I preferred being angry. It was easier.
Preternatural instinct told me that night had fallen some time ago, or perhaps it was the last vestiges of Dimitri’s blood in my system that knew this. Yet here I was, holed up in the middle of the Mediterranean on some Greek island. To hell with what Dimitri Ravello wants!
What I’d do instead was wait until morning to make my move, when he was often scarce. Because gut instinct was screaming that Mark and Christie Gold had precious little time left.
Sleep overtook me at some point.
In a dream, for surely that was what it was, I saw the regal, white-haired woman again. She stood at the center of that vast temple structure, a semi-circle of the same twelve woman behind and at her sides. Was she the mother I was supposed to go in search of? The very woman who’d abandoned me at birth, leaving me to suffer at the hands of fiends like Haemon and Kassandra? If it was true, then she could go to hell!
Dimitri’s Francesca peered around her, and warily shook her head at me.
Haemon intruded on the temple dreamscape then and the women faded. Niko was with him and naked atop a stone altar. Mark Gold was there, too. He stood behind the raised structure, pure hatred in his eyes for me, while Kassandra and two hooded figures emerged from the deeper shadows. Haemon grinned at the assembled onlookers and withdrew a vicious-looking dagger slotted within the altar, his eyes alight now with unbridled fervor.
Before I could react, he’d raised the weapon and brought the blade down on Niko.
Jolted awake, my body pulled against another. The warm contact of bare skin mingled with that terrible dream reflection, but ultimately served to re-anchor me in the present.
Was it just a bad dream or had I tapped into a glimpse of future horrors?
The dark bedroom hummed with the soft drone from the air filtration system. Over this rose the faint but unmistakable sounds of Eva and Dimitri’s lovemaking.
With this realization came the image of her lithe body arched in ecstasy, her nakedness awash in golden candlelight, her pretty face flush, as Dimitri devoured the valley between her legs. He pulled back abruptly and whipped his head in my direction, lips smeared a deep crimson. Whether or not he knew it was me in ethereal form in the room with them, his look was fierce. Territorial. I was witnessing something private and he wanted me gone.
As though a curtain had been drawn, the connection between us severed. I was once again lying in the guest bed next to a slumbering Niko.
I hadn’t meant to intrude upon their intimacy, but was grateful to be shut out from it. Their passion for one another was further confirmation that I’d never win Dimitri Ravello’s affection. So I used every ounce of willpower to blot out Eva’s cries of pleasure. Soon they became little more than a gentle echo drifting away on the mild currents of air, as a peaceful hush at last descended over the room.
Niko stirred next to me without waking and nuzzled into the crook of my neck, his dark curls smelling of sea air and some other distinctly male scent.
Part of me craved this closeness, longed to seek comfort in this beautiful young man who ignited very real desire in me. But I pushed that desire away. I couldn’t give into it. Not with everything that was happening.
Then something stirred in the darkness.
Dimitri was standing in the doorway, his muscular body free of clothing, his forearms braced against the stone jambs. Still aroused, he was breathing heavily as he regarded Niko and I in bed together. Then his excitement died and his mind reached out to me to convey what I already knew. He was lost to me. The only way for Dimitri to give in to my same desire would be through incubus magic. And that was not love—no matter how badly I wished it were.
More painful a message was his decision that, should we defeat Haemon and Kassandra, he would disappear from my life forever.
I closed my eyes knowing that in the end he’d probably made the right decision for us both. When I reopened them, Dimitri was gone.
Niko shifted again and let out a small sigh. The expression on his face held such contentment that he reminded me of a young child cradled in the arms of a loving parent. Nothing bad could happen to him. How very much I wanted that to be true.
Because now more than ever I was resolved to leave this sanctuary. And my hope was that Niko would leave it with me.
CHAPTER 30
“Only Master Dimitri can open it,” Niko said in a strangled whisper.
I stood before the monolithic entrance to the sanctuary and channeled all of my incubus concentration on the release lever. It had failed to budge using physical strength, so now I was resorting to supernatural mind magic. If I’d damn near brought the Acropolis above crashing down on us yesterday by sheer accident, how hard could it be to move a stupid lever on purpose?
“Don’t be so sure,” I told him, focusing more mental energy on the handle.
Uncertainty was written all over Niko’s face. I could tell this had more to do with his being torn between loyalty to his vampire boss and a newfound desire to help with me. What he didn’t know was that I’d done exactly what I’d sworn to Dimitri I wouldn’t—invade his mind to make him just a little sleepier than usual this morning.
Did I feel guilty for going back on my word? You bet.
Was getting out of here and rescuing my friends a helluva lot more important than the hurt feelings of someone who didn’t really want me in his life anyway? Entirely.
Redirecting my focus on the lever once more, I pictured an invisible hand gripping and pulling back on it. My concentration was so intense that I felt tiny electrical pulses firing behind my eyes and a thin line of what had to be blood running from my nose to my upper lip.
Just when I thought my brain might explode out through the top of my head, the handle shifted from its locked position and the stone wall began to slide open with a low grinding sound.
Chalk up one for the rookie incubus!
