“I need you to shut up about curses and kiss me again.” She trembled against him and pushed his head back to her breasts. Ariston trailed a hand between her legs and groaned as he slid two fingers inside her wet heat as he nipped a nipple between his teeth. He’d seen her there, dampened by lust, had seen her bring herself to her peak in front of him. Ariston decided if he didn’t taste her he’d lose his mind. He situated Lily at the end of the rock and confirmed it was, indeed, raised to the perfect height for him to thrust into her.
Lily stretched and spread herself languidly with her arms upraised to the very end of the mossy surface where the blanket failed to reach. It had bunched beneath the small of her back, the material damp and useless against fearsome cooties, should they be present. He decided not to mention it to her, as he was fairly certain Pan was right about her natural immunities.
He squatted down until he had her level with his face. When she parted her legs wantonly for him, he wanted to personally thank the gods for the gift they’d given him. He closed his eyes and leaned in for the kiss he’d denied her before, had denied himself as well. Lily sucked in a breath as Ariston ran the tip of his tongue gently across her wet flesh. He dipped inside her and was rewarded with her soft cry of satisfaction as he began to draw the sensations out through leisurely swipes and soft nibbles.
Her body shook as he brought her over the edge of pleasure. She’d be overly tender to his touch when he took her, but it would help bring her to completion quicker the second time since they had to contend to a schedule. Ariston stood and positioned himself between her legs.
This is it.
Lily gasped and her body jolted, but it wasn’t from anything he’d done. Ariston followed her gaze, searching for the threat. Tree roots had climbed up the opposite side of the monolith and captured both her wrists within them. He rushed over and ripped at the foul things, but only bloodied his fingertips in the process. They weren’t budging.
“Don’t,” Lily said. “The curse wants to be broken, Ariston. This is fate at work, ensuring the ritual goes through since it didn’t before.”
“Is it hurting you?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me. I will get an axe right now and cut it off of you if you say the word.”
“It doesn’t hurt. It’s not even tight, just too small to pull my hand through it.” She demonstrated for him what she meant. “Besides, a little light bondage never killed anybody.”
Ariston blinked. She threw a fit about the handcuffs a few days ago, and suddenly it was bondage-is-fun night?
Lily smirked. “What? Like you didn’t think it.”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Every time I think we’ve learned all the obstacles to this thing it throws a new one at us. It scares the shit out of me thinking what else could happen.”
“It’ll be okay. We’re going to make it through this.” She motioned with a nod at the sky. “The eclipse is well underway now. Let’s get this party started, Goatman.” Reluctantly, Ariston heeded her words and returned to the base of the rock. Lily pulled him to her with her heels.
He grinned at a reminder of how she’d called him names before she started to like him. Above them, a third of the moon was in shadow, but something seemed off. Ariston glanced around, aware quite suddenly of someone’s scrutiny. His back itched from it. Behind him, he only saw his cabin, forest, and darkness.
“We aren’t alone,” he said under his breath.
“Yeah...saying something like that when I am buck-naked and tied to a rock in the pouring rain on a dark, stormy night is not the best way to keep a girl in the mood. In case we weren’t on the same page about that.”
As though to prove the point, something crashed from inside the cabin. Perhaps he should have left the lights on after all. Ariston’s gaze bore into Lily’s. They didn’t dare breathe or move. Someone went through a lot of effort to make their presence known.
Lily spoke first. “Maybe it’s Pegasus. It is raining, you know. And we aren’t inside to bother him.”
“It’s not Pegasus. He’s gone for the night.”
“How do you—”
Another crash distracted her from her question. If Ariston ignored it, neither of them would find enjoyment with a potential danger lurking about. He had never been a fan of voyeurism despite the things he’d seen in the early years of being a satyr. Not to mention they were both exposed where they were, vulnerable to attack. But if he went to investigate, he left Lily helpless.
Movement in the shadows of the trees nearby caught his eye, and Melancton stepped into a patch of remaining moonlight. His expression guarded, he held both hands up in a gesture denoting peace. It was the moment Daphne had warned him of, and his gut tensed with absolute dread. As another crash inside the cabin broke the silence, Ariston realized he had to trust Melancton to guard Lily in order to protect her. Another satyr, with no reason to help him, left with his wife beneath a Satyr Moon.
