Awakened Love

by Skyler Andra

  Trailing beside him, I noticed how he moved with a strange ease, strong and fit, like he’d been hiking on his days off. It occurred to me that something about this suited him just as well as being an instructor at the university. The bolster given to him by Athena’s powers gave me the impression he was as confidant moving through enemy territory as he was in front of undergrads, and I couldn’t tell if that made me happy or sad.

  Twenty minutes later we came to a stop in the middle of a more thickly wooded area than before. Byron cleared some brush away from the ground, revealing a steel door. He opened it, and I glanced at the long ladder leading down into darkness.

  “No way,” I breathed. “How in the world did you find this place?”

  “This bunker was forgotten,” he explained. “But Athena remembered. The base where the others are being kept is another mile north.”

  He nodded towards the hatch, and after taking a deep breath I started down the ladder. The steel rungs were icy against my hands, and I almost slipped on them because of my crappy no sole grip sandals. The descent lasted a good minute or two, telling me the bunker was buried deep. Finally, when my left foot hit cement, relief washed through me. When Byron reached the bottom, he flicked a light switch on that flooded the area with an eerie red light.

  “Homey,” I said flatly, examining all the concrete walls, steel beams, pipes and cables running everywhere.

  “It gets better.” Byron smiled. “This way.”

  To my surprise, he took me by the hand and my palm tingled. It didn’t matter that we were essentially behind enemy lines or close enough that there was so much trouble on the horizon that it rattled my nerves. For the moment we were together again, and things were going back to what they should have been.

  At the end of the tunnel, he switched on a normal fluorescent light to reveal something that looked like a community rec center. Tables and chairs set up in rows, one covered with maps and schematics, a small kitchenette off to one side, a shelf of tattered books and a stack of games to the other.

  “You’ve been here a while,” I observe, picking up the plans to try to read them. But let’s face it, I was no map reading genius, and I couldn’t tell up from down.

  “A few days,” he said. “Those are the plans of the base.”

  “Convenient,” I huffed.

  “I stole them on my way out, thank you very much.”

  Before I could respond, he silenced any further sarcasm from me with a long and deep kiss.

  When Byron broke free, I said, “Tell me what happened.”

  He sat me down at the table, taking up a position next to me. “I still don’t know.”

  When I gave him a look that told him that would not suffice as an explanation, he sighed.

  “The last thing I remember,” he began, “is the house in Louisiana. Do you remember that?”

  I did. It was where the men in black had shown up and made off with half of the avatars. They’d been on the verge of capturing me too when I killed two of them.

  “Rane and I fought to free Ophelia and Tara,” he said. “One of the soldiers stabbed me with a knife laced with brown powder that put me to sleep. Then I only remember flashes of things. Sensations of traveling, being some place deep underground.”

  Memories from a month earlier rose in my mind. “Those were the catacombs in Paris. That’s where Rane, Mads, and I went looking for the rest of you.”

  Byron clasped his hands, settling his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his fists. “Hmm. Makes sense. Still, I was sinking deeper into this sleep that I knew I had to fight. Asleep, it was like being in a zero-gravity environment, and I had no idea which way was up, or how to break free. Then… you came to me in a dream.”

  “Real dreams,” I offered, “where we were talking, and it wasn’t just your brain coming up with a version of me to talk to.”

  “Yes!” he exclaimed. “There was no sense to it, but those dreams gave me direction, a better understanding of what was happening. Somehow they forced me awake because now I knew which way was real. This may not make much sense. I’m describing something that should be impossible.”

  Oh, I got it. None of this godly business made any sense, but it had to be related to our inherent powers. “Totally unlike any other thing that has been happening to us lately?” I offered with a raised brow.

  “Good point.” Byron nudged me with his shoulder. “Anyway, I woke up in the facility that used to be a military base, and it was commandeered by the same assholes who kidnapped us out of Boise. At least, I hope they’re the same assholes. They’re not soldiers. Not from what I can tell.”

  This was news to me. They all had guns and knew how to use them, so I’d always assumed they were soldiers. Guns for hire maybe? But I’d take Byron’s word for it. He studied historical warfare and knew his way around these types of things.

  “I really don’t like the idea of an exceedingly well-funded organization having it out for us.”

  Regardless of who they were, