Breath of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  As soon as I’m able, Griffin helps me sit up and drink from the stream. The water tastes awful. It’s full of minerals, but it calms the twitch in the back of my throat enough to keep me from losing the salamanders. I don’t know what would happen if they came back up.

  “You’re amazing,” I say, wiping warm water from my chin. “You all are. Thank you.”

  Gruff mumbling is my only answer.

  “Let’s move you away from all this blood.” Griffin picks me up even though I could probably limp on my own and then sets me down where the grass is thick and dry. Pain still crawls up and down my body. Repeating the spell drained me, leaving me dizzy and weak. And that’s on top of the near-death.

  “Should we dilute the blood?” Griffin asks.

  I look at him, a surge of emotion making my heart turn over hard. I’m so glad I didn’t get in that boat.

  I shake my head. “Let Mother come here looking for me. She can have fun with the Hydra now that we got it to grow twice as many heads.”

  Carver plants his hands on his narrow hips, frowning in the direction of the lake. “There’s no way we’re getting past that. At least it stays in the lake.”

  I eye the enormous creature. “If it didn’t, we’d be dead. More dead. I mean, really dead. For real.”

  Griffin’s hand tightens on my lower back, and I stop talking. Everyone still looks whey-faced, as if I scared the color out of them.

  “How do you feel?” Griffin asks.

  I don’t meet his eyes. I’m great at exaggerating. Not so good at downplaying. “Nothing to worry about.” I stand to prove it, ignoring the shooting aches in my bones. As long as I don’t have to run, fight, or move very much until we find a real healer, that’ll be true. I hope.

  Griffin’s expression tells me I’m not fooling him. But I’m upright and not bleeding to death, so that’ll have to do.

  “So that’s it? No Ipotane?” Flynn’s auburn hair is soaked through and plastered down. It’s darker that way, the color of a peat-stained stream. His brown eyes are three times as dark and charged with frustration. “After all this?”

  I glare at the Hydra. “I wish I could fry it. I have God-like power, and I can’t even make it work. How worthless is that?”

  “If you would take your own safety seriously,” Griffin says sharply, “maybe it would.”

  Guilt keeps me from answering, or even looking at him.

  “So now what?” Carver asks.

  Before anyone can answer him, Kato reels back. Hissing, he slaps his hand over the serpent tattoo on his neck.

  CHAPTER 22

  “What?” we all shout at once.

  Kato’s lips pull back in a grimace. Smoke rises from under his fingers, and the smell of burning flesh strikes my nose like an acrid punch.

  He doubles over and retches violently. Saliva drips from his open mouth, and a horrible groan resonates in his chest. His blue eyes turn huge and watery. Then he heaves again, his entire body bucking with the effort. Titos’s head pokes up from Kato’s throat.

  “Mother of Zeus!” I jump back with more energy than I thought I had, lose my balance, and land on my ass.

  Just like at the Chaos Wizard’s house, the snake slowly emerges, shiny and black, with vibrant crimson and gold diamonds chasing each other down its back. Its forked tongue shoots out and flutters in the air. It licks again, seeming greedy for the taste of the warm, magic-charged air. The serpent scans the area, unblinking, before dropping to the grass with a flat thud.

  Kato staggers back from Titos, hacking out a series of coughs that rattle like dust and gravel. In between, he gulps down half-strangled breaths, his chest rising and falling like bellows. The tattoo is still on his neck, the flesh around it raw and red. Almost immediately, though, the burn starts to fade, and the tattoo settles into healthy-looking skin again, more realistic and lifelike than ever.

  Wary, my jaw still slack, I turn back toward Titos. Slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle me, Poseidon’s Drakon slithers toward me. He lays his head across my boot and stares at me with those lidless eyes. Still sprawled on my backside, I cringe and tense to kick him off me, but his tongue shoots out and curls around my calf.

  Adrenaline spikes in my blood. I think the snake just hugged me. I’m disturbed. Very disturbed.

  “If you jump down my throat, I will cut myself open to get you out,” I say with surprising conviction.

  I could swear the word incompatible whispers through my mind on a soft hiss. The small hairs on the back of my neck prickle upright, and I shiver.

