by Celia Aaron
He leaned down to my neck. I stiffened.
“You shouldn’t run from me, Helen.” His voice was low, a dangerous caress on my ears. “I can’t teleport here in the Underworld, but I can always catch you. I’m too fast. And you’re too delicious to let go.”
I shivered, but not from cold. I was trapped beneath a predator, but instead of fear, I felt desire. Heat spread from my center outward, warming me.
He breathed in and let the air out on a growl. His fingertips dug into my shoulders. “I can smell your need.”
The electricity snapped, silver light arcing around them.
“Paris—”
He sat up, the trance somehow broken at the sound of my voice. His fangs retracted, and he looked at me as if only now seeing me. He released his grip on my shoulders and rose to his feet before pulling me up next to him.
My power dissipated, gone on the chill breeze that soughed through the trees.
“Elena.” He let out a heavy breath. “You can’t just take off. It’s not safe.” He ran a hand through his hair, now lit brilliantly from behind in the light of the suns. More golden here than he could ever be in the single light on earth. “And I… I can’t be sure I can control myself when you do things like that. I just…” He trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.
“I can take care of myself.” I focused on his first words, not trusting myself to even think about what Paris would be like if he truly lost control. “I’ve done it for thousands of years. Led armies. Destroyed my enemies. I’ll do the same to Menelaus.”
He gripped my arms and locked his gaze on mine. His brows were drawn down in consternation. “I thought you understood. I would never hurt you. I need you to believe me. I want to protect you, always. You are safe with me.”
I felt my resolve failing. The thoughts of running I’d had earlier now seemed foolhardy. I didn’t know anything about the Underworld. I could have run right into an even worse situation.
I needed more time to plan, to think. Running headlong into the woods was not the action of a strategist. Paris was right. I needed to stick with him until a better opportunity presented itself. Instinct had gotten me this far. Time to trust it some more.
I squared my shoulders. “I won’t run again.”
“Do I have your word?”
My spine straightened. “Yes, you have my word.”
“Thank you.” He dropped his hands to his sides, seemingly appeased. “Good. Now, if you’d like, I’d be happy to show you back to my home.”
He backed up a step, letting me go first. Was he being a gentleman or keeping an eye on me? Likely both.
After a much more leisurely walk through the woods in almost comfortable silence, I approached the doors to the dark, foreboding house.
“Welcome.” He swung the opaque doors open wide. I entered slowly, unsure of what lay within. What I saw astonished me. The inside was filled with light and not a hint of the darkness that appeared from outside. Seeing the soaring views of the sky and the valley, I realized that the house was more glass than stone, more sky than ground.
The golden light filtered through the many windows, revealing rich wood floors and comfy seating areas. Paris had no doubt paid a high price for the intensity of the magic required for such a glamor. But it likely kept him alive. It was well known he was ceaselessly hunted by the bloodthirsty vampire queen Desmerada, usurper to his throne and kingdom.
I stepped farther inside. Given his party-boy reputation, I was pleasantly surprised to find Paris lived in this tranquil retreat. Its woodsy splendor reminded me of my home in the Forgotten Forest of Olympus. It was so well hidden that it made an excellent base of operations. High ground, good view, and difficult terrain. Perfect.
Paris retrieved my packages, setting them in a neat pile near the door. The air outside had a chill that grew colder the higher they climbed in the quaint buggy, but the house was warm and inviting. I smelled something wonderful wafting through the air, lemon and saffron drawing me into the home.
But I hadn’t come here to settle in. I needed to find a way to destroy Menelaus and have done with the entire affair. I told myself that my plans included being finished with Paris as well, that I was a warrior maiden in the service of Artemis. But the way he looked at me, that possessive yet reverent gaze, made my thoughts jumble. The way he’d pinned me in the forest, the feeling of being the prey. Goosebumps broke out along my skin at the memory.