Ariston returned his attention to Lily. “I have to remove the threat. This isn’t about me, but about protecting you.”
“What? Don’t you dare leave me like this.” Lily wrapped her legs tighter around him and locked her ankles, holding him in place. His dick slid against her and they both groaned. “Damn it Ariston. Can’t you, like”—she bumped against him a few times in quick succession—”super fast and then go walk into the B-movie style death trap? This is the classic separate and slaughter scenario here. Have you never watched a horror flick? Heard of the urban legend of the Hook Man? Come on!”
Gods, don’t tempt me. He didn’t want to leave her defenseless either. He’d done it once, and Adonis had freed Lily from the cuffs to show how close he could get to her. “Would you rather have someone get the jump on us while in the throes of passion where neither of us can defend ourselves? What if he has a weapon? He doesn’t even need to be right next to us.”
“Well, when you put it like that, I can see where that would be a problem.” She bit her lower lip and pouted.
“So you can see why I have to go.” He wrapped the blanket around her from both sides. She looked like she was wrapped in a cocoon. Like a really irritated caterpillar who scowled at him as he backed away. Another bang resounded behind him. It was definitely a trap. He turned back to Lily, tying again to pull the root from her wrists.
“Just go. I think I’m stuck here until the eclipse passes.” She sighed, closing her eyes against the rain. “This is rather anti-climactic.” She opened her eyes again to pin him with her gaze. “In more ways than one.”
“So much for fate wanting it to happen.” Ariston responded, sharing her dismay. They’d been so close. Perhaps he could stay away from her until the next eclipse. He’d forgotten when it would be, several months at least. “Melancton is over there.” He gestured behind her with a tilt to his head and she peeked back. He nodded at her and backed into the shadows again.
“I’m not sure if that makes me feel safer or more terrified,” Lily admitted. “Why can’t he go in the cabin? Huh? Isn’t he a warrior or something?”
“It has to be me. Daphne told me this would happen. That I’d have to trust Melancton against my better judgment.”
“Oh, really? And if Daphne told you to jump off a bridge would you do that too?”
“She saw it in one of the Fates’ crystalline orbs,” he said softly. “Once seen, it is written in stone...unless someone prevents it from occurring.” They stared at each other in silence, and Ariston placed a hand on her blanket-encased calf in an attempt to be reassuring. “He won’t let anything happen to you. I’ll be ri—”
Lily kicked him in the thigh with her blanket-bound legs. Hard. She’d almost tumbled off the rock, but he managed to catch her.
“Ow! Damn it, woman, was that necessary? You could have broken both your wrists with that stunt!” He made sure she was securely on the rock again before rubbing his leg.
“Do not say, ‘I’ll be right back.’ Damn, do you want to die? Those are like
the magic words for instant death in scary movies.”
“This isn’t a movie.”
“Oh, yeah? When altars pop out of the ground for a kinky ritual under the eclipse and some creeper wants to separate lovers mid-sex, it sure feels like a movie. And I want my money back! Just go and hurry back, or I will start without you.”
Ariston blinked. “How exactly are you going to manage that?”
Lily glanced down at herself and then back to the root binding her wrists. “I haven’t figured that part out yet, but don’t put it past me.”
***
Lily cursed as Ariston disappeared around the corner of the cabin. She’d witnessed better laid out traps on episodes of Scooby Doo than the make-noise-to-separate-the-victims gag that had played out. If Adonis had a weapon—assuming it was only Adonis they were dealing with—staying together wouldn’t have done them any good if he wished to harm them.
“Oh, so sorry, Lily,” she mocked. “I have to leave you tied to a rock because a random nymph told me to a few thousand years ago. You’ll be just dandy though, don’t you worry your sweet little head none.”
