Storm's Fury

by Nya Rayne

  “The eleven-fifteen flight to Las Vegas is now boarding at Gate B,” the woman hidden within the ceiling speakers said.

  Stormy fidgeted with her ticket, wishing she hadn’t trusted Alan to check the flights for her. Had she done it herself, she would have been on the way to Vegas. The minute she learned of the flight, she tried to change her ticket but was told by a chipper redhead, “The flight to Las Vegas is booked. Sorry.”

  On top of that, her flight was delayed due to weather conditions at whatever hellhole the plane had stopped at before beginning its track to her location. It was the luck of the Wyatts, and it sucked ass.

  Stormy closed her eyes, inhaled deeply a few times, and tried to relax. Her decision to leave was not something she was going to regret. She wasn’t going to try to justify giving herself to him, and she damn sure wasn’t about to sit there and make sense of the nonsense he and Tempest had been trying to sell her.

  Nope, it’s not going to happen. Not in this lifetime.

  Anubis and Anput were mythical deities created by an overactive mind that needed to believe in a higher power. Humans—and damn it, Fury was human—not something a god had created. They were born from a mother and a father. Maybe she thought she’d witnessed him do amazing things, but in actuality it was all her imagination. He must have drugged her while she slept and it was only now wearing off.

  None of it was real.

  This decrepit airport, with its dingy walls, was real. The security guard outside the large glass plated window in his washed-out gray uniform, lighting up a cigarette, was real. The blond bombshell with the fake boobs, enhanced lips, and swollen black eye, pulling her carry case behind her, was real. Even the invisible force that chased her from city to city and had nearly caught her the last time she was in Vegas was more real than Fury.

  But the ache in her chest, the emptiness growing within her soul, and the cavernous crater of loneliness which was threatening to swallow her wasn’t real. It wasn’t, because he wasn’t. As long as she believed this and continued to tell herself this every day forever, she might have a chance at some semblance of a normal life.

  Stormy, you’ve really got to work on this lying thing, she told herself.

  She pushed to her feet, her resolve fortified. As she neared the counter, the woman behind it with her light brown eyes and shoulder-length blonde hair looked up with a patient smile. “Hello, what can I help you with?”

  Stormy forced a smile and spoke just as politely as the woman—Megan, as her name tag read—had. “I don’t mean to bother you, but do you have any more information on when the plane to Tennessee will be arriving?”

  Megan checked her computer screen and then flipped through a few papers. When she looked up, the apologetic expression on her face spoke volumes. “I’m sorry, but we haven’t received any new information.”

  The sensation hit her like a thousand knives driving into her brain. Stormy flinched, bit down on her lower lip, and gripped the counter in order to remain standing. Emotions, raw and filled with rage and betrayal, rushed through her, but were gone as quickly as they’d come, along with the pain.

  “Ma’am, are you okay?” Megan was standing now, looking at her with a mixture of fear and concern.

  “I-I’m fine.”

  “You look as white as a baby moo-cow.”

  “I said I’m fine.” Stormy closed her eyes, inhaled, and softened her tone. “Thanks for your concern. Could you point me to the nearest bathroom?”

  After noting the direction Megan pointed, she spun on her heels, scanned the thinning crowds, and ran for her bag.

  He’s coming. He’s coming for me.

  He’d broken through her defenses, taken the information he needed, and he was coming for her.

  Damn him.

  But hadn’t he told her he would?

  Once she was out of Megan’s line of sight, Stormy dashed past the bathrooms and headed straight to the exit. She didn’t pay a lick of attention to the people who stopped and turned to watch her quick retreat. She needed to get away from there, and from him, before he caught up to her and made his world real again.

  Stormy nearly hit the automatic doors on her run through them. She scanned the row of cabs and dashed for the last one in the row of used and abused Fords and Chevys. Her bag went through the back passenger window as she yanked the door open and said to the driver, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where to?” The man picked up a clipboard and scribbled something on it. He was an older gentleman with a prominent bald spot that took up the crown of his head and was slowly inching its way down to the few strands of hair at his temples, along the sides, and at the back of his head.

