by Jasmine Walt
Loren had slutted me up good. My chin touched my boobs every time I lowered my head for a bite. But Tres kept his gaze trained on my face. He hung on my every word. The few I managed to get out during the second course, anyway.
We’d only gotten around to discussing the weather. He had little interest in movies and books, much preferring mathematics and engineering journals. We didn’t share any friends in common who weren’t Immortals. And it was hard to call Immortals friends since we couldn’t spend too much time in one another’s presence without getting sick. Neither of us had hobbies, only our life’s work, which was in direct opposition to one another. There wasn’t much left for us to talk about except the one thing we had in common—ancient lands.
“Tell me about your new business venture?”
“Oh, no.” Tres shook his head. “Work has always been a dangerous topic for us.”
“Because you have no problem bulldozing your way through history?” I asked as I popped a poached strawberry into my mouth.
“I am not going there with you, Theta.” Tres sliced his entree in perfectly straight, wholly equal pieces.
“What I don’t understand is why not build in untouched places?”
“You mean like the oceans?” he asked, setting his steak knife at the side of his plate. “Cities are full of underutilized structures and lands that have cultural, social, or historical value. Those lands are the solutions to housing crises the world over where people can’t afford the excessive costs of living. But instead, the privileged chain themselves to fences, color clever phrases on poster board, and say the people in need can’t have a safe place to seek shelter because they, the privileged, are the ones protecting history. And you want me to put them in the oceans?”
His little speech left me tongue-tied. He waited a moment for me to rebut. When I didn’t, Tres charged forward.
“You seem to value the structures more than you do the people,” he said. “I really don’t get how I’m the bad guy in this story.”
“You could compromise,” I said. “Find sustainable ways to incorporate the old with the new.”
“Reinforce the sites to add steel to the structures? Add indoor plumbing and communication lines? When I’ve done that, I’ve been accused of detracting from the original structures. I can’t win for trying, so I prefer to simply win.”
We sat in silence. Faced off. Utensils down. Arms crossed over our chests. Ready to strike, ready to defend. This seemed to be our natural stance when faced with each other across opposing lines.
I was the first to lower my defenses. “What did we used to talk about? When we were together before?”
Tres lowered his arms as well. His gaze turned heated. His eyes dipped to my breasts for the first time, or at least the first time that I’d caught him doing it.
“Oh.” I gulped, resisting the urge to cover my exposed cleavage. “So our relationship was mostly carnal?”
“No.” He ran his finger around the rim of his wine glass. Then he smiled at me. Not at me, through me, as though he were seeing me through the sands of time. This smile was different than any I’d seen in the past few times we’d met on good terms. It was full of wonder and awe. I nearly missed what he said because I was so hypnotized by it.
“You were fascinated by architecture and engineering,” he continued as he gazed at me. “You’ve always wanted to understand how things worked at a molecular level. Why a triangle instead of a square, you’d ask? You have an insatiable curiosity, and you never seemed able to fill it, which, I suppose, is why you forget things.”
He looked down. I almost opened my mouth, but to say what? Apologize for forgetting him? I was constantly trying to regain my past, to regain anyone and everyone’s past that had been lost.
“My focus is singular,” Tres continued. “Like most of our kind. Bet and Yod want power and control. Delta likes to invent. Aleph wants to, let’s say, find peace. But you? You want to know everything.”
A memory flashed through my mind of a time when we were in Greece. I saw him building and directing crews as the boundaries of a city were marked off in the earth. In my mind, the city rose and fell, then rose and fell again. During one of these time-lapsed visions, I saw a wooden horse roll through the city.
“Tres? Did you build the city of Troy?”
He nodded, his chin rising a few millimeters higher.
“How many times did you build the city of Troy?”
His chin dipped, and he sighed.
To my recollection, there were nine cities stacked on top of the original city of Troy. That fact had been discovered in 1871 by Heinrich Schliemann. The way Schliemann had discovered it was using dynamite to dig through the layers, destroying some of his grand find. The idiot.
“Buildings aren’t immortal,” Tres said. “They’re only meant to stand the test of human time, not ours. They crumble and decay while we remain untouched.”
“So you just raze it like it never existed?”
“Seems to work for some people.”
I jerked back. My steak knife clattered to the floorboards. I left it there.
Tres took another deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For so long, the default between the two of us has been set to attack. The line between love and hate is truly thin with us. But I don’t want to fight with you. I’m trying to seduce you.”
He paused and grinned at me. The grin was lopsided, just like our whole relationship. The edges were lumpy and wouldn’t smooth out, no matter how hard we tried to press them down.
“This isn’t easy for me, Nia. Fighting is the only pattern that we repeat.”
It took me a moment to realize what he meant. What pattern he was pointing to. He’d mentioned that I had a pattern of going back to Zane. “This isn’t about him,” I denied.
“You always circle back around to him. It makes me wonder why I bother trying.”
I didn’t have words for him, but I was getting tired of being tried and convicted based on how I had behaved in the past—especially when I couldn’t remember my actions. I pushed away from the table and went to the deck. I leaned on the railing, feeling the sea air whip around my face and cool me down.
