He forced her hand away from his cheek, their fingertips grazing briefly. A flare of heat moved up her arm at the intimacy, and she started to reach for him all over again. This time he clasped her hand, holding it in his. “Please don’t touch me, okay?” he asked gently, his eyes pleading with her as he slowly released her hand from his grasp.
“Earlier, you seemed quite happy to be physically close to me,” she reminded him.
“I was.”
“Why can’t you still feel that joy?” She patted her chest. “I am me, Aristos, and I am here. You can feel my beating heart if you wish, feel the pulse at my wrists. I’m no spirit or illusion.”
He pivoted, seizing hold of her upper arms. “Don’t you understand my hesitation, woman?”
She bit her lower lip, shaking her head slowly. “No. I don’t understand, not at all.”
He tightened his hold, bending lower so that only she could hear. “I don’t dare hope, don’t dare believe that you’ve found a way to come back to life or whatever it is you claim you’ve done,” he hissed. “Can’t put my faith in it. Don’t dare even think that you are Juliana and that . . . that . . .” He panted several heavy, hot breaths against her cheek, and then added thickly, “That you’ve come back to me.
“Because you left me once before,” he admitted on a barely spoken whisper. “I can’t face losing you again.”
“You’ll soon see the truth. That I never wanted to abandon you,” she promised. “You will.” He released his hold on her, but she needed him close, the heat and scent of him. She loved the way his silky hair tickled her face, and she drew in his scent deeply. Whatever had happened in their past, she was certain of one thing: She would never repeat the mistakes that had led to their separation. And she would never, at all costs, hurt him again.
She leaned her cheek against his shoulder, and this time he didn’t shove her away or try to shake her off. She sighed, relishing the feel of his comforting, strong warmth, tucking her hand through the crook of his arm. Even in her own time, at the height of her independence and youth, she’d found him the most stable, reassuring presence she’d ever known. It was part of why she’d fallen in love with him: that he could regale her with bawdy jokes and wordplay, then reveal himself to be such a gentleman. The unexpected juxtaposition had beguiled her, as had the way he could become unexpectedly tender at the oddest moments.
The only uncertainty he had ever created in her heart was his refusal to answer her questions. What are you, Aristos? With all that we’ve come to share, surely you would trust me with your secrets now, she’d told him on their final day together. It had been lunchtime, and she’d had no inkling that midnight would bring their very last moments together.
He’d cupped her cheek, murmuring in her ear, promising that his heart belonged solely to her.
She’d leaned against his chest, comforted by the steady, calm rhythm of his heart. By its firm, dependable beat. It frightens me sometimes, these mysterious errands of yours, the way you vanish for days, she’d told him.
I keep you safe by keeping my nature secret, my love, he’d said, showering her with kisses. Along her ear, down to her nape. Juliana, this feeling for you . . . I need to have you fully. For always. I shall tell you everything, I promise. In due time, I will tell you these secrets.
Then I shall be yours fully, she’d said. Tonight. Come to my balcony at midnight. . . .
And she’d meant it; but had he ever intended to color in the canvas of his identity for her?
She pulled away, sitting tall beside him. “You are not the only one with questions, you know.”
He cocked an eyebrow, drawling, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lifted her own eyebrow, mirroring his expression. “Or the only one who’s defied death, for that matter.”
He opened his mouth, clearly about to sputter some argument in reply, but was interrupted by the sound of voices from the hallway. “That’s probably them.” He leaned forward, trying to see around the corner. “Daphne and Leo are going to get to the bottom of this sinkhole. Or perhaps I should say sink hell, considering where you come from, huh?” he laughed grimly.
A petite, dark- haired young woman with wild curls entered the room. “What’s going on, guys?” she asked, dropping a ring of keys onto the main table. They clattered into a heap, and Juliana marveled at their strange shapes and sizes.
Emma walked the girl forward. “Sophie, meet Juliana . . . ,” Emma said, emphasizing her name significantly. “Juliana, this is my sister Sophie.”
