“For a man born over three hundred years ago,” Cindy said, “you sure caught on to the ins and outs of modern day clothing pretty quick.”
She looked at him from under her eyelashes as she dropped her bra, making a quick mental note to keep it close lest it become airborne again.
“My main concern with your clothing is the ‘outs of it’,” he said, with a sly grin back on his face, “besides, a man knowing how to get what he wants is timeless, wouldn‘t you agree?”
What could you say to that?
“Now, come back here to me cara,” he said and then sprang off the bed and pulled her back down to lie underneath him. The air left her lungs in a ‘whoosh’ as she landed.
“I think you just like tackling me,” she teased, catching her breath.
He leered at her, growling low in his throat, but then something flashed across his eyes and he pulled back, a breath away.
“No,” he said, “never cara, I’ll never hurt you, no matter what.”
Cindy was caught by the spell of his eyes, so clear and blue she could fall into them.
“I know,” she whispered.
That sealed her fate and his intense look changed to one of hunger. He dipped his head and closed the tiny gap between them.
She pressed up and deepened the contact while he set fire to her senses with his mouth and his hands. He reached down between their bodies and unfastened his pants. His cock sprang out of them, hard and ready for her. Cindy moaned at the steely feel of him. She let her own hand wander downward to stroke him with a feather light touch. She was tentative at first, this was all still so new to her, but she quickly grew bolder, encouraged by his sharp breathing, and grasped the full width of him.
Ronan’s body jerked at her caresses as he pulled his lips away from her mouth to breathe against her ear.
“Not this time, love, I need to be inside you too badly.”
He rose then and shed his pants completely. Cindy shivered without the heat of his skin against her own. Ronan reached out to her with one hand, stroking the backs of his fingers from the space between her breasts down to her stomach so lightly she shuddered and rolled her hips. His path determined, he continued moving down over her navel with all the weight of a butterfly’s wing then he grazed her mound. She arched her back, dragging in a breath.
Then he was on her, trapping her body underneath his holding himself up with his arms and his knees. He was all around her but barely touching her and the part of him that she most wanted to feel might as well have been miles away. She grunted in frustration and tried to push up with her hips to meet him but he was too tall. A shaking above her pulled her focus and she saw then that he was laughing.
“Greedy cara,” he said wickedly but his eyes were twinkling.
She should have thought up a comeback but all she could do was whimper. Then he brought his mouth down on hers again and she opened, bringing him in the way another part of her was crying out for her to do. She grasped his shoulders, scoring them with her nails, trying to bring him close enough, but he broke away leaving her gasping as he pressed his cheek to hers. He spoke in a ragged voice against her ear.
“The waiting makes it better.”
What? Hadn’t he just said he needed her badly? She didn’t think she could wait.
Before she could complain, he drove into her, filling her to the brim in one long, powerful stroke. She stilled. Neither one of them moved for a long ecstasy-filled moment. The charge between them hummed through their bodies, binding them together like a billion tiny cells that didn’t know whose body they belonged to, all vibrating and charged to explode.
Just when she thought that was exactly what would happen, he began a slow rhythm, moving in time with her pounding heart. Cindy rocked her hips in opposition to intensify the friction bringing him in deeper. She felt desire coil tight and deep inside her womb, the pressure inside of her mounting with each move of his hips.
Every breath, every move pushed her closer and closer to the edge but she couldn’t hold herself back from the fall.
She pushed up to him and he answered her with quickened movements, driving her further than she thought she could stand. The torture was sweet but so intense that she didn’t know how much more either of them could take until finally she broke apart, coming hard. Ronan let out a roar as he joined her. She gripped each of his arms, feeling how hard he was everywhere and he pressed against her pelvis, giving her a heady settling kind of contact before he relaxed on top of her.
After coming out of what felt like a tiny coma, Cindy opened her eyes and stared up at the beams of the ship. She dragged her fingernails lightly up and down Ronan’s skin until, finally, he lifted up. He took in her heavy lidded eyes and smiled. Her sex-drunk state obviously made him very pleased with himself.
“We’d better dress before we are missed,” he said, pulling her up to sitting.
He gathered her clothes and handed them to her. It took her a moment to clear away the sated delirium he’d left her in. Finally, she started to grab her clothes when her mind snagged on something.
“Hey, do you know what happened to my underwear?” she asked, “I haven’t been able to find them since the waterfall. I’d hate to think of one of your men running across them.”
“Don’t worry,” Ronan said, an amused look on his face, “none of them will ever find your undergarment. I have the item in question hidden away in a safe place.”
Cindy widened her eyes in pretend shock.
“You stole my panties? What a pervert!”
He just shrugged at the accusation.
“You’re welcome to search through all of my belongings and my person,” his eyebrows lifted sharply when he said the latter. “If you can find them, you can have them back,” he offered.
Still naked, she sauntered over to stand in front of him and cupped his crotch in her hand, making him gulp.
“That’s okay,” she said, “I’ll just have to find something of yours to make into a souvenir. I’m kind of a pervert too, Captain.” She winked as she squeezed him firmly in her hand.
