“What?” he demanded when she just kept on grinning at him with that knowing, goofy smile.
She waltzed across the room, working that leather mini like she expected to be noticed. And maybe she did, he thought, seeing the way the king’s eyes flared, locked on her rolling hips like a laser beam. She crooked a finger, beckoning Ari to lean down to her much shorter height. He knew whatever was coming next was not going to make him proud of his actions tonight; nor was it going to be gentle on his ego.
She reached up onto her toes, pressing her mouth against his ear. “I thought you were angry with her. That you couldn’t forgive her for dying? And then that embrace? Whoa! Smokin’!” She dropped her voice confessionally, eyes sparkling. “Too bad you chickened out.”
She was gloating! Their mystical guide, their own prophetess was . . . mocking him.
After reading either his thoughts, or maybe just his indignant body language, she disagreed. “I’m merely egging you toward . . .” She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “Well, let’s call it appropriate, gentlemanly action in regards to Juliana.”
“Holding her in my arms isn’t gentlemanly?”
“Sure, but letting her go that abruptly wasn’t.” She sighed, shaking her head. “It seems you need a little kick in the buckaroo there, Aristos, considering you’re still mentally ranting at her for that one teensy, tiny issue of her death.”
He sputtered back at her, embarrassed. “How’d you . . . You can’t know that. I didn’t say that in front of you or tell you that.”
Yeah, as if you stood a chance arguing with the Oracle of Delphi, who naturally knew all the mysteries of the universe, and your own private mind.
The woman only laughed, tugging on her faded Oingo Boingo T-shirt. “When I prophesy, I hear lots of things, Ari. I always have.”
He could think of “lots of things” he’d rather she not see or hear from inside his mind. Since, of course, it wasn’t exactly like he’d had a girlfriend or lover for the past hundred years or so. During a drought that long, there were certain matters you learned to take into your own hands. And often. But that didn’t mean you wanted your Oracle glimpsing you in the shower, going to town solo, wishing you had a real woman instead of just your fantasies.
He shook off the embarrassing thought, frowning at a much more real one. “And if Shay or Em or Sophie declare her a demon after all? What then?” Ari flashed on a horrific image: of the Shades taking out Jules like one of their darkest, vilest prey. “Can’t you see my hesitation?”
Daphne leaned close again, kissing his cheek. “You have such a huge heart, Ari. Release your fear, and don’t worry. The Daughters will concur with my words.”
“If you’re so sure, then why do you need them?”
“Oh, I don’t need them at all. That was the Highest God’s instruction.” She stroked a long lock of hair back from his face, as tender as a sister or a mother. “Because without them, you won’t fully believe. There will always be hidden doubt, a place you’ll hold back from Juliana, as you did just moments ago.”
“You’re saying . . .”
She placed a warm hand along the back of his neck, whispering in his ear once more. “You need their validation so you can trust again. Your love for Juliana will be tested greatly. I’m so sorry, Ari, but I saw that it will. The Daughters’ words will give you strength in the oncoming trial.”
He didn’t want a trial, not about his feelings for Juliana. Wasn’t holding on to his love for her, clinging to it, raging against it—and for more than a damned century—enough of an ordeal? Didn’t that qualify as the trial to end any and all future ones?
Turning the tables, he pressed his own mouth to their Oracle’s ear. “I love her. That should be good enough.”
No answer came at all; the fey prophetess only smiled and, oddly, looked at King Leonidas as if that glance were an explanation all its own.
Chapter 13
Eros reached into his quiver, retrieving the captain of his arsenal, Karanos. Immediately the arrow grew hot within his hand—apparently as eager to be back in the within his hand—apparently as eager to be back in the trenches as Eros himself was.
Eros kept himself concealed with his god’s glamour, watching the unfolding discussion as if it were one of Aristophanes’ great plays. He positioned the projectile neatly in his bow, firmly concealed in the corner of King Leonidas’s study.