Juliana stood, extending her hand politely to yet another great-great-niece. She blinked at the shock of it all.
Sophie’s clear blue eyes widened. “You mean like Mama’s . . . ahem . . . friend?”
“Yes, she’s also our great-great-aunt,” Emma agreed.
She took Sophie’s hand in her own. “It is delightful to meet you, Sophie.”
Sophie smiled up at her. “I bet Ari’s a happy guy tonight.” She looked in his direction, raising an eyebrow at his gloomy expression. “Then again . . . maybe not so much.”
Juliana glanced away from the group, noticing something she’d missed before. Hanging over the fireplace mantel was a large, vividly colored photograph—much more detailed and clear than any she’d ever seen in her own time. “How lovely,” she observed, walking closer to it, instantly recognizing the subject.
“Thanks. I took that one,” Sophie explained. “I gave it to the boys here so the walls wouldn’t be so . . . uh, Spartan.”
The Spartan reference seemed to be some sort of private joke among the group, because Shay laughed, nodding in agreement.
“The Angel plantation. Ah, I remember the parties there.” Juliana sighed dreamily.
“That’s my family’s place,” Shay said, and Juliana turned in surprise.
“Are you part of the Angel clan?” she asked.
Shay nodded. “Yep, and so’s my brother Jamie.” He gave a wave from where he sat sprawled in one of the club chairs by the fireplace. “And our other brother, Mason, is, too.” She looked about the room. “Where’d he go, by the way?”
Ari rolled his eyes. “He fled the hellmouth.”
“Mace got spooked by our lovely . . .” Jamie Angel coughed into his hand, clearing his throat. “Well, by Ari’s visitor.”
“So, you must’ve known some of our ancestors,” Shay observed with interest.
Juliana smiled, recalling the glorious galas the Angels had once hosted. “Actually, I was courted by Demitri Angel.”
Now, this comment, Juliana realized a heartbeat too late, captured Aristos’s interest completely, and not in a positive way. He leaped to his feet and said, “You didn’t date anyone else but me.”
Not that she wanted to upset him, but his jealous outburst gave her the greatest hope she’d felt since arriving. “Actually, Aristos . . .”
Jamie cut her off with a loud, rolling laugh, trading a look with his sister. “Whoa, ho, Petrakos,” he said, giving Ari a smug look. Then he laughed even harder.
“What’s so godsdamned funny?” Ari barked.
“Just that apparently your number one girl there”—Jamie kept laughing—“had a thing with my great-grandfather.”
Chapter 11
“My girl did not have a thing with your great-grandfather,” Ari contradicted with a snarl. He shook his head, muttering, “Just like a demon to try to incite a mutiny among us, turn us against each other.”
And make me jealous as ever-living hell.
“Jules would have said something.” He stared at the ceiling and blew out another breath. “She would’ve told me.”
“I never told you,” she corrected, “because I knew you’d have reacted precisely as you are now! By displaying a terrible jealous streak. You always were so possessive.” She had the audacity to seem pleased with herself, as if eliciting this reaction was a true romantic achievement. “It’s a flattering compliment, of course,” she added with a sweet smile, “but I truly
do not wish to upset you with long-ago details.”
He grew wide-eyed. Long-ago details? Hell yeah, he was worried about petty bits of history—like why she’d killed herself, why she’d not loved him enough to live. And now this? That she might have loved another man was almost more than his battered heart could handle.
A thought hit him right then. “Is that why you walked into that storm? Because you actually loved another man?” His hand formed into an involuntary fist, and when Jamie laughed again, he had the urge to punch him, use him as a proxy for his own great-grandfather.
“We already discussed the storm.” She paused, glancing self-consciously about the room. “As for my affections for you, I think you’ve seen tonight that they have never once wavered.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, and began pacing the room, ignoring the way the cadre watched, and especially—most especially—that Shay and Emma seemed to be elbowing each other and making eyes over the whole thing. “So, if Demitri Angel courted you, what exactly went down? What was involved with that sort of thing, and how much of it went on, precisely?”
