls to the Underworld?"
Pan shook his head. "It's not his primary job, but he has been known to do so in the past. He's right though, Silenus' soul doesn't need to be wandering around until someone comes to collect it."
As they traipsed through the trees, Pan told her about his fight with Silenus, and how Hermes showed up to deliver the deathblow. He seemed irritated about it, and Kat wondered if he felt he'd needed to prove himself. But Hermes taking the decision from him may have been for the best. She knew she was relieved he'd not killed anyone. One day she hoped Pan would be too.
"Did you really want his death on your conscience?" Kat caught him staring at her stomach again. He looked away quickly. Okay, no more cheeseburgers for her.
"I hadn't ever killed anyone before." Pan seemed to ponder it. "Which is being remarkably well behaved, if you know your Greek legends." He snorted. "I'm accused of murdering all kinds of women in the stories. That's me, rapey, murdery, ugly Pan."
"You know you're none of those things. I know you aren't. But why are you so upset that Hermes saved you from changing one of those traits that make you so unique?"
"Pride mostly. Silenus killed Syrinx. He hurt you. Letting him live was no longer an option. How am I supposed to keep you safe if others fight my battles for me? If I can't protect you myself, staying with me is a risk."
"The battle is far from over. You said Dionysus is after the syrinx? I gathered as much from Silenus' destruction of her likeness. He must have thought you'd hidden it there. So let's deal with one crisis at a time, and be glad this one is over. You may not have killed Silenus, but the deed was accomplished. Your hands don't have blood on them."
Pan shook his head. "They do have blood on them, though. It's my fault Syrinx and Klytie died that night. I may not have delivered the blow, but it was because of me. Silenus was here to kill me, so his death was my fault. Pavlo's as well."
"You're going to be stubborn about this, aren't you?"
"Sorry. I know you're trying to help, it's just...I don't know... Ugh. I had him right there and then Hermes took the choice from me. I had him, vixen."
Kat dragged Pan to a stop. She turned his face toward her and held it there with both hands. "Stubborn man. Hermes was trying to help, not hinder you. And you did keep me safe today. You chased him away from where I was. Whether or not you killed him or let him go, you got him away from me. I was safe."
"Yeah, but—" He tried to pull away, but Kat didn't let him.
"There is no, 'but.' He had a weapon that could kill you. He'd already killed Pavlo, and they were working for the same team. You were fearless. You can't possibly think because you didn't kill him you are less of a man. In fact, it's because you didn't kill him that makes you more of one to me."
He shut his eyes and leaned in to her touch. "I would have gone through with it. Killing him, I mean." It was no more than a whisper.
"I know. But you didn't have to. Be grateful."
Loud barking reverberated through the forest, like a pack of wild dogs had appeared out of thin air. Kat tensed, but didn't see any nearby.
"Don't worry. It's just Cerberus. Let's get out of here."
Kat nodded in agreement, not particularly keen on meeting a giant hound from hell. Just Cerberus, indeed. Like it's no big deal. She'd had her fair share of cryptids for a lifetime.
"I don't deserve you," Pan said a short time later, keeping pace beside her. "If you had any sense at all, you would have run screaming weeks ago."
"I tried that. You kidnapped me and locked me in your bedroom."
He had the decency to look sheepish. "Oh, yeah. Sorry about that." He hesitated before he continued his thoughts, "You still could escape, you know. Return to a boring life without gods and satyrs and cryptids."
"I don't want to leave. Quit trying to chase me away."
"Foolish."
"I love you."
Pan tripped over a root, and his glamour vanished. His curled horns popped out from the sides of his head. He looked every bit a nature deity. So his legs ended in hooves and his legs were exceptionally hairy. So what? There was no greater man than him, and the forest, whether it was the Pine Barrens or Arcadia or somewhere new, was his kingdom.
His appearance might have been shocking at first glance, but he was compassionate and gentle. He had his own alpha streak, but he didn't let it rule him. And there was no one else she'd want to spend the rest of her life with.
To spend eternity with.
"What did you say?" Pan straightened.
"I said, I love you, you silly satyr." She pulled him down by his horns and kissed him.
"I should tell you something," Pan began as he started to undress her.
"I probably should too. I almost forgot because of Hermes being here." She told him what Pavlo said before he died and Pan frowned, his brows creasing narrower with each bit.
