Beloved Fate [Hands of Fate 1] (Siren Publishing Classic ManLove)
Page 4
Okay then.
“Um…” Nikos frowned as he tried to get his mind back on track. “What sacred law did you break?” Yannis obviously thought he had broken some rule that made him the worst possible person in the world. Nikos wanted to know what that rule was.
Yannis finally glanced up, his features pale and pinched. “Is this a test, Beloved?”
“No, I honestly don’t know.”
The man paled, gulping audibly. “I swore on the Gods of Olympus that I would never allow harm to come to you and yet it has, and by my very own hand.”
Huh?
Yannis must have seen the confusion in Nikos’s face because he reached over and wiped a drop of blood off of Nikos’s hip. “I have made you bleed, Beloved. I have harmed you. That cannot be forgiven.”
Nikos reached down and wiped away another drop of blood. He could see deep indentions from where Yannis’s sharp nails had dug into his skin. A miniscule trail of blood was slowly dripping down his hip.
“It’s fine, Yannis.” Hell, it wouldn’t even need a Band-Aid.
“You seek to make me feel better when you know I have wronged you.” Yannis’s breath stuttered in his throat as he drew in a deep lungful of air. “You are truly a gift from the Gods, Beloved.”
Nikos’s eyes almost popped out of his head when Yannis dropped down even further and buried his head in Nikos’s lap. His large arms wrapped around Nikos’s waist, his wings spreading out to wrap around the both of them, enclosing them in an intimate cocoon.
“Please, Beloved, if you allow me to stay, I will never harm you again. You can order my execution and I will gladly walk to my death if harm befalls you by my hand once more.”
Gods, rip a guy’s heart out why don’t you? If Yannis kept this up, Nikos was going to start crying. “Look, Yannis—” Nikos reached out to pat the top of Yannis’s head when it suddenly snapped up, blood red tears streaking down his face.
“Please, Beloved, do not send me away. I have waited so long for you. I served the Gods and guarded the temple as instructed. I did what my commanders required of me in battle. I knew that my reward would come someday, but after so many years, I had started to give up hope.” Yannis sat up and grabbed Nikos’s face between his hands. “And now you are here and I know that the Gods have finally answered my prayers.”
Nikos gulped. “The Gods?”
Yannis frowned as he sat up even straighter. “The Gods of Olympus. Is that not who sent you to find me?”
“Uh, no, I found you because you were lying in the middle of the road and I almost hit you with my car.”
Yannis’s eyebrows flickered. “I was where?”
“In the middle of the road. Sahm was driving me home when lightning hit the road in front of us. When the smoke cleared, you were laying there. I was going to call the authorities until I saw your horns. I didn’t think that was a good idea after that, so I brought you home.”
A slow grin started to spread Yannis’s lips. “You saved me.”
Nikos could see a heated glint growing in Yannis’s red eyes. He wasn’t sure what it meant other than the fact that he really, really liked seeing it there, and that told him he needed to be very wary.
“Now, Yannis—” Nikos squeaked when Yannis’s arms suddenly wrapped around him like a vise grip, the man’s lips peppering kisses all over his face.
“My Beloved!”
Well, damn.
Chapter 3
Yannis’s eyes were huge and rounded as they darted over everything he was seeing as he followed his Beloved down the grandest set of stairs he had ever beheld. And to think, they were made of marble and not wood or stone.
Somewhere about the time Nikos pulled a warm heated towel off a shelf and held it out to him after their shower—which was wondrous in itself—Yannis began to wonder if his Beloved was in fact a God, and not simply someone sent by the Gods.
The things that Nikos showed him, the things he could bring to life with the flick of a finger or a turn of his hand, surely they were only things a God could do. The only other explanation was that Nikos was a sorcerer.
Yannis didn’t think that was right, though. Nikos did not have a black soul. His aura, while not perfectly white, was not dark. There was no evil stench to his skin. Yannis would know. He had licked enough of it. Even Nikos’s blood tasted uncorrupted, not tainted black with wickedness.