  Titos slithers up my recently reset leg. Heat suffuses my thigh. Griffin steps forward, not looking at all comfortable with this, and I hold up my hand. “Wait. It’s okay. I think.”

  From between locked jaws, he says, “You think?”

  I nod, and then, through the tear in my pants, we all see the jagged, puckered, barely closed-over skin even out, losing all evidence of recent injury. The pervasive ache in my bone disappears.

  Griffin lets out a soft grunt and visibly relaxes. So do I.

  Titos wriggles into my lap, curls up, and then lays his shiny dark head on my lower abdomen. His tongue flutters out with leisurely vibrations against my belly, and a tingling warmth spreads through my pelvis and higher, soothing away the cramps and aches. Next, he coils around my torso, and my breathing turns completely pain-free. After that, Titos slides his head over my left shoulder and then wraps his sinuous body around my arm. It stops throbbing instantly.

  “Titos is healing me,” I whisper.

  “Then why do you look like you’re about to vomit?” Flynn whispers back.

  “I’m trying to overcome my visceral dislike of snakes.” I speak through my teeth, not opening my mouth just in case Titos gets any ideas about a new host, despite my apparent incompatibility.

  To my relief, Titos eventually slithers off me. I breathe deeply for the first time since the Hydra caught me and twist this way and that, testing my body and stretching my limbs. I grin. “I feel great!”

  Squatting down next to me, Griffin squeezes my knee. His return smile looks strained and doesn’t reach his eyes.

  Kato chokes on something, maybe leftover snake, and then neatly sidesteps a slow-moving Titos. Kato’s eyes shift from the serpent back to me. His expression turns incredulous. “I carried a Drakon around all this time on the off chance—no, the good chance—you’d get yourself nearly killed and need extreme magical healing?”

  I grimace, apologetic. “I guess so. Titos couldn’t have survived the Ice Plains on his own. It’s too cold for snakes.” I look around. “This place is perfect for him. The hot springs will keep him warm, and there are bound to be frogs and other sources of food in the lake.”

  Kato snorts. “So if something like this had happened when we were still on the glaciers, the snake would have jumped back down my throat?”

  I have trouble meeting Kato’s eyes and pluck at my boot instead. I don’t like how the Gods have been using him. First the labyrinth, and now this. “Maybe.” I shrug. “I don’t know.”

  Without even a last look in our direction, Titos slips into the warm lake. Gentle ripples form, spread out, and then melt into the water as he disappears under the surface.

  “That was anticlimactic,” Carver says with a frown.

  “Not for me,” Kato mutters, rubbing his neck.

  “Titos must have helped you conjure the healing salamanders.” I look at Kato, my eyes drawn to the dark spiral of the tattoo peeking out from under his fingers. “That’s why they were so powerful.”

  Frowning, Kato drops his hand. “I guess that’s the end of that.”

  His tattoo gleams in the sunlight, still lifelike. Who knows?

  Griffin tenses beside me. He rises, and I follow his gaze toward the lake. My eyes widen just as Griffin reaches down, grabs my wrist, and pops me off
the ground with strength that still somehow surprises me. We all run away from the lake, Griffin towing me at breakneck speed. Part of me registers that I don’t hurt—anywhere. Amazing. The rest of me focuses on the next disaster. Something huge enough to displace massive amounts of water is hurtling straight for the shore.

  I glance over my shoulder. Every Hydra head is turned toward the gargantuan disturbance. The frightening creature spins and splashes frantically for deeper water.

  Uh-oh. When monster number one is terrified of monster number two, it’s definitely time to move faster. Unfortunately, I’m the slowest one here.

  The Hydra shrieks, and I turn again. And stop dead. Griffin is still going and nearly rips my arm from the socket before he stops, too, whipping around.

  Titos is rising from the lake. Only Titos grew. A lot. His black head flares, so high and huge it blocks the sun and throws the entire lakefront into shadow. He towers above the Hydra, an ebony mountain of muscle and fangs. Water cascades down his enormous, overlapping scales, hitting the lake with a tumbling crash. The lake froths and foams, bubbling around his giant column of a body as Titos unhinges his enormous jaws. They widen with a loud, dreadful click. The inside of the serpent’s mouth is wet and pink and bottomless. Plenty of room for the Hydra.

