What a Goddess Wants

by Stephanie Julian

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t an act.

  Those who had made some motion of deference to her were older. Most of the people here looked like babies—

  Cal stiffened as he watched a man detach himself from the back of the far edge of the crowd. The man’s wry smile was so achingly familiar that Cal had to force himself to breathe through the sudden, heavy weight on his chest.

  He watched the guy skirt around the crowd, smiling at friends and kissing several women who tried to cling to him. X had always drawn women like flies. He smiled. They swooned. He crooked his finger. They came running.

  Blond and blue-eyed, X had a laugh that could make an entire room smile. And that covered a hell of a lot of other, less pleasant stuff.

  “Caligo.” The man slid into the stone seat next to Cal’s, mimicking his laid-back position on the stairs. Whether on purpose or just by default, Cal didn’t know.

  “Extasis. You look well.”

  “I feel well, thanks. You look like shit.”

  “Yeah, well, I come by it naturally.”

  That made X turn his attention from the dance floor to look more closely at Cal.

  “Never expected to see you here,” X said after a few very long seconds of scrutiny. “As a matter of fact, I believe you once said you’d never be caught dead here.”

  “Have you memorized everything I ever said?”

  “Only what I knew would come back to bite you later.”

  Cal’s lips lifted in a reluctant smile. “Been to see Mom lately?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. She wanted to know if I’d seen you. Had to tell her no. Where the hell have you been, Cal?”

  Cal turned to face his younger brother. X looked so much like their mom that Cal had envied him as a child. The dark gold hair, the sky-blue eyes, the upturned nose, and the sharp lines of his face. Built like a swimmer, the guy could wield a sword as well as Cal.

  Though he’d never had to.

  “Working.” Cal knew X wouldn’t be satisfied with his explanation. X had also inherited their mom’s dogged determination. “What about you? How’s the business?”

  “Business is fine. You know that because I send you a report every six months. You do own half of it.”

  “I never wanted half of your business.”

  “You gave me the money to start it. Of course it’s half yours.”

  “X…” Cal sighed, shaking his head.

  This was an old argument and one his brother would never let him win. Yes, Cal had bankrolled X twenty years earlier when he’d finally made the break from Cimmeria and moved here.

  Cal had gotten him an apartment and set him up with a bottomless bank account. Not that X had ever spent money like water. No, the kid had always been a wiz with numbers. Almost as good as he was with food.

  Well, dessert, to be exact.

  When X had finally decided what he’d wanted to do after those first few months out of Cimmeria, Cal knew his younger brother would be fine.

  Today, X shipped his gourmet desserts all over the world.

  “Got anything new in development?”

  “You’d know if you stopped by more often.”

  “What am I? Your mother? Get a life, kid.”

  X snorted. “I’ve got one. You’re the fool who needs one.”

  Cal felt his mouth curl up in a slight smile, which he crushed when X started to laugh.

  “Damn, did I actually get a smile out of you? Holy shit, I can’t believe you still remember how.” X paused and Cal knew his brother was staring at him.

  “So what are you doing here? And with someone like her? I thought you’d laid off that flavor after the last time you got your ass kicked so bad you nearly bought it. I don’t want to have to patch your head back together again.”

  Cal didn’t like to be reminded that he’d nearly bought it at the hand of some pussy-ass Greek god. Or that he’d had to call his brother for help. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  X turned to stare at him, eyebrows raised. “Dude, your frickin’ skull was exposed.”

  “When did you turn into a girl?”

  “When did you become a fuck toy for someone like her?”

  Damn good question. One that shouldn’t make him want to take his brother’s head off at the implied slur at Tessa.

  He bit back the angry words before X had even more ammo to pick through and could get into Cal’s head.

  “Cal, what’s going on?”

  Looking into his brother’s eyes, Cal saw confusion. And very real fear.

  Cal sighed. “Nothing I can tell you about now but nothing you need to worry about. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time, X. Stop acting like an old woman.”

