Pursued by the Gods

by Rebekah Murdock

  I had braced myself for the inevitable, demoralizing sound of my tray and the drinks atop it crashing to the floor, and it was a moment before it registered that I hadn’t heard any such sound. I gripped the table, daring to turn my head a fraction to the right to see that the glasses had mysteriously stayed upright, the tray still firmly balanced on my palm and shoulder. I slowly straightened, not letting go of the table quite yet, my breath returning to me in a relieved gasp.

  “I’m so sorry,” I managed, still not able to tear my eyes away from the dark-haired stranger. He was looking at me in a way that made my blood suddenly throb in my veins, his eyes roving over my face as if he were wondering what I would taste like if he kissed me.

  He did it, I thought suddenly. He kept me from falling. It was a ridiculous thought—but was it? Las Vegas was full of supernatural creatures of all flavors. It was why we had come here. It was a safe place for those who were running from anything—which made it both a haven and a danger all at once…because there was no litmus test for coming here, no barrier to entry. The man could have been on the run for murder, for all I knew—but something told me that wasn’t it. In fact, I didn’t think that he was hiding at all. He was too comfortable, the set of his shoulders too relaxed, his mouth curved in a half-smile even as his eyes raked over me with an intensity that made it hard to catch my breath.

  But if he wasn’t running, who was he?

  4

  Toven

  I hardly heard her apology.

  It didn’t matter. I couldn’t remember ever having been quite so taken with any woman before. And it wasn’t just that she was beautiful, either. I’d had more beautiful women in my thousands of years of existence than I could recall—men, too. I looked into those dark eyes, and I wanted to know who she was. I wanted to know why she was here, in this city full of murderers and moguls, outlaws and millionaires. Behind the apologetic sheen, there was hard defiance in her gaze, daring me to be angry with her, to try and make her night just a little bit worse. There was a story to her, and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to know what it was.

  I never would have been angry with her anyway, no matter who she was. “I’m Toven,” I said, smiling fully at her—that smile that always worked so well. “What’s your name?”

  She let go of the table, straightening. “Ravenna,” she said quickly, her tone flat. I knew that sound, I’d heard more women than I could count use it to shut down men they didn’t want to talk to. I wasn’t the sort to push…but I also couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving without my finding anything else about her—or worse yet, never seeing her again.

  “That’s a beautiful name.” I kept my tone light, not wanting to spook her any further. “You work here?” I winced the moment I said it.

  Of course she works here, you idiot.

  All of my ability to be suave and charming seemed to have flown right out the window the moment I’d looked at her.

  “I certainly don’t dress like this for fun.” She looked down at the blouse, which I’d just noticed was clearly a size too small for her, and not in an intentional way. I suspected her shift had been going poorly long before she’d almost fallen.

  I hadn’t looked below her chin until just then—which was alarming in and of itself—but once I did, it was hard to tear my eyes away from the rest of her. She was slender, with small breasts and a narrow waist, and hips that I suddenly longed to run my hand over, grab, and pull her closer to me.

  “I need to get back to work,” she said, but she didn’t turn away immediately. “Toven.” She said my name, and I could suddenly think of nothing but what it would sound like in the dark, tumbling off her lips in a whispered moan as I ran my mouth over her body. “That’s an unusual name.”

  “It’s Norwegian.”

  She glanced at me, the corner of her mouth quirking up as her eyes swept over me, taking in my features. “You don’t look very Norwegian.”

  I shrugged. “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Her shoulders tensed, and the flash of humor on her face dissipated. “Yes, they can.” She offered a smile, but it was tight, not quite reaching her eyes. “It was nice to meet you, Toven. Thanks for your…help.”

  I blinked. The way she had said the last word, I knew immediately that she was aware of, or at least suspected, that I wasn’t an ordinary human. But if that was the case, that meant that she knew, and believed, that there were things beyond the realm of humankind. I had felt something different about her the moment that I’d seen her, and now I wanted even more desperately to know who—or what—she was.