Captain Karanos nearly scalded his palm, making one point very clear: He was ready for battle. Eros patted the warrior, wondering, as he often did, how bold that man must have been when engaged in ancient warfare.
The arrow spun in his grasp, aimed right for Leonidas. The king stood beside his desk, quietly listening, hands clasped behind his back.
“Leonidas?” Eros asked Karanos in surprise. “You wish me to use you against the great king of Sparta?”
Although such an aim would certainly complement Eros’s current mission, it was unnecessary. The leader’s body was surrounded by a crimson aura, a glow that appeared only when a man had become blindingly intoxicated by love.
Pity, Eros thought, that I’m not the one who served the elixir to him.
“He loves without aid of our aim, old friend,” Eros told the agitated arrow in his grasp, but Karanos only continued his desperate vibrating, eager for attention.
Suddenly, Eros had a thought, “Are you telling me, brave captain of mine, that you are a Spartan? That Leonidas was your own king?”
At once the arrow grew so hot, he could barely hold it in his palm.
Their long-standing mystery, solved! His arsenal was not comprised of common Greek soldiers as he’d always guessed, but the greatest warriors of all time. Perhaps his army had even fought in phalanx formation beside these very same Spartans, the ones his father now sought to destroy.
“Karanos, if I use you in this battle, know that your arrow shall not bring death,” he reassured the arrow, “but it will bring mayhem and chaos. That is my father’s plan. Do you understand? I would not ask you to battle your own people. If I must, I will seek another weapon for the coming weeks.”
The arrow bristled within his palm, clearly affronted. Eros smiled. “Ah, you are a military man to the core. Duty and honor above all else.”
Karanos offered no answer, so Eros returned him to the quiver, listening closely to the conversation unfolding in Leonidas’s study.
Slowly, Eros smiled. Yes. The Daughters were approving Juliana. They believed her intentions to be pure.
“She’s not a demon,” he heard the one called Shay Angel say. “But what about Mason’s reaction? That should be considered, don’t you think?”
Eros frowned sharply, adjusting his tunic. That was a complication he could not abide—Shay relying on Mason or considering him a credible authority. What better way to create discord than by turning brother against brother, lover against beloved, and friend against friend. Still, the plan didn’t sit well with him. It went against his calling, violated it . . . except he knew it would earn his father’s care and respect. For that reason alone, he’d undertaken this mission; for that reason entirely, he was determined to complete it.
Eros reached into his second quiver, the one where he kept a set of female arrows, the chief of whom—a onetime witch—was named Eris. Confusion. She was as subtle and coy with her movements as Karanos was strategic. As he cradled her arrow, Eros felt a sensual trembling against his palm. She had always stirred him oddly, he thought, frowning in reaction.
With a whistling shot through the air, the weapon nailed Shay in the arm.
The woman never felt a thing. Although she did pause, staring into space for a moment before continuing. “Mason . . . hasn’t been himself for a while now,” she said, answering her own question.
Eros’s heart grew heavy as he recalled how deeply Mason Angel had once loved. He felt guilty, too, for using that love as a weapon against the human now. Eros’s mission and gift was to create love, not use it to cause destruction and heartbre
ak, especially not in an instance where he himself had worked so hard to fan those flames. Kelly’s love, too, had been pure. Yes, he frowned, realizing the compromise this situation represented to his calling.
Still, his ultimate purpose here did involve love spelling and drawing hearts together, he reminded himself. That was the nature of the compact he’d forged with his father. And if working his magic happened to create confusion? Disunity? Eros shrugged the concerns away.
After all, he was the one who’d originally penned the phrase “Make love, not war,” so it made sense that he’d serve his father’s violent cause by applying his own unique skills. Still, he hated the stab of uncertainty he felt as he glanced between Aristos and Juliana.
He could see the heavy webs of crimson and gold that tangled invisibly between their souls. They were knit together—so tightly that not even death or time had severed those rare tethers.
He frowned as more discussion ensued about Juliana’s identity. It was imperative that they declare her legitimate, and he stepped forward, withdrawing the arrow of confusion from Shay’s arm.