  Titos drops his head straight down, and the entire screeching Hydra disappears into his monstrous gullet—gone in one gulp.

  “Good Gods,” Griffin murmurs.

  I drag my jaw off the ground. “Well done, Titos!” I cheer. “Good snake!”

  Titos looks in our direction and then sets his massive head down on the waterlogged bank, leaving his huge body to bask half in the sun, half in the warm lake. He looks for all of Olympus like he’s settling down for a nap and a long digestion. The Hydra is a giant lump in Titos’s even more gigantic throat. The lump is moving.

  I clap. “Onward to the Ipotane! This day is turning out great!”

  Griffin levels a flat, dark look on me, not amused.

  Kato looks ill. “I… It… Me…” He stares at the massive snake. “Big.”

  I squeeze his arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll speak in complete sentences again soon.”

  His brow creasing, Flynn looks out over the now-calm water. “Actually, before we move on… Since Titos has made the lake safe, I wouldn’t mind a bath.”

  The others murmur in agreement, and it sounds like a good idea to me. I’m covered in my own blood.

  “Wash and rest.” Griffin nods. “We’ll camp here until Cat is at full strength again.”

  As anxious as I am to reach the Ipotane, he’s right. I’m pumped up on adrenaline right now, but everything that just happened is bound to take its toll. Better to rest and recover with Titos watching over us.

  We return to where we left our gear and supplies, and Carver rummages for soap and a change of clothing. Flynn and Kato do the same.

  “We’ll take that side,” Carver says, and he and the others move off toward the right, between Titos and the cliffside path, leaving Griffin and me alone.

  Griffin grabs his soap and satchel and then reaches for me, swinging me up into his arms.

  Smiling, I loop my hands loosely around his neck. “I can walk.”

  “Or I can carry you.”

  I arch a brow at his flat, unbending tone, but I like it where I am, so I don’t argue.

  Griffin carries me toward the steaming lake, heading for a scattering of boulders to the left of Titos. Staring straight ahead, gruffly he says, “I need you.”

  Anticipation leaps in my belly. I need him, too. I bury my face in his scruffy neck and inhale deeply. I choke a little. “What you need is a bath.”

  He grunts.

  “And a shave.” I rub the tip of my nose over his whiskered cheek. “Can I shave your beard for you?”

  “No.”

  I stretch up and nip his earlobe. “Why not? I’m good with knives.”

  Griffin’s grip tightens. “Concentrate on your own hair. It might take a while.”

  “Ah, the Knotted Nest. That will take some work.”

  Griffin almost smiles. I think. “You named it?”

  “Of course. It’s worthy of a name. Actually, it’s got two. That and the Terrible Tangle. Which do you prefer?”

  “I prefer ‘I love you and you’re beautiful.’”

  I grin. “Charming, Your Highness.”

  This time his lips twitch. I’m sure of it. Almost.

  “No sarcasm?” he asks.

  I slide my fingers into his smooth, dark, still-wet hair. “You’re learning, Beta Sinta.”

  He growls deep in his throat at the name I used to call him, when I was a conflicted prisoner and he was a stranger I didn’t understand. “That’s Alpha Sinta to you, Princess.”

  I laugh, shamelessly in love. “What about Husband?”

  Griffin stops. Actually, I think he trips. He tenses, and his breathing turns fast and shallow, scaring me a little.

  I grab his face and turn it toward mine. “Are you all right?”

  He stares at me. His jaw hardens into marble under my hands, and his gray eyes flicker with hints of something explosive and unnerving. “Are you serious?”

  “What?” I frown. “Um… Yes?”

  His nostrils flare, and his stare turns blistering. “You say that now? You agree to marry me now, when I’m so bloody angry with you that I can barely hold on to my temper, and I don’t know whether to make love to you until I finally can’t see you lying there broken and bloody every time I blink, or to spank you senseless!”

  My stomach had been spiraling viciously downward, but at “spank” I feel my eyes light up.

  “And not in a good way!” Griffin practically shouts.