  That’s impossible, I thought. She’s just an ordinary human woman, and you’re just horny.

  My stint in New Orleans hadn’t exactly been an appropriate time for conquests, after all. It had been weeks since anyone had been in my bed. “How late do you work?” I asked without thinking, unable to look away from her. Surely I had seen more beautiful women, but at that moment I couldn’t think of one.

  I knew I should have found a less blunt way to ask, but at that particular moment, my desire had overridden my good sense. Her face shuttered further, and I knew I’d made a mistake.

  “Late,” she said curtly. “Very late.”

  “I don’t mean to be forward,” I started to say, and then the looming shape of a man appeared in my periphery.

  “Is he giving you trouble, Ravenna?”

  I turned to look at the man. He was physically imposing, with broad shoulders and muscular arms, but it wasn’t just that that gave me pause. I’d rarely seen a man with a presence that screamed “don’t fuck with me” more than this one. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, accenting features that were plainly Native American. I could see his muscles flex as he crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were nearly as dark as Ravenna’s, and hard as stone when he turned them on me.

  “Isa, it’s alright,” she said. “I just tripped and nearly spilled my tray all over him. We were talking a little, that’s all. I’m about to get back to work.”

  “You know this man?” I asked her. “He works here?” I knew he worked there already, it was obvious, but I resented his sudden intrusion. I had been on the verge of being entirely shut down by Ravenna already, but goddamn it if I was going to let some other man finish the job for her.

  The man—Isa—didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Yes, I work here,” he said curtly. “But I think you know that already. And I think she wants you to leave her alone.”

  I stood then, my patience wearing thin. I had come to the bar to have some peace, to decompress, to escape the lingering thoughts of the things I’d seen only a day ago in New Orleans. I certainly didn’t need an overzealous bouncer causing me more irritation.

  “I think that Ravenna can speak for herself. Don’t you have a door to guard and underage drinkers to send on their way?” I kept my face expressionless and my tone neutral, but there was a thin line of warning beneath the words. I might have been a couple of inches shorter and a good bit less ripped than this fellow, but I was in no mood to sit and be talked down to.

  “I think it’s time for you to go.” His voice deepened, and I heard the hint of a growl in it. My interest piqued slightly, and I raised an eyebrow, taking in his shaggy hair with its interesting mixture of brown and grey, the dark eyes that were just a bit too solid brown, the solid musculature of his body. I knew what he was immediately—how could I not, when he hid it so poorly? That too, made me wonder. No shifter survived long without a good amount of control. I saw his eyes flick towards Ravenna, and I knew at once that it was she who was making his cover shaky at best. He felt there was a threat to her, and it was bringing out his true nature. He was more to her than just a co-worker, and I felt a hot flash of jealousy that I had no right at all to feel—but there it was.

  “I hear there’s a full moon tomorrow night.” I smirked at him. “Shouldn’t you be at home, where you’re not a danger to others?”

  He tensed. “You need to go.” I saw the mu
scles bunching in his shoulders, and I saw Ravenna flinch from the corner of my eye. “I don’t want to hurt you, not here.”

  “So, somewhere else then?” I knew I was baiting him, but at the moment, I didn’t much care.

  “Stop it, both of you!” Ravenna set her tray down and took a step forward, separating the two of us. “Isa, I can handle this.”

  “It’s my job to protect you.” The growl in his words was becoming more noticeable, and Ravenna touched his hand, her fingers momentarily lacing through his before letting go. I felt that hot burst of jealousy again, and I tried to shake it away. I had known her for all of two minutes, I knew nothing about her other than her name, and that she had—quite literally—a hell of a guard dog.

  “I can protect myself, Isa. Just give me a minute.”

  I saw the effort it took for him to give way and step back. It was crystal clear that they were more than coworkers, more even than friends, and that should have been enough for me to walk away and forget about her. But I couldn’t. The thought of not seeing her again was like a knife in my chest, and that sent a frisson of fear down my spine.