“Aristos.” Juliana lowered her lashes slightly, glancing to the side shyly. “These are very personal questions for such a public gathering.”
“You’re saying something actually happened between you two?” He gaped at her, feeling as if she’d just taken her neat little high- heeled boot and kicked it into his gut. “You and Demitri had an . . . an . . . affair?”
She folded arms across her chest with a satisfied sniff. “So you do believe I’m Juliana. Why else would you be jealous?”
Of course he did. That fact had become patently obvious to him in the past minutes, the way he wanted to throttle a dead man for having taken any interest in his Jules. Still, he was angry and confused about basically everything at the moment, from her reappearance in his life, to her unexplained suicide, to her rejection of his winged form. Those tumultuous emotions fired at him like thousands of enemy arrows, aimed right at his heart, and he without a shield of any kind.
Juliana stared at him as if still expecting confirmation of his faith and belief in her, but he refused to answer, not until he at least learned about her past with this Demitri. He stormed over to the other sofa, where Ajax and Kalias sat, wedging his way between them until they made room for his massive form.
Jamie piped up, grinning. “Tell me about him. About Demitri.”
All this time and he’d believed he was her only love, the only man she’d ever even kissed.
“Demitri and his father were unique—as odd as my own family. No wonder . . .”
“What?” Ari demanded impatiently. Something really must have happened between her and this Demitri. A thick river of jealousy began roaring inside his veins. He hated the idea that Jules had ever been courted or charmed by any other man besides himself. She’d never mentioned anything about a Demitri Angel.
“If he’s their great-grandfather, and you’re their great-great-aunt, wasn’t that a little too cozy-close?”
The jealousy bloomed hotter, stronger.
“In fact,” he pressed, “wasn’t it fucking illegal?”
“There was no connection between my family and Demitri’s at that time,” Juliana explained. “None other than . . . how shall I put it? Our rather unique talents with the spiritual side.” Juliana lifted her chin proudly, turning toward him. “It was the winter before I met you when Demitri made his feelings known to me.”
Ari’s eyebrows cranked downward. “What did that fool do? Put the moves on you?”
“Nothing happened between us. I told him no.”
“You told him no,” Ari repeated numbly. There were only two questions a woman said no to, and only one of them was routinely asked in the Victorian era. “You turned him down,” he said, much louder.
“Of course I turned him down,” Juliana said with a light laugh.
Ari couldn’t hold back a very heavy sigh of relief. “You didn’t accept his proposal,” he said, still needing to reassure himself that the Demitri threat had never been real.
“My great-grandfather proposed to you?” Shay and Jamie blurted almost simultaneously.
“It appears,” Juliana said with a smile, “that our unique bloodlines were always destined to join, just not by my marrying Demitri. He said that ours would be a powerful connection, with his ability to see demons and spiritual creatures, and my own prophetic abilities. He believed that we were meant to . . .” She tapped a finger against her brow. “Battle evil itself. Yes, that was how he phrased it. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it a very romantic appeal. And then I met you, Aristos,” she said, beaming up at him.
“Tell me everything. Leave nothing to my imagination.”
“He came to my brownstone and asked Mother and me to accompany him on a grand tour to Greece. Those months traveling would allow us to become better acquainted. He believed that after that time spent together, I would perhaps acquiesce and agree to become his wife.”
Ari stared straight ahead, unable to fight the tide of emotions that assaulted him. The jealousy was morphing into a new, even stronger feeling—one that felt an awful lot like the grief he’d long battled and attempted to deny.
“I said no to that as well, of course,” she rushed to say. “And met you only weeks after. I found you a challenge and a riddle from the moment I first encountered you. Keen mind, irascible behavior, rapier wit. I was fully enamored from that very first night. Utterly besotted.”
Ari pressed fists against both thighs. Jules looked down at the gesture, frowning. “Aristos, these things happened a long time ago,” she said. “Long, long time ago, remember?”