Nikos’s heart was pure.
Yannis would stake his life on it.
And he might have to. He knew that.
But surely the Gods would not put him with a Beloved cursed with evil. He had served them faithfully, sacrificing much in his life to insure that the Temple of Olympian Zeus was guarded from marauders and thieves.
He had even fought in numerous battles in the name of protecting that temple and had even been injured once, nearly losing his life to an infection due to a sword wound for which he still bore the scar on his thigh.
He had served with honor, served proudly. His Gods would not betray him now by delivering an unfit man into his care, one that went against everything Yannis believed in and knew to be true. He had to believe that or the very foundation of his life would be rocked to its core.
“Yannis, do you remember the last time you ate?”
“I missed evening meal, Beloved. I argued with my brothers and chose not to join them. It was foolish. I see that now, but pride often gets in the way between brothers.” Now, Yannis wished he had his brothers with him even more. He missed their support, the deep friendships that had developed between them through the years.
They were not his blood brothers but rather the brothers he chose to share his life with. The six of them had been close, training together when they were young, fighting side by side through the years, and caring for each other when times were tough.
While it had only been one setting of the sun since he last saw them, Yannis missed their comforting presence, the easy camaraderie that existed between them. He wished to share his joy at finding his Beloved with his brothers, to give them hope in their long search for their own Beloveds.
“Do you have messengers, Beloved?” Yannis felt he needed to ask even though he had no way of knowing where exactly he was or where to send a messenger so that he might reach his brothers.
“Messengers?” Nikos slowed and turned, a confused frown wrinkling his forehead. “Messengers for what?”
“I wish to send a message to my brothers so that they know I am safe and that I have found my Beloved. I do not wish them to worry.” Yannis smiled as he reached over and smoothed the frown lines off Nikos’s forehead with the pad of his thumb. “And you should not worry so either.”
Nikos’s eyebrow shot up.
“My handsome Beloved’s face should only show joy and happiness.”
“Joy and happi—” Nikos blinked rapidly, looking oddly like he was about to swallow his tongue. “I need a drink.” Nikos pulled away and turned, continuing his trek down the stairs, and rather quickly, too.
Yannis had to take large steps to keep up with him. He followed Nikos down the stairs to a large entryway at the bottom. From there, Nikos turned and headed into another room. Yannis was a bit confused. The room Nikos headed for was in the opposite direction from the food he smelled, and he was positive they had been headed down to eat a meal.
Maybe he was wrong.
“Beloved, do you not hunger?”
“We’ll eat in a minute, Yannis.” Nikos’s voice sounded strained.
Yannis hurried after him, concern for his Beloved growing. Guilt squeezed his heart. Something in Nikos’s voice set off the protective instincts inside of Yannis. “Beloved, what troubles you so?”
Nikos was coming apart at the seams, threatening to break into a thousand pieces, and Yannis needed to stop it. A bright, hard knot of fierce loyalty and utter determination took hold of him. He would slay a three-headed hydra for his Beloved.
He followed Nikos into a room at the end of a long hallway then watched as Nikos
He tilted the glass back and swallowed the entire contents in one gulp before slamming the glass back down on the table. He quickly and efficiently poured another glass of the amber-colored liquid. This time, instead of swallowing it all down, he turned to look at Yannis, swirling the stuff around in his glass.
“Tell me, Yannis, do you know about the creatures that hide in the shadows?”
Yannis glanced out toward the darkness beyond the windows, searching the shadows with his eyes before turning back to Nikos. “Creatures, Beloved?”
“Things that go bump in the night,” Nikos added, “nightmares that come to life when the sun sets.”
Yannis cocked his head to one side, regarding his Beloved with careful consideration and just a bit of caution. “I have heard a term such as this before, and it never brings anything but evil. Why do you speak it now?”
“Seriously?” Nikos’s cerulean-blue eyes lit with amusement, a rueful chuckle falling from his lips. “You have wings, Yannis, wings and a tail and two little horns coming out of your freaking forehead. You are not human.”