Well, this is awkward. Naked and laid out on a sacrificial altar, she looked like a red-fleece coated chili pepper on a platter, and Ariston would probably be smacked in the head with a cast-iron frying pan or something stupid like that. She didn’t think Melancton would hurt her, but he remained out of sight, which she found creepy as hell. Where was Pegasus, her so-called protector? Oh, that’s right. Putting it to the other horses because that’s what horse-shaped demigods did. Okay, she really didn’t want to think about horse-shaped anything. Eew.
The moon was almost completely covered above her, the sickle shaped glow grinning at her like a Cheshire cat taunting her misfortune. Ariston’s chance to be human again drifted silently across the sky, and she couldn’t do anything about it but lay there drenched by rain she’d brought about and hoping she didn’t get chiggers or a tick. Cooties indeed.
A branch snapped to her right. She scanned the area in the copse of trees looming there, praying Melancton stepped into the dwindling light to assure her she was safe and needn’t worry.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
Lily spun her head back in the direction of the cabin as the last of the moonlight vanished overhead. She’d imagined a click as the height of the eclipse slid into place, sealing Ariston’s fate. Everything on Earth remained hidden in a blanket of darkness, black as pitch. A shape separated from the side of the cabin, approaching her with cautionary steps. Maybe it was her paranoia, but the figure was taller than Ariston should be.
“Ariston?”
“Who else?” It sounded like Ariston, but...off, somehow.
A roiling sensation settled in her belly. Wrong! Something’s wrong! She struggled against her bonds, and the rain pelted down fiercer than ever. She had to shut her eyes against it, but either way her vision failed her in such a crucial moment. The form had been taller because it had a set of vertical horns, sharp as daggers at the points, atop its head. Where is Melancton?
“You’re not Ariston,” she said meekly. Oh, God, don’t let him touch me. I couldn’t bare another man’s touch when this night was for Ariston. And then another thought formed, one that turned her blood to ice. History repeating itself. Syrinx had been a sacrifice to Dionysus, whom she didn’t want. She’d wanted Pan...and couldn’t keep him.
Lily heard Adonis moving close beside her and the cool touch of his hand caressed her cheek. She flinched, turned her head, and then bit him, drawing blood. Opening her eyes only after she’d struck.
“Damn it.” He removed his hand promptly from harm’s way.
“What did you do, Adonis? Where’s Ariston!” She wanted Ariston to rush to her rescue. Lily felt helpless, small, and irrelevant in the vast span of fate. And Melancton had abandoned her to it, or worse, was part of the set up to separate Ariston from her. The betrayal hurt. She’d felt sorry for him because of Daphne. Ariston had trusted him to protect her in his place.
Adonis expelled an exasperated sigh. “I’m not going to harm you.”
“A likely story.” She finally squinted enough to see him as he peeled the edge of the blanket from her body. She swallowed the bile rising in the back of her throat. “What are you doing? Stop it.”
“I’m looking at you. Are...are you bound to this rock thing?” He shifted slightly and she heard a clop from him kicking the rock formation somewhere at its base.
When Ariston looked at her naked body, Lily wanted to stretch out like a cat and purr under his perusal. With Adonis, she wanted nothing more than to have her hands free to cover herself and save what dignity she had left. If he laid a hand on her again, there was little she could do to fight back. Ariston had wrapped her legs together with the end of the blanket. She couldn’t even kick without rolling off the formation and snapping her wrists in the process. “I can break free at any moment. As soon as I’m ready.” She spied his arched brow and gave up. Like he’d believe that when she’d had to bite him. She pleaded, “Please, leave me alone.”
“And miss out on regaining my humanity?” There was a strange hitch to his tone. Like Adonis still hadn’t quite convinced himself he wanted such a thing.
“If you do this, you’d have no humanity left. You really would be a monster. The complete opposite of your brother in every way.”
The small crease that had formed on his forehead grew more intense. His voice wavered as he grit out, “Do you think I want to do this? Nothing about it is right. Gods, woman, the fucking Earth has tied you down to force it upon you. There is nothing I wouldn’t love more than to walk away. To forget you, Ariston, the Satyroi. All of it.” He dropped the blanket back over her. Under his breath he added, “I should have gone days ago.”
Adonis reminded her of a wounded animal striking out at people to hide its injury. If he really believed he’d been done great injustices by the gods and his brother, what would thousands of years stewing on it have done to his mental state?
She took a deep breath and tried to stop her body from shaking. She needed to remain calm. Adonis didn’t look well. From the rain or something else, and he wrapped his arms around himself, teeth chattering as he shivered. His hair ran wild in a riot of knotted tangles, made more bedraggled by the downpour. He leered at her body with longing, but when his gaze met hers he dropped his arms, trying to hide the vulnerability she’d observed moments before.
Adonis was ill, and he was lashing out because of it. Somewhere, deep down, remained a soul that was twin to Ariston’s. Maybe if Lily talked to him she’d be able to reach it. Be able to diffuse the situation.
Above, the eclipse began its final phases, allowing the opposite end of the moon to grin down at her. She noticed half-heartedly that the rain had let up too. Because she was calming down?
“Ariston. Is he...”
“Dead? No. He couldn’t suffer as I have were he dead.”
“As you have?” Lily glared at him. “He’s suffered each and every day knowing his own brother hates him.”
“He told you about our past?” Adonis asked warily. Lily wished she could make out his features in that moment, but he’d moved further away. “I finally had something I could call mine alone, and because of him, I lost it.” He wrapped his arms around himself again.
The night was still but for the softening drip drop of summer rain, and the outburst hung in the air like fog, heavy, obstructing. Lily had to keep him talking, hoping beyond hope Ariston would make his way back to her or Melancton would step in.
She cleared her throat, praying she didn’t set Adonis off with her next words. “Aphrodite might have been flesh and blood, but being her lover was no more than a way to amuse her. I’ve never met her, but I’ve heard enough of the stories to know basic facts. She was married to Hephaestus, who loved her dearly. Not satisfied with him being crippled, she took Ares and countless other lovers to her bed. She cheated on her own husband, and you thought there was more to he
r taking a human? She’s without morals. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”
“It wasn’t like that. She said she loved me.”
The root holding Lily’s wrist slackened, and she bit her tongue to avoid glancing at her hands for confirmation. The ritual was ending. Ariston’s chance had passed. “She was—um, is—the goddess of love. It’s possible she did love you, in some way. But she’s a deity, and you were mortal. I cannot recall a single Greek myth where a god and a mortal had a happily ever after.” She slipped a hand free but kept her gaze focused on him. Adonis didn’t seem to notice.
“You don’t understand. It was good for a while.” He rubbed the palm of his right hand over his chest where his heart was located, clutching at the material of his T-shirt. It was a gesture she’d seen Ariston do more than once. “She was mine, and I was hers. And we stayed there in a temple she’d built for herself since mortals can’t step foot through the gates of Olympus. It seemed like ages, but it was only a few months.” His tone changed directions, from wistful to angry. “When she discovered my brother was a twin to me, her eyes clouded with lust, and she said nothing would please her more than to have the two of us in her bed. That two were better than one. And I was loathe to deny her anything, not if she truly wanted it.”
Moisture tracked down his cheek, but the rain had stopped. Déjà vu kicked in as she stared into his face, but she saw Ariston’s, from when he’d recounted his own side of the same story earlier that day. Lily pulled her other hand free and sat up. She maneuvered the blanket to cover her and free her legs modestly. Without further hesitation, she reached out to him. Adonis recoiled as though her arms were snakes, poised to strike.
“Come here.” It occurred to her Adonis wouldn’t want to show weakness in front of other men; the other satyrs and Dionysus would have mocked him for it. He’d likely never talked about Aphrodite with someone who wouldn’t judge him, never said why it hurt him. Like Ariston, Adonis needed to get it off his chest. She’d listen. Her hurt from Donovan was still fresh, and Lily couldn’t help but feel a sort of kinship to Adonis due to her experience with betrayal. She’d thought Donovan had loved her as well. Although Adonis had a direct hand in her own heartbreak, Lily wouldn’t hold it against him. He’d also been responsible for her meeting Ariston, and that she could never regret.
The Cursed Satyroi: Volume One Collection Page 50