Maybe standing there, listing all the things that should be changed about her date didn’t bode well for the relationship. But then, they didn’t have one, did they? Anduron wanted sex with her, plain and simple. Would she really go through with it? She wasn’t into the whole bed-hopping scene. If she was going to bare her body and soul to someone, there had better be the promise of something more at the end of it. Although even that was no guarantee, as her single-but-not-a-virgin status proved.
“You two seem to be getting along,” she said, wandering into the room.
Andy hop-ran over to her and jumped on her shins, tongue hanging out.
“He seems to have taken to you as well,” Anduron said, straightening up.
“Hopefully not too much, since he’s not staying.”
“You seem quite invested in his welfare, for someone who does not intend on keeping him.”
She picked Andy up, kissed him on the nose, and tossed Anduron a glare. “Just because I didn’t want him being used as a test subject doesn’t mean I plan to make him my pet. Gran doesn’t even know he’s here. I was hoping if he got a home soon enough, I wouldn’t have to mention him.”
He wandered close, his male scent hitting her much the way it had when they’d been in her car, and scratched Andy behind the ears. “She does not like animals?”
“She loves them, but not the mess they make. As a renter here, I’m under a no-pets policy.”
“Does your grandmother fare well?”
“Very well, thanks to you. I could barely get her settled enough to eat. She’s still talking about her angel.”
He grinned. “I trust you set her straight about that.”
“Not on your life. I haven’t seen her this excited about anything in years. Here, could you hold him?” She handed the puppy over and went to the kitchen to wash her hands.
With the open layout of the living area, it should have been easy to see Anduron while she made lunch, but the spectacular bouquet of exotic blooms he’d awakened her with sat in a massive vase on her island counter. The flowers were overwhelming, far too much for her tiny guest house, but she couldn’t help but smile at his desire to try and please her. The center blossom was an exquisite lavender color, with large, fluted petals unlike anything she’d seen.
“I realize I may not have thanked you properly for the beautiful flowers,” she said. “I can be pretty cranky in the morning.”
“You like them?”
“They’re amazing. It was very thoughtful.” As she moved the heavy arrangement aside, she wondered whether that center flower was from his own world.
“Is chicken salad all right?” she asked, grabbing a bowl while Anduron put the dog down and sat on a stool in front of the island counter.
He eyed her with a guilty expression she recognized.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “What is it?”
Anduron ran a fingertip over the smooth edges of the tile counter and cleared his throat. “I cannot eat that. My apologies.”
“You have allergies too?”
“It is more complicated than that. Eating food from earth is, well, it would bind my presence to this realm and alter some of my immortal energies.”
“You should have said something when I mentioned a lunch date.”
“I wanted to accommodate your wishes involving our courtship.”
“Lunch was just a suggestion.”
She picked up the bowl to return it to the cupboard, but he reached across the counter and laid a hand on her arm. “You must eat,” he said.
“I’m not going to eat in front of you while you sit and watch! That’d be too awkward.”
“Then I shall eat as well.”
“But you just said...”
With a wink, he grabbed his pendant and disappeared.
“He keeps doing that,” she said to the puppy at her feet.
A couple minutes later, Anduron reappeared in the living room with what appeared to be a bowl of something like figs and a drumstick from fowl larger than a chicken.
“There,” he said, grinning. “I shall eat as well.”
“So you really can’t eat human food?” she asked, mixing chopped celery into her shredded chicken.
“It is better if I do not. I used to feel sorry for my mother, raising my brother and me here in the earth realm but having to provide for my needs differently.”
“You have a brother? Older or younger?”
“Depends on who you ask. We are twins, Feillor and I. Although I was born minutes before him, he likes to consider himself the big brother.”
She ladled a dollop of mayonnaise on the salad and smiled. “I always wanted siblings, but I’m an only child. What’s Feillor like? Are you identical?”
“Not at all. His genetics drew heavily on my father’s influence, as well as from my mother’s human side. But as you can see,” he said, pushing hair aside to show his ear, “I acquired much more of my mother’s elven heritage. So while Feillor was able to eat as he wished from the earthen realm, my food had to be prepared separately from the moment I left our mother’s breast.”
“What happens if one of your kind eats our food?”
“It depends entirely on the immortal. Feillor has sufficient human genetics in him to eat that it does not matter. Another god, however, might find that being bound to the mortal realm removes the ability to phase between realms. Still more lose some of their power. Immortals with enough elven blood are especially susceptible.”
“You wouldn’t have powers anymore?”
“Some, but how much would remain is unknown.” He bit into a fig and chewed. “And since my body is best suited to the immortal realm, grounding myself here would tax my physiology. So great care was taken from the beginning to ensure my health and magical development was not hampered.”
“Your mother must have had her hands full, raising two very different immortal boys.”
His grin tickled at her belly. “To say the least.” The smile faded. “In the early years, anyway. Before I went away.”