“I am not human, Beloved,” Yannis readily admitted. “I never claimed to be.”
“Then what in the hell are you?” Nikos snapped. The liquid in his glass splashed over the rim as he swung his arms around in the air. “I’ve seen a lot of things in this world, but I have never seen anything like you. Hell, until a little while ago, your skin was gray. Now it’s—” Nikos frowned suddenly and stared. “Why don’t you still have gray skin?”
“My body is adapting to fit more into your world.” Yannis shrugged because the color of his skin really was of no importance. It would slowly turn to the same flesh color as his Beloved until not a hint of gray remained. During the night when he was with his Beloved, his skin would be that of a human’s. During the day, he would turn back to stone. “It is the way of things.”
“The way of what things?”
Yannis blinked. Surely his Beloved knew this. “The way of soul mates.”
All of the blood drained from Nikos’s face in a fraction of a second. His jaw dropped down to his chest. “Of what?”
“Soul mates,” Yannis replied. Had no one ever explained these things to Nikos? “You are my Beloved, my soul mate. At the time of our creation, our life threads were entwined together by the Moirai so that when we claimed each other, we would be together through this life and the next.”
“Okay, wait.” Nikos held up his free hand to stop Yannis, and then pushed it through his beautiful collar-length mocha-brown hair. “The Moirai…are you talking about the three sisters from Greek mythology that spin the threads of fate?”
“Yes.” Yannis nodded, glad that he did not have to explain the Moirai to his Beloved. “They are daughters of Zeus and Themis, who are the embodiment of divine order and law. They control the thread of life of every mortal from birth until death.”
“Of course they do.” Nikos took a really long drink from his glass. His cerulean-blue eyes started to look a little glazed over and wide.
“Why does this concern you so, Beloved?”
“Because this is the real world, Yannis. Things like this do not happen. The Gods you talk about, that you revere so damn much, they are only talked about in books and movies and in mythology classes at the university. People don’t believe like that anymore.”
Fear crawled in from the corners of Yannis’s mind.
“You speak the truth, Beloved? My Gods are no more?” Yannis reached for the nearest chair and sat down heavily when his legs gave out from beneath him. What Nikos was saying just wasn’t possible. It just couldn’t be.
“Oh, hey now.” Nikos set his glass on the side table and squatted down in front of Yannis, his hands coming to rest on Yannis’s thighs in a reassuring gesture. “I have no way of knowing if your Gods are still around or not, Yannis. They are probably sitting up there on Mount Olympus watching humanity and laughing their collective asses off at all of the mistakes that we make.”
Yannis shook his head, still shaken by the power of Nikos’s words. “You have wondrous things here, Beloved, things I could never conceive of. I thought at first that maybe you were a God with the things you can do, but now I begin to wonder if in fact, I am in Tartarus.”
“This is not the underworld, Yannis. This is Sicily.”
Elation replaced Yannis’s fear in the blink of an eye. He grabbed Nikos’s hand, squeezing it, excited by his words. “But I am from Sicily, Beloved. I was born in a city in the south called Syracuse.”
“Syracuse is still there, Yannis, still a part of Sicily.” Nikos chuckled suddenly. “Although, I am beginning to suspect my Sicily is a little different than your Sicily.”
Yannis rubbed his free hand down his face. His emotions were all over the place. He didn’t know if the world he remembered existed anymore, and yet even if it didn’t, he couldn’t find it in himself to care if it meant he got to stay with his Beloved.
“I don’t know where I am, Beloved. I don’t even know when I am.” His uncertainty wavered at the crestfallen look on Nikos’s face. “Please do not misconstrue my words, Beloved. Even if this was Tartarus, I would rather be here with you than be in the Elysian Fields without you.”
“Yannis.” It was simply a word, a name, a way of addressing a specific person, but the husky way Nikos spoke his name made Yannis yearn to hear it again and again as it crossed his Beloved’s lips.