Nothing had ever distracted me this way before, and I couldn’t let it happen now, especially when there was a demon out there who posed a threat to my sisters. No, the creature who thought he owned Elena was what remained foremost in my thoughts. Menelaus’s destruction was the endgame.
I halted, not allowing myself to sink into one of the welcoming couches or chairs. I needed Paris to know I wasn’t going to be his Helen no matter what happened from this point forward. We were strangers with a common goal, as far as I was concerned. Nothing more.
“We need to discuss our next moves so that we can put a plan in action.” My tone was clipped.
“You only just arrived. The trip through the portal and the journey afterward were likely more taxing than you realize.” He lowered his brows, a spark of the predator still lingering in his eyes. “We are safe for now. Menelaus won’t be able to follow. At least not right away.” He guided me into the living area, his light touch once again sending shivers along my bare back. His faint smile told me he was pleased that I allowed him to touch me.
“I think we should just focus on a plan.” I crossed my arms, unwilling to take another step until he acquiesced.
“And we will, but first, wouldn’t you agree that we could use a meal and you could use some fresh clothes?” His gaze roved over me, lingering on the edges of my torn sweater. It was starting to fray and reveal the sides of my breasts. When he licked his lips, my cheeks heated. I shifted my arms down to cover myself, eliciting a sigh from Paris.
He turned, walked deeper into the house, and called out, “Daphne!” Glancing back at me, he said, “I will return. Please make yourself at home.” He passed through a door at the rear of the living area, near the wide windows that overlooked the valley. His voice called back to me, a hint of a smile in the words. “And I’ll know if you take off again. Part of me is almost hoping you do.”
The strange tightening in my core returned, the warmth spreading at the thought of how he’d looked at me, how his hard body felt on top of mine. I slapped my palm to my cheek and shook my head. Get it together.
And did he say Daphne? Who was that? A lover? I pushed away the sting at the thought. I had no claim on him, and his philandering was well-known. Clearly, my feelings were just the result of the sudden stresses pressing on me from all directions.
Instead of contemplating further, I took in the room—ways of ingress, places to take cover, where to stash some of Cranfel’s weapons. I imagined enemies swarming through the front door and made a mental map of how many steps it would take for them to overtake the room. I could hold them off at the foyer for a time, then fall back to the hallway to the right—a handy bottleneck. The fluffy couches could be flipped to use defensively. A large white rug, no doubt the pelt of some mythical beast, would serve to trip attackers if bunched up just right. And the light alone, streaming in from the walls of glass, would dazzle anyone upon first sight.
Satisfied with the space for now, though I wanted to know where the three interior doors led, I perused the home through a different lens. The fur rug looked so soft, I wanted to run my fingers through it. Before I could even kick my boot off to glide a toe through the silky fur, something at the side of the room caught my eye.
A small half-moon-shaped indention in the glass wall held an ornate golden table with a piece of exquisite statuary on top. The space and the table seemed made solely to display the item, whose marble gleamed as if only recently polished. The light hit it at all angles such that the nook was aglow. I approached, drawn to it.
The s
tatue appeared to be a game piece, akin to the white queen of a chess board. The figure stood with a sparkling crystal sword raised over her head, ready to strike, while a shield bearing a crest of laurel adorned her other arm. The workmanship was exquisite down to the very expression on her face, determination set in stone.
I raised my hand to it but didn’t touch. “Hmm, what are you?”
“A piece made long ago for a game called latrones.” Paris stood behind me, though I had not heard him reenter the room. I intentionally kept my eyes on the game piece, not wanting to reveal how startled I was that he could creep up on me so easily.
But his words piqued my interest; I had long been a lover of games. “What sort of game?”
“Strategy. A game of warfare.”
My favorite. “Where are the rest of the pieces and the board?”
“Why? Do you want to play?” Mischief was in his voice, and his question meant a bit more than what it seemed.
“Maybe.” He wasn’t the only one who could be mischievous.