Niko’s face lit up with wonder. “Master was right. You truly are a god.”
“No,” I was quick to counter and slipped through the narrow opening. “I’m just an ordinary guy some spectacularly bizarre shit has happened to.” Seeing him standing within the safety of the sanctuary, my resolve wavered. Wasn’t I about to place yet another life in danger? “On second thought, Niko, you should probably—”
“And what is a god without a follower?” he said, slipping through the gap with a big grin.
Ready to insist he stay behind, a voice called out from within the sanctuary. “Brother?”
“It is Eva!” Niko all but shouted. “Quickly. We must seal the passage!”
He slipped around me to depress the block in the outer wall, which moved the massive slab back into place. Darkness swallowed us, until he hit the light switch.
Spinning around to face me, he laughed. “My sister cannot activate the lever from inside.”
“No, but she can raise the alarm to her lover. I should leave your sorry ass right here!”
He fixed me with a mischievous look that held just a hint of defiance and handed me a second flashlight he’d retrieved from his back pocket. “True. But how would you find your way out? Or climb down the mountain?”
This was the Niko I’d met at the base of the mountain yesterday. “You little shit.”
“That is no way for a god to speak to his follower.”
“Niko, I am not a—”
“Come. We must hurry before Eva wakes the Master.”
On our trek up the silo’s earthen stairs, I half expected Dimitri to spring from the shadows at the top of them, furious that we’d snuck out and hell-bent on dragging us back to his lair.
All the more reason to pick up the pace.
Armed with just our flashlights, we worked our way up through the mausoleum and various caves to the entrance we’d come through only yesterday. I didn’t relish having to rappel down a mountainside, but going down would be a heck of a lot easier than climbing up.
As we neared the iron door, a sense of victory
began to build inside me. I was going to beat Haemon and Kassandra. I didn’t know how, but they would pay for what they’d done. And for the very first time in my life, I felt in complete control of my own destiny.
“Well?” I said, nodding to the door.
Niko looked sheepishly back at me. “I fear you will be angry with me.”
His thoughts were a jumble of emotions. I couldn’t zero in on any particular one of them. “Why would I get mad at you for helping me get out of here?”
“Because there is another way down.”
I shone the beam of light into his face. “I’m listening.”
With a slight tremble in his lower lip, he directed the beam of his flashlight to a remote corner of the cave. I had to squint, but there appeared to be a breach of some sort in the rock face. Once we’d approached it, I saw that it opened onto a rough-hewn stairwell that descended into more darkness.
“In other words, all that fuss to get me up here yesterday wasn’t really necessary?”
Niko stared down at the bare earth at his feet, his expression pained.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or strangle the life out of him.
“The stairs lead to the other side of the acropolis,” he stammered, still avoiding direct eye contact. “We could not use it yesterday because of the morning sun.”
He was being only half-truthful. “You just wanted to see if I could do it.”
Niko was still being wisely cautious, but the faintest trace of a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “It was the best way to reach Master Dimitri without being seen. And,” he added, “the best way to spend more time with you.”
I rested hands on my hips and shook my head, and then I did laugh.
“You are not angry with me?”
“Angry? Hell, I’m flattered.”
After a long descent through a stuffy, narrow tunnel filled with dust and far too many cobwebs for my liking, I glimpsed a thin seam of light up ahead. Shit. I’d failed to consider my sensitivity to sunlight. With all of Dimitri’s other vampire traits having deserted me, I prayed this final (and terrible) side-effect had abandoned me as well.
“Perhaps you should move back, yes?”
Niko, it appeared, had not forgotten about my predicament.
I nodded, a rush of adrenaline energizing my limbs while he unlocked a similar iron door to the one upstairs. A terrible memory flash of flames engulfing my body forced me to take a few retreating paces backwards, as he pulled back on the door and warm morning light and fresh air rushed in to flood the tunnel. I brought up a protective hand to shield my eyes.
Niko looked to me for a signal. Not bursting into flames was a pretty damned good one. The day was looking up.
“Wait here,” he said, slipping around the other side of the door. “I must make certain no one sees us.”
I did what he asked, inching closer to the brightness and reveling in its warmth. How I’d missed this, and how sad that Dimitri was forever denied this common pleasure.
“Okay,” Niko whispered. “It is safe to come out now.”
We’d soon find out.
I inched closer to the exit, alert to the slightest tingle beneath my skin. Niko stood just beyond it, his expression mirroring that of an expectant parent whose child was about to take its first steps. He was ready to rush in at the slightest sign of danger, his olive skin and dark hair so vital in the bright sunlight. Except that it wasn’t actual sunlight. Rather, the rocks themselves were emitting the incredible glow.
A series of small fissures above, I realized, captured and funneled the morning rays into the narrow slot canyon, pooling them into concentrated patches on the ground and causing the rock walls to absorb and refract this light. The whole place radiated with a golden-white luminosity that gave it an almost otherworldly glow. Not until I’d crossed the threshold and moved a few feet beyond it did a wave of heat engulf me.
Primed to rush back to the safety of the tunnel, I quickly discovered that this heat wasn’t lethal. So I took a few tentative steps toward one of the narrow shafts of light and paused directly under it. No Austin flambé.
