by Lucy Roy
He scratched his forehead.
“Okay,” he said after a few moments. “I’ll shelve that for now because I don’t really care to argue.”
Before I could thank him, he held up a finger. “But if you have any more of these nightmares, Tessa, please let me try to help you.”
“How? By digging into my brain again?”
He winced. “I don’t know.”
I was starting to get warm, so I let the blanket fall down around my waist so the cold air could wash over me. It was a revitalizing feeling.
I gave him my brightest smile. “So, tell me about yourself.”
He blinked at the rapid change in topic. “Oh. Okay. What would you like to know?” He swung his other leg up onto the bench and leaned back against the wall. “I’m not terribly interesting.”
I mirrored his pose against the opposite wall and laughed. “You’re three thousand years old, I’m sure something interesting has happened along the way.”
“Not much worth mentioning, really.”
I rolled my eyes and lightly kicked his foot. “Fine. Tell me about your first girlfriend.”
He raised his eyebrows and gave me a lopsided grin. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
I shrugged. “Why not? And don’t try to tell me you’ve never been in a relationship.”
He rubbed the side of his nose. “Okay. The first girl I loved was an Ischyra named Karis. I was about five hundred at that point. She was one of the first generation who’d chosen to remain on Olympus, so we’d known each other some time.”
“How long were you guys together?”
I don’t know why I was so interested in his romantic past. Part of me didn’t like to think of him being with another woman, but part of me also wanted to know that he was more than just a soldier.
“A few centuries. It was different back then, though.”
A few centuries. Geez.
“How was it different?” I asked.
“Zeus felt I would make a good match for her, and surprisingly, I agreed.”
“Wait… do you have kids?”
He barked out a laugh. “No! Like I said, it was different back then. Being together for a century or two, well, that would be the human equivalent of a decade. We were young, I was still very involved with the Ischyra, and she was often living on Earth, protecting the humans she’d been assigned to. We both agreed that choosing to combine our energy to create children wasn’t something we wanted at that age.”
I breathed an internal sigh of relief. A three-thousand-year-old potential boyfriend I could deal with. Kids were a whole other story.
Not that they’d still be kids, but that was beside the point.
“What happened to her?”
He tilted his head back against the wall and interlaced his fingers in his lap.
“She was killed.” He tapped his chest. “Godsbane arrow, straight through her heart.”
My own heart clenched at the look of sadness on his face. I reached forward and slid my hand over his.
“Gods, Nate. I’m so sorry.”
He turned his hand so that his fingers curled through mine. “It was a long time ago.” He gave my arm a tug. “Come here.”
I let him pull me down so that I was laying with my head on his shoulder, then I wrapped my arm around his waist. He pulled the blanket tight around us, then rested his cheek on the top of my head.
“These things happen in our line of work. I’m sure you know that.” He absently twirled a few strands of my hair around his fingers. “So what about you?”
“I had boyfriends all through high school for the most part, but only one was really serious. This guy Caleb and I dated a good chunk of junior year and most of last summer. We broke up right before he left for college.”
His hand stilled for a moment before resuming its movement. “Why did you break up?”
I shifted uncomfortably.
“I don’t know, it just wasn’t…fun with him, if that makes sense? I knew he was leaving for school, and I never felt a need to push for the long-distance thing. I don’t think he did, either. We just didn’t work as a couple, I guess.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I laughed. “Not at all. I’m the one that broke up with him. He’s a good guy, just not for me.”
“You don’t strike me as the type to date men who aren’t,” he said quietly.
“Thanks.” I smiled, inhaling his woodsy, comforting scent. “I like to think so.”
We laid there for a while longer, talking about things that were much more benign than nightmares, training, and wars. I told him all about growing up in Renville, about John and Analise and how wonderful they were. He asked question after question about my likes, dislikes, and what I hoped my future as an Ischyra would bring.
By the time he walked me back to the dorms, it was almost midnight. The thin moon cast almost no light over the courtyard when we arrived.
When we reached the door that led into the girls’ hall, I turned to face him.
“So maybe one of these days we can actually hang out during the day?”
He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear and gave me a slow smile. “I have some thoughts on that, actually. Did you happen to pack a bathing suit when you left Renville?”
“No, I didn’t. Why?” I arched a brow in suspicion.
“Take your friends, go check out the shops in town, and get yourself one. There’s a place I want to take you that I think you’ll really like.”
My lips curved in a smile as my fingers tightened around his.
“Hmm. So are we talking something practical or something fun?” Having grown up on the water, bathing suit shopping was one of my favorite things to do.
He gave me a slow smile, then rested one hand on my hip and ran the other through my hair. I stared up at him, eyes wide, suddenly very eager to feel his lips on mine.
He laughed quietly, then leaned down and gave me a light, slow kiss on the corner of my mouth. He moved his lips to my ear, and his warm breath sent tingles through my body as he whispered to me.
“Definitely fun.”
When he pulled back, I bit my lip, heat rising to my face. He continued walking backward, giving me one last adorable smile before he walked off into the darkness.
Well, wasn’t he just full of surprises?
