DAMIAN’S HEART WAS thundering in his chest, his blood pounding so loud that every pulse hammered in his eardrums, making it difficult to hear Cassandra’s soft cries, her straining breaths. And he wanted to hear her pleas for release, her shocked gasps of pain, her cries of delight. Her pussy was still pulsing around his cock, her inner muscles still gripping him tightly as if not ready to let him go. He waited, holding her until the climax finally released her, until her muscles grew lax, and her breathing evened out. And then he held her a moment longer, just because he could.
He didn’t understand yet why she had such a hold on him. Why this one woman, among the hundreds he’d bedded? How his fellow warriors would laugh if they could see him. He, who’d had more women than all of them combined, who’d been famous as much for his feelings, or his lack thereof, as for his conquests. He’d thought at first it was some perversion of gratitude that he was feeling toward her, because she’d been the one to free him from his long imprisonment. But then he’d gotten to know her, her courage and her intellect, the fierce loyalty she felt for Nico and the other hunters, the vulnerability that she worked so hard to hide.
She’d been the first woman he’d ever told, the first person he’d ever told, the truth of his making at Nico’s hands. That he was a creation of sun and shadow, not a real man at all. There had always been a part of him when he’d been young, the frightened child who hid deep in his soul, who’d feared what would happen if he displeased Nico. What if Nico grew strong enough that he didn’t need a protector anymore? Or what if he simply grew tired of Damian? Could he be made to disappear as readily as he’d appeared?
As the years passed and their friendship grew, he no longer worried about Nico discarding him, but he still wondered about his own humanity, about the fact that he’d fathered no children, and about his own mortality. He began to wonder if he would die, if he could. What did death mean to someone like him? There were stories of rewards for warriors who died in battle, of peaceful gardens and beautiful women. If he died, would he go to such a place? Or would he simply return to the sun and shadows of his creation, to nothingness?
And then, somewhere in the millennia of his captivity, Damian had moved beyond even that. Death, no matter what face it wore, held no fear for him anymore. The definition of life, his life had become unimportant. Until he’d met Cassandra, and he’d had to face a terrifying truth. He loved her. What she thought mattered. He needed her to see him as a fully-fleshed man, not some phantasm of Nico’s creation.
He swallowed a sigh. Oh, sure, she’d wanted to fuck him this morning. She’d come close to dying yesterday—a thought that still had the power to stop his heart—and he knew better than most how a brush with death could make you want to embrace the pulse-pounding eroticism of sex and know you were alive. But that didn’t erase the fact that, just yesterday, she’d gathered her things and left their room without so much as a note of good-bye.
She slapped his thigh, startling him out of his thoughts. “You’re thinking too hard. I can hear the gears turning.”
“Am I?
“Look,” she said, rolling to face him. She winced in pain, and he automatically soothed his hands over her. “I’m okay,” she said, patting his chest. “Just sore . . . really sore. But nothing a bottle or two of ibuprofen won’t take care of.”
He stroked a careful hand over her head and down along her spine, fingers sliding through the silk of her hair, as her breathing eased. “Better?”
She nodded. “But, Damian—”
He waited for her to tell him that none of what they’d done this morning mattered, that he was nothing but a convenient fuck, just as he’d been to all of the women he’d bedded before, as, frankly, they’d been to him. Cassandra was different, but was he the only one who felt it?
“—look, I’m sorry.”
What?
“I shouldn’t have run out of here yesterday the way I did.”
“You had your reasons,” he offered and wondered why the hell he was making this easy for her.
“I know, but I should have talked to you about it instead of running away. I’m sure Nick’s told you by now about my ex, and probably my father, too. Nick’s very big on examining everyone else’s trauma, while ignoring his own fucked-up psyche. But anyway, I know you guys are close, so he’s probably warned you about me.”
“Not at all—”
“The thing is, he’s not far off. I don’t trust people, and especially not men. So when I found out you and Nick had snuck away, I felt . . . excluded. Like you didn’t trust me or my skills enough to let me be part of the inner circle. You two were hugging it out in a parking lot somewhere, and I wasn’t even invited.”
“Well, we didn’t exactly—”
“Come on, I’ve seen you together. Tell me there wasn’t a hug or three.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Fine, fine, keep your bromance secrets to yourself. But we’re getting off track.”
“Really?” He had no idea what the track was.
She gave him a narrow look, the stern effect of which was spoiled by the fact that her naked breasts were pressed up against his chest, her hard nipples stabbing into his skin. He dipped his chin and kissed her, a long, slow, indulgence of a kiss that had both their hearts racing by the time he lifted his head and slowly licked the corners of her luscious mouth. It was on his tongue to tell her how he felt, but reason prevailed, and he settled for a quick nip of her lips.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’M SORRY.” HER whispered apology overlapped his own, and they both sucked in a breath, laughing.
“I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” he told her.