"So Pavlo believes I inadvertently triggered something genetic in Syrinx and made her nymph gene awaken? I'd always wondered how the change happened. Interesting."
"But don't you see?" She backed away from his hold on her. "If the nymphs of this age don't know they're nymphs, you can have Hermes
or another god help you find one and break the curse with her. Or trigger her nymph-ness or whatever you did with Syrinx. I can't help you. You have to remain cursed to be with me." She hung her head, ashamed. "You'll have to be a satyr forever."
"Two problems with your theory. The first being I had to have sex with Syrinx to make her a nymph, and I can't have sex with a nymph until a lunar eclipse, if I wanted to not be a satyr. If she isn't a nymph until after the sex, the window of time will have passed, and if it doesn't void the no-nymphs-'til-the-eclipse rule since she wouldn't be a nymph at the time, I would have to find another nymph. Vicious cycle."
Kat hadn't thought it through as he clearly had before, and she wasn't sure she appreciated that he'd given it consideration. In fairness though, he'd had a lot of time before meeting her to deliberate if such a thing was at all possible.
"The second, and most important problem, is you are wrong. You did break my curse."
She opened her mouth to call him some form of ridiculous when he held a finger to her lips to stall her.
"Hear me out, Katerina. You went through all that earlier about how I was trying to get rid of you, yet here you are trying to boot me away. Stop being fickle."
She attempted to bite his finger, but he was too quick for her.
"Before I met you, I existed, but I wasn't truly alive anymore. After I got the lust under control, I'd only blow off steam with women when I had to. I amused myself by scaring humans with their local superstitions. Then you appeared, and I wanted to be alive again. I wanted to put on a human glamour and sweep you off your feet."
He grinned. "Of course, that wasn't what happened. However, I did sweep you off your feet when I flew away with you. It was unfortunate I wasn't able to have my wicked way with you for several nights." He winked. "I love you, Katerina. You brought me out of the darkness I was living in for centuries. I don't mind being a satyr forever as long as you are by my side through all of it."
She wiped at her face as her eyes misted up. "Damn, I think I have dirt in my eye."
As Pan made another move to unbutton her jeans, she halted him. "Wait, what was it you were going to tell me?"
He kissed her, and she realized he was avoiding the subject. Well, Kat had some news for him: she was on to his little trick. She only let the thought get away from her because her body was on fire. So alive, electric with lust and warm with the knowledge her love for him was truly reciprocated.
"I'll tell you after." His licked her neck and his tongue left little goosebumps in its wake. Her toes curled. She kicked her shoes off so she could shimmy out of her pants and panties. Pan ripped her shirt down the middle, and her bra followed in the same fashion. Aww, I liked that bra. When she pouted her bottom lip, he tugged at it with his teeth, causing her to open for his kisses once more.
He brought her onto his lap as he lay on the ground, and Kat lowered herself on top of him. She needed him inside her more than she needed to breathe. Pan guided her hips as he thrust upward, and she met him in the middle, moving downward. She knew it turned him on, so she fondled her breasts as she undulated, and he began to thrust more erratically.
When her orgasm hit, she cried out and laughed as he spilled his seed inside as ripples of aftershocks shook her to the core.
Pan sat up and kissed her, their bodies still joined as he cradled her against him.
"That Cerberus. You should have seen how excited he was when he chased down Silenus' head. Though the one on the right was greedy and swallowed it whole..." Hermes came to an abrupt stop and gawked at them. "Oh, come on, really? In the dirt like animals? Get a fucking room." He covered his eyes, and then peeked through his fingers.
Pan growled and conjured a blanket around them. "You were supposed to go to the house when you were done, not linger around the forest."
"I told you, I wanted to know the mother of my grandchild. Hard to do that when you won't take her to the house because you don't want her to talk to me."
Grandchild! Kat looked at Pan and back at Hermes. Then she recalled Pan's observation of her stomach from earlier. His reluctance to tell her what else had been plaguing his thoughts. He'd known!
"Wha—" The world spun.
"Oops. You didn't tell her, did you?"
Pan glared at his father. "I was about to tell her before you showed up bragging about your morbidity."
The world went dark.