  “The nearest Greyhound bus station,” she answered as she tore her attention away from him and directed it to the surrounding buildings and accompanying sidewalks. “No, take me to the nearest train station. You do have one of those around here, don’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but it’s thirty miles away.” Frozen molasses moved faster than this guy. It took forever for him to turn the electric mile counter on, a decade for him to find another country radio station not playing a commercial, and a millennium for him to shift the car into drive. “Are you just getting into town?”

  “Something like that,” Stormy growled as she turned and scanned the area again. She could feel eyes on her as if she were on one of those scripted reality shows. No matter which way she turned, the lens was there, recording her every move.

  “What’s your name?” Inquisitive son of a bitch, wasn’t he? Why couldn’t he do his job and drive the damn car?

  “Stormy,” she finally replied, her tone clipped.

  For one brief second she thought she viewed movement in one of the dark alleys separating the main airport building from one of the smaller hangers, but she couldn’t be sure. She directed her attention to the next alley and then the next and so on so forth until the only thing to her right and left were lamp poles and fields of what would have been green pastures if it were daytime.

  In need of something, anything, to keep her mind off being hunted, she said to the driver, “Could you please turn that up?” She didn’t like country music, but she doubted he was going to let her hear any alternative rock, or more to the point, something along the lines of Ray LaMontagne.

  The driver complied, and Stormy rested her head back against the seat. She tried to focus on the singer, who was crooning on about a long trip alone over sand and stone. All and all it was pretty damn depressing, but it was doing the trick. That is, until the driver slammed on the brakes.

  Stormy’s head flew forward into the headrest of the front seat and then ricocheted back before she slid off the seat and onto the floor. “What the hell?” She righted herself. “Did you get your damn license out of a box of Wheaties?” She pushed back, grabbed her bag which had tumbled to the floor, and settled it back down beside her before she reached for the seatbelt and secured it around her. Only then did she pay attention to the driver.

  He was staring out of his driver side window, his body frozen. “Ah, you didn’t see that?”

  “All I saw was the back of this seat, thanks to you.”

  He shook his head, stared out the passenger window to his right and added, “There…there was this black thing. It was as big as a fucking cow and as wide as one of them half-a-cars people are driving nowadays. You know the ones with no trunk or engine space?” He scratched his head, glanced back at her, and then turned his attention back to the driver’s side window. “It dashed across the road and went that way.” He pointed as if the manner in which he was gawking out the window wasn’t enough of a clue as to which way his fabrication ran.

  And goats piss fairy dust. She rolled her eyes. This guy has to be flying high on NoDoz or something. She kissed her teeth. “If it dashed across the road, how the hell do you know what it was?” She wasn’t waiting on an answer, but when she got one, she had to admit it chilled her to the core of her soul.

  “It
looked at me, like it was seeing through me.” He turned in his seat to face her. “I mean it was moving fast, you know. It came out of nowhere like I said, but when it looked at me, everything slowed down.”

  Stormy could only nod as she peered out into the stark darkness surrounding the car. He couldn’t have caught up with me so soon. She shook her head.

  Fury hadn’t told her he could take animal forms, and not only that—she closed her eyes—he wasn’t real.

  Okay, that was a load of bullshit.

  He was real, and he was coming for her. She could feel him, almost taste him, as if he were standing right beside her. “Let’s go,” she ordered, peering out into the darkness but seeing neither head nor tail of what the driver imagined.

  “Yeah, yeah, I think that would be a good idea.”

  As the car picked up forward momentum again, Stormy tried to tell herself there was nothing to worry about. It was probably a wolf or something and the driver was blowing it out of proportion. About as fast as that thought occurred, the driver slammed on his breaks again.