Cassandra held her breath, worried that the wrong question, the wrong word would startle Damian into retreating back into the persona he wore so easily, the happy-go-lucky, let’s-go-kill-something warrior, or worse, the legendary man-whore. Either one made her feel all alone when she was with him, but sometimes, sometimes, the real Damian would shine through. Like he did now. As strong and courageous as always, but with a hint of vulnerability, a need to be seen for who he really was.
But as worried as she was, she knew it was now or never. She needed to know that she could trust him. Not only with her life, but with her heart. If she went any deeper without that connection between them, she could end up devastated. Hell, it might already be too late.
“Why did you and Nick have to meet last night? And why not tell me?”
He nodded, as if to say he’d expected the question. But, of course, he had. It was the elephant in the room, the one event that had set off everything else in the last twenty-four hours.
“You’re not going to like this,” he warned her. “But let me finish before you get angry.” He hugged her close, as if to keep her from leaving.
“No promises on the getting angry part. I can’t control that. But I won’t go anywhere until you’re finished.”
He nodded again, and drew in a breath before saying, “I found something in Sotiris’s treasure room, and I took it with me.”
Casey stiffened, her eyes going wide. Son of a bitch. When had he done that? And how?
“You promised,” he reminded her.
“I’m still here,” she added sharply. She wanted to demand answers, but let him continue.
“It belonged to Nico. Well, more accurately, it belonged to all of us, to me and the other warriors. But Nico’s the only one who can make use of it now.”
She frowned, admitting to herself that she was curious enough to listen.
“It was a small box, small enough that I could conceal it in my scabbard with ease. The box itself was of little value, and probably did belong to Sotiris at one point. But what it contained. . . . I told you about the spell he worked, that he used personal items stolen from each of us as a focus.”
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She nodded.
“That’s what was in the box, Cassandra. I saw it, and all I could think of was getting it back to Nico, to help in the search for my brothers.”
Casey opened her mouth, then paused, meeting his gaze as if to ask for permission. He smiled, as if he’d known she couldn’t hold out until the end. “Go ahead, ask.”
The words rushed out before he’d finished speaking. “Why not just tell me?” she asked, honestly confused. “What did you think I’d do?”
He frowned, looking uncertain for the first time. “It’s. . . . It goes back to the beginning with us, back all those millennia to when Nico and I were fighting for survival, for ourselves and so many others. Magic was our weapon. There was so much more of it in the world then. You can’t imagine what it was like. It was the very air we breathed.
“When Sotiris cast his curse, he twisted our lives, our histories, perverting them in a way even we can’t fully understand. And that distortion continues to spread as long as at least one of us is still caught in the curse. Every decision that we make, that I make, has the potential to impact my brothers, even so far as to result in their freedom or their permanent imprisonment. Until Nico and I find them, until every one of us stands free, we have to tread so very carefully.” He shook his head. “I’m a warrior. Give me the most complex battlefield and I can move men and equipment to ensure victory. But this? Manipulating magic through the mists of time with the lives of my brothers at stake? I don’t know what’s right or wrong.
“So, when I found that box and what it contained, the very keys to Sotiris’s spell. . . . My first instinct, my only instinct, was to get it to Nico, and to tell no one else about it. By the time he and I actually met, I knew I’d made a mistake, and, whether you believe me or not, I fully intended to tell you everything when I returned to the hotel room. But you were gone.”
“It was only supposed to be reconnaissance,” she muttered, still pissed that she’d been caught unaware by Sotiris’s thugs. “What does Nick say about the box? Will it help him?”
He studied her a moment, as if her question hadn’t been the reaction he’d expected. What had he thought she’d do? She’d already done the whole storming-away-angry bit, and almost died in the process. She wasn’t going to get angry all over again. That was the whole point of this exercise. She’d ask her questions, and he’d answer honestly.
“He says so,” Damian answered cautiously. “You’d have to ask him about it.”
“He probably won’t tell me. What was your thing?”
“My thing?”
“In the box. Which of your possessions did the traitor steal as a focus?”
He shrugged. “A child’s ring. Nico gave it to me. It was the first gift I had ever received, the first thing I’d ever owned, other than the clothes I wore.”
“Do you think Sotiris knows the truth about you and Nick, about your creation?”
He frowned. He obviously still hated talking about the circumstances of his “birth.” “I suppose he must. Why?”
“I’m not a sorcerer or anything, but I’m surprised he’d need a focus, like a ring, to work his spell on you.”
“You mean because I’m a creature of magic just like the hellhounds or one of those artifacts you hunt?” he asked sharply.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped back. “I only meant that your connection to Nick is so strong that he shouldn’t have needed anything else. You are fully human, Damian. No matter where you came from. Hell, you don’t know for sure what happened that day you appeared. Nick doesn’t even know. You were both too young and stupid to understand. Maybe he called you from another time, a time that hadn’t occurred yet, and so when you walked out of the shadows, your life that would have been was nullified. It couldn’t exist anymore, not even in memory, because it had never had a chance to happen.”
He stared at her thoughtfully. “You make my brain hurt.”
