Hellion took a quick step toward the bed, but Clay moved toward him at the same time.
“Back off, lizard boy,” Hellion snarled in his low baritone.
Clay growled deep in his chest but paused to look at me before jumping the other man. There was something to be said for those who respected leadership, no matter how poor it was. I figured I’d take what I could get. Shrugging, I shook my head, and Clay went back to watching Hellion closely.
Hellion looked at me, his eyes carefully assessing. “How hurt are you?”
I thought about how to answer. I was definitely too hurt to defend myself against him. “I suppose hurt enough isn’t a sufficient answer?”
“Can you walk?”
Huh. “Yes, but I still need someone to help me when I first stand.”
“Works for me.” He lunged for the bed. Too fast for Clay, he had his hands on my throat before the dragon could get to me. Our skin touched without interference.
My ears popped and the world went black before immense pressure everywhere pushed my skin into my bones. I screamed, but the sound seemed restricted to the inside of my head. I was suspended in space and time, Hellion in front of me with his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. We hung there like abandoned marionettes.
“Odin,” Hellion whispered, his eyes going wide and glazing with shock.
Immobile, I had no way to know what was behind me. All I could do was listen.
A smooth, deep voice filled the void. “The prophecy foretells a love of the ages between the Niteclif and an unnamed man.”
No, no, no. Not this. Not now, I screamed wordlessly.
“I hereby name that man. Hellion, son of Markalon, you are destined to love this woman, to serve her well, and to fight for her in every sense. You will cherish her above all else, and—”
No!
Hellion looked pained, and he closed his eyes.
“—she will love you as she has loved no other.”
Chapter Three
I felt a shift, and Hellion’s arms came around me just before I was blinded by a flash of light. I shrieked and reached up to cover my eyes.
“It’s over, Madeleine,” Hellion whispered into my ear. “We’re here.” His arms were around me, his front pressed to my back, and for all the sense it made it felt like he was cradling me as we lay on the floor.
I was breathing hard and shaking like a flag in the wind, great, wracking tremors that hurt. I grabbed my stomach and retched. Hellion tightened his hold and put one hand to my forehead. The nausea eased with his touch though the pain in my stomach was fierce.
“Please,” I whispered in agony, “please let go of my stomach.”
He dropped his hand quickly and I rolled away, coming to rest on my side on the carpeted floor. I lay on the floor, eyes closed. It can’t be Hellion. Desperation pushed my fight-or-flight response into overdrive but I was too hurt to do anything about it. It can’t be Hellion. I opened my eyes slowly, my heart thundering in my ears and my breath coming short. I lay there shocked and scared, even if I only admitted the latter to myself. Apparently a divine prophecy had been rendered on us when we had touched each other. It can’t be Hellion. Now the man who had demanded my life as preferred coin for repayment had me at his mercy, and I had no way to call for help. Why did the room look—I blinked out for a minute and when I opened my eyes I was lying on a bed that looked very similar to the one I’d left in my room only minutes ago. I shifted to adjust the covers to my waist while Hellion took the seat nearest the door. “Where exactly are we?”
“About four floors up from your hotel room. They’ll never think to look for you here.” Hellion’s eyes were closed and he was shaking his head, his face devoid of any emotion. Apparently he was confident that I wouldn’t—or couldn’t—attack him, the smug bastard. I had to give him this, though—his plan was really a product of pure genius. No one would consider checking the hotel when the search for my now missing person began, and I couldn’t exactly dial zero for assistance. Personal history what it was, I thought it safe to assume that the concierge service wouldn’t cover this type of dilemma anyway.
“This changes everything.” Hellion ground the words out, his voice tight with some unidentifiable emotion.
“I’ll say,” I muttered. I dug around in my battered heart and there, there was what I feared. I looked at Hellion and I felt different. The confusion I’d experienced upon meeting him increased by a thousand fold. But truth was truth. I still experienced that undeniable feeling of familiarity, now adding comfort to the mix, despite having spoken to him on less than half a dozen occasions. Terrified, I pulled the covers tighter around my hips.