  “But you’re not indestructible.”

  “No, but I am fucking hard to kill and I’m not stupid.”

  As the current song wound into a crescendo, Cal’s gaze tracked back onto the floor, searching for Tessa. He panicked for a brief second when he didn’t see her right away, but then he caught the flash of her bright hair seconds before the lights went out.

  “Fuck!” He jumped to his feet, waiting for his eyesight to adjust, ready to blast through the crowd to drag her out.

  X stood next to him, his hand gripping Cal’s shoulder. “Dude, calm down. It’s part of the show. Pretty damn cool, too. Your lady’ll be fine.”

  From out of the dark, the low throb of the bass made every bone in Cal’s body rattle. Then the strobe lights kicked in, and he swore the entire arena began to shake as the crowd cried out. Whether in fear or excitement, he didn’t know.

  He didn’t recognize the song, but if he had to guess, this was what the lowest level of hell sounded like. Sonuvabitch, his teeth ached and his sensitive ears began to ring.

  “What the hell’s going on?” He shouted his question in X’s general direction and hoped his brother heard him.

  X must have heard because he started to laugh. “Just watch. It’s cool as hell.”

  Rationally, Cal knew nothing would happen to Tessa. Not here.

  Still…

  In the eerie flashes of the strobe light, the crowd roiled like one entity, bouncing up and down like a restless sea.

  On stage, he saw the band’s strega, Gemma, make her way to the center of the wooden platform. She stopped beside Dilby, the singer, and lifted her hands as if to appeal to the crowd. With the strobes going, the whole thing looked weird as hell, like a scene from a horror film, one where the main character had been drugged with a hallucinogen.

  In the weird glow, Cal couldn’t see if Gemma was speaking, but he sure as hell felt the power in the air around him begin to thicken.

  Cal had no innate magic of his own, even though his mom was Etruscan. He couldn’t cast worth a damn, though he was able to call power to him to open gates. Now X… He had ability, much to their father’s dismay. Of course, X had just rubbed that in Cal’s face like salt in a wound.

  Cal slid a quick glance at his brother, his gaze narrowing at the nearly rapturous expression on X’s face.

  What the hell? Cal felt good. Just not that good.

  Which was fine, because he needed his head on straight. He needed to watch out for Tessa.

  His gaze shot back to the floor where the faces in the crowd had taken on the same expression. Where the hell was she?

  Finally, he caught sight of her on the far side of the stage. Her face showed something different.

  Power. She literally glowed with it.

  Fuck. Where the hell did she get that much power?

  She continued to dance with the crowd, writhing along with them. Sexy as all hell. Cal felt his body respond, blood pumping and an erection he couldn’t deny. Aroused but with an increasing sense of anxiety.

  No one else seemed to notice she was glowing. Most had their eyes closed as they bounced along to the music. Those that didn’t stared at the stage.

  They were waiting for something. Anticipation glazed the air and beneath it, the magic continued to build. N
ow Cal felt it brush against his skin like velvet.

  “X.” Cal had to shout over the music to get his brother’s attention.

  “I know,” his brother shouted back. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “This is normal?”

  “This is better than normal.”

  Shit, that’s what he’d been afraid of.

  His gaze locked on Tessa. She still wore that rapturous expression, but something else was going on. Something Tessa was doing affected the spell Gemma was spinning.

  Maybe it was just the fact that Tessa was here. Or maybe the energy they’d created at the temple was boosting the strega’s power.

  Whatever was happening, it wasn’t normal. And that probably meant trouble.

  Cal stood, searching for Tessa where he’d seen her before, but the strobes wreaked havoc with his vision and he didn’t see her immediately.

  Shit, where the hell—There!

  He caught a glimpse of her, farther away than she’d been the last time he’d seen her. Too damn far away.

  Too many people were between them, and now the crowd seemed to be getting carried away. The dancers surged in one huge mass, starting to bang off each other like water bubbles in a boiling pot. Tessa was a pinball in the mix.

