Encore (Descendants of Ra: Book 4)

by Tmonique Stephens

  Avery shifted his atoms, passed through the building’s structure, and coalesced into a biting wind. He didn’t feel it. No coat, just a thin sweater, and jeans shielded him from the elements, and none of it affected him. Maybe because he was as cold on the inside as it was outside.

  His form altered again, into a mist, and he let the wind currents take him back to RockGate. Their bedroom at the Order reminded him too much of her. Then again, so did his bedroom at RockGate and the loft. Hell, everything reminded him of Emeline. There wasn’t a place where he could escape the thought of her.

  Avoiding the mansion, he coasted to the circular drive. Back on two feet, he walked around the massive building—he’d find no solitude within its walls—and veered into the woods.

  With Judge Grayfield sick in the hospital, Jackson now lived with the family, and others were expected any day now. Roman was circling the wagons. For the first time ever, the mansion would be full. Time to find a hotel.

  His feet were steady as he traversed the frozen, snow-covered ground. He had no direction, no goal in mind other than one foot in front of the other. The destination became clear when he broke through the tree line surrounding the lake.

  He stopped at the edge and let the water lap at his boots. He hadn’t returned here since the night Ember disappeared. The night he met the Goddess of Chaos. Only a few short weeks ago, yet a lifetime seemed to have transpired in that short time frame.

  Had he always been in love with Emeline? Yes. Whatever circumstances brought them together, his heart was lost the second he saw her in that park in The Village. He’d never believed in destiny until he met her. What did that say about the state of their relationship now? Destined to have her for a short time? Destined to love her for the rest of his long life?

  All of him demanded he track her down and tie her to his side. Make her love him as much as he loved her. Like that had a chance of working.

  His senses pricked and he zeroed in on the stone bridge.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Illuminated with antique lanterns, he couldn’t discern anyone in the soft yellow lighting. Didn’t mean no one was there. He let go of his mortal shell and transformed again…and for the first time reveled in it, accepted his new power. Avery Nicolis had vanished. It was the God of Chaos who took to the sky. Air blew through the center of him, momentarily scattering his atoms. Not his consciousness. He still controlled every aspect of his being. Sweeping low over the bridge, he searched, but no one was there. A ripple disturbed the surface of the lake. He swept over the placid water and found nothing.

  Not convinced, he rose higher into the atmosphere to get a better view of the land. The Hudson River lay to his right. To his left, all of the Nicolis property, Judge Grayfield’s cabin, the woodland preserve, the lake, and RockGate. There was movement on the basketball court. It was Jackson practicing with a sword. The boy had improved since the last time Avery saw him.

  Jackson wasn’t the presence Avery sensed. Something else lurked. He swooped down and reformed at the edge of the basketball court. Jackson spun, sword raised for attack. “Avery? Where the hell did you come from?”

  “Anyone else out here with you?” Avery scanned the area.

  Jackson dropped the sword to his side. “Brayden was for a while; we sparred a bit. Now it’s just me. Why?”

  Although happy about Brayden’s continued recovery, Avery’s Ink compelled him toward the garden maze. Frozen snow shrouded the tall hedges making it seem like a solid wall of ice. “Go back into the house, Jackson.”

  Partially transformed, Avery floated to the maze. He moved over the icy pathways, winding his way into the structure. Footsteps crunched behind him. “I told you to go back,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I’m not leaving you out here alone,” Jackson whispered.

  “Do I look like I need your help?” Avery stopped and gave the boy his full attention.

  “Actually, yeah, I do think you need my help.” Jackson snorted, full of testosterone-fueled confidence. Avery had been there once.

  “When I need the help of a sixteen-year-old, I still won’t pick you. Now go back to RockGate.” He kept moving deeper into the maze.

  “You know, that might’ve actually hurt my feelings if I hadn’t grown up with the Judge as a role model. Ember and Hector are back at the house, along with Brayden—who’s still weak. If there is something out here, then they’re in danger—”

  Avery whipped back around. “And that’s why you’re going back. Anything happens to me, you’re the last line of defense. Now move.”