Hellion gently banged his head against the wall. “Fuck.” He ran his hands through his pelt of hair, pulling it from his face harshly. In relief, his bone structure was almost too perfect, his face almost too handsome. “How in Odin’s name… I mean, seriously, what am I… Shit!” he bellowed, launching himself out of the chair and spinning to punch the wall. The drywall buckled under the pressure of his fist, and small red dots marked the places his knuckles had split on impact. Breathing hard, he turned and sat down again, this time seeming more composed. He laid his head back against the sheetrock, and I watched with dispassionate interest as his little movements dislodged dust and debris so that it drifted down into his hair. His eyes were closed, his face drawn tight. “I suppose the one consolation I have is that life with you will never be boring.”
“So you’re just going to accept whatever this Odin guy says?”
Hellion opened his eyes and sat up, his movements stiff. “‘This Odin guy’ is the head of my pantheon, Niteclif. He’s my Alpha, the one the greatest holidays center around, the one my prayers are issued to, my divinity.”
All the hair on my body stood up. Odin. “I get it,” I whispered. “Who is Tyr to you?”
“He’s the god of justice. Why?”
“I guess you should know he’s my many times removed great-grandfather and my Niteclif mentor.”
“Bullshit,” Hellion snapped.
I gaped at him, then fury took over. “Look, you cauldron-sniffing, branch-waving, mumbo-jumbo-spouting man-witch! I don’t lie! So you can just take your attitude and shove—”
He laughed and his face seemed to relax some. “I get it, I get it. Nice imagery too. So Tyr is really your ancestor? Very cool.” Then his face went back to its cold mask. It was like he didn’t know whether to talk to me or threaten me. “I have some questions to ask, Madeleine, and I need you to answer me honestly.”
I sighed and snuggled down under the covers. Looked like I’d be here for a while because there was no possible way I could fight my way past him to get to the door. “Ask away, and if I can, I’ll answer you,” I said, the picture of nonchalance as I snuggled down under my nest of blankets. That’s me, the Goose Down Badass.
“I’m sure you’re curious—” he began and I immediately interrupted him.
“Furious is more like it,” I snarked, not even remotely sure how he’d intended to finish his sentence.
“I’ll ask you one time, Madeleine, to keep your voice civil or I will silence you. Understand that I don’t make idle threats.”
“Please, go on,” I said through clenched teeth as I wadded the sheet in my fists, out of his site.
“Tell me what happened with Gretta.”
I sighed to myself before answering. “Hellion, I swear to you I didn’t get a chance to issue a formal challenge of any type that would have made the killing sanctioned or whatever. I was busy defending myself from her seriously spunky, sword-swinging self. For your sake, I’m sorry I killed her. But it was her or me, and I was intent on it being me.”
Leaning back, Hellion crossed his hands over his stomach and laced his fingers together. His hands were clenched together so tightly they pulled the skin harshly over bone, making the skin white there and mottled elsewhere with forced circulation. Looking closer I could see his pounding pulse visible just beneath th
e skin of his throat. He tapped his foot softly.
“Tell me why you don’t believe me when I tell you I had no choice but to defend myself from her attack,” I said before realizing how harsh I sounded. “Please. I mean, please tell me—”
“I know what you meant.” He bit the words out, looking around the room, focusing on anything but me, before answering me. “I know you didn’t kill Gretta unjustly,” he whispered.
I think I sucked all the air out of the room. “You do?” I whispered back.
He closed his eyes and nodded, and I wondered if he was going to dislocate his fingers, he was pulling on them so hard. “I do. I know now, anyway. Odin’s made several things very clear.” He actually tugged at his collar before he said, “You should know Gretta was having an affair with Tarrek.”
I was silently shocked, amazed at how many women Tarrek had lured into his web of lies and deception, as well as his bed: Gretta, Hellion’s mate; Imeena, High Council vampire; Brylanna, Bahlin’s sister and the daughter of the Blue Weyr’s Glaaca. And he’d tried with me. “How do you know she was, um, seeing Tarrek?”
“I appreciate your delicate handling of the discussion, but there’s no need. I found the e-mails she exchanged with him.”