He fell silent and picked at his drumstick. She took a bite of her lunch and watched him. “Sounds like a story there.”
“Not one I would burden a woman with while attempting to court her.”
“Then I should definitely hear it.”
He glanced up. “Let us talk about you. Your interests, perhaps. Or your childhood.”
“Only if you will tell me your story.”
“You first.”
“Okay. I work at a vet clinic because I love animals, and I live here to help out with Gran, since she’s getting older. Which, by the way, isn’t the story I told her when I said I needed to move into her guest house, or she never would have allowed it. She thinks this is helping me out, not the other way around. Anyway, I like reading and used to bowl in a league, back when I had time for a life. That’s pretty much it. Now tell me your story.”
“If you insist, I shall tell you some of it.”
“I do insist. If it’s not too personal to ask.”
He squared his shoulders. “No. Although I am not certain how interesting you would find my life, outside my role as sabbat keeper.”
“Are you kidding? It’s pretty fascinating to be standing here, talking to someone who’s been alive for, well, I don’t even know how long. Do I want to know?”
A smile slid up half his face. “Probably not.”
“Well, before you popped in and rescued Gran, I didn’t even know gods and immortals existed. So yeah, I’m interested.” She chewed a piece of celery. “So why did you go away from home?”
“I was kidnapped.”
An icy spear went through her heart, and she set down her fork. “God. Really?”
“I was taken from my mother when I was very young, and I spent much of my boyhood in captivity.”
“Who took you? Why?”
“An enemy of my father’s wanted to control him, teach him a lesson.” He frowned at his gleaming golden bowl. “And so he did.”
“That’s horrid,” she said, stabbing viciously at her food. “Are many of your kind so cruel?”
“No. Immortal children are rare, and harming or taking one is considered a grave offense. Which, of course, is why Costeros did it.”
“That’s true here as well. How did you get away?”
“My brother, thanks to a human captive. As twins, we had been able to sense one another from birth, even at great distance. But when I was taken, that bond was dampened by enchantments Costeros cast around the dungeon where I was kept.” He smiled again. “But one day, one of the other prisoners, a human, was able to defeat the enchantments for a brief time so he could get away. I have no idea how he did it. In the brief time the enchantments were down, my brother and I made contact. He was able to report my general whereabouts to my father. I was found within a matter of weeks and rescued.”
“It’s amazing that you two were able to connect after all that time.”
“That was my brother’s doing.” He picked up a fig and plucked the stem from it. “He had never given up, you see. He kept trying, day after day, long after I had despaired of all hope. Because he had kept himself attuned despite all the failed attempts, he found me. I do not know what would have happened if, like me, he had given up.”
There was so much more she could have asked, about the kidnapper Costeros, how Anduron had been treated, what things were like after his rescue. But he was right, this wasn’t the sort of casual conversation one got into on a first date.
She reached out and placed her hand on his. “I’m so sorry, Anduron. That must have been awful for you and your family.”
“Indeed. Once I was saved, I vowed I would try to help others who were unjustly imprisoned. And as the Mabon sabbat keeper, I can.”
“That makes a lot of sense. But why just on Mabon? Why not all the sabbats?”
“That is something I have long asked of those in power among my realm. As for why Mabon specifically, it is because the god for whom the sabbat was first named was a champion of hopeless captives. I remember praying to him every night when I was first taken. Later, my captor informed me Mabon had gone to a far realm and hadn’t been seen for hundreds of years. Now, I have taken up his cause as the god of the pagan thanksgiving. Each year, I free a captive as a goodwill offering in spirit of the sabbat.”
“Just one a year? No more?”
He eyed her. “A long debate which begins and ends with laws limiting our interference in human affairs. Even one gesture is a matter of some controversy.”
“I see.” She dabbed the corner of her lips with a napkin. “Well, I’m grateful that your cause benefited my family. Thank you.”
“Does that mean you consent to the union on Mabon?”
Her brows lifted. “Whoa, there. Let’s not jump ahead too fast.”
“You approve of my choice of your grandmother as the offering, and we have courted as you requested. Is that not sufficient?” He got up and rounded the counter, pressing close. “Should I offer a reminder that we also appear to be sexually compatible?”
She looked up at him with her heart pounding. His lips met hers before she could answer, his mouth hot and pliable, probing at her, insisting that she open for him. And she did, heavens help her. Her tongue twirled with his, tasting of the fruit he had eaten, indulging the flavor of male and something that was quite literally out of this world. Their kiss sent all her senses soaring, and pangs of longing throbbed between her legs.
She broke away and backed off her stool so suddenly that she almost went splat on the floor. “I remember that demonstration quite clearly, thanks.”
Putting the stool between them didn’t work for long. He slid it aside and invaded her personal space. “Then what is the problem? I am eager for this to work between us, Jenna. I do not wish to have to return to the counsel to seek the names of the alternates they are selecting.”
Her stomach flipped. “Alternates?” She folded her arms. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve got a list of women standing by in case I don’t want to sleep with you?”
