Underworld's Daughter

by Molly Ringle

“Mm,” she agreed. “I’ve been enjoying that memory.”

  He sucked in his breath, and released it in a warm rush against her neck. “Oh, good.” He kissed her throat. “Hoped you might.” His body pressed against her, legs to shoulders.

  “Olive oil. Naughty.”

  “You kept rubbing and teasing me whenever you had the chance, working me up…” He untied the knot on her robe and let it fall open. When he slid his hands inside it, she found they were indeed warmer now.

  She set her feet farther apart to brace her melting weight while he caressed her. “You kept whispering in my ear what you were going to do to me later,” she said.

  He touched his nose to hers, grinning. “Filthy mouth I had on me back then.”

  “I liked it.”

  “I remember you did.” He sank, kissing her breasts and then her navel. “That’s not all my mouth can do, you know.” Within seconds he’d whisked the silk panties off.

  She stepped out of them and trampled them under one foot, and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the door.

  He lifted her smoothly, not even disengaging his mouth as he carried her the few steps to her bed. This, she thought in bliss, was why it rocked to have an immortal lover. He could lift you like a paper plate, support your back in one hand and your rear in the other, all with no effort and while keeping his mouth wonderfully, sublimely busy.

  He laid her on the bed and paused a moment to take off his warm hat and boots. Then, still in his coat and all the rest of his clothes, he knelt over her on the mattress, stretched one hand up to her breasts and spread her thighs with the other, and got back to work.

  She undulated against his tongue, trying not to make a sound, trying to make it last. But the memory had wound her up so fully that soon she was gripping his shoulders and riding out the waves that overtook her. His mouth and fingers stayed with her until she settled to a stop—and that mouth and those fingers did technically count as magic, or at least should, she thought in satisfaction.

  He rose on his knees, grinning, and wriggled out of his coat. “I was just getting warmed up.” He dropped his coat on the rug, and crawled to lie on top of her in his hoodie and jeans and socks.

  “Stay warmed up. Your turn.” She pushed at his chest to move him onto his back, and climbed on top of him, straddling him in nothing but the open robe while she unfastened his belt buckle and jeans.

  His gaze drank in the sight, traveling up and down her. He folded his arm behind his head. “Bloody hell, could anything be as hot as you?”

  She smiled. “You are. And were, in those memories.” She unzipped his sweatshirt and pushed up his T-shirt.

  He pulled both shirts off and lay back, naked from thighs up. “I am ever so glad I fed you that pomegranate.”

  “The dreams must have tormented you, before you came and fetched me.” She ran her fingertip down the length of him, enjoying how it made him twitch.

  “Very much. There were, um, things I had to take care of basically every morning when I woke up. If the dreams hadn’t done it for me.”

  “Mm. I would’ve resorted to that tonight too, if you weren’t coming to see me.”

  He breathed faster as she played with him. “You’ll have to show me that sometime.”

  “In this life, at least. Obviously I have before.” They exchanged intimate smiles. She reached for the pump bottle of hand lotion on her nightstand. “This may not be olive oil, but…”

  The dollop of lotion on her hand warmed quickly as she wrapped it around him. Adrian’s sudden gasp and groan was loud enough that she leaned down and clapped her other hand onto his mouth.

  “Shh,” she reminded him.

  He nodded, eyes blazing in desire.

  She settled back, freeing his mouth, and kept stroking him. Lotion squished up between her fingers; she’d perhaps used too much, but he didn’t seem to mind. Quite the opposite.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. He eyes fell closed as he rocked up into her touch. “Oh, thank you…thank…” Then he couldn’t speak anymore, and jolted hard enough that the old iron bed frame creaked in protest.

  After cleaning off with a hand towel she’d stashed beside the bed, they stretched out in a tight hug on the mattress and pulled up the comforter. They stroked each other’s skin in sleepiness and arousal and love.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” she murmured.

  “Hmm?”

  “It wasn’t filthy, what you said to me. It was lovely.”

  He slid his lips back and forth against hers. “Agreed.”