  He had to get her out of here. Now. Before something—

  An unseen force blew through the crowd like a breeze. More like a gale-force hurricane. Cal swore it went through his body, not just on the surface but through his actual molecules.

  The dancers all faltered for a few brief seconds, as if stunned. Then they seemed to inhale as one body. Cal swore he actually heard them do it, even over the din of the music.

  His gaze shot to the stage where Gemma had opened her eyes and was staring into the crowd, her expression stunned, her body frozen. The eerie sight made his skin crawl as the band continued to play, oblivious to their strega’s distress.

  Oblivious to the surging power Cal felt all around him.

  Fuck.

  Tessa. He had to get Tessa out of here now.

  The strobes continued to fuck with his eyes. He needed help.

  “X!”

  His brother didn’t respond; he just stared at the stage as if hypnotized.

  This time Cal punctuated his brother’s name with a punch to the shoulder. “X! Snap out of it. I need you.”

  His brother stumbled next to him, blinking. “What the fuck?”

  “Something’s wrong.” Cal waved his hand out over the crowd. “I need your help to get Tessa out of here.”

  He could barely see X’s expression, but he clearly heard the bemusement in his brother’s voice, even over the music. “What the hell are you talking about? It’s all good, man.”

  X acted like he was drugged. And maybe he was.

  Cal had the bad feeling this ecstasy was going to come with a very big headache.

  Possibly worse, if he didn’t get Tessa out of here.

  He was positive that whatever freaky thing was going down, it was tied to her.

  “Gods damn it, X. I need to get Tessa out of here and I can’t fucking see. You have to help me.” He punctuated his words with another shot to X’s shoulder, one that had his brother shaking his head as if coming out of a dream.

  “Shit, man, that hurts… Why’d you… Whoa. Okay, you’re right. Something’s not right here.”

  “No shit.” Cal felt frustration start to give way to fear. “I need you. The strobes are fucking with my eyes. I need to get Tessa out of here. Do you see her?”

  They both turned to look out over the dance floor, where the audience had gotten even more frantic. The music continued to throb, but the powerful undercurrent of magic had become a constant stream. And not a pleasant one. It had taken on a life of its own.

  Now. He had to get her out of here now.

  “There!” X pointed, and for a brief second, Cal saw the flash of Tessa’s blonde hair at the far end of the arena. Grabbing X by the arm to pull him with him, Cal plunged into the writhing crowd.

  Women immediately began to slide their bodies against his, rubbing their breasts against his back and chest. A few got close enough to slide their groins against his, but he felt no desire.

  He only felt the pressure against his skin. No heat. Small favor. Also helpful because when he finally felt warm skin, he’d know he’d found Tessa.

  He didn’t stop though hands pulled at him from all sides, trying to get him to dance with them, to create more friction and more power.

  He couldn’t let them get in his way. With a tight grip on X, Cal barreled through the mass of bodies. But he was practically blind and he felt panic begin to tighten his chest.

  He couldn’t fail her in this, in something so absolutely mundane as a rave at a dance club. But this was no ordinary club. And the power level continued to increase.

  Just when he thought the fear of failing her would make him crazy, X pulled his arm out of Cal’s grip, then circled Cal’s forearm with his own hand, and started to drag Cal in a new direction.

  Placing his trust in someone else felt weird. For so long, he’d only had himself to rely on. Cal had to force himself not to tear his arm out of X’s hand, to let his brother lead him.

  X pushed through the crowd, but clearing a path became more and more difficult the farther they went. Bodies mashed together so tightly that Cal and X literally couldn’t get by. They had to circle. But each time, X pulled Cal along in a specific path.

  The drums pounded louder; the bass throbbed harder; and Cal figured the song was coming to the end. He knew the band wouldn’t stop the momentum now. They’d continue on in the throes of the power.

  He hoped like hell Gemma, the strega channeling all that power, would be okay. His first priority, though, was Tessa.