Don’t ask; don’t contemplate . . . , he urged, lifting a powerful hand and sprinkling Olympian dust among them all. Even Leonidas blinked, rubbing his eyes. Don’t wonder how she’s come back, he urged the king and those he guided.
Under the influence of his magic, Shay Angel and her cousins all nodded. “She is legitimate. She’s the woman you loved, Ari.”
But convincing the Daughters was only one part of his task here tonight, and Eros knew it. He raised the arrow of confusion, pricking it between the warrior’s shoulder blades. Ari’s back muscles gave a spasm, and he began rubbing his right shoulder with a frown, seeming surprised by the sudden pain.
Eros strolled to Leonidas next, repeating the action; the king swatted his arm as if stung by a bee, nothing more. One by one, he wove the toxin among the entire group, until they were fully assured of Juliana’s authenticity, welcoming her into their midst with hugs and warm embraces. They were so carried away, in fact, that not one of them thought to ask the most obvious question of all.
Why, precisely, would an angel have resurrected Juliana Tiades from the dead?
“So, what happens now?” Juliana asked softly, leaning against the edge of Leonidas’s desk. The rest of the crew had cleared out, giving them a few minutes alone.
Ari raked a hand over his brow. Despite the healing he’d experienced, he still felt weak and unsteady and was glad Jax had volunteered to wait right outside Leo’s study. “God, Juliana. I have so many questions and thoughts, I honestly don’t know where to begin. What am I gonna do with you now?”
She chewed on her lip. “I’d rather hoped I’d be able to stay here, with you. With the others.”
“Jules, of course,” he reassured her, and hated the genuine relief he saw in her eyes.
“Thank you, sir,” she breathed on a sigh. “Thank you.”
“I’d always protect you—you should know that. Always make sure you’re safe and cared for.” He reached a hand to stroke a loose curling tendril, the auburn burnished beneath the lamplight. “And, gods above, you’re still so damned beautiful. This hair of yours, the way it changes colors depending on the light—seeing that always stole my breath.”
She moved closer, sidling her hip right against his on the desk’s edge. “Everything about you always aroused me. I was so eager to become your lover that night. That’s why I want to finally join with you, to share what we were denied before.”
He gulped. “Join . . . with me?”
She smiled, such a joyful thing that he felt as if his heart might burst. “Yes, Ari, I want us to become lovers.”
Lovers. Not wall-bumping, mindless sex, not palming himself in the dead of night, not even hooking up with some girl at a bar. Had any female ever truly touched his body and loved him? His wife’s affection had been a duty. Only Juliana Tiades had ever kissed him as if she meant to take his very soul inside her own.
Lovers. In love, beloved, loving, giving . . . The words played like some tinny, late- night AM radio station echoing inside his head.
She extended a pale, regal hand toward him. “Tonight. I am ready and far more than willing, Aristos. You need only make your move to take me. Shall we return to your bed?”
Not a day had passed, much less a year, when he’d not grieved—all the while naming himself a fool among all men for still loving Juliana Tiades. No wonder his heart now thundered with long-denied hope. “Are you saying that you . . . you really did want me? That you weren’t horrified by my wings that night? You . . . desired me?”
She sighed, smiling broadly. “Oh, yes, I wanted you that night, Ari.” She had rarely called him by his nickname, the one all his Spartan brothers used. And when she did, she always said it a little huskier than his full name, adding a slightly seductive timbre. As if they were sharing some very intimate secret.
“Ari,” she said, “you have no idea how desperately I craved you.”
“No, when I came to your balcony,” he tried arguing again, determined to resist her. “That look in your eyes . . . it couldn’t have been a lie.”
“You are incorrect regarding that night’s events.” She tilted her head upward, meeting his gaze boldly. “And you should know the truth. That I waited in my room until midnight, just as we’d planned. The hours seemed endless, the clock frozen in its progression. I waited and my body burned, terribly . . . so hot all over, so tight until I”—she dropped her voice confessionally, leaning even closer against him—“touched myself.”