I looked down quickly to hide my reaction. One of if not the most powerful wizards in the known world had resorted to simple technology to track his partner’s clandestine behaviors.
Irony, you have a wicked sense of play.
I did my best to mask the inappropriate amusement on my face when I looked up but it didn’t matter. Hellion wasn’t paying me any attention.
He’d slid down and tipped his head back to rest on the chair, eyes shut tight. He must have felt me looking at him because he slowly opened his eyes and sat up to face me, squaring his shoulders and taking a deep, shuddering breath.
“What?” I demanded. My mind flashed back to the news story from earlier this morning and the murdered girl who looked so much like me. “Hellion, in my official capacity as Niteclif, I have to ask you something.”
“Go ahead. I figured you’d get there eventually, particularly because I showed up in your hotel room right after the murder was reported.” He shook his head and said, “The picture they flashed on the news this morning did look very much like you. I held out hope that it wouldn’t come to your death at my hand, but…”
“You did? She did. Why were you watching the mundane news? Wait. But what?”
“Do you really expect me to make sense of that gibberish? Great Odin, Madeleine, the Council was under the impression you were at least remotely intelligent,” Hellion spat out, shifting in his chair to cross an ankle over his knee. His total disregard for me as any type of threat stung.
“Screw. You.” I tried to get up and he sighed, leaned forward and pushed me back down. I gasped and grabbed my abdomen.
“I thought you weren’t that hurt,” he said, his gaze considering.
“Forget it. You’re not changing the subject. Did you kill—”
“I didn’t kill the girl. Why would I wield a knife when I have much more creative ways to kill? As for the mundane news, I watch it because I have a variety of investments in the mundane world, not unlike many inhabitants of the mythological and paranormal worlds you now inhabit. Where do you think we get our money?”
“You’re really a little creepy, you know that?”
He smiled faintly. “If I’m only a little creepy I suppose I’ll have to try harder.”
“Funny guy,” I muttered. “You’ll give me your oath you didn’t kill the girl?”
He looked at me long and hard, and just as I was about to insist he answer me, he volunteered, “I give you my solemn oath that I am innocent of this crime.”
“I’ll have to look in to it when I get up in a couple of days. Understand that.”
Hellion nodded then stood, walked to the in-room vanity and filled a glass with water. Carrying it to the bedside table, he set it down and took a seat on the edge of the bed, twisting to face me.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I inched further away from him, unconsciously seeking distance. Something was wrong—very, very wrong.
“About the prophecy…” He reached out and traced a cold finger down my cheek.
I flinched and he dropped his hand, my mind racing as I watched him carefully. The prophecy had foretold that I would bring into power the first male to take me to bed. The price of that power was that he would be cursed to truly love me, but I would love another. The first had been Bahlin.
“No.” I shook my head rapidly. “I can’t, Hellion.” Shock and gut-wrenching grief gripped me. “I won’t betray Bahlin.”
“He’s left you, Maddy. Love or no love, he’s ended the engagement.”
“How do you know?” I whispered harshly, never taking my eyes from his. “You can’t know, not for sure.”
“I’m relatively certain you’re no longer tied to Bahlin because Clay was in bed with you. He never would have risked his Glaaca’s rage if the engagement stood.”
I blanched and Hellion sighed, standing and walking to the window to pull the curtains tighter.
“As much as it infuriates me, we are predestined to love, Madeleine. Ours is to be a love of the ages. I was there for the original delivery of the prophecy by the limnae.”
I just stared at him, mouth slightly agape, until he walked over to me and gently lifted my jaw.
I jerked away and snapped my jaws together with an audible click. I stood slowly, still in my T-shirt and underwear. I was embarrassed, but it seemed worse somehow to have this conversation while lying in bed with him.
He offered me the glass of water, and I shook my head. “My choices aren’t made yet, Hellion. No prophecy can foretell every choice, and mine aren’t made,” I yelled. I gasped and clutched my stomach but managed, just barely, to stay standing under my own power.