Yannis brought Nikos’s hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss against his knuckles. “What I am seems to be of great concern to you, Beloved, but I can assure you that I am not one of your creatures of the night. I do not live in the shadows, just in darkness.”
Nikos’s eyelashes fluttered wildly. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Yannis smiled, with a slow quirk of his lips. “I am not one of your nightmares, Beloved. I do not live in the shadows to watch humanity until I can jump out and attack. I simply live in darkness.”
“And that means what exactly?”
“Come dawn, when Apollo drives his chariot across the sky and the sun rises, I will turn to stone. When the sun sets, I come back to life. It is the way of things.”
Nikos’s eyelashes shot up his forehead so fast that Yannis had to wonder if that was always where they had been. “You turn to stone?”
“I do, Beloved.” It would pain him greatly to be away from Nikos during the daylight hours, but it was the nature of his species. “It has always been this way. As a guardian of the temple, my duty was to guard against those who would defile the temple during the darkness. During the day, there were temple guards, human soldiers.”
“Why not just have temple guards at night?”
Yannis grinned as he stood to his full height and dropped the white cloth robe Nikos had given him to wear to drop to the ground. He allowed his wings to spread out behind him. They were thick with black feathers, and almost as wide in their full span as he was tall.
“Not only can I take a human down far easier than he can take me down but I can see through the darkness, taste the air around me, and hear far more than any human. I can fight, fly, and bite. I am a guardian.”
“Holy fuck, that’s hot,” Nikos gasped as he fanned himself.
Yannis was hard and wanting from one inhale to the next. He could smell Nikos’s arousal floating through the air, wrapping around him like a lover’s grasp. “Beloved,” he rasped as he reached for the man.
Nikos’s eyes widened, and he jumped back out of reach. “Oh no.” Nikos shook his finger back and forth. “I haven’t eaten in ages, and as much as I wouldn’t mind another round of…well, that, I need food first.”
Yannis was instantly contrite. His own urges could most certainly wait. He needed to insure that his Beloved was well cared for first. Yannis tucked his wings back down and picked up the robe off the floor, sliding it on over his shoulders.
“We must feed you.” Yannis grabbed Nikos’s arm and started leading him back toward the comforting aromas of food he had smelled before. “It is not acceptable to miss meals, Nikos. You need your strength.”
Nikos sputtered with laughter. “That’s what I’ve been saying.”
Yannis followed his nose to a large dining hall. Granted, it wasn’t as large as the barracks where he ate with the other guardians, but it was pretty big. Two plate settings had been arranged at one end of the table, which was where Nikos headed. Yannis followed, taking the seat next to Nikos.
He tensed when a door off to one side of the room swung open and an older woman walked out, two white ceramic bowls in her hand. She didn’t say a word when she saw Yannis, although her eyebrows rose a little. She just walked over and set the bowls down in front of them.
“Thank you, Althea.”
“You’re very welcome, sir.”
Yannis watched the white-haired woman as she walked back out of the room then looked at Nikos. “Who was that?”
“Althea,” Nikos replied as he poured something white over the salad in his bowl. “She and her husband Jules have been here since before I was born. Her family has worked for my family for generations. Her son Sahm is my driver and bodyguard. You met him earlier even if you don’t remember it.”
Yannis stiffened. “Why do you need a bodyguard?”
Nikos sighed as he set his fork down and turned to look at Yannis. “There are probably a number of reasons that I could give you, Yannis. Which one would you like to hear first?”
“All of them,” Yannis growled.
“Well, I’m worth a lot of money, so there are those that might try and kidnap me and hold me for ransom. While my accountant and lawyers are under orders never to give in to any ransom demands, potential kidnappers might not know that.”
Yannis’s growl grew louder, more aggressive.
“I am also the CEO of several large companies. I buy up companies that are going bankrupt and turn them into profitable businesses, then sell them off. I’ve pissed off a lot of people doing that. Any number of them might want to take me out.”
-->