  Eyebrows furrowed, face drawn into a scowl, then, “Fine, but as soon as I get back I’m calling for backup.” Jackson started backtracking.

  “You do that.” Avery paused for a second and listened to Jackson’s retreating footsteps then kept moving. The deeper into the maze, the stronger the presence became until his senses screeched, imminent danger ahead.

  His Ink seeped from his skin and formed his protective armor as he stepped into the middle of the maze. Darkness shielded all of the iron structure of the gazebo, but night was as day to the God of Chaos. Nothing hid from him.

  And nothing was there except the ice-covered gazebo, which glittered like a rough diamond in the weak moonlight. He scanned every nook and cranny. His senses didn’t lie, nor did the ache in his burned shoulder. His Ink scratched at the mental barriers regulating its full brunt. The little bit of freedom he allowed, it wasn’t enough. It wanted out. Now wasn’t time to let the beast inside him free. Not when he still couldn’t control his alter ego.

  A trail of orange flames dissected the night. He froze. A shudder raced from his burned shoulder down his spine. Precious seconds ticked by while he returned to his brutal childhood and the event that shaped his life. He dodged out of the way, yet heat baked his side.

  Fuck no! Someone did not shoot flames at me. Flames!

  The one thing he feared more than anything else. Also, the one thing to ensure he’d smear his assailant all over the shrubbery when he laid hands on him. No one shot flames at him and lived. No. One.

  Avery leaped into the air and transformed into mist. He darted over the distance separating him from the source. More blasts came at him. This time, fear had no hold. Freezing in the face of danger—He scattered his atoms, letting the flames pass harmlessly through him. And never felt freer or more powerful. The time for doubt ended.

  Just in time for him to face a wall of fire. Moving too fast to stop, he slammed into the barrier and sizzled. All of him burned. Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to retreat.

  The impact reverted him. Now, he was a man on fire, not the God of Chaos. He plunged to the earth and landed on a row of hedges, then tumbled into a snowdrift. The snow melted around him, cooling his skin. He remembered this pain. Hell. How could anyone forget the agony of being roasted alive? Against his will, the memory flooded back through pathways he’d cemented closed. Pathways that led to the night he killed his parents in a trailer fire. A fire that left him scarred and freed him and his brother from the abuse that had made their young lives unbearable. A fire that placed him on the path to becoming the God of Chaos.

  Move or die in the snow.

  Avery lurched to his feet. A scream seared through every cell in his body, though not a word left his lips as he scanned the silent area. He risked a quick glance down and wobbled at the damage. His skin flaked off. Black patches spoiled the beauty of the pristine snow. The front of him was burned down to the bone. Charred flesh dangled, yet he continued to stand. Shit!

  Avery jerked. A single spasm rocked him, but was quickly followed by more contorting his body. Power rolled through his battered body and his Ink poured out of his soul. The restraints he’d placed on the darkness occupying his soul shattered. Unfettered chaos both shielded him and swept over the maze, obliterating everything in its wake.

  Avery dropped to one knee from the fury tearing him apart, his head, unbowed, his gaze, searching. Blinking hard, he cleared his vision. I
t didn’t work. Now, an entire spectrum of light the human eyes could not see became visible to him. Each blink brought x-rays, ultraviolet rays, and infrared rays into focus. Awareness pulsed through him, more than he’d ever had. With that awareness came knowledge as if he’d cracked open a secret door deep inside his soul.

  He blinked again and waves of radiant heat bled from a figure no more than twenty feet away. Shaped like a man, formed out of a lava substance, he was there in one blink and gone the next. The smell of sulfur and burned flesh lingered in the air. This new creature moved fast. Too fast for Avery to track. This didn’t bode well. Especially since he remembered where and when he’d previously seen this new enemy.

  Footsteps crunched behind him. He was ready to rip his new foe apart, when suddenly he knew who came at his rear: Roman and Reign still dressed in their suits from the viewing. Avery stretched his senses a little farther to the mansion and knew the exact positions of Jackson, Stella and Ember, Hector, Alexis, and Brayden.