“I see,” he said and swallowed.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The Deep
Outside a black cavern on the ocean floor, Nia waited. No one ever trespassed into the sea crone’s lair anymore unless they had need of the hag’s dark magic but Thema had insisted they come. They still hadn’t found the amulet and time was running out. The Nereid queen had to carry out her plan before Poseidon found her out or else all would be lost. Thema’s hatred for the sea god ran deep, she would stop at nothing to defeat him and take his throne. Even still, Nia couldn’t believe that her sister had sought out the Keres’ Lord Bazor as an ally and now they were here in the darkest depths of the sea realm.
Summoning Yazira was something Thema could not be talked out of, no matter how Nia had tried. The sea witch was a being so dark and so ancient that she’d nearly been erased from all memory.
Currents rippled through the black waters, signaling the crone’s arrival from deep within the sea bed’s bowels and Nia strained to hear. She kept to the outside of the cavern, not wishing to draw the witch’s attention to herself. Centuries living as an underling had taught her how to be invisible. But that would all change soon and her station would be elevated if she pleased Thema.
“What brings this daughter of the sea to disrupt my lair?”
A raspy voice echoed through the inky streams that rushed out of the cave. Nia moved around the cavern wall and her eyes dilated to see through the darkness. She pressed against the rock, a silent witness to this meeting.
“I seek your counsel, ancient,” Thema’s voice cut through the water.
There was a long silence in which the blind sea witch absorbed information from the waters. Her sightless eyes closed and thin gray-skinned eyelids covered them. Her body was hunched but she stretched out her webbed hands and they glowed from within. Thick black veins protruded through her skin then the water around her c
hurned as she used her primordial powers to discern Thema’s tale. Finally, she spoke again.
“You wish to destroy your master. You seek a power greater than yourself and have made an ally with Violence. Have you prepared for the ends you seek, Thema, Queen of Nereids?”
“Yes, ancient mother, I have planned for this time for many ages. I only need the stone…”
The sea hag’s laughter tore through water, cutting off Thema’s words.
“You are not powerful enough.”
Nia saw her sister’s figure stiffen. If there was one thing Thema couldn’t stand to hear it was that she was inferior to any other. Her jealousy of the greater gods had spawned her insatiable desire for power and her hunger for the destruction of any who would oppose her. At one time, there’d been something like love in Thema’s heart for someone other than herself and what had that gotten her? Spurned, cast aside. Nia had witnessed it.
One time, Thema had allowed the tempest of emotion to override her ambitions but never again. This time, neither Poseidon nor his precious son would stand in her way, once she came to power, she would feast on their misery.
“My strength grows each day,” she barked out at Yazira, “I have amassed an army of supporters and after I consume the lord of the Keres, I will be unstoppable. With the stone’s magic, I will control the Tides. When I am ruler, none who aids me will be forgotten.”
“Yes,” Yazira said, “the seeds of pride and vengeance have festered in you long. They have served you well in growing your dark powers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see you usurp the great Poseidon.”
She paused and stared at Thema.
“The stone you seek is nearer than you think. It has lain hidden within your own realm many years now, in the possession of a king…” She held up her webbed hand, stopping Thema when she would have interrupted. “Poseidon made an alliance with sky gods to strengthen his power. The moon gods made a gift of the binding stone to seal the arrangement.”
“I know the truth of that legend. I was in Atlantis before it fell,” Thema said.
She’d been instrumental in nudging the place to its demise. She gloated over the memory.
“Poseidon has been searching for the stone the same as you. It was bound with the great Fire Stone of Atlantis long ago. But even he cannot unlock its magic.”
“Tell me its secrets,” Thema pressed. This was why she had risked coming to see the witch, to learn, not only the whereabouts of the stone but how to harness its powers.
Yazira’s head jerked up and her eyes rolled back. She let out a shriek of tremors through the water then spoke in an eerie voice.
“You cannot reach its power, the stone has not been bound to you nor has it been named to you. Only to those it has been given will it reveal its mystery.”
Once the proclamation was spoken, her head snapped back into position.
“The stone is with the human woman,” she said, her voice breaking with the speech of the crone again, “you will have it. Succeed where the mighty sea god has failed. But you must crush both halves of the stone for it is already bound. To release its powers, the ones who hold it must die.”
“The king and the woman,” Thema spoke the words aloud as the clarity of what she must do dawned on her.
“Yes, kill the one then the other will die as well because of the binding spell. However, it must be a complete death with no chance of rebirth for either. They must be together when you take the stone.”
“How do I do this?” Thema asked.
“I will give you the tool, though I will have a payment for my aid,” the old one’s unseeing eyes cut through Thema.
“Anything, ancient mother, you have only to ask it and it is yours.”
“Send me the blood of the ones you kill in this,” Yazira lifted her scaly hand and a stone blade floated out from among the deep sea rocks. “I will have the life force that flows through them for my own.”