“Then I’m sorry to say that this is the only piece I have left.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“They were destroyed.” The ache in his voice was like a wound, one that should have healed long ago but instead still pained him anew each day.
That whisper within me, the one telling me of a life already lived, grew louder. I turned to him, sensing that I needed to know the rest of the story, needed to put the puzzle pieces together. I found myself looking up into those sky-blue eyes, his lips only a breath away from mine. The passion in his gaze burned into me, searing a path down my body and into my most secret places. I had never wanted the touch of a male. But I knew then that I didn’t want the touch of just any male. Only the one whose reverent gaze rested on me, searching my eyes, my heart. Logic told me to back away, to take a defensive tack given the unfamiliar terrain. But I didn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find a muscle willing to obey the command of my mind. Instinct ruled me.
“Gods,” I breathed as my heart kicked into a staccato beat.
The sound of my exhale set him into motion, as if he’d been waiting for a sign from me. His hands pressed against my back, no longer the hesitant fingertips. His wide palms pulled me to him. Without warning, he claimed my mouth with a passion the likes of which I’d never felt. My mind screamed for me to torch him, a shimmer filling the air around us. But my body responded to him as if under his command instead of mine. His mouth, so insistent, so full of that fervor he had been trying to hide, made me giddy. This felt right, as if it was where I was meant to be. Here, in his arms. My lips parted, and his wicked tongue darted in, tasting me. My knees went weak, and I allowed him to pull me even closer.
His kiss was the most erotic thing I had ever experienced. My budded nipples grazed against him through the sweater with each of my quick breaths, making them ache. He ran a hand up my side and under the material, cupping my breast as he deepened our kiss. A moan rose from my throat at the sensation of him kneading the soft mound. He backed me into the window wall, covering me with his body. It was as if I were a magic bomb that had ignited, suddenly ablaze at his touch, his kiss. He ripped the remaining fabric from my top. His hands strayed to my breasts, the feeling of his thumbs teasing the hardened tips making me lose all sense of time and place.
He yanked his shirt open, buttons flying, and pulled me to him, groaning as my skin met his. I wrapped my hands around his neck, my instinct demanding more of him, all of him. I snaked my tongue against his and reveled in the pleasure of his penetrating strokes. Had I been here before? Felt this electric touch? Something sparked in my memory, a loose thread that fluttered away before I could grab it.
He lifted me, and I wrapped my legs around him.
Home. This felt like home.
His shaft was against me, thick and taut with desire. And, gods help me, I wanted it. Wanted him inside me. It was as if I was suddenly possessed by some wanton spirit, but I didn’t care. All I knew was his passion for me, and all I wanted was to feel it come into full bloom within me.
He carried me to one of the couches and laid me down. Settling on top, he fell between my thighs as his kiss continued to make me melt. With one hand still at my breast, teasing me into a pleasured moan, his other reached down and got a handful of my backside. I arched against him, relishing the feel of him all over me.
Right. This felt so right.
He broke our kiss but only to move his mouth down my chest and capture a nipple, grazing it with his teeth. I ran my hands through his tousled hair. He released one breast to encircle the other, flicking his nimble tongue across the peak, sending a shock of arousal through me.
Tension built at my center, a sensation unlike any other I could recall. A sweet pressure that promised bliss. I moaned again as he sucked the bud completely into his mouth, the sensation within me growing ever stronger. Like I was a bowstring being drawn back slowly, surely.
But when he relinquished his hold on my aching breast and nibbled at my neck, I froze. Memories of Menelaus binding me and placing his mouth on my neck surfaced like a monster in my dreams.
“Helen?”
The name was wrong on my ears, jarring me back to my senses. I put a hand to his tan chest, pushing him away as I scooted from him until my back hit the arm of the couch.
His brows furrowed, worry dimming the fire in his eyes. “I mean, Elena—”
Before he could continue, a half-naked nymph traipsed into the living room, bowed, and said in a high trill, “Dinner is served.”