  X’s pace picked up until they were practically running. Bodies bounced off them and around them, creating chaos in the midst of more chaos. The sense that time was running out forced Cal onward, even though he was practically blind.

  Heart pounding, lungs burning, he drew in breath after breath of heavy air until finally he caught her scent. Just a hint of it, but he knew he was close.

  Someone grabbed him, a woman by the size of her hand. She pulled him against her, making him stumble. His momentum faltered, and X lost his grip on Cal’s arm.

  Cal and the woman fell in a mess of arms and legs on the floor, and before he could extricate himself, the woman had her mouth on his and her tongue in his mouth. Ripping himself out of her arms, he scrambled to his feet and battled with his brain to make his eyes focus despite the strobes.

  Vaguely, he heard X call his name, but Cal had seen the bright flash of Tessa’s hair for a brief second. Only a few feet away.

  Another strobe blinded him but he felt her. He put his hands out in front of him and began grabbing body parts. If he didn’t feel the warmth of skin, he moved on.

  He roared in triumph when his hand felt the sweet heat of her. But this heat wasn’t natural. She was burning up.

  “Tessa!”

  In the dark between strobes, he saw her expression. Dazed, confused. Completely out of it.

  He also saw the man pressed against her back. The soon-to-be-dead man had his arms wrapped around Tessa’s waist and appeared to be grinding his groin against her ass as he sucked on her neck.

  Fury made Cal pull back his fist. He would kill the guy for touching her.

  “No! Cal, don’t!” X grabbed Cal’s fist and held on. “You might hit Tessa.”

  Cal needed a second to process X’s words and a few more to get his anger under control. He shook his head to clear it then looked at X and nodded. Then he took careful aim and smashed his fist in the guy’s face. The man never even knew what hit him. He dropped like a stone.

  And Tessa blinked those blue, blue eyes at Cal. They shone as brightly as a lighthouse but her expression was dreamy, her mouth tilted in a soft smile. As if in slow motion, she closed the space between them, circled her arms around his neck, and pre
ssed her body full length to his.

  Lust flashed like a lightning strike as her lips closed over his. The hair on his body stood up and his cock answered her siren’s call, stiffening beyond hard to painful. His arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her off her feet so his cock could nestle into the notch of her thighs.

  Her taste flooded his senses, and the heat of her hands on his neck as she held on to him burned into his skin like a brand. She moaned when his lips parted hers and his tongue slid into her mouth to duel with erotic ferocity with her tongue.

  She let him overcome her, let him completely consume her as she sank into him. He ate at her mouth like a starving man, kissing her until he couldn’t breathe and then kissing her some more.

  When he had to pull away or risk passing out from oxygen deprivation, he clamped one hand on her neck so she couldn’t get away. He barely registered her legs locking around his waist or the hands she ran through the short strands of his hair. All that mattered was staking his claim.

  He had to get inside her. Had to get her naked and under him. And she seemed to be in line with the program.

  Her hips arched into his, rubbing the tip of his cock against her lace-covered clit. The tiny skirt she wore rode up so far that he would only need to flick the edge to expose her ass.

  “Cal!”

  The male voice calling to him annoyed the hell out of him. He didn’t want to know anything but Tessa, feel anything but her warmth and the silkiness of her skin.

  Sucking on the tongue she slid into his mouth, he tasted her desire for him.

  “Cal, you ass. We gotta get her out of here.”

  He didn’t want to go anywhere. Here was as good a place as any to fuck. And he wanted to fuck her so badly—

  A punch to the kidney made him gasp in pain and release Tessa’s mouth. He turned to kill whoever had dared to interrupt him and saw a face he recognized, a face he trusted.

  Cal shook his head as Tessa, deprived of his mouth, began to lay openmouthed kisses from his ear down his neck, occasionally stopping to bite and make him shudder with sensation.

  As Cal blinked harder, sanity began to return.

  X grabbed Cal’s arm and started to pull him toward the closest exit, which was still a decent fifty yards away.