  They engaged in an increasingly lazy, heavy string of kisses, then she laid her head on that gorgeous warm place where his neck, shoulder, and chest met, and closed her eyes. Just for a minute, she thought. It’d be nice to rest together like this before he had to leave, just for a bit.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A scrape of furniture being moved woke Adrian. He blinked at the room in confusion—ah right, Sophie’s house—then his heart jumped nearly out of his body in terror.

  Her father was in the room. Barely a meter away, glaring straight into Adrian’s eyes. Terry had pulled out the wooden chair by her desk—probably the sound Adrian heard—and was sitting in it with his feet planted wide and a baseball bat across his knees. His face was arranged in a look exactly as murderous as you’d expect on someone who finds a near-stranger in bed with his teenage daughter.

  Shit.

  Adrian glanced at the alarm clock. 1:42 a.m. He considered diving directly into the spirit realm. But disappearing before Terry’s eyes wasn’t the best idea, nor would it be kind to leave Sophie to face the consequences alone.

  Adrian attempted polite reparations, staying where he was, bare-chested with Sophie asleep on his shoulder. “H-hi,” he stammered. “I’m David.”

  “I remember. Or is your name Adrian?”

  Fuck.

  To gain time, Adrian frowned as if confused, and gently moved Sophie aside so he could sit up. She stirred, starting to awaken. “I’m sorry,” Adrian said to Terry, surreptitiously fastening up his jeans under the blanket. “It was late, and Sophie invited me up…but um, I should go. Soph? Wake up, I’ve got to go.”

  “You stay right there,” Terry said. “The police are on their way and you can tell all your interesting stories to them.”

  Now the swear words piled on in several languages in his mind. Adrian scrambled for a response. “That’s—no, I promise there’s no need…” He still had no shirt on, and he quickly pulled the blanket up to Sophie’s shoulders so her open robe wouldn’t show. As if it wasn’t totally obvious what they’d been up to.

  Sophie awakened fully and blinked up at him. Then her gaze shot across the room and she gasped. She clutched her robe shut, rising up on her elbow. “Dad. What are you doing?”

  “I got up for the bathroom,” Terry said, “and Rosie was downstairs whining. I let her out of the study—thought it was pretty weird how the door was closed there—and she came running straight up and started sniffing at your door. So of course I opened it to make sure nothing was on fire. And look what I found.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, it was late. You guys were asleep. Dad, you remember David.”

  Adrian was impressed. Sophie sounded shaken but patient, far more convincing with her lies than he usually was.

  However, her dad wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, if that’s his name. I’m thinking maybe it’s Adrian. And that he’s from New Zealand. Got any ID on you that says different, son?”

  Adrian swallowed against his dry throat. “Not on me, no.” Which was true. He was smart enough not to carry incriminating documentation. But maybe a fake ID would’ve been smarter. Crap, why hadn’t he got Niko to do that for him? Why had he thrown someone useful like Niko out of his life?

  “This is ridiculous,” Sophie said.

  “Is it? I heard Tab ask you about ‘Adrian’ earlier. And sure, it says ‘David’ on your texts, but you do call him ‘Adrian’ in at least one of those.”
/>   “You looked at my texts?”

  “When you were asleep on the couch.”

  “Dad!”

  “I am not proud of it. But maybe someday you’ll have kids, and someone will be breaking into their dorm room and blowing up grenades near them and worrying you sick. And other people will be giving you weird hints about what your kid’s up to and who they’re seeing, and then I’ll ask you what you would’ve done.”

  “I’m eighteen.” Her voice seethed with outrage. “You don’t get to act this way.”

  “I find someone in my house who’s suspected of being in the country illegally, not to mention being connected with the people who attacked you, and I don’t get to call the police? Gosh, here’s me thinking I could. So I did. They’re coming now, and if this guy’s clear and innocent, fine. My apologies and I owe him a real nice dinner.”

  Sophie sat up straight. “You did not call the police.”

  “See that?” Terry gestured to the window, where blue and red lights flashed, brightening and moving nearer. “Guess they’re here. I told them I unlocked the front door, so they’ll be right up.”