  Thankfully, the seatbelt held her in place this time.

  Stormy looked up, ready to tell the man what she thought of him and his driving skills—or rather, lack thereof—but every syllable died on her lips.

  Standing in the middle of the road, bathed in the glow of the automobile’s headlights, was none other than Fury, his shoulders broad and heaving, his dark hair flying, his fists clenched at his sides. And even from this distance, she could see the lightning flashing in his ash-colored eyes as the edges of his mouth curled into a snarl.

  “No.” She tried to burrow into the seat as he stalked around the left side of the car to the passenger door. Her eyes didn’t want to believe what they were witnessing. Her heart fluttered as her stomach gnawed on itself and all the sweat glands in her body decided to function at once.

  “Is this guy a nut? What the hell is he doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” the driver asked. Both questions had to be rhetorical, because before he got an answer, he downed the driver’s window just as Fury reached it. “What the hell is your problem, buddy? You got a death—”

  The hit came so fast it sounded more like a clap of lightning or a roll of thunder than a punch. Stormy screamed, scrambled for the door handle, and found herself on the ground outside on her hands and knees. She heard footsteps drawing close. Stormy jumped to her feet, put one leg before the other, and raced into the dark field.

  “Why are you running from me?” It was said as if he was standing right beside her, but how could he? She was running as fast as she could.

  Stormy chanced a glance to her left. No one was there. She looked to her right, and instantly regretted it. He was beside her, his face so close to hers she could smell his breath and taste his lips if she wanted to. She screamed and tripped over her own feet. Her body never met the ground. Strong arms grabbed her and pulled her close to a hard chest that she hadn’t known she had missed.

  “Didn’t I tell you I would find you and come for you no matter where you went?” There was enough reprimand in his voice to keep her from looking up at him, enough that she wanted to submit to him just this once, but she couldn’t.

  “Please let me go.” It was a plea from her soul to his, from her heart to his.

  “Never,” he whispered as he buried his large hand in the hair at the nape of her neck and tugged her head back, forcing her to stare up into his devastating eyes.

  “I don’t belong with you.”

  “That’s exactly where you belong.” His voice was heavy with an emotion she didn’t want to recognize. “We’re inevitable, remember?”

  “Fury, listen to—”

  His lips closed over hers, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth in a heated show of dominance. She should have been fighting him off, cursing him, and doing her utmost to put distance between them. Instead, she kissed him back with as much fervor as he kissed her.

  If her actions proved nothing else, it proved her body no longer belonged to her. It was his. Perhaps it had always been his.

  The woosh of air, the erratic flips of her stomach, and the spinning and tilting of her equilibrium—he was transporting them in the way of the Anubi. He was making his world real to her again.

  Stormy fisted her right hand in his shirt and began to cry softly as her left hand slipped around his back and their kiss deepened.

  Chapter Twenty

  Relief, anger, jealousy, and possessiveness—all of those emotions were there, buried in that one kiss. Worry couldn’t describe how Fury had felt when he realized the distance Stormy had traveled.

  He’d toyed with the thought that perhaps Terroar had gotten to her, and then entertained the idea that maybe she had fallen into human hands. After all, he had ripped up the clothes he found her in shortly after her last attempt to escape. So she was running around in nothing but an oversized shirt.

  Then when Fury had touched her mind only to have her slam several walls down to keep him out, he’d been beside himself. It had taken everything in him not to force his way into her memories. Given the frame of mind he was in, she might not have survived with her sanity intact.

  Fury inhaled, taking her taste and scent into his body, as the ground materialized beneath his feet, denoting the end of their transportation. He broke the kiss and released her. “You will never leave me like that again.” It was an order.

  Stormy stumbled back, her hands going to her swollen lips as she stared up at him, salty, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. He wanted to pull her back into his arms and kiss them away. Instead, he turned and stomped across the emerald green grass to the front door.

  As he moved, he lit the lanterns lining the walkway with a mere thought, not because he needed them, but for her.