“Those days live inside of me as if they’re happening now. They have ever since.” Then, plunging his fingers through his hair, he gave her a desperate look. “You never truly died for me, Jules.”
“Trust your heart, Aristos,” she whispered, eyes welling with tears. “Trust your love for me.”
Trust your heart, Aristos. Trust your love for me.
The words began hammering into his skull, driving into his doubts, creating more fear than he’d known in ages.
“Oh, I’m so screwed,” he muttered, rubbing a big palm over his scalp. “And my head feels like it’s about to explode.”
River spoke up. “Buddy, we need Sophie to heal your concussion. That can’t be helping anything right now.”
Sophie moved toward him, kneeling in front of him. “I’m not sure how my power works yet, Ari,” she said, rubbing her palms together and blowing into them. “So . . . here goes nothing, right?”
The pain was completely gone. A warm blanket of light and love and safety folded all about him, tucked as neat as a downy comforter beneath his chin.
Juliana’s scent was all over his skin, in his nostrils, on his hair. She was real, alive.
She was not a demon.
She’s not a demon!
Ari came slamming awake at the revelation. He sat up, blinking, and realized he’d been sprawled out on the sofa. Conked out. Again.
Sophie squatted beside him, holding his hand between both of her small ones. “I didn’t mean to give you an overdose.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Of what?” Had they given him drugs? He didn’t remember that. All he remembered was Sophie Lowery rubbing her hands together like a happy little fairy, then placing them on his head.
“My power. I really don’t know what I’m doing,” she said sheepishly. “Sorry.”
“Second time tonight I’ve been out cold, but at least you didn’t make me hurt. In fact . . .” He rubbed his scalp, thrilled to confirm that the pain was gone. “It’s gone! The concussion is totally gone.” He leaned forward and gave Sophie a sloppy kiss of gratitude on the cheek, then looked around for Juliana. He didn’t see her and instantly panicked.
“Juliana . . .” She is not a demon.
Somehow, some way, he’d heard that while in that place of healing. He knew enough about supernatural ability to guess it was some echo
of Sophie’s power coursing through his veins, and she was a prophetess, so wouldn’t that mean that the small voice had been right?
“She’s with the Oracle and Leonidas in his study,” Sophie explained. “And with Ajax.”
“I should be in there, too,” he said, already on his feet. “Why didn’t they wait for me to wake up?”
Nobody answered, and there were some uncomfortable, awkward glances between his brother Kalias and Straton, and even River and Emma.
“River man, what’s going on?” he asked slowly, looking only at his best friend. “Did something happen while I was unconscious?”
Kalias sighed heavily and stood, walking toward him with his usual military bearing. “Aristos, you’re incapable of reaching an objective conclusion in this particular instance.”
Straton rose, too, standing beside Kalias; they formed a wall of muscle and strength between Ari and the open doorway.
“The meeting went on as scheduled,” Straton said. He always had been his brother’s pit bull on the occasions when he needed one.
Ari moved right up, close and personal to the duo. “I was barred.”
“Well, technically, no. You weren’t even awake,” Kalias said with a half smile.
“You’re not keeping me out of there.” Ari shoved his hands between both men’s shoulders, forcing them apart. “No way am I out of that meeting.”
Kalias moved slightly to the left; Straton didn’t so much as breathe.
“Listen, Spartan.” Ari pushed his chest against Straton’s. “You really do not want to get in my way tonight.”
“You aren’t clearheaded enough to reach any conclusions about this female,” Straton replied, unblinking as he stared up into Ari’s eyes. He was the stockiest of their immortals, with a thick build that made his chest seem even broader than Ari’s own. “Certainly not with your new power. A demigod’s strength is hardly familiar territory. You’re barely in control of—”
Ari cut him off. “Careful, bulldog.”
Straton plowed right over the warning. “We all see what’s happening to you, the way you’re changing. Don’t think River can cover for you from now on,” he cautioned icily. As if Ari had sought the power for his own gain or hoped to rule the universe with it.
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