Chapter Eight
Paris
I had dreamed of this moment so many times, cried out for her in my sleep on more occasions than I could count. And she was finally in my arms, the living, breathing goddess who had consumed my thoughts ever since our first meeting in that rose garden so long ago. Just the taste of her, that honeyed softness that I would never forget, made me desperate for more. Even though she did not remember our past, didn’t remember the love we shared, she was giving herself to me now, in the present. And gods, did I want to take her, to give her the release I had wrung from her so many times before, to hear her crying out my name.
But she’d turned cold. Daphne had stumbled upon us before I’d even had a chance to ask what I’d done wrong. Elena covered her fair breasts, the pink nipples still plump and wanting. I couldn’t stifle a growl at the loss of that glorious sight.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was interrupting something.” Daphne watched me and Elena with interest, her barely covered breasts bouncing jauntily as she straightened from her low bow. Being a nymph, Daphne was an open creature, enjoying seeing and being seen, especially when there was nudity involved. Despite her youthful appearance, she was hundreds of years old, if not thousands. An excellent housekeeper and general companion. I had grown quite fond of her over the years.
“You weren’t, um, interrupting,” Elena said. She was looking at the tattered remains of her sweater with chagrin.
Before I could make my apologies for the destroyed clothing, Daphne picked right up, never missing a beat. “I have plenty of clothes, and, though I may be older, I still got it”—she shook her behind with a sly wink at Elena—“so I think some of them will fit you.”
To my surprise, Elena smiled at the nymph. “You remind me of a certain sister of mine.”
“I do?” Daphne asked with delight. “Then she must be gorgeous!”
Elena laughed, the sound a salve to my heart. I feared I’d frightened her, overwhelmed her with too much too soon. But when she’d stood in front of her game piece, I could not hold back any longer.
The white queen was the only relic I’d managed to save from our life together, the only thing Menelaus hadn’t shattered. When I awoke in our bedchambers in Troy, the figure lay beside me in a pool of Helen’s blood, more blood than a mortal could ever lose and yet still draw breath. My new vampire senses told me as much, but even without them, I knew she was gone somewhere far beyond my r
each, to the fields of Elysium or the Island of the Blessed. There was no body; likely taken by Menelaus to be defiled. I cursed the demon for ever touching her and vowed to end his life. My despair was bottomless, a deep abyss that drowned me in pain and rage.
Lying there, reeling from the loss, I could feel the blood of the vampire king Priam flowing through my veins and giving me power beyond measure. Through the crucible of Menelaus and Death itself, I had been reborn an immortal and saved, redeemed by my beloved Helen.
She had given me life and sacrificed her own. On the night of my death, I had gone to battle Menelaus, forsaking the safety of the Trojan wall and staking my life on battle. If I had prevailed, then I would have won peace in the war and the chance at a real life with Helen—two things I valued above all else.
The demon king and I had dueled at nightfall, our battle cries and ringing swords the only sounds in the dusty twilight. A host of vampire nobility watched at my back while the demon horde lined up behind Menelaus, a wall of reckoning. On and on we’d fought, striking and drawing blood, circling, weaving. It was a delicate dance of vicious war. Though I was only a mortal, I fought with all the heart I had. But the demon Menelaus won the battle, a sharp stroke through my chest sealing my doom.
Priam, his tears flowing freely, carried me inside the walls and laid me gently at Helen’s feet. Her face was drawn and pale, yet still beautiful, as she knelt beside me. Her dress was pure white, of the airiest silk that floated on the air and glowed in the silver rays of the moon. I thanked the gods that I was allowed to see her once more before I was taken by the ferryman.
As my vision dimmed and my soul untethered, she fed a liquid down my throat. My senses were failing, but the iron taste was strong on my tongue. Her gentle hands stroked me, soothed me even as I felt her tears and heard her sobs. I never wanted to cause her pain, but before I could even try to ease her suffering, all went dark.