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “My hand is itching for your reckless little arse.”

  “You were fine two seconds ago!”

  “I wasn’t!” Cursing, he sets me down behind a large rock. In no time, I’m completely naked, most of my clothes simply ripped right off. They were ruined anyway, but I still blink in shock. Griffin strips out of his own wet and bloody clothing as well. He looks like a God—hard, chiseled, powerful, livid—and I shiver with slightly wary excitement as I step into the almost-too-warm lake. Steam curls up my body, turning my skin damp and pink. Griffin prowls in after me.

  Silt squishes between my toes as I move back. “If you try to spank me, Titos might eat you.”

  He stalks me. Griffin’s arms hang loose at his sides, but his expression is shuttered and stiff. There isn’t an inch of him that’s relaxed.

  I back up until I’m trapped by boulders and the water reaches my knees. When Griffin stops in front of me, his naked body, even vibrating with barely leashed anger, is too tempting to resist. I reach out and slide both hands down his sculpted torso, stopping only when my fingers dip into the indents near his hips.

  The taut skin on Griffin’s lower abdomen twitches. He sucks in a breath. I sweep my hands toward his growing arousal, but before I can wrap my fingers around it, he grabs my wrists and forces them behind my back.

  I look up. He looks down at me with such fierce intensity that my breath catches, and my heart starts to pound. In his severe expression, I see aggression that won’t hurt me, and love that will always heal.

  Groaning like he’s in pain, Griffin drops to his knees in front of me and then cages me in an almost violent embrace. His beard rasps my stomach, and his harsh breathing sends a rush of sensation across my ribs. He stays there, his face buried below my breasts. I want to hold him, touch him, comfort him, but when I try to move, his grip tightens on my wrists. And so I stand there, my heart so full it hurts, staring at the tense line of his broad shoulders and the top of his dark head.

  Griffin’s entire upper body eventually lifts on a deep breath. He tilts his face up and kisses the hollow bet
ween my breasts. The kiss is gentle and lingering, almost reverent, and something inside me heats and then melts. He turns his head and trails his lips over the inner swell of my breast. When his mouth closes over my nipple, a little earthquake trembles beneath my skin.

  I restlessly shift my legs when Griffin sucks hard enough for me to feel the pull all the way to my core. Pleasure spikes, soaring through me, and I arch into him, already hopelessly aroused.

  Slowly, Griffin drops back onto his heels. Still holding my wrists, he kisses a fiery path down my belly, stopping just above the apex of my thighs. Everything under his mouth tightens, throbbing with want.

  “Cat?” His voice is rough. He doesn’t look up.

  I’m still helpless and caged, and I ache, expectation leaving me coiled tight, needy, and panting. “Griffin?”

  He pulls on my wrists. My back arches, and my pelvis tips forward to meet his lips. “Marry me.” He kisses me lightly and then more deeply, his tongue parting my folds for a long, slow caress. “Marry me soon.”

  “Yes,” I answer, breathless.

  Griffin makes love to me with his mouth until tremors shake me, and my legs quiver. “Is that ‘yes’ more of this, or ‘yes’ you’ll marry me as soon as humanly possible?”

  My bones are liquid, my body on fire. “Both.”

  He growls his approval, and the low vibration pushes me tantalizingly close to the edge. Griffin lets go of my wrists and catches my hips instead.

  I sway, sinking my hands into his hair for balance. “I want you inside me.”

  He groans, drops lower, and then pushes his tongue into me.

  I gasp, the first hot waves of release rolling through me. The climax grows, and I cry out, helpless to hold anything back. My fingers tighten in his hair, and Griffin’s shoulders and arms flex, tensing to hold me up because I’ve gone limp in his hands.

  He clamps me to him, his mouth coaxing trembling aftershocks from me that I can barely take. I feel weak, my skin flushed and thin. I’m achingly aware of Griffin’s big, strong body, of its pure, masculine vitality, and of the power it holds over mine—the lust, the trust, the overwhelming pleasure. My senses spin, so heightened that I feel every drop of moisture beaded on my skin. One slips down my inner thigh, and Griffin follows its path with his tongue. My lips part, and I moan.