  “You do not know what you’re doing.” Sophie furiously tied the robe around herself, and shoved the blanket off her legs.

  Adrian took the opportunity to put on his T-shirt and sweatshirt, and leaned down to put his boots on too.

  “Tell them you made a mistake, and send them away,” Sophie hissed at her father.

  “You are acting real suspicious, girl,” Terry said. “I don’t want to make them interrogate you too, but if it’s for your own good, I will.”

  “Do you want me to ever come back here again?” she said.

  “Oh ho, being like that now, are we?”

  The front door opened downstairs. “Police. We’re coming up,” a man called, sounding oddly mild.

  Terry rose and leaned out the bedroom door to beckon to them. “Hey, Roger. Up here.”

  Small town, Adrian thought fleetingly. First-name basis with the police. He looked at Sophie.

  “Escape. Switch realms,” she whispered, in the Underworld tongue.

  He nodded and grabbed his coat. She threw his hat to him. Just as Terry turned around again, Adrian caught the hat and leaped into the spirit world.

  The house disappeared. Darkness surrounded him, punctuated by the gibbous moon, which he had a split second to glimpse before he plummeted to the ground from the height of the second floor. His legs and arms smacked against tree branches on the way, knocking him one direction and another. With a bone-jolting thud, he landed on his side on the muddy forest floor.

  Thank goodness for immortality, he thought, grunting and pulling himself to a sitting position against the tree’s trunk. He rested and breathed deeply a minute, wincing at his scratches and bruises, waiting as the pain gradually faded.

  He whistled for Kiri. She barked from not far off. The tread of her paws bounded through the forest toward him.

  “Well.” He caught the sides of her head and let her lick his nose. “That was rather an awkward date.” He sighed as Kiri sat beside him. Her fur warmed his arm. “Poor Sophie. What have I left her in the middle of?”

  Sophie’s dad stood gaping at the space where Adrian had stood a moment earlier. “Where’d he go?”

  “He left,” Sophie said.

  Two police officers entered the room, both male, one young and stout, one middle-aged and thin.

  “Evening,” the middle-aged one said. His name was Roger. Sophie’s dad knew him in high school, and still attended Seahawks games with him. Roger had been eating pumpkin bread in the living room at one point yesterday. “Terry tells me you’ve got an unexpected guest.” Roger glanced around the room, looking puzzled at not finding any such person.

  “He wasn’t unexpected. I invited him.” Sophie felt less feisty and more cowed now. She didn’t like defying the law any more than Adrian did.

  Terry marched forward, dropped to his knees, and looked under Sophie’s bed. He climbed to his feet, glowering. “He was right here. Then he disappeared like some Vegas magician.”

  “Closet maybe?” The younger cop wandered over to Sophie’s half-open closet door. “Okay if I look in here?”

  “Yes,” Sophie said.

  “Yes.” Terry stormed over and opened the closet all the way.

  The police officer moved aside a few of Sophie’s hanging clothes with his flashlight, then shrugged at Roger.

  “He left a few minutes ago,” Sophie said. “Look around if you want, but he’s not here.”

  Her dad pointed at her. “That is not true. He was here seconds before you guys came in.”

  “You know, Terry, it’s late.” Roger’s voice was placating. “It’s easy to get confused, drift off for a minute. Make a mistake.”

  “Damn it, that is not what happened!” Terry glared at Sophie. “Let’s ask her. Who is he, then, huh?”

  She curled her hand tight in the top of the robe, holding it shut, feeling exposed with the cool air on her legs. “You know his name is David. You’ve met him.”

  “Your dad was thinking he might be someone who’s not supposed to be in the country?” Roger still sounded pleasant and kind, like always.

  “Dad’s mixed up. He didn’t like finding me asleep with…someone he didn’t know was here.” Sophie’s face burned with shame. “But that’s for him and me to talk about. There was no need to call the police.”

  The younger cop peered out the window, checked its latch and screen, and shone his flashlight around outside. Evidently he saw nothing worth mentioning, since he looked at Roger and shrugged again.

  Roger looked at Terry. “I got to say, I think she’s right.”