I touched the spot on my cheek where he’d kissed me and did a little dance. Grinning like an idiot, I vowed to make sure that next time it was right on the lips.
31
Tessa
The next few days were brutal.
Every night brought a new nightmare. Some were similar to the one where I was sparring with the blond man, while others were reminiscent of the ones I’d had when I was human. Fortunately, after that first night, I’d managed to keep from waking Yana, and none of the nightmares had been so bad that I’d felt the need to call out to Nate.
On the plus side, by Friday—training day five—I’d finally managed to run a set of laps without falling, and I’d even let Damien into my mind, much to my relief. I was getting tired of his patronizing glares.
It was our last day of training for the week, which meant we actually got to sleep in the next day. The prospect of not waking up to an alarm was fantastic.
Saturday was also my bathing suit date with Nate, which I’d been slowly freaking out about all week.
So after training on Friday, Mary and Yana dragged me to one of the larger clothing stores on Main Street, Goddesses, which sold everything from cute winter pea coats to embarrassingly revealing lingerie.
“We’ll skip that section for now,” Mary said, smirking.
“Gods, Mare, he hasn’t even kissed me yet!”
She waved a hand dismissively as she pawed through a rack of bikinis. “Oh stop, it’s not like he’d be your first! You guys are consenting adults or whatever; you can do what you want.” She bit her lip and arched a brow. “Besides, he looks like he’d be way more fun than Caleb.”
I cringed,
thinking back to the few awkward times my ex Caleb and I had actually slept together.
Yana gasped. “Tessa, I see that look on your face! Please, I need details!”
I rolled my eyes.
“Thanks, Mare,” I muttered before facing Yana. “There’s not much to tell. I dated this guy Caleb all last summer. He was a year older than me, and a few weeks before he left for college in Washington, we slept together. It was, I don’t know. Awkward, I guess?”
“Awkward?” Yana repeated. “How?”
“I was his first, too. Neither of us knew what we were doing.”
“Ahh. Well, hopefully, Nate will be different.”
“I think I’ll give it more than one date before sleeping with him,” I said dryly.
“Maybe, but you should be prepared for all possibilities,” Mary said, then paused in the middle of her search and leaned toward us, smiling mischievously.
“So I have it on good authority that my no-longer-annoying roommate was able to acquire a few bottles of ambrosia wine. I told her to go grab pizza from Nico’s and meet us back at your room at eight.”
I looked up at the large, sunflower shaped clock hanging above a wall of shoes.
“That’s in a half hour,” I pointed out.
“Exactly, so let’s get a move on.”
We decided splitting up was the best course of action, and Mary and Yana each delivered two options to me in the dressing room. The ones I’d picked were a little more conservative—bandeau tops and cute boy shorts—but both girls vetoed those immediately.
“Those aren’t even remotely sexy!” Mary exclaimed. “Gods, Tess, since when do you not want to look hot in a bathing suit?” She shoved her two options at me. “Try these.”
I choked out a laugh. “These are more string than fabric. No way. Sexy I’m fine with, but pasties would cover more of my boobs than that top.” I tossed them back at her, and she caught them, pouting.
“Here, this might work.” Yana handed me a plum colored two piece made of an incredibly soft, stretchy material, similar to our training outfits. “It should cover a bit more than…that.” She eyed the scraps of fabric still clutched in Mary’s hands.
“Okay, fine.” I pulled the curtain to the fitting room closed and maneuvered myself into the suit. When I finally got it on, I was surprised to see I actually liked it.
The top was a sweetheart-cut bandeau with thin purple straps and two long pieces of fabric that wrapped around my torso to tie in the back, keeping the girls locked down tight. The bottoms were a basic bikini style with slight ruching on the sides.
“Tessa?” Mary’s sounded impatient. “We’re running short on time, here.”
“Coming!” I shoved back the curtain and stepped out. “Well?” I put my hands on my hips.
Yana looked me up and down speculatively. “I think it is perfect. They have other colors, so I may have to get one for myself.”
I turned my attention to Mary. “Mare?”
She let her hands fall to her sides with a huff. “Fine, it looks great,” she conceded. “You’re lucky you got such a good tan when we were still in Renville. Where is he taking you, anyway?”
“No clue. Swimming?”
“It’s freezing, though,” Mary said.
“There are many hot springs further up the mountain,” Yana said. “Igor told me about them on the way to training yesterday.” Her cheeks tinged pink at the mention of Igor’s name.
“Yeah?” Mary’s face broke out into a wide smile. “He planning on taking you up there?”
Yana’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and her face flushed even darker.
I smacked Yana’s shoulder with the back of my hand. “Mariana Comsa! You did not tell us that!”
“Nothing has happened yet.” She looked back and forth between Mary and me. “I will tell you when something does, I promise!”
I pointed a finger at her. “You better!”
On the way up to the register, a rack of dark-wash skinny jeans caught my eye. I began flipping through, searching for my size, but they all looked to be the same ridiculously small cut.
“Excuse me?” I called to the woman who was reading a book behind the counter. Her nametag read “Sofie.”