She took hold of his hand, sliding it down her belly with a significant look, and he felt his groin draw as tight as a bow in reaction to the heat in her gaze and words. “I imagined you touching me with this large, calloused hand of yours,” she explained in a low voice. “How it would feel against my skin. I knew there would be a contrast, your roughness . . . My own body was never caressed. Never . . . explored.”
She pressed his palm even lower down along her abdomen. “I imagined your fingers, felt them sliding beneath my lingerie. How you would be such a gentleman, yet work at the satin and lace to free me.”
He groaned, staring at the carpeted floor, but damn the woman, she kept on. And the erection he’d developed only grew thicker with every word. He shifted his hips against the desk, but the motion seemed only to intensify the tight discomfort of his pants.
“I was clad in pale pink for you, Ari,” she whispered. “I’d sent my maid on a special errand, a forbidden one, so that I’d be perfect, a gift that no one else, no man except for you would ever open.”
Open. She’d wanted him to open her. The full ramifications of that knowledge hit him like an enemy’s bronze shield, slammed him full force with stark, startling reality. He gulped hard, feeling the warmth of her soft abdomen beneath his hand, imagining the wet heat that wasn’t much lower. They were separated by her gown, chaperoned by nothing except her own era’s fashion.
“Yes,” she continued on a sigh, “I wanted your hand touching me here . . . moving between my legs.”
He was frozen. Awakened. She urged his hand slightly lower, the expensive linen of her dress shockingly smooth beneath his coarse, awkward touch.
No, he couldn’t do this; such behavior was too ungentlemanly with someone like Juliana Tiades. He yanked his hand free, but then she was up close, like a purring, sultry feline, brushing against him without any reluctance. She began stroking his chest, fingertips working against both his nipples, abrading them through the thin cotton of his T-shirt until they beaded beneath the caress.
He moaned an involuntary response, arching slightly, as one of those mercenary hands slid down, coasting across his hard, muscled abdomen, aiming even lower. He bit back a cry as her elegant, graceful fingertips stroked between his thighs. She rubbed, long and slow, back and forth, teasing his thick erection; he braced against the desk, eyes closed. “What . . . are you doing to me, Jules?”
“This,” she whispered, lea
ning up and pressing her mouth against his ear, “was what I needed. All of you, Ari.”
His name, said in a breathless, husky way. So fucking arousing.
He forced himself to open his eyes, to fight this drowning tide, but her gaze was fixed on him, as self-assured and determined as that of any soldier. She would not accept defeat, not in this battle, and his ramparts were overrun.
He was utterly destroyed because he could not pull away, and this woman had broken him the last time they’d held each other this way. That pain had never subsided, but he had no ability to fight this tide she’d already unleashed inside of him.
He didn’t have a hope of resurrecting even a frayed shred of discipline against the woman before him. He simply did not possess the strength of will that such resistance required; his Spartan resolve meant nothing as she rose onto her toes and he caught the sweet scent of her skin and hair. Jasmine again.
She’s always been the scent of a Savannah garden.
Alive. She is totally alive. There’s not the aroma of death or Hades on this woman. I have always loved her; she should be mine.
But she’d never been his, not really. He sagged against the desk and ground his teeth together with an agonized moan. He could not want this, could not hope that she’d returned to him out of love and the desire to be with him.
She had drowned herself in a river out of that “love,” and he wouldn’t open his heart again—not like this.
She kept stroking his jaw, seemingly oblivious to his internal battle.
“Juliana, no,” he groaned. “This is too much for me. Too soon . . .”
But her lips were already so close to his, already opening, covering his mouth. No, he thought again, even as his large arms folded her flush against his body. He was helpless, caught in her thrall as if she had spun a literal web about him. That pull of hers was palpable, and even his thoughts felt muddied and unsure in the wake of her actions, and his physical and emotional reactions to her return.
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