  “You need a doctor.” Roman rushed to Avery’s side, his glowing blade leading the way. He stopped short of touching Avery, horror reflected in his eyes. Reign circled around them, guarding their backs.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen worse,” Avery rasped. Air whistled through the wound in his throat.

  A scowl crossed Roman’s face. “Yeah, on a rotted corpse.”

  Reign moved closer. “You should be dead.”

  “Gee, thanks.” But they were right. Bone weary weakness swamped him. Roman caught him before he landed face down-ass up in the snow.

  “I got you.”

  Avery nodded and had enough strength to close his eyes. When he opened them, he was laid out in his bedroom at RockGate surrounded by the family.

  “He doesn’t look too bad now.” Jackson hovered closer than anyone else, his index finger extended, ready to poke somewhere on Avery’s body.

  “Touch me and I will break that finger off and stick it up your ass.” Avery groaned and failed at attempting to sit up. Okay, maybe if he rolled off the bed to stand up. Nope. No go on that movement, too. He flopped back on the bed, completely exhausted.

  Roman replaced Jackson by Avery’s bedside. “Believe it or not, you’re healing fast. I don’t think any of us could’ve survived that much damage. After all, we are run-of-the-mill—”

  “—mediocre—” Reign chimed in.

  “—demi-gods compared to you. What happened out there?” Roman finished.

  Good damn question. No need to rehash the fight. Avery skipped to the good part, to the last thing he’d seen. “It had the same molten outer shell and lava core as the meteors that fell from the sky the night Khuket ripped a tear in our dimension. Those things plummeting from the fissure had a striking resemblance to the thing I had the pleasure of meeting. I think the thing came from Duat.”

  “As if we don’t have enough on our plate.” Roman summed up the situation nicely.

  The group stayed a bit longer then left him alone to recuperate. Avery forced his stiff, throbbing body out of bed and shuffled to the nearest mirror. Someone had stripped him of his clothing and left him in his underwear. Black and blue was better than crispy any day of the week. He wasn’t focused on his bruises; he wanted his Ink. At the mere thought, it seeped from his pores, first as a random blob then as a mixture of hieroglyphics and the markings from the Book of Eidos.

  And he was never more grateful.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  That kiss. It took more than a little of Ridley’s willpower to not lick her lips and reminisce. Had it only been a few minutes ago? She should be furious. She didn’t have any more time for a sojourn in a country cabin with a man who played havoc with her libido.

  Her thoughts strayed to Josie and a fresh ache ripped through her. Time to face facts. Josie didn’t need her. She had a mother, Marilyn, whom Ridley trusted, even though, right now, she hated the woman’s fucking guts.

  Fury ignited her blood. Then she looked at EJ and fury was not the emotion she struggled to contain. Curiosity was her nemesis. EJ had sparked something inside her that hadn’t been ignited since high school. It had been there in their first moment together at the Order when he’d become Khuket’s slave, but she’d managed to fight her curiosity until his lips touched hers in the school playground.

  “Deal the cards.” Leaving now without investigating the spark? No way.

  A suggestive smirk split his face and he shuffled the deck. “What are we playing for?”

  She crossed her arms to hide her tightening nipples. “Not what you’d like. There will be no strip Black Jack tonight.” Not on her part, anyway. A few hands of solitaire in the loft while EJ reviewed Avery’s pics clued her in to the subtle notches and scratches on the rigged deck.

  His grin didn’t change. “Another kiss then.”

  Her insides liquefied in anticipation. “And what do I get if I win?”

  “Whatever you’re not too timid to ask for.”

  Me? Timid? “Agreed. Now deal.”

  She lost the first round fifteen to twenty. Faster than she could move, he took her face in his callused hands and brought her to him. He devoured her lips with a hunger she had no clue he possessed. Lips, teeth, and tongue assaulted her, wrecked her, seduced her, left her tilting her head, grabbing his biceps, desperate for more.

  Abruptly, he ended the kiss and picked up the cards. He left her wobbly and panting. She was about to ream him when he said, “Next game,” with a thick edge to his voice. She wasn’t the only one affected.