  “Ambrosia, do I need to carry you?” He paused momentarily to look over his shoulder at her. Her eyes wide with wonder and amazement, she gazed down at the ink black ocean that lapped against the snow white sand of the beach as palm trees swayed in the breeze.

  “Where…where are we?” Her voice was a whisper on the wind.

  “Let’s go.” He wanted to devour her from the inside out, plant his seed deep within her repeatedly, and watch it grow.

  “Where are we?” she growled, her voice now holding an edge that could slice through the stone door of Cleopatra’s tomb. “I’m not moving an inch until you tell me where the hell you’ve brought me to this time.” Her hands fisted at her sides and her jaws clenched.

  She was beautiful with her drawn brows, pinched lips, and throbbing temples. Maybe it was the way the moon glistened off her dark hair or the manner in which the wind pushed errant strands into her face. Truthfully, he didn’t know what it was, but she had never looked more ravishing than she did in this moment.

  Fury held a hand out to her. “Please, Ambrosia, don’t make me force you.”

  She turned her back to him, crossed her arms over her chest, and planted her feet. “You can go straight to hell, Fury. I’m not going anywhere with you until you start telling me the truth.”

  “I have not lied to you about anything, love.”

  “Maybe not directly, but being evasive is no better than lying.” Her head dropped half an inch, before she squared her shoulders again. He could feel the turmoil roiling through her. She wasn’t merely angry with him, she was hurt. “I can’t do this with you anymore. I—” she turned to him then, her eyes filled with a pain so raw, it struck out at him like a venomous snake. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, Fury?”

  He closed his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets as he took a slow, deliberate step toward her. “You asked where we were. Well, we’re on my private island off the coast of Peru.”

  Stormy looked up at him in disbelief. “You own an island?” She shook her head. “Wait a minute—Peru? Are you kidding me? We were…I was…”

  “Anubi can travel at the speed of light when necessary. All we have to do is imagine ourselves in a place and
we’re there. Unfortunately, it takes an extreme amount of energy so it’s not something we make a habit of doing.”

  “Peru?” She spun away from him, her hands going to the sides of her head. “This makes no sense. I was in Montana a minute ago. I can’t be in Peru.”

  He took another step in her direction. “I entertained the idea of taking you back to the compound, but you would’ve only tried to run again. I can’t risk losing you, Ambrosia. I won’t ever risk losing you again.” What he didn’t say was that although he’d left Hatrid severely wounded, the moment he healed, Hatrid was sure to strike out against her again. This time, he wouldn’t lead her away. He would more than likely outright try to kill her.

  “So your plan is to keep me stuck on this island for the rest of my life?”

  “No, only until you accept me as your chosen mate.”

  She spun to face him. “Don’t you get it, Fury? You want me to be something I’m not.” To punctuate her point, she actually growled at him.

  He’d never had much patience to begin with, and she was surely testing the inch or so he had left. “You’re being ridiculous. You’re my chosen. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t have been able to bind me to you.”

  She threw her hands up in mock surrender. “I said it to Tempest, and I’ll say it to you. I didn’t bind you to anything.” Raking her nails through her hair she added, “And I don’t have that stupid ankh symbol anywhere on my body. So get over it.”

  Fury stared at her in bafflement. Outside of the Anubi, no one knew what the symbol truly meant or how vital it was. Like most other mythical symbols, humans used it as body art or designs for their clothing and jewelry. It was unfortunate, because those humans were the ones the Yazaron hunted down in the wee hours of the night, thinking they too had the ability to break a two-millennia-old curse.

  Stormy turned and paced the small area between them. “I will admit I’ve seen the symbol before on certain members of my family, but I don’t have one. Therefore, even if I did want to believe in this…this nonsense, what good would it do me?” She stopped pacing and stared up at him, her eyes pleading with him to understand. “I’m not your chosen. I’m not.”