The night was warm, but I shivered. Not because I was cold, but because I was uncertain. My shivering was short-lived as warmth grew at my back.
“That was a lie.” Tres’s voice was low as it rumbled along the back of my neck and down my spine. “I do know why I bother trying.”
My hair was done up, thanks to Loren. Tres’s lips brushed the place where my hairline ended and there was nothing but flesh. My breath caught at the heat that came from his lips.
“It’s because you’re a dish I tried long ago, and now I can’t get the taste of you out of my mind. Others swear to me that they’ll taste like you. But each time I take a sip, or a nibble, or a bite . . .”
His tongue sneaked out and licked at the side of my neck. So lightly I could’ve almost imagined it. But the trail of fire he left behind let me know it was real.
“Every time I taste someone else, it’s always a disappointment.”
He tilted his head to the other side. This time, his teeth ran along my neckline. Without conscious thought, I tilted my head to allow him more access.
“I tell myself if I can just get one more taste of you, then I’ll be sated.” His lips touched my ear, whispering his confession. “But it’s a damn lie.”
He turned me in his arms. Or maybe I turned to meet him, I wasn’t sure. The only thing that was solid was his lips against mine. He licked at the seam of my mouth. I sighed and opened for him. He nipped at my upper lip. His teeth took my bottom lip. And then he bit down.
The sting surprised me, and I jerked back. That was a mistake. He came after me. When his lips caught me this time, they attacked with everything he had.
I wrapped my arms around his neck to bring him closer. His big body pressed against mine, making me feel small and helpless. His hand went to my thigh. There wasn’t mu
ch to the dress Loren had put me in. The span of his hand was longer than the fabric, so it was easy for him to sneak a finger beneath the hemline. When he did, he met with a surprise.
Tres pulled away and looked down at my exposed thigh. Instead of being put off, a salacious grin spread over his handsome face as he palmed my dagger.
“Habit.” I shrugged.
“I remember,” he said. His gaze locked on the steel against my skin. “And I still find it damn sexy.”
I leaned in to recapture his lips, but he backed away. I frowned at him in confusion, but he only shook his head.
“I said no sex on the first date,” he said.
“This isn’t our first date.”
“No, it’s not.” He grinned, but he still pulled away. “You had me on my knees by the time you let me into your bed that first time. I have every intention of returning the favor before I give you my virtue.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I did neither. Tres returned to the table and picked up his knife and fork like a civilized man. It took me a moment before my legs would work, but I regained my seat. We ate our desserts in a silence punctuated with heated gazes as we each planned our next move.
10
My sleep was dreamless. There were no French artists with hooded eyes, or hands that created beauty, or arms that made me feel safe. But there was a blonde woman with light eyes who pulled me into a rude awakening.
“You think you’re disappointed? Imagine how I felt to find you in your bed alone and not naked and wrapped around a billionaire.”
I rolled over and pulled a pillow over my head. It was becoming a common occurrence in my life. But Loren, like always, was undaunted. She pounced on the bed, bouncing on her knees and then plopping onto her ass.
“The butler brought me heated towels today. They were scented with lavender. Lavender, Nia. Please, I can’t leave this place. Am I going to have to do everything myself? ’Cause I will take an L for the team and sleep with Tres.”
“For your information, he’s the one who didn’t want to have sex on the first date.”
The silence that ensued concerned me. Loren was never quiet. The few times she had been, it did not turn out well for me. I pulled the pillow off my head and flipped over.
Loren’s face was screwed up in confusion. She opened her mouth and closed it a few times before words came out. “Is there a . . . problem? With his little submarine?”
“No, that’s not it.” I covered my face with my hands and shook my head. I’d felt his little submarine trying to rise to the surface when he’d kissed me on the deck. “He wants to have a relationship.”
More silence. I pulled my hands from my face to see Loren’s face twisted into a mockery of horror.
“Really?” She gagged. “But . . . but . . . he’s a man.”
“Yeah, he is. A good one, apparently.”
She shook her head slowly from side to side. Her shoulders shrugged up to her ears. Her hands flopped over, palms up. “I have no idea how to proceed.”
“I’m just as confused as you are. He wants to go on another date.”
Her face lit up. “We’re staying on the yacht?”
“No, we’re going into Athens to find out about the Mysteries.”
“Oh, yeah. That.”
After packing up our belongings and dressing, Loren and I came up to the main deck. The city of Athens stretched out before us on Piraeus port. We were surrounded by ferries and cruise ships as the yacht maneuvered into a space to dock.
Tres stood at the helm of the boat. He wore a pair of dark trousers and a collared shirt with a few buttons open, exposing his chest. Standing in the light of the sun, he looked like a conquering warrior surveying his new lands.
He turned and saw me. A slow smile lit his face, and he crooked a finger. My brain revolted at being summoned, but my feet were already in motion.
I came to him and crossed my arms over my chest, staring up at him mulishly. “I told you, I don’t take well to being bossed around.”
He grinned. “Yes, you do.”