  He shuffled the deck and dealt the cards. And lost—on purpose. “Claim your prize. What do you want me to do to you?”

  Her mouth dried at the temptation. There was so much she wanted and couldn’t have. She remembered his chest from the time she made him shower and wanted to see it again. “Take off your sweater.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “No strip Black Jack, huh?”

  He raised the hem of his sweater and peeled the garment over his head. The wife beater remained. It hugged his chest and ripped abs. Disappointment nipped her. She’d drooled over most of his perfect body at the safe house. Seeing it again was now a priority.

  He shuffled again and lost again. Expectant eyes glared at her, waiting for her next order.

  “Get rid of the wife beater.” She pointed to the white undershirt.

  EJ grabbed the bottom edge. She expected a quick lift and jerk over his head. Oh no, EJ took his time exposing chiseled, brick abdominal muscles two at a time. He teased her with his erotic movements until she had to choose between breathing and thinking. Breathing won. The man certainly knew how to strip.

  Dangerously sexy, God hadn’t skimped on anything when He created EJ. Two more games and Ridley had him down to his black jeans. His combat boots and socks were stacked under the coffee table. He climbed to his feet and stretched, then ambled over to the small kitchen. The rippled of muscles under his skin mesmerized. “Beer or water,” he said with his head in the refrigerator. His ass was sculpted in the jeans.

  She needed a drink, desperately. “Beer.” He handed her a bottle, but she preferred to watch his throat work as he guzzled half of his drink.

  “Trying to get me drunk?” She sipped her beer. With her metabolism, getting drunk was an impossibility.

  He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and stared at her with those icy blue eyes. A chill raced down her spine, and it wasn’t from being cold.

  “Oh, I want you sober and fully aware of everything I’m going to do you.”

  That sentence demanded she turn tail and run. Good thing she wasn’t a coward. Heat uncoiled in her groin, enticing her to stay. Beneath the thermal, her small breasts seemed to stand at attention and say, ‘Hey! Look at me!’

  His gaze dipped to them and didn’t waver. And neither did she. The heat scorching her veins, the slickness between her thighs, and the lust on his face all nailed her to the spot.

  He picked up the deck and dealt another hand. EJ: Ace and a ten.
Ridley: Diamond and hearts, both eights.

  His muscles bunched like a great cat about to strike. “Remove your shirt.” The whispered words hit her eardrums like a five-alarm siren.

  This was a dangerous road they traveled. No should’ve been her automatic response. Instead, she thought of her bra. Was it the lacy black one or the plain, sturdy, white, functional cotton bra she usually favored? Only one way to find out.

  She yanked the thermal off. No preamble. No sultry striptease. Just here I am. Me. Ridley—skinny ass—Cross. No curvy hips. No banging rack. She didn’t flinch under his intense stare. However, she did peek down at herself. Lacy, black pushup bra. She shoved her shoulders back, correcting her posture.

  He reached for her, palm open, fingers curled invitingly.

  She shook her head. No go, amigo. “Deal, EJ.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Twenty. Clubs and diamonds, both tens. Beat that! Ridley wanted to caress the cards.

  “You have the most beautiful smile when you’re happy. I swear I glimpsed your soul.”

  She blushed all the way to her platinum roots.

  “I want to see all of you blush that way.”

  Now didn’t that leave her breathless? Completely flustered, she clung to the only tangible thing she had, the cards. “You need twenty-one to beat me.” He had a ten face up and one card hidden.

  His index finger traced the intricate design on the back of the deck. Then he flipped it over. “What are the odds of that?”

  She knew it was an ace before he flipped it over. Still, her heart banged her rib cage. She had on a bra, panties, and yoga pants. This game was over. She wasn’t taking off another damn item.

  “Remove. The. Bottoms.”

  It was a command laced with a thread of violence. Not only did she dare not disobey him—she wanted to obey him. It had been so long since she’d let a man close to her, let one slip beneath her guard, and kiss her. Touch her.