  “I’m telling you, Roger, you did not see—”

  “Terry, I came here as a friend, because I trust you. She had someone over when you didn’t want her to, okay, I get that. But if I can’t find him, I can’t ask him who he is or what he’s up to. And if she says she invited him, and he wasn’t breaking in or hurting anybody, there’s really not a lot I can do. She’s eighteen, man. It’s not a crime.”

  “What if he’s an illegal immigrant?” Terry said. “Or—or illegal tourist, or whatever the term is?”

  “Without knowing who he is, I can hardly prove anything like that. Besides, that’s more an issue for the feds. I can give you a number to call if you find any proof.”

  Isabel, Sophie’s mother, stepped into the doorway, in her pale blue nightgown that covered her from shoulders to ankles. She squinted in disbelief at the tableau before her. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” Sophie told her emphatically.

  “Sophie’s dating Houdini,” Terry said to her. “Did you know that?” He swung back to face the cops. “Go look for him. I’m telling you, he could not be far.”

  “And I’m telling you,” Sophie said, “he’s gone, and there’s no need to look.”

  Roger exchanged a glance with the other officer, then looked at Terry and spread his hands in helplessness. “It’s true what she says. I don’t really have much reason to go after the guy here.”

  “Dad, let them go home,” Sophie said. “We’ll talk about this.”

  “I think that’s the best idea,” Roger agreed.

  Her dad curled up his fists and hunched his shoulders, drawing in a long breath. Finally he expelled it. “Fine. Yes, we are going to talk, Sophia. And I will be calling you again if I see the need,” he added to Roger.

  “Great, fine,” Roger said mildly. “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Terry tromped downstairs with the two policemen. Sophie looked in apologetic weariness at her mother, who came forward and draped her arm around her. “What’s all this about?” Isabel asked.

  “David came to see me. Dad found us asleep.”

  “I see. And he took that tip-off from the crazy woman a little too seriously?”

  “Sort of. I’ll explain in a minute.” Sophie leaned in gratitude against her mother, then edged away to pu
t on warmer pajamas, flannel with full-length pants and sleeves. Her mother went out into the hall to peer down after the police. Sophie tossed the sexy robe into the laundry hamper, along with—furtively—the hand towel she and Adrian had dropped on the floor.

  Having changed, she came out of the room, and she and her mother crept down the stairs. No sound came from Liam’s room, opposite Sophie’s. He evidently still slept the sleep of the pre-adolescent, and had missed all the excitement, or at least the opening act of it.

  The police had left. Terry stood with his arms folded in the kitchen, facing the range. The hood light above the stove glowed in the dark room.

  “So where’d you hide him?” Terry asked without turning. “How’d you do that? Did my ancient eyes in fact deceive me?”

  “No. He isn’t here anymore.” Sophie pulled out a kitchen chair, with dented chrome legs and cracked turquoise vinyl cushions. She sat in it and folded her hands on the table. Her mother did the same.

  Sophie considered, for the last time, prolonging the cover story. But now it collapsed in her mind like a tower of cards every time she constructed it. The disappearance witnessed by her father, the incidents of people attacking her, Quentin’s tip-off, the mystery of this guy she was dating…her parents weren’t going to be fobbed off with a simple lie this time.

  “How’d he disappear, then?” Terry asked. “Is he some kind of Vegas magician?”

  “Why do you keep saying he disappeared?” Isabel asked.

  Terry turned around. “Because he did! There one second, gone the next. Right before my eyes. I do not know what the hell I saw up there, but it was weird.”

  “He’s not a Vegas magician,” Sophie said. “He’s…a Greek god. Kind of.”

  Terry snorted. “Of course.”

  Sophie took her phone from the pocket of her pajama shirt. “I’ll have him come back and show you. That’s easiest.”

  Time to bring my parents in on it, I think, she texted. Can you come back and prove it so I don’t sound crazy?

  “What do you mean, a Greek god?” Isabel asked.

  “He has…abilities. And he’s kind of immortal. That’s why the cult leader woman and her friends are after him.”