He reached out, quick as a cat, and pulled me to him. I was so startled that I gasped, my arms dropping from my chest and my lips parting. He had complete access to my body and my mouth. He leaned in and took advantage.
His tongue invaded and conquered, knocking down my walls before I could gather my defenses. I was so unguarded that memories shook loose in my head. I remembered a hard tug to my hair, a bite at the corner of my lip, a growl at the back of my ear, and a feeling of complete fullness.
In the memory, Tres was above me. His face was contorted in ecstasy. His eyes were lit with desire. His fingers dug into my hair and wrenched my neck back in ownership. And, God help me, I let him. It looked like I liked it. In my mind, I saw my eyes close as though I wanted more.
When he let me go in the present, I teetered. He’d taken his hands off me, but his body still pressed against mine. His lips still hovered above me.
“You two are headed to Eleusis?” He inclined his head toward Loren, who I was sure was giving me the thumbs-up sign behind his back.
“Yes,” I managed through still-trembling lips.
“I’ll be back in a few days. We’ll have dinner.”
“Okay,” said a voice that sounded nothing like my own.
“When you find Demeter, tell her I said she still owes me for the Parthenon.”
I nodded. Then his words registered. “You built the Parthenon?”
Tres winked at me as he took a step back. He opened the gate that would allow us to debark from the yacht. Then he turned back to me. “I’ll call you.” He looked over my shoulder. “Loren.” He nodded.
Loren waved her fingers at him like the coquette she was. I knew she was serious about taking that L for the team if I didn’t prove up to the task. I gave her a shove down the plank.
We took a taxi into the city and deposited our things in the Royal Olympic hotel, our base of stay. We planned to go to the city of Eleusis first thing in the morning. Granted, the invitation Baros had given us didn’t give an address. Just a date and time. But history told us the initiations took place in Eleusis. The invitation said the initiation wouldn’t happen for a couple of days, but we wanted to do some recon beforehand. Loren and I had already walked into one trap this year. Best to be prepared if we were heading into another.
The facilities inside the Royal Olympic hotel were old, but what it lacked in modern technology it made up for with its views. From my hotel room window, I could see the Temple of Zeus. Its ancient columns were close enough that I felt I could reach out and touch them. The Acropolis looked like a city in the sky.
“So, how do we find a Greek goddess?” Loren asked. “Saying ‘Demeter, Demeter, Demeter’ didn’t work.”
A knock sounded at the door. We stared at each other.
“Huh,” Loren said. “Maybe it works when you’re in Greece.”
“Who is it?” I called out.
“Room service,” a deep voice answered.
We stared at each other in silent debate, and then I went and opened the door.
Three men stood in the hallway. Not one of them had on hotel livery. Dark sunglasses covered their eyes. They had straight-lined cuts on their cheeks and hands, like they’d been sliced by a sword one too many times. Battle scars, definitely. But from what battle? No army used swords to fight, not anymore. The man in front shoved his way in. His strength caught me off guard.
“You two are coming with us,” he said. And then he did the stupidest thing a man could do. He grabbed my upper forearm.
“Dude.” I shook my head, staring down at his massive paw on the sleeve of my shirt. “I have had enough of men trying to tell me what to do today.”
When Tres had grabbed me and pulled me into him, it had turned me on. When anyone else tried to manhandle me? Nope.
The fist of my free hand cracked across the man’s jaw. His upper lip went one way and his lower one went the other way.
His teeth clattered from the impact. His head came to rest against his other shoulder. His hand let me go. But he didn’t go down.
I had hit him hard enough to knock him out of the room, but he held his ground. His tongue came out, licking at the blood on his lower lip. His upper lip further separated from the bottom in a crooked smile. His head straightened as his gaze returned to me. His glasses were askew. His eyes were black, pupil-less pools.
A demon.
“Looks like you’re going to struggle,” he said. His voice sounded like rocks on a chalkboard. His coarse accent, along with the scars, reminded me of the gladiators of the Roman arenas. “I love it when they struggle.”
The other two men stepped into the room, fanning out like warriors in an arena. They removed their sunglasses to reveal the same dark, empty gazes. Their massive bodies blocked the exit.
I took a step back and felt Loren at my side. The click of her cane and the slice of the blade that came out was loud. Though Loren was human, I knew better than to tell her to stay back. She’d faced down a ninja horde and held her own. She was a beast with that sword.
I grabbed the dagger strapped to my hip. “On three, we’ll rush them. I’ll take the two on the left. You take the one on the right.”
“Got it.”
“One, two, th—”
Loren rushed ahead. She lunged at her guy. He hopped out of her way—just barely—and reached in. She ducked, going low and getting in a slice at his thigh before swiveling behind him.
She looked over his massive shoulder at me. “Where are you? You said on three.”
“No.” I ducked a punch from one of my two guys. Then I pivoted and jabbed at the first guy, the one who’d grabbed me, slicing the fabric of his shirt. “You don’t go on three. I say three and then we go.”
“Then that’s four.” Loren slammed her guy in the face with the blunt end of her sword. He was stunned for a second but shook his fat head and came at her again.