“Yes?”
“Do you have these in a four?”
Sofie smiled and put her book down, then came out from behind the counter.
“These are actually one size.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Did you ever read that book Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?”
I frowned. “Wasn’t that a movie?”
“Yeah, the same pair of jeans fit all of them, right?” Mary asked.
The woman grinned. “Yes. Well, the idea for these came from that. The fabric has been spelled to fit whoever wears them.”
“Shut. Up.” Mary reached out and grabbed a pair. “How?”
“One of the witches who trained under Hecate has a thing for fashion.” She held her arm out, gesturing around the rest of the store. “She’s designed nearly everything here.”
Mary draped one pair over her arm and thrust another pair at me. “Here. These will make your ass look fantastic.”
Since there was no way I was turning down a pair of jeans that would fit me like a glove, I took them and followed the girl to the register.
“Hang on, I want to grab a shirt.” Scanning the nearby racks, I found a cream colored off-the-shoulder top made of raw silk with lace trim along the bottom hem. I held it up to Mary and Yana for inspection.
“Perfect. Wonderful. Gorgeous,” Mary said, her tone impatient. “Let’s go.”
“Did you girls find everything you were looking for?” Sofie began scanning the items so she could update the store’s stock.
“Yep.” I grinned at her. “Thank you!”
“Not a problem. Let me know how those jeans work out!”
Anette had, in fact, acquired several bottles of ambrosia wine from the local spirits store, and the four of us stayed up most of the night drinking and talking. We talked about boys mostly because we were suddenly surrounded by a whole new crop of them. The girls all pressed for details about the time I’d spent with Nate and were surprised when I told them we hadn’t actually kissed yet.
And despite Mary’s initial aversion to Anette, she’d slowly grown on her. It turned out she was actually a lot of fun to hang out with.
Especially when she got some alcohol into her system.
By the time Yana and I had dragged ourselves back to our room, it was three in the morning. Considering we’d been up since seven and had just completed eight hours of training, I was amazed we’d made it that long.
At least we got a good night’s sleep out of it, and when I opened my eyes the next day, I was excited to see I’d slept until nearly noon.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept that late. Even better, I had somehow managed to avoid a massive hangover.
Thank the gods for small favors, right?
Suddenly, there was a pounding on my door. Yana let out a loud groan and pulled her pillow tightly over her head.
I jumped out of bed, and before I had my hand on the knob, Mary burst in, still in her pajamas, her wavy brown hair a mess. She stared at me, bug eyed.
“How are you not dressed yet?”
I rubbed a hand over my face and yawned.
“Because I just woke up. Why?”
“Ugh, Tessa!” She grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the bathroom. “You need to get in the shower!”
“What? Why?”
She stopped in the middle of turning the water on and gaped at me.
“Bathing suit date, remember? Nate’s going to be here in a half hour!”
I felt my eyes go as wide as saucers, and I suddenly became very aware of my morning breath, messy hair, and stubbly legs.
At warp speed, I whipped off my pajamas and hopped in the shower, washing and drying myself in record time.
When I left the bathroom, Mary was sitting
on Yana’s bed, poking her leg.
“You’re going to get yourself electrocuted,” I warned as I pulled my new clothes from their paper bag. “She’s worse than you in the mornings.”
“Well whatever, she needs to get up and help.”
I unwrapped the towel from my hair and hung it over the bathroom doorknob.
“Why? I know how to get ready for a stupid date.”
“Yeah, well—” Mary gave Yana’s leg a shake “—this one needs to get up so she can do something super cute with—ow, bitch!” She stumbled back off the bed, landing hard on the wood floor.
“She told you that would happen, didn’t she?” Yana grumbled, one hand sticking out over her blankets, still sparking with green electricity.
“Yeah, but I didn’t think she was serious.” Mary winced, rubbing the spot on her forearm where Yana had shocked her. “Whatever, now you’re up. Can you make her hair look…not like that?” She wrinkled her nose as she examined my wet, tangled hair.
Yana rolled over onto her back and covered her eyes with her hands. “Ugh, fine. Why are you so damn chipper this morning?”
“My head is pounding, and I want to puke, but Tessa has a date in twenty minutes, so I’m powering through. Now get up.”
Fifteen minutes later, Yana had twisted my long hair into a complex fishtail braid that fell over my shoulder and topped it with a cream-colored headband. The only makeup I’d applied was a few coats of black waterproof mascara to my upper and lower lashes.
“Am I good?” I held out my arms and let them inspect my outfit. I’d put on the new jeans—which were fantastic—and new top over my bathing suit, letting one purple strap peek out.
“Yes.” Yana yawned. “Can I go back to bed now?”
I laughed and nudged her back toward her bed.
“Yes, I’ll be back later.”
“Wonderful,” she grumbled, falling face-first onto the mattress. “I cannot wait.”
I was almost to the courtyard where I was supposed to meet Nate when I ran smack into Eric on his way back from the gym.
“Hey, Tess!” He smiled brightly. “Where ya headed? You wanna go grab lunch?”