  I had watched through the millennia as the others of my kind had loved—sometimes humans, sometimes others—and I had watched the pain that it had always, always inevitably brought. I had avoided it, on purpose, choosing instead to pursue casual flings and shallow romances. I had seen enough of pain, I had no wish to experience it firsthand.

  Of course, I was still miles away from being able to call this love. But I didn’t need to be able to see into the future to know that this was something different than lust, a connection that was more than anything I had felt in all my existence. And that frightened me. The wise thing to do would have been to leave, to forget Ravenna, to remember her only as a frazzled waitress who had once tripped and fallen into my table, who had been the recipient of a small amount of my luck, and who then vanished from my life.

  But I couldn’t.

  “I want to see you again,” I said quietly, hoping the words would escape Isa’s hearing.

  Fat chance.

  “I know we don’t know each other, and I know you’re probably thinking I’m just a creepy, overbearing man, but I promise I’m not. I don’t think you just randomly tripped and fell into my table, Ravenna. I think it’s…”

  “Fate?” Her voice was light, mocking even, and I felt my heart sink.

  “It was fate! I know it was! Ask them, please. Look at the looms. I could no more have stopped myself loving him than I could have ceased to breathe!”

  I heard that voice in my head, that high, pleading, desperate cry that had burned itself into my memory almost two hundred years ago, the anguished begging that would never stop haunting me.

  “You will never stop breathing. I forbid it. But he, on the other hand…”

  I did not want to know that feeling, ever. I never wanted to know what it was to love someone so deeply and lose someone so completely that to live was in and of itself a punishment. I was foolish, I knew, to think that a woman I had known so briefly could ever stir that kind of emotion in me. And yet, I felt in that place where my intuition lay, the danger of it.

  “Maybe.” I tried to keep my own tone jovial, teasing, even. “Do you fall into a handsome stranger’s table often?”

  “No.” Her tone was curt, and I knew then there was no saving this conversation. She sighed. “Look, Toven, it was very nice to meet you. I’m appreciative of your help. But the customers these drinks were made for are probably long since gone, and no doubt talked to the manager, and that’s going to make my night even worse than it already was. I can’t stand here talking to you any longer, and Isa is right, you should go. There’s nothing here for you.” The last was said pointedly, her eyes fixing squarely on mine, and I felt that sharp stab again, the knife twisting.

  She turned away, reaching for Isa’s arm. “Come on, Isa, let’s go outside. I’ll tell Dave I needed a smoke break. He’ll be gone when we get back.” She glanced at me as she said it, and I knew that she meant that.

  I tossed back the rest of my bourbon in one smooth gulp as I watched her go and reached for my leather jacket. “Time to do what the lady says,” I muttered aloud to no one in particular.

  There were other bars, after all, and other women. But just then, nothing about that sounded particularly appealing.

  Not in the slightest.

  5

  Toven

  I left the bar with my mind in a whirl. I told myself to forget her. I went to another bar, met another woman, and within the space of an hour, had her back in my hotel room, letting the fine red silk of the dress she’d been wearing slip to the floor. She was wearing nothing underneath.

  But as I traced my fingertip down her spine, watching the gooseflesh pop up in the wake of my touch, I couldn’t get Ravenna out of my mind. I wondered if she would shiver slightly if I ran my fingers down her back, if her skin would flush when I turned her towards me. I wondered what the shape of her breasts would be, the color of her nipples, if she would gasp slightly when I touched them. Would she moan when I traced my lips down the plane of her stomach, would she beg for me to keep going, to kiss her where she would be wet, and aching for me?

  If the woman I was with knew that I was thinking of someone else even as I laid her down on the bed, she didn’t seem to care. Her hair was still artfully pinned and curled in the way she’d styled it before her set that evening at the lounge, and she left it that way, a picture from a calendar spread across the plain white sheets of the hotel bed.