He rose and walked toward me, his magic only loosely reined in. I’d forgotten his edict to not yell but he’d have to kiss my brass balls on this one. He stopped in front of me and I looked up, forgetting he was as tall as Bahlin. He gently clasped my jaw in his hand and murmured a few words. Latin maybe? I wondered, though his voice was too low to be sure. My throat tickled and before I could ask, he bent forward ever so slowly, pulling me into his embrace as he went, until he was wound around me. Then, and only then, did he begin to lower his head to mine, his eyes focused on my lips.
Up close I realized what a perfect set of lips Hellion had—soft and full on the bottom, sculpted and firm on the top. He brushed his lips over mine tentatively. The chemistry between us was dynamic, and I gasped into his mouth as his lips touched mine. We fit together perfectly, his firm lips over my soft ones, our hips brushing against each other and our thighs intertwining so we were vertically melded together. He raised his head from mine and looked so serious, so sad, and in that moment I inexplicably wanted more than anything to make his hurts go away.
I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him back to my face. He gave over, bending toward me again, and we met in the middle, our kiss unhurried and fragile as few kisses ever are—the first kiss, the last kiss, and a truly healing kiss are the only ones that have ever fit the bill for me. This first real kiss was everything it should have been, with the exception of the fact that I wasn’t in love with Hellion.
“Yet,” Odin whispered through my mind unbidden, and I turned a deaf ear. My choices weren’t made.
Hellion broke away, turning from me in one harsh movement that left me wobbly and reaching for support. I collapsed onto the edge of the bed. He waved a hand over his shoulder and said something that sounded like edictum vox vocis, and my throat burned for a moment.
“What the hell did you just do?” I croaked, massaging my throat.
“I gave you your voice back. That spell would have lasted indefinitely so don’t bitch and make me regret my decision already,” he said through gritted teeth. His shoulders were rigid and a
fine tremor passed down his arms.
“I—”
“I mean it, Niteclif. Don’t push me on this.” He stalked back to the room’s chair and sat down, dropping his head in his hands. “I can’t,” he whispered beseechingly. “Anything but this, Odin. Anything.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, anger and despair warring for prominence on his partially hidden features. “It would have been so much easier if it the news had been right this morning.”
I wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t come out as simply ”fuck off,“ so I sat there, silent, grinding my teeth and twisting little pieces of hair around my fingers.
Hellion finally looked up. His eyes were a flat, cold black again. “What?”
“What do you want me to say?” I always seem to resort to the most direct honesty when cornered. “I can’t hope for your sake that tomorrow’s outcome is more favorable for you.”
He stared and me and then dropped his head and snorted, his laughter brief but superficially sincere. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”
“And just because she looked like me doesn’t mean I was the intended victim. I mean, seriously, who wants me dead?” I was massaging my throat when he lifted his head.
“You aren’t serious?” He stared at me in open disbelief. “Great gods above, you are. Madeleine, there is a list of people who likely want to see you dead, some of whom I’m quite sure would see to it themselves given half the chance.”
My hand froze at my throat. “Who?” My voice drifted out on a single note.
“First, I’d have to assume Tarrek’s parents are at the front of the line. Their motives would be understandable but royalty doesn’t carry out their own dirty work. Remaining members of the fae, royalty or not, see you as a seductress and murderer and could come for you in any form at any time. Any of Tarrek’s remaining lovers, particularly the vampire Imeena, would gladly see you taken out, just as Gretta tried to do, for revenge. Females of the blue weyr resent you—hell, any of the female dragons of any weyr resent you—for taking the Glaaca out of the dating pool. They seem to believe that with you out of the way they stand a chance with Bahlin. Smaller sub-groups believe you’re in league with the larger groups in plotting their demise because you’ve already sided with the dragons. The Atlanteans will be interested in your preservation until Bahlin’s godmother Sarenia finds out you’ve broken his heart, then your survival will be of less interest to them. I think the only group you’re safe from is the witches and wizards, but many of them are employed by the other groups. So while they may not want you dead personally—yet—they may be paid to carry out your execution.” He stood and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking at the wall over my shoulder instead of facing me directly. “Are you really so naïve?”
Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2 Page 3