by Skyler Andra
Dan sat straighter, reacting to my injection of love.
“Jacksboro, huh?” he asked after an initial bout of silence.
“Err, yeah,” I replied.
“Strange place.” The warning in his tone gave me a serious case of foreboding and I shrunk in my seat.
“Is it?” I gripped my seatbelt tighter.
He nodded. “Strange lights. Strange sounds. Some pals of mine go down that way to get out to Atlanta. Not much of a town. Dead the way a lot of things this part of the country are. Especially after the military abandoned the base.”
I jumped a little when he mentioned strange. From the way he said it, I could tell he didn’t want to tell me more than he knew for sure. Either way it told me to be careful, which I had already known. The little tidbit about the military intrigued me too. If they’d abandoned the base, then who the hell were using it to house kidnapped avatars?
Driving into the late afternoon sun, Dan put a CD into the player, and soft lonesome music piped through the speakers.
When I shivered a little, he wordlessly handed me his coat.
“You know who Hermes is?” I found myself asking him.
“Nah,” he said, eyes trained on the road. “He one of Laney’s new pals?”
Hah, imagine that. “No. I mean Hermes, the god. And Ares. Athena.”
I wondered if I had made a mistake, if this would get me into a vast theological argument that I really wasn’t prepared for, but Dan only made a hmm-ing noise.
“No, I don’t know those,” he admitted. “They good gods?”
He asked it with a flat practicality, reminding me of the way Byron would ask after a brand of tires or about the warmth of a coat. And why shouldn’t he? The gods were here, leaving their shadows on the ground in the form of their avatars.
I started to tell Dan about the gods, what I knew of them. Wrapped in his warm coat that smelled a bit of pine and dog, I started to tell him about Mads, and Rane, and Byron, too at some point. He probably thought I was utterly insane, but as far as I could tell he was listening, only offering a considering grunt whenever I paused.
At some point, Dan started to sing, telling me he’d had enough of hearing about the gods.
Alone with my thoughts, I connected to Byron’s gold cord, travelling to him in my mind, arriving at his place in Boise again. This time, however, there was something different about it. Pieces of art were on the wall; elegant and abstract compositions of red and black caught my attention, and if I looked at one too long I might fall headlong into it. Action figures crammed together on a new set of shelves. The walls had a fresh coat of paint, a pale cream color, contrasting with a mustard feature wall. Over by the door, a duffel bag in camouflage green rested in the hallway. For some reason, I knew it was a bag that was dropped when someone was coming in, rather than being a go-bag for when someone had to leave fast.
“Ah, you stopped living like a monk, I see,” I said, walking through the living room with a mug of cider in my hands.
“Something like that,” Byron said, shoving a hand through his hair. “More like things sort of got away from me, and then these two…”
He waved at the clutter around us with a happiness I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before. In another room, I heard Mads and Rane bickering about something, but it lacked the venomous bite of some of their actual taunts.
“Roommates?” I joked and Byron grinned. “You all get along?”
“More like me and you,” he said, clinking his cider with mine, “and they came with you.”
My eyebrows raised almost up to my hairline at that, and then my brain briefly short-circuited at the idea of it. “Like baggage?”
“You know.” His laughter, deep and full of life, brought out goosebumps across my flesh. “I’m really trying to foster a harem atmosphere without the use of lots of therapy, so maybe if you could avoid words like baggage.”
Humor curled the corners of his lips. God it was beautiful to see him like this. The last time we’d met in person, he’d been furious and hurt with me for leaving him—his body stiff, his eyes refusing to meet mine, a darkness lingering between us. All of that was gone now.
I threw my arms around his neck and started laughing. “You terrible faker! You like this!”
He took me into his arms as if I belonged there, and when he hugged me, something deep and perfect snapped into place.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
“Because this is the way it’s supposed to be,” I said, my words suddenly hollow, highlighting that this visitation wasn’t real. It hurt to think of the separation between Byron and me. I tore away from him blindly, knowing I needed to get out of here before I started sobbing.