“The counsel felt it was best.”
A hot flush rose to her face. “The counsel can go to hell. And so can you, if you think it’s appropriate to tell me to spread my legs so you don’t have to bother looking elsewhere.”
She glared at him while his brow crested in a deep frown. “That is in no way what I said.”
“But it’s what you meant.” She tossed her plate in the sink with a little too much force. “I get it, Anduron. I do. I know this isn’t a real romance.” She let out an irritated chuckle. “In fact, I’m thinking it was pretty stupid of me to make you treat this like it is.”
She wiped her hands on a dish towel and turned to find him close behind her. Too close. “Are you saying you do not desire me? For I might be inclined to question that argument.”
Her heart flat stopped for a good two seconds. “In my world, feeling an attraction for someone doesn’t mean you hop into bed within a few days of meeting.”
His eyes raked over her. “That has not been my experience of your world.”
“I don’t mean my world as in earth. I mean my world. My life.” She pushed past him, regretting the hot tingle she felt when she touched his bulky upper arm. “It’s not fair of me to expect you to take me out on dates when we both know why you came back. There’s only one reason you’re paying me the slightest bit of attention.”
“Perhaps more than one.”
She shook her head. “No. This would be nothing more to you than one romp in the hay.”
“The ritual joining is far more than a casual romp.”
“It’s still a one-time deal, and that’s not how I operate.”
“So you do not wish to have sex with me.”
Her pussy actually dampened at the words, defying her to agree. “It’s more a matter that sex means a lot more to me than it apparently does to you, and no doubt a lot of the earth women you’ve done this ritual with.” She sucked in a breath and straightened her shoulders. “So I have a different proposal for you.”
“What sort of proposal?”
“You have a passion for freeing the unjustly imprisoned. Does that only include humans?”
He cocked his head. “That has been my tradition.”
“What about freeing animals? Would you consider doing that?”
“As the Mabon offering? I have already freed your grandmother.”
“I don’t mean as the offering. I mean as in you helping me free them. As a personal favor.”
“I do not catch your meaning.”
“If you want my body for your ritual, I’ll agree to offer myself if you help me free unjustly imprisoned animals.”
A deep smolder lit in his silvery-gold eyes. “Was your grandmother not enough?”
“You were willing to go beyond her rescue and court me to get me in bed. I’m asking you to do this instead.” She set her hands on her hips, the plan already forming. “Releasing the test animals from that factory would be a lot more meaningful a gesture than flowers or candy, wouldn’t you agree?”
He gave a single nod of concession. “Perhaps freeing trapped animals would not fall under the laws regarding interference with mortals. Mabon himself was known to defeat traps and release caged animals, long ago.”
“Then do we have a date?” she asked. “I’ll need to make arrangements, so it’ll have to be tomorrow night.”
He eyed her for a long moment. “I will help you.” He bent his face very near her lips. “Then you will consent to be mine.”
Her heart flipped. “For the ritual, you mean.”
He straightened. “Yes. For the ritual.”
***
Anduron sat in the large, square vehicle Jenna called a “van”, wondering whether he was doing the right thing. The Counsel had provided a list of alternate woman that were even now tucked into his inner cloak pocket. They had urged him to make contact with all haste, and the more he thought about it, the more h
e knew he should abandon this course and do as they asked. He would likely not need to approach more than a few to get one to concede—and without any further conditions or gestures of goodwill. Jenna was asking more of him than he needed to agree to, and at risk to himself. Despite what he told her, he wasn’t altogether certain the Counsel wouldn’t consider breaking animals out of a human facility a violation of law. One animal might not be an issue. But she wished to free all being held in the building they were parked alongside, which would definitely affect the humans involved.
If he would just tell her farewell, he could put this folly behind him and approach the next candidate on his list. But he couldn’t do it.
The puppy she saved had been partly to blame. The tiny creature was happy now, safe in the new home Jenna kept swearing was only temporary. But he saw how much affection they already shared, and the fierce pride in her eyes when she looked at the canine. He recognized that expression. She had saved the innocent, and now she had a taste for freeing the imprisoned. He knew well that this was not a hunger easily sated. And when he had watched her interact with her rescued dog, that same hunger stirred in him as well. He had a chance to do more good here. He would take it.
“Stay here,” Jenna said. “I’ll unlock the back of the van.”
He watched her hop out of the driver’s seat, her sexy curves swathed in snug-fitting black attire. She’d insisted that they dress all in black to help conceal themselves.
Perhaps her actions to save Andy from this place had been partly what inspired him to go through with her request. But he couldn’t pretend that the thought of Jenna offering her body in return wasn’t the deciding factor. His cock stiffened even now, thinking of her writhing beneath him, two souls passionate about freedom and their roles in securing it for others. Such a notion sharpened the arousal that had already begun a steady climb now that the sabbat was near.
Anduron: God of Mabon (Sons of Herne, #7) Page 6