Her Healing Touch

by April Zyon

  She nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay, thank you.” She leaned in to give him a gentle kiss on his cheek. “As I’ve told Nolan, I’m not opposed to you washing my back.” With that parting line, the little vixen took off and headed for the bathroom.

  Grinning, he shook his head. “If you stay in there long enough I’ll join you,” he called after her. A soft laugh was the only acknowledgment he got that she’d heard him. Once the door to the bathroom was shut Owen gave Nolan a nod.

  The other man moved to get the other guys into the space quickly. “She knew nothing about the policy. My guess is, at least from what I’ve discovered about the shady business practices of this firm, the ex is going to bump her off for the payment. It’s how he’ll pay the mob back. This company is not a very reputable insurance company, so they were likely thinking that they would get some money out of the deal as well. I know originally he was planning to pass her off to the Russians as collateral, but I think he’s since changed his mind. I’m thinking that he wants money, which is why the policy. He’ll kill her off and then pay off the mob, the insurance company, and have cash left over for himself, and given he put this into place the night after their one and only date seems a little coincidental.”

  “Why didn’t he go after her before this?” Gareth asked. “She was out in the open, and had almost no protection.”

  “No clue. My guess is that the mob decided to change the rules on Brown. Another guess would be they may have had someone watching her and saw us come into town. They would have known getting to her was a slim chance at best.”

  “Makes sense,” Nolan said.

  “Not really,” Mikhail muttered. When everyone looked his way, the big guy shrugged. “The Russian mob are not exactly forgiving in nature. It’s rare they ever change their minds once something is set in motion.”

  Owen glared at the man, but oddly it made a sick sort of sense. “I need a few of you to get into the offices of this joint. Find the hard copies of the policy, and bring them out. I’m also going to give you a file number I need you to pull. It has some forms in it I need since they’ll have signatures. These guys do as little work as possible for the biggest payout from what I have found so far.” Passing over a sheet of paper he also gave Gareth the office layout. “The security system is simple. You could do it in your sleep with both hands tied behind your back. They are all about the show, but little substance. I’ll delete all the electronic stuff from this end, and then create a new file once I have a copy of the sheet from that folder I gave you the number for.”

  “We should stop for burgers,” Thomas said. “On the way there, or back, I’m not really picky. I saw an ad for a place not far from these offices that have this monster burger. Triple patties, cheese, and bacon.”

  “Fucking hell, Thomas. Now I’m hungry,” Gareth bitched. “Fine, let’s gear up and we’ll go get burgers. Leave these two,” he pointed to Owen and Nolan, “to tend to their woman. How’s that going by the way?”

  Owen flipped him the bird and noticed Nolan doing the same from his peripheral vision. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said. Shaking his head, he turned his attention to wiping out the electronic copies of the files while the guys debated fries with gravy over fries with salt and vinegar.

  Chapter Six

  Hailey took her time in getting herself ready and showering. She walked out with her hair in a towel and one of the hotel robes around her body. Seeing Owen alone she frowned.

  “I thought I just heard voices. Is everything okay? Or did you give the guys their marching orders so that they can get those papers all destroyed, so that this asshole can’t make money from me?”

  “They have their marching orders,” he told her. Getting to his feet, he walked toward her. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he drew her in closer to his warmth. “All the electronic files have been erased. I’ve already begun to input your visits to the office. Once I have the papers I need from the guys I can finish up and then they can slip them into the filing system in the appropriate places. I chose someone for you to meet who’s been away the last week, and will be away for another couple of weeks on vacation. Totally unreachable so they can’t question him about your meetings if your ex raises a stink.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would I need to meet with someone? Who do I need to meet with? I don’t do this whole cloak and dagger sort of thing very well, I’m sorry. I’m trying hard to be very easygoing because I know you are protecting me, but I just don’t understand.”

  “Sorry, I’m babbling,” he said. “You’ve had an imaginary meeting with the individual I chose to ‘terminate’ the policy that Brown took out in your name. We’ll be doing up the paperwork to support it. You would have requested meetings with the man after hours because of your own work not permitting you to get to their office during their regular hours of operation. His electronic calendar will back it up.”

  He frowned, and then nodded slightly. “I’ve also ensured that Brown is backed into an incredibly tight corner by putting a hold on his account. He’s limited to about fifty dollars a day currently due to some rather nasty activity that the bank will be investigating. This should keep him busy for a few days, and throw him off whatever plan he might have. Has he called again?”

  “No. Nothing since the last call.” Hailey told him. “Which is rather odd. Thank you again, for doing everything that you are doing. I don’t know how you do it. You truly amaze me with the things that you can do. If you guys had a week, you could take over the world, I’m sure.”

  “Way too much work to take over and then hold onto the world. I get the intrigue of world domination, but there’s always some asshole that wants the toys you have. Sounds much too stressful,” he told her. Smiling he brushed a kiss against her lips. “Come sit with me while we wait on the guys to complete their tasks.”

  “Ah, well, I suppose that you do have a point there.” Hailey moved so that she could sit beside him. It was lovely, the feelings she was developing so quickly for these men. She liked being able to be comforted by Owen and Nolan and to be able to trust them implicitly.

  There was a rap on the door and Owen looked up. There was a frown on his face as he rose to his feet with a weapon suddenly in his hands. He pushed Hailey behind him and looked at the laptop and then frowned. “What the fuck?” he muttered and went to the door.

  Before he opened the door however he called down to Mik. “Mik, you might want to get everyone to the living room. We have company of the big kind here.” She listened for a moment and then heard Owen add, “You also might want to make a call out to Ares. Seems Hailey’s Uncle Moe is here.”

  Hailey was shocked. “Uncle Moe is here? What if he gets hurt?” The whole reason he’d hired these men was to protect her and keep her safe. “You have to send him home. Please.” But she wanted to see him. She wanted to hug her uncle and then send him home. “Why are you calling for someone else? It’s my uncle for God’s sake, let him in!” She moved around Owen and opened the door herself.

  “Uncle Moe!” She threw herself into her uncle’s arms and sobbed, hugging him tightly because she hadn’t seen him in more than a week. She had missed him. It had been the longest she had gone without seeing him and she now realized how much it wore on her.

  The big man chuckled. He was olive skinned, large, and heavily muscled, but he was her uncle and she loved him dearly. He was kind, lovable, and as vulnerable as she was.

  “You can’t be here,” she told him. “You could get hurt. That’s the whole reason that you hired these men.” She pulled him into the suite and noticed that Owen closed the door behind Moe, laughing at something that she had said to her uncle. She had no idea what she said that was so funny, but obviously, it was something that had Owen chuckling.

  “Hailey, honey, you need to learn something about me,” Moe told her and led her to the sofa, sitting her down.

  She noticed all the men walking in, but a new man as well. It was a man that she hadn’t met befo
re, a man that radiated power, one that had her leaning into her uncle and clenching his hand. The man scared her, in a massive way.

  “Don’t fear him, Hailey. Ares, tone done the power bullshit. You’re scaring her. Can’t you feel it?” Moe said with a low growl.

  What in the hell? She hadn’t said anything aloud about being afraid of the new man, so how had her uncle known?

  “It’s part of what I need to tell you, kiddo,” Moe said as he hugged her closer to him on the sofa. “I need for you to listen to me closely, honey,” he said softly and then looked to Ares. “Brother, I might need you to convince her because I refuse to pull her into my realm.” When the man named Ares nodded Hailey was even more confused.

  “Realm? Huh?”

  “Hailey, sweetheart, you are a Descendant of a goddess.”

  “What?” She felt like she was going to be ill. “I don’t—what?” She felt a headache coming on. She didn’t understand what he was saying. Her uncle had to be mistaken. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Uncle Moe, you are just having one of your moments, right?”

  “Hailey, sweetheart, I’m a god. I don’t have moments. The moments that you thought I was having were times when the demons in dreams were trying to get out. I’m the God of Dreams. My name is Morpheus if you recall, though I do prefer it when you call me Uncle Moe.”

  She did. She just never used it because when she was younger she couldn’t say his whole name. It had been far too difficult for her, so she had always called him Moe, especially when he took over her care when her parents died. “But the God of Dreams? Seriously?” She chuckled now; she had to. Someone was pulling her leg. This was a way to get her mind off the danger that was stalking her, right?

  “No, Hailey, this isn’t a way to get your mind off anything. Dr. Tom, by the way, was Thanatos, yes, that Thanatos.” She watched as Uncle Moe looked to the man he called brother, and then Ares. “Ares, show her.”

  Ares walked over to her and presented his hand to her. “Take my hand, Hailey. I won’t hurt you, on my honor, I swear.” He smiled as he spoke and added, “You look just like your long-ago ancestor, Aceso. She’s no longer walking the realms, but she would be so proud of you. She was such a wonderful woman. I would like to take you to see her in her stasis. You see, some of us have to go into stasis when we become too tired, and sadly she became too tired and too disillusioned with humanity. If she could see you now, however, I think she would change her mind.”

  Hailey put her hand into Ares’s. She didn’t know why she did, but she trusted him. He pulled her to her feet, and she felt every man in the room shift. She heard Mik growling Ares’s name and saw Ares looking at the man. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt her. I gave her my word, and you know that as a god I can’t break my word. I’m taking her to visit the woman that she’s descended from and not one of you can stop me.” Before Hailey knew it, they were gone from the room, while every man in the room was rushing at them.

  Chapter Seven

  They were in a beautiful clearing filled with the scents of flowers and trees. “Wow.” Her mind might have just melted because there was no way that she had just gone from a swank five-star hotel to the woods. None, but here she was.

  Ares laughed. He was no longer dressed in the custom-made suit that he had worn at the hotel room, but in soft leathers. Hailey looked down at herself and she was now dressed in a very soft and flowing gown of a material she couldn’t even guess at the name of. It was white and utterly incredible. “You haven’t melted your brain. You are in a fold in space and time. Now come.”

  He folded her hand at his elbow and walked her along a perfectly manicured path and she looked up at the man at her side. “Ares, as in God of War?” Hailey figured that anyone who could pull her out of a hotel room and change her clothing to take her into the woods was obviously not human.

  Ares chuckled. “Now you are getting it, Hailey.” He patted her hand. “Yes, I am the God of War. I wish I could have looked in on you from time to time, but the way that this works, we couldn’t. It’s supposed to be one god or goddess per descendant. We can view you from the well on Olympus, but that’s it.”

  “The way what works?” Hailey was now curious about everything.

  “A very long time ago all of the gods and a few of the Titans, such as your Uncle Morpheus, got together so that we could lock Hades behind the walls of the Underworld. Well the Fates, being the fickle bitches that they are, decided that we were being unkind or something of the sort.” He snorted as he spoke to her. “They knew that Hades had to be stopped because he was trying to destroy all of humanity. He wanted to kill all the humans because of how much love Zeus had for humanity. There was also the way that the others of us … frolicked with humanity as well that had Hades pissed beyond belief. However, when Poseidon fell in love with a human woman, Hades lost his shit and destroyed her entire village.”

  Hailey pulled back, stopped, and looked at Ares and shook her head. “Wow, seriously? I don’t know which is more shocking, the fact that Poseidon fell in love with a human woman or the fact that the gods all pulled together in a common goal.” She saw the look on Ares’s face and smiled, squeezing his arm as she did so. “You remind me a great deal of Mikhail. Are the two of you related?”

  “Actually, yes, we are.” Ares said proudly. “That man is gaining more and more control of his abilities by the hour. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he would be able to one day follow me when I flashed away from them.” Hailey looked around, surprised that the large blond man with the haunting grey eyes wasn’t around.

  “Are all of the men related to gods as well?”

  “They are. They’re all learning to control their abilities, as you will learn to control yours. Wyatt is distantly related to your Uncle Morpheus.” Ares parted a massive hanging rose wall, and Hailey gasped.

  What she saw there before her had her nearly on her knees. She would have been if not for Ares holding her by her hand.

  “Mom?” She felt the tears in her eyes as they rolled down her face unchecked. She walked toward the massive bed that looked as if it were encased in a thin layer of diamonds, but she clearly saw the woman lying there on the bed. The woman looked exactly like her mom. Hailey knew it wasn’t her mother, as she’d died in a fiery car crash. However, the similarity was startling. It struck a pain in Hailey’s heart so deep that it was hard to breathe.

  “That is your distant relative, Aceso. She’s in stasis, so please don’t get too close. The field around the stasis bed would harm you,” he explained to her.

  They stopped about two feet from the bed, which seemed to have grown from the very Earth itself. Hailey felt the power of the field.

  “She’s sleeping, but she feels you. She has felt you for your entire life. She knows that you have healing in your blood, but you’ve never fully accessed it. You’ve made her proud with what you have done, and that’s very good,” Ares told her with a smile. “You are a very important part of this world, Hailey Davenport. You are needed in this world because you are meant to be a part of it. Those two men need you. You are destined to be together. What you feel for them is only the beginning. The Fates tied the three of you together, and it will only grow with time. Give it time and you will see exactly how much you all mean to each other. You already feel the draw to be together, so don’t fight it because it’s going to be one of the best things to ever happen to you.” Ares tilted his head and smiled. “In fact, right now they are raising hell to get you back.”

  “We’ve only been gone five minutes.”

  “Here, however, there we’ve been gone for an entire day. Morpheus has assured them that you are fine and we are visiting Aceso’s stasis site and time flows differently here. Owen and Nolan are having a fit, and Mik is even threatening Morpheus. We should go back now.”

  “An entire day?” She turned quickly back to Ares and knew that her eyes were wide because they hurt. “Crap on a cracker, we do need to go back.” She put her hand bac
k on Ares’s arm and looked up at him. She looked back at the bed and then back up at Ares. “Will you please bring me back sometime?” She wanted to visit this woman again. Needed to, actually.

  “Of course, my dear,” Ares said, and then before she knew it they were back at the hotel and she was in the clothes she had been dressed in before she and Ares left what felt like five minutes earlier to her. She was faced with weapons drawn, not pointed at her but at Ares.

  “You fucker,” Owen growled at Ares. Owen pulled back and sucker-punched Ares.

  “Owen!” Hailey grabbed a handful of tissues and pressed them to Ares’s nose. She was shocked when the man began to laugh. When she pulled back the tissues there was no blood. “What in the hell?”

  “I’m a god, kitten.” Ares said and winked at her.

  Hailey was pulled into Owen’s arms and given a hug and then into Nolan’s arms. She heard the men all talking and the grumbling from several others. She laughed and shook her head. These men were seriously overprotective, but it made her feel good.

  She looked at her uncle and sighed. She was in Nolan’s arms and leaned her head against his shoulder and asked, “Are you really my uncle?”

  “No, not really, but in my heart, I am. I’ve been in your life since you were born, and I will never leave you. I made your parents think that I was a brother to your mother so that I could remain close. I love you, Hailey, because you are a part of my heart and always will be.” Morpheus looked at the men and leveled his gaze on them. “Keep in mind I will be a permanent fixture in her life, always. She’s a part of my life now and for all time, and I never will let her go. You boys had better take great care with her or I will hurt you.”