But that was when I ran into Rane, and right behind him, Mads. Something deep in my heart tickled with how deliriously perfect this moment was.
“Are you two fighting about dumb geek stuff again?” Rane asked sternly. “Spaceships are not worth fighting over.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Mads cheerfully. “Point me to the carnage. I have opinions, and I don’t mind making people cry about them.”
A giggle burst free, and I jumped into his arms. God, his lithe but strong body felt incredible. It had been so long since I’d heard their voices. So long since I’d laid eyes on them. So long since I’d touched them and been with them in any way that really mattered. Being apart from them felt as if my heart was sliced in three.
Pity I didn’t get to enjoy it. The three cords in my chest yanked me out of Mads’ arms.
“Locke,” he said as I stumbled backward, groping for him.
Rane braced me, pressing my back to his chest. “Stay with us.”
Byron kissed me as if it were the last time we might see each other.
Then, in the middle of what should have been the best dream ever, my cord flung me back to reality and I jumped awake in the truck cabin.
“Bad dream, huh?” Dan asked.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Was I yelling?”
He shrugged, which meant yes, and it must have been ridiculous. “Everyone’s got nightmares. Don’t worry about a few bad dreams.”
What if I’m more worried about the good ones?
Chapter 9
Locke
Jacksboro was a small, sleepy town without a big box store to keep everyone in fast fashion and cheap groceries. Dan had been right when he’d said that there was something uneasy about it. Although people shopped in the small general store, and cars passed on the street, it had that air of ghost town. It could have just been that it was one more dying town with a sagging infrastructure and a populace that was relocating elsewhere in the hopes of something better, but I had a feeling that it was more than that.
Dan pulled up outside the country depot while telling me, “Be careful, little lady.”
“Thanks again,” I said, taking one last look at the seed in his heart, which had sprouted a fragment of red cord. Even if I died today, my heart was content knowing I’d spread some good.
A creeping dread sunk into my bones as I alighted the cabin and stepped onto the pavement. I didn’t like this place, the stale air strangling it, or the darkness clouding the sky.
All right, I thought, trying to push down my niggling doubt and fear. Now to figure out what the hell is going on.
I took a deep breath, glancing at the gold cords connecting me to my men. To my relief, they were close together, almost like one gleaming cord. Shouldering the bag of food that Betty had given me, I started to walk, following the direction the cords led to.
Of course, the problem was that navigating by a love cord was a lot less convenient than plugging directions into Google Maps. I didn’t know when to go right or left, or how many more feet until veering east or west. Sometimes it felt like I was stuck in a video game, following a compass that wiggled in a general orientation, telling me which direction to head. If I strayed, the compass, or in this case, the cord adjusted, pointing out which way to go. This method was far from perfect
, but unfortunately it was all I had.
The cords arrowed off to the north, so I crossed the highway, getting stones in my sandals. At the opposite side of the road, I came to a paddock, surrounded by barbed wire. I stared at the fence for a moment, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
“Don’t be silly, Locke,” I scolded myself. “It’s meant to keep cows out.”
But I didn’t really think that. The barbed wire looked fresh, and whoever installed it meant business. I’d also watched way too many movies about facilities surrounded by barbed wire. I hunted around for a forked stick, gingerly using it to lift and prop the wire so I could crawl underneath it. A damned barb still managed to tear the hell out of my skirt, but it was better that than my skin.
Once inside the fence, I walked a few hundred yards, reaching a forested field. Rane’s voice kept rattling in my head about being careful and laying low. So, I kept an eye out for any sign of the men in black that had been giving everyone involved in this god-mess a problem. But as I came around a bank of trees, I found myself face to face with a problem of a different kind.
An enormous red cow. No, it had horns an great big balls, so maybe an ox or a bull? I’d lived in cities my entire life so I wasn’t prepared for dealing with a bovine staring at me suspiciously.