Thema’s eyes widened, she recognized the substance the weapon was made of ─ fire crystal. It was a stone unique to Atlantis, forged by Poseidon and fatal even to an immortal.
She glanced at Yazira, wondering how she came by the dagger. Then she grasped the weapon’s hilt and nodded to the witch in reverence.
“You will have it,” she said, sealing the agreement.
When she exited the cave, Nia materialized at her side. She was anxious to leave this dark place.
“So you know what you will do now my queen?”
Thema smiled.
“Yes, sister, and the task will be an entertainment for us. I only hope I will not regret promising the elixir to the crone. She is a cunning force that one.”
“Do not fear my queen, once you have the amulet, none will be able to override you. You will, finally, have vengeance on Poseidon and his son.”
Thema’s eyes lit with greedy anticipation.
“Yes, and how easy our lost king has made the task by bringing his woman to our realm. It is almost as if the Fates have had a hand in this matter. Come, now we start the tides of fortune moving in our direction.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
After leaving the horses at the stables, Cindy and Ronan walked into the courtyard and up the back steps of the villa into a dining area where people were milling around.
“Who are they?” Cindy asked.
“They are the Dionai,” Ronan answered, “their people serve the gods. Poseidon sent them here to us after he banished Thema.”
“So they work for him?” Cindy asked.
Ronan nodded.
“Yes, they are compensated and are happy to be here. It is the Dionai’s nature to serve, I am told, so they aren’t unhappy in the least.”
Cindy couldn’t help being skeptical about that.
“You’ll find that things work differently in the otherworlds, cara. Humans are among a handful of unique beings that possess the type of will that causes us to struggle and strive the way we do. The qualities of the human spirit have been an age old source of both envy and admiration for the gods.”
Envy? She thought about that as she took in the beauty around her. It was hard to think why anyone capable of creating places like this would envy someone like her.
“This is some incredible place you’ve brought me to,” she looked around. They sat under an awning made from wide sheets of fabric draped between stone columns. They were surrounded by the island’s beauty on all sides.
Soon, Ronan’s men showed up and the serenity of the moment gave way to their boisterous voices. A grand meal ensued tended by the Dionai. Cindy watched Ronan and his men converse and joke with each other throughout the meal. To her, they seemed more like brothers than crewmates. It was easy to relax around them all and she started to feel at home. Growing up with just an over protective dad and brother, she’d always thought she liked the quiet small family feel. But this group was big and loud and they grew on her in no time.
She interjected occasionally and answered their questions, but mostly she observed. Watching them felt like an insight into Ronan. She took in the scene before her even as it blurred and shifted before her eyes.
For a split second, she caught a glimpse of a grand feast where many men sat at a table. They were all big and of regal bearing. It felt like when she’d raced Iris on the beach, like a memory. Impossible.
Her eyes hazed then cleared and, just like that, the vision was gone. She blinked the images away, she had to be going crazy. Ronan looked back at her with question in his eyes and was about to say something when Cully piped up from the far end of the table.
“Well, the meal is winding down. I think `tis high time we heard your tale Captain.”
The others nodded and muttered their agreement.
“Aye,” Ronan nodded, “it is indeed.”
“What happened after we left you in that odd tavern with all of its feeble bodied men?” Finn asked.
Cindy snorted, nearly sending a gulp of wine up her nose, at the Irishman’s words.
; “I’ll just say that obtaining the elixir was a more difficult task than I had thought it would be,” Ronan slanted a glance at Cindy. She just shrugged and tried to look innocent.
“The Olympian I was supposed to meet up with failed to be at the appointed place. I wandered the town all night searching for him to no avail and when someone finally did turn up, it was an immortal of questionable origins.”
“The man from the clearing?” Cindy asked, remembering the stranger with the machete. “Adam?”
She didn’t know why, but the word ‘immortal’ and that man just seemed to go together.
“Aye,” Ronan answered, then said to his men, “he, relayed the message that the Olympian had been detained somehow and, with him, the amulet as well.”
Finn sighed at this.
“Poseidon will not be pleased,” he said.
“Aye, well I know it, but there are other problems blowing in the wind that I think he will be more concerned with,” the men waited for Ronan to elaborate.
“Demons from the underworld have escaped from their crypt beneath Tartarus to prey on the human world.”
“But this has been the case for millennia,” Finn interjected, “we’ve been dealin’ with monsters throughout the ages. Why should the gods be concerned now?”
Ronan look at Cindy, his eyes hard.
“This was different.”
Cindy’s blood ran cold at the memory of that terrible creature on her throat. There was a tingling in her veins now that, even though she tried not to notice, she knew had to be caused by the life elixir. Stolen from the gods by Ronan. To save her. She swallowed, hoping that her being here wouldn’t bring trouble to this place or these men.
“When the gods have a problem, it always means trouble for the rest of us,” Will spoke from where he sat. Murmurs of agreement made their way around the table, then the room fell into a thoughtful silence.
“Here lass, I see that your cup has run dry,” Cindy blinked and looked up to find Cully pouring more wine into her glass.
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