Chapter 19
Melancton had retrieved Pavlo's body from the Pine Barrens, and since Silenus hadn't been heard from, it would seem Pan triumphed after all. The elder satyr was dead. Good riddance to that nuisance. Dion stared at himself in the mirror. His plan had failed, but that only meant he could act on one of the backup plans he had in place. Still, Silenus had contained so much rage that it was a shame he couldn't follow through.
Silenus had been his most devoted member of his favored circle of humans in the old days. Back before Pavlo sought entrance and Syrinx came into the picture. Just like a woman to ruin a good thing. They were good for sex, but not much else. Dion had learned that they were more trouble and heartbreak than they were worth long ago and had no aspirations of ever going down that route again. His only mistress now was Power, and he courted her with everything he was worth.
The reflection in his bedroom mirror glared back at him—his true reflection, thanks to that meddlesome idiot of a god, Pan. The horns protruding from his head were huge, solid thorns of ebony. So thick at the base he couldn't wrap a hand completely around one. They curved out from his temples and then narrowed up vertically as they reached the sharp, dangerous points. His irises glowed with unnatural red light. He didn't need to look down at the tawny, tufted legs with cloven hooves to know how hideous he was.
When Pan had countered the curse meant to deform him, Dion hadn't anticipated he would have succeeded. True, Pan was cursed, but not in the way he should have been. While he, Dionysus, was supposed to be beautiful and perfect in form, but wasn't anymore, not since that night. No, he had to expend perfectly good energy on glamour like the rest of the Satyroi. It was exhausting. He'd been reborn after death, the only full-blooded god to ever have a mortal mother. Since Dion was better than Pan, he should never have had to share a curse with him. Especially one Dion had devised.
He wasn't going to share this burden much longer. He'd get his hands on the syrinx and then would have the power necessary to stamp down the curse without diminishing his god powers. Truthfully, Pavlo and Silenus' deaths had improved his strength greatly as the magic he'd placed in their thyrsi diverted back to the source: Dion himself. They didn't have to die for it to happen, but he did prefer to tie up loose ends. He could, in theory, slaughter the other Boeotians to retrieve the rest of the magic he'd shared with them. But Dion needed the satyrs. Once he had the syrinx, their usefulness would run out. And power, well...power would never be a problem again.
With the syrinx, he could return to Olympus and gain access to the prison of the Titans. The location of their prison varied in legend. Some said the Titans were locked in the middle of the ocean. Some would say Hades kept an eye on them within Tartarus. But the prison was underneath that forsaken mountain named Olympus. Where better to hide their dungeon than underneath the gates to the realm that housed the Olympian's own asses?
The Titans had far greater powers than the Olympians, almost as potent as the Primordials had been, and once Dion restored them, they would be forthcoming. Rhea saved him once; it had been she who'd returned life to his body when he'd been murdered by Hera's hired assassins. If Dion returned the favor to Rhea, she was sure to grant him a boon. A Titan could lift the curse, he hoped.
Dion took a long swig from his wineglass. The vintage soothed him. Soon Pan's woman would be tied to him, and, like the maenads, she would go bat-shit crazy under his direct influence. He would use her to maneuver Pan however he saw fit, but he didn't want to go that route, at least not yet. He'd already underestimated Pan far too much, and at the moment, he only wanted the syrinx.
/>
How dare he think to kill two of my servants! The mirror before him shattered within its frame, obscuring his reflection and creating a mosaic of tiny slivers of himself. Dion sighed. He had to rein this rage in. It seemed to worsen as the years progressed. Almost as though he lost control of his own mind momentarily, ever since...
He didn't want to think about that. Not now.
He refocused on the meeting with the Boeotians he was due to attend shortly. Silenus had killed Pavlo, not Pan. But...the Boeotians didn't need to know that. Melancton would keep his mouth shut, Dion could count on it. Perhaps the deaths of two of their own would be the catalyst to bring the Boeotians together against the Arcadians in this hunt for the syrinx. The Boeotians would aid in Dionysus' return to power.
Dion took a deep breath and concentrated on his energy, creating the flawless, imperceptible illusion. The horns and the hooves detracted, and he appeared as humanesque as a god could. Clothing himself in a crisp black suit, he straightened his favorite burgundy tie as the finishing touch on what he considered perfection. It was rude to keep company waiting.
Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1) Page 154