“Oh, hey, cow,” I said, holding up my free palm to show it I was friendly, and didn’t intend to take it to the butcher.
It mooed at me, scraping a hoof on the ground, waving its sharp horns around. If cartoons had taught me anything, then this wasn’t usually a good sign, so I hurried my pace.
Could it smell the burger I’d eaten earlier on me? Did it know that I’d eaten its friend? Please Eros, don’t let Bessie be out for revenge.
In half a minute, I managed to put a certain amount of distance between us, when Bo— that was masculine for Bessie—made up his mind that he did not like me in his space and charged me. In my defense, I was already getting out of his way, but that didn’t stop him.
“No, Bo, no,” I ordered, my heart slamming into my sternum as I picked up my pace, jumping over rocks and sticks.
Eros have mercy! I was not made for running, nor was I aerodynamically inclined. Born with boobs that bounced like hell when I ran, I’d rather mess around on the Internet than go to the gym. Eat cheesecake, even if I liked my fruits and veggies. Sit at my computer and write half a novel than hike. That said, I set a new record getting up the slope faster than I had ever moved in my life. The whole time I swore Bo’s breath raked over my back, his horns right behind me. Each step had me sucking in ragged breaths. I crashed through the underbrush, stubbing my toe and getting torn to shreds by branches. My brain was pumping so hard with adrenaline that I couldn’t do much more than think help, help, help over and over again.
Thank Eros my men weren’t here to witness this. Mads would just laugh at the spectacle of me cursing, hopping on one foot, trying not to drop my bag. Byron would scold me for not strategizing some plan to avoid Bo in the first place. Rane would shake his head and tell me to love up the bull or some clever warfare tactic only a Cupid possessed.
Possibly from the extra oxygen or additional blood flow to my brain, I then realized what I needed to do. Instead of tearing blindly through the trees, I frantically searched out one a good deal thicker than the others. When I found it, I ran straight for it, and the bull seemed to catch on to my intentions.
Seriously, what was Bo’s problem?
I hit the tree with my palms first, causing me to drop my bag and bounce off to one side. The force was enough to stun me, and I rolled to the right.
Bo smacked into the tree with a ground-shaking thud, and thank goodness, backed away in a daze.
I wasn’t sticking around for another chase, and I pushed myself off the ground, ready to bolt. But as I scrambled for the bag of food, Bo shook out of his stupor and rounded on me.
“Crap.” Backing away, I left the goodies.
Someone clapped their hands behind me. “Get out of here!” they shouted. “Go on!” Whoever they were, they stomped over and over, and Bo moaned before backing away.
That voice. I knew it. Hearing it made me react before my brain caught up. I trusted that voice almost as much as I trusted myself. On some days, I trusted it more. My heart beat faster as my brain caught up with what the rest of me already knew.
“Loud noises scare them off,” the person it belonged to said. “Make some noise, Locke.”
But I couldn’t get a word out, stunned. How the hell did he get out?
Bo trotted off out of the line of trees, back into his dominion, snorting in protest.
A hand dropped in in front of my face.
“Byron,” I whispered, staring at it, wondering if I had slipped back into my dream state.
He told me he was on a cold slab somewhere. What the hell was he doing in the middle of some farmer’s property? Had he escaped? No. This was just too convenient to be believed. A cruel sick joke to torment me. I was definitely asleep. Possibly dead even. Maybe Bo had killed me and I was back in the underworld, dreaming of my eternal paradise.
But as I shook my head, tapping the side of it, thinking at any minute the dream would dissolve, Byron still stood there. When I turned, I noticed he looked different from the last time I’d seen him. While still lean with thick brown hair, he’d lost the silvery glint typical of his connection to the goddess of Wisdom and War. I preferred his natural eyes, the dark brown that I had always known before.
Back in New Orleans, he’d been new to his connection with Athena, and furious with me. Probably rightfully so because I’d gotten him into all this god mess. At the dinner table, in front of the other avatars, Byron had been so vicious that I still had nightmares about the things he had said to me. Now, though, standing in front of me, his brows drawn together, his eyes wide with alarm, he’d lost that edge of heat and fury.