I let go of the breath I’d been holding and felt a smile spreading across my face. I was free of Dimitri’s blood at last!
Niko smiled back at me. “I must secure the door.”
I wanted to jump up and down with joy. Instead, I simply breathed deep of the fresh air, laced with the wonderful aroma of plant life and salt water. They might not be unfamiliar scents, but they sure felt new and wondrous to me in that moment.
“Niko, can you believe I—”
He’d vanished, along with the door! Why then could I hear the distinct clicking sound of metal tumblers locking into place? It was coming directly from the spot where the door and Niko had once stood, and where now only solid rock appeared.
“What is wrong?” Niko asked.
I stumbled backwards. “Jesus!”
Like a mirage in the desert, Niko emerged from within the solid rock.
He glanced over his shoulder to see what I was staring at, and then turned back to me wearing another of his adorably impish grins. “The doorway is enchanted. Master Dimitri had Eva do it so that intruders would not find the entrance.”
Mystified, I was also loath to move closer to the spot where Niko had just materialized.
Nevertheless, I forced myself to reach out a hand. The air rippled around it, consumed it, though without any pain. I moved closer still and watched in fascination as a portion of my forearm disappeared into the warm wrinkle of air. This had been the source of the heat I’d felt earlier. I’d passed through some form of mystical barrier.
“Part of the enchantment is not wanting to go near it,” he said.
“Yeah, I get that.” I pulled my arm back. “So your sister’s a witch?” Next he’d be telling me that Harry Potter was a real wizard.”
“A powerful sorceress. There are other magical creatures on the island, too,” he added, walking toward the dense wall of dark green shrubbery camouflaging the canyon entrance.
I caught his arm in time to ask, “What kind of magical creature are you?”
He looked down at his feet, then back up at me again and shook his head. “There is nothing special about me. I have no magic.”
I was tempted to say, “Wanna bet?” Because if incubi and succubi were the seducers of the supernatural world, then this charming young man was their mortal equivalent. Niko had plenty of magic; he just didn’t realize it. Now, however, was not the time to explore it.
“Wait!” I called out as he approached the dense thicket.
How had he (hell, how had I) missed the angry swarm of bees increasing in alarming number above his head? I pointed frantically to the dark, buzzing cloud.
Niko looked up and laughed again. “Another glamour,” he said, reaching up to pass his hand through the center of the swarm. “To keep away the curious locals.”
I rushed up behind Niko and hugged him with more than passing relief. Would I ever get used to this bizarre new world of which I was now a part?
We emerged from the very real thicket of tall shrubs and out into a truly glorious day. It was still early, which meant that few tourists had found their way to the base of the acropolis. For the moment, I allowed myself to bask in the warmth of the morning sun.
Again, the thought of Dimitri being cursed to live in a world of endless night cut through to dampen my joy. How did he do it and stay sane?
Dimitri…
Second thoughts began to creep into my head, which the incubus in me rose up to quash. I was doing the right thing—the only thing. “Where are we?”
“Rhodes,” Niko replied. “Down there is Lindos.”
The quaint seaside town was surrounded by the deep blue Aegean in every direction, the small fishing boats in the tiny harbor bobbing on the surface of the water, their masts swaying to a silent rhythm, the way they had for thousands of years. The picturesque setting was idyllic, except that real-life monsters
were out there waiting for us, as were Mark and Christie Gold. At least I hoped they still were!
“We need clothing and a way off the island.”
“Clothing is no problem.” Then his brow furrowed. “But I have no money to book us passage.”
Our first snag, and one that I should have foreseen.
My wallet and cell phone undoubtedly lived in a police Ziploc bag in Los Angeles. Dimitri hadn’t thought to retrieve them before tossing my ass through a plate-glass window.
Then I felt a grin start to form. “Money’s not gonna be an issue for us.”
CHAPTER 31
Thanks to a week of pure insanity, I’d overlooked one of the more practical aspects of life: having a sizeable chunk of change at my disposal. All I needed to get at it was a computer or telephone.
Armed with this knowledge, Niko and I set off from Lindos to the Old City of Rhodes, a hot and dusty twenty-mile ride in the back of an old flatbed truck. We were almost free!
The driver took us as far as the hotel Castello di Rodi outside the main city, where Niko charmed the proprietress into helping us. He explained to her that he and his American friend had been robbed of all their possessions and could sure use some assistance. The woman went from clutching at her chest to shaking her head to clutching at her chest again. By the end of his story, she’d produced the oldest-looking telephone I’d ever seen from beneath the check-in desk, which she now pushed in my direction.
And Niko said he had no magic.
God, did it ever feel good to be clean.
I patted the shower towel over the remaining moisture on my face and neck and took in my reflection in the mirror of our hotel room. Any trace of the violent episode aboard the yacht was gone. Incubus me was looking pretty damn good again.
After a call to an American Express office on the mainland, that good feeling began to fade. Paranoia sent me back to the pages of thrillers I’d enjoyed reading in college. Use a credit card for anything and—wham!—the bad guys showed up on your doorstep in the very next scene.
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