She let out a startled laugh. “Then I’d say we’re even, because I hurt pretty much everywhere else.”
His face crumpled into a worried scowl. “I was too rough,” he said, smoothing his hands all over her, as if checking for injuries, until she grabbed his wrists, stopping him.
“No,” she said, forcing him to meet her gaze. “The only good thing about this morning was making love with you. I wouldn’t trade it, or you, for the world.” She sat up, then leaned over and kissed him, a hard, passionate kiss that lasted longer than she’d planned. When she finally broke away, it was with a curse for the situation they were in. “All right,” she said, letting her fingers play in his thick hair. “I say we go find that damn Talisman, lock it away once and for all, and then take a long vacation on a beach in Florida.”
“You think it will be that easy?”
“Easy?” she repeated. “No. Doable? Yes. And we’re going to finish it.”
He sat up with her, wrapping his arms around her and standing to put them both on their feet. “We should shower separately,” he said solemnly. “You can’t resist my body.”
She clapped a hand on his thick shoulder. “Come on, big guy. I’ll try to restrain myself.”
SHE DIDN’T. RESTRAIN herself that is. Although the fault might lie with him, Damian conceded. He wasn’t strong enough to resist Cassandra when she was standing next to him naked, soap suds streaming over her body, dripping off the tips of her breasts. He took her fast and hard, backing her against the tile wall and slamming his cock into her, while her heels dug into his ass and her cries were as thick as the steam in the small enclosure. They clung to each other for a long moment afterward, eyes closed, his forehead resting against the tile, hers against his shoulder. Eventually, he eased her down slowly, holding on until her legs were steady, then used his fingers to gently wash away the evidence of their mutual climaxes.
They dried off and dressed quickly after that, with Cassandra stealing glimpses of his body, her face creased by a private, smug smile that made his heart swell.
“All right,” Cassandra said, pouring herself a final cup of coffee from their room-service breakfast. “Where do we go from here?”
Damian sipped his tea. He’d tried coffee, but it wasn’t to his taste. “I hate to ask this of you, but did you learn anything of Sotiris’s plans while you were held captive? It’s my experience that prisoners frequently observe more than their captors’ intend.”
She nodded. “He wasn’t stupid, he was careful. Even though he planned to kill me,” she added dryly. “But at the very end, when they were leaving, I heard enough to know that whatever he’s planning will happen soon, maybe even today or tomorrow. And it’ll be big, something to impress the buyers. Something splashy with lots of casualties. You and I can keep looking for the Talisman, but if we’re going up against Sotiris himself—and I’m sure we are, why else would he be in town?—we’re going to need Nick. Where is he, by the way? Can you tell?”
“I could tell you if he was walking down the hallway, or even through the parking lot, but no, I can’t detect him at a distance. He wouldn’t like that at all. Nico’s a very private man.”
“Aren’t we all? But that doesn’t stop him from putting trackers on all of our phones.”
“Tracker,” he repeated, pointing at her to emphasize the word. “You need to call Lilia. She was tracking your phone.”
“My phone?” she said, her forehead creasing in thought. “But I don’t have—Wait. Sotiris had it in the basement when he was questioning me. Are you saying Lilia tracked it after that?”
He nodded.
“I need to call her. Do you have your phone?”
He handed it over, and she manipulated the device much faster than he could have.
“Lili,” she said. “Damian and I—Yes, I’m fine. A little bruised, but Damian’s taking good care of me.” She looked up and winked at him.
“As soon as this job’s over. I promise.” She nodded at whatever Lilia was saying. “Right, that’s why I’m calling. I’m going to put you on speaker so he can hear.” She touched the phone’s screen and set the device on the table between them. “Okay, Lili, go ahead.”
“Hi Damian,” Lilia said cheerfully.
“Lilia,” he crooned.
She giggled, which had Cassandra scowling at the device. It delighted him that she was jealous, though there was no reason for it. He loved women, loved making them feel good, as he did with Lilia. But his feelings for Cassandra went far beyond what he’d ever felt for any other female.
“Damian, you’re such a—”
“All right,” Cassandra said, cutting off Lilia’s chatter. “We’ve got a job to do. I hear you were tracking my phone. Is it still live?”
“Spoilsport,” Lilia muttered. “No, it went off-line while we were tracking it. My guess is that it’s been destroyed.”
“Was that somewhere near O’Hare Airport?”
“No,” Lilia said, her voice reflecting her surprise. “Whoever had the phone—”
“Sotiris,” Cassandra supplied. “At least it was probably him. He had it at the house, and I saw him drop it into his pocket.”
“So, maybe he forgot about it, then. We’d initially thought he was setting a fake trail, but maybe not. If he didn’t remember he had it, he might have dumped it when he realized it was in his pocket.”
“And that means it could be a good track. But you said it wasn’t close to O’Hare?”
“Nope. He went right past there, heading south on I-355. That’s where he was when he shucked the phone. We have the location. Nick sent a team out there to try and recover it.”
The Stone Warriors: Damian Page 32