“What the hell, Locke?” Byron snapped, snatching my hand and lifting me to my feet. “What are you doing here?”
I could ask him the same question. But for a moment I couldn’t speak again. Still thinking this a dream, I pinched myself, and the stinging burn told me I was wide awake.
I shrugged and smiled. “Came to rescue you.”
“Goddamn, Locke,” he chastised. “Why am I not surprised?”
I bristled at that. “You should damn well be surprised! I fought my way from the land of the dead to be here.”
I left out the part where I had been crushed under my own doubts and had to be pulled out by a jerk of an avatar from a different pantheon.
“You’re awake,” I muttered. “How did that happen? The last time I saw you, you were sleeping beauty.”
“I woke up,” he said. “I think our meeting at my house did that.”
Ahhh, so the cord telepathy thing through his love cord was real. Good to know. If my men and I were parted by my deal with the underworld again, I’d be having as much love cord sex as I could muster. Now that I knew how to wake them, I moved to sit down, ready to make contact with Rane and Mads.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, still caught up in the shock of running into him.
“I’ve been surveilling the place,” he admitted. “Finding out as much as I can to form a plan to rescue the others and destroy the group after us.”
“Not smart,” I said.
Before I could yell at him for being crazy, Byron caught me by the arm, taking me in his arms. Once I was there, evil plots and missing lovers all aside, all I wanted was to stay there. Damn him. I smelt pine and grass on him, and under that was a scent that I remembered all too well: his natural musk mixed with the crispness of old books.
“And I remember our… conversation,” he whispered, holding me tight, the kind of tight that conveyed he never wanted to let go.
“Conversation.” I snorted and pushed him in the shoulder. That wasn’t the only thing that stuck in my mind. All over again I felt him sliding in and out of my pussy, making it throb and
bring me to orgasm. “Your orders, more like it.”
He smiled, then nuzzled my neck, and a thrill skated up my spine.
“You smell incredible. What oils did you use in the underworld?”
I laughed, smacking him again. “It’s so good to see you.”
“I meant it,” he murmured, his lips against my ear. “What I said.”
My chest stung, remembering him telling me that I’d run away for the last time, and that if I did it again, we were done for good.
“I won’t run,” I whispered, leaning my head on his chest. “I promise.”
He held me tight for what seemed like an eternity, but I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to feel him, his chest, his heartbeat against my forehead, his breath on the top of my head.
But then reality wormed back into my mind like a bad memory. My mission to save the avatars. My promise to Hades. Fate of the world rah, rah and find Eros.
“Where’s Rane, Mads and everyone else?” I asked, hoping they might have escaped too.
“There’s absolutely no short answer for that,” Byron said matter-of-factly and my blood iced over. He pulled away and stepped back, examining me. “Come on. We should get back to the bunker where it’s safe. I’ll explain everything then.”
“Bunker?” I really wanted to know what the hell was going on.
“In case the base got bombed,” he said. “Every military facility has one. This one is located half a mile from main structure. There’re tunnels that lead to it.”
Oh god, we really were deep behind enemy lines. In the thick of it. “You want me to go somewhere that at any moment could be invaded and end in us kidnapped all over again?”
“The tunnels hadn’t been used in years,” he said. “And I may have used a little trick to disguise them on my way out.”
“Okay.” That still didn’t ease the rolling in my stomach.
When he next spoke, he was so brusque, I wondered if he was just steadying himself. “Let’s go. We can make it before dusk if we get going.”
I didn’t have the strength left to argue. After two days of hiking, climbing, hours of driving, and running away from a territorial bull, I was well and truly exhausted. Hunger made my stomach ache, and I’d dropped the last of my food when I’d bolted from Bo. Still, somehow, I managed to keep up with Byron as he led me deeper into the woods.