  She fucked that way too, posed and artful, even her moans calculated to prime my desire, to rouse it and push it over the edge. I’d had women like her before, and normally it drove me to try even harder to please them. It was a matter of pride with me, to please the other person in my bed, to know that I’d pushed them to the very heights of desire.

  But tonight, I didn’t care.

  All I wanted to do was to lose myself in the sensation of sex, to fuck until I didn’t think of Ravenna any longer, until the maddening lust that seemed to have taken hold of me was slaked and I could think straight once again.

  It didn’t work. I came in a matter of minutes, the pent-up desire that had been roused in me urgently seeking a release. I rolled away from the woman when I was done, and she pouted prettily at me, sitting up halfway without bothering to cover herself.

  “Normally I charge for this sort of thing,” she said. “But you’re so handsome I didn’t want to bother with that. I thought it would be better, though.”

  I resisted the urge to retort, so did I.

  “You can stay, if you want,” I offered instead. “Maybe the second time will be better.”

  She brightened a little at that, rolling towards me so that I could see the perfect curve of her waist and hip, one finger trailing through the dark hair on my chest. “I think I’ll stick around for that, sure.”

  I don’t know if the second time was better for her, or the third. She could have been an actress, I’ll give her that. The sounds she made were perfectly timed, perfectly articulated, so authentic that they might even have been real. All it did was make me long to see Ravenna again more than ever. I had been with enough women to know when one is lost in the throes of pleasure, and the woman carefully punctuating my thrusts with her high-pitched moans was not.

  I knew from the first glance at Ravenna that she was not a woman to dissemble, not one to pretend at anything at all. If I were lucky enough to get her into my bed, to have her naked and willing and at my mercy, she would lose herself in it. I could picture her dark hair strewn across my pillows, her head thrown back, the sinews of her throat straining as she fell over the edge, her breasts high and trembling as her back arched…

  I came again with a guttural groan that was half pleasure, half pain. I rolled onto my back, breathless, my body aching from the exertion. I heard the woman next to me panting softly, and I felt a bit of relief that I seemed to have satisfied her, as well.
<
br />   She rose and gathered her clothes without speaking. I didn’t try to stop her. As the lust dissipated, the shame started to creep in, and I felt suddenly disloyal to a woman that I’d barely even spoken to. I couldn’t have explained what it was about her that had struck me so, but I couldn’t seem to shake it.

  I heard the soft sound of the hotel room door closing, and I got out of bed and walked towards the shower, suddenly anxious to get the clinging scent of her perfume and sweat off of me.

  I stood under the hot water for a long time, until I finally felt some of the tension drain out of my muscles and I could no longer smell anything but the slight chlorine scent of the water and the lavender of the soap bar I’d lathered up. I felt the first hints of exhaustion, and I waited until it crept in further, until I could be almost certain of sleep once I laid down again. Lately all my dreams had been of rising water and frightened children, destroyed homes and lost possessions that could never be replaced, and I desperately wanted to dream of something else, or not to dream at all.

  ---

  I went back to the bar the next night, against my better judgement. The tall Native American bouncer wasn’t there, but neither was Ravenna. When I inquired about her at the bar, the busty blonde who was wiping down glasses shrugged. “She’s not here tonight. Maybe she didn’t come in for her shift, maybe she’s off. I don’t make the schedule.”

  “Will she be here tomorrow?”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you just hear me?” She took a quick, appraising look at me. “I can show you a better time than she can though, mister, you can count on that. She’s always got Isa up her ass, and some other guy that lives with them, too. She’s full up, if you know what I mean.” She shot me a wink, and I turned away, ignoring her.

  So Ravenna was with Isa, as I’d suspected. It was no surprise, the familiarity between them had been palpable. And if she had another lover as well, it was no surprise that she’d been uninterested in my overtures, too. I could only imagine the logistics of trying to maintain multiple relationships in one household. It was a thing I’d heard of before. I’d even known a few who’d successfully pulled it off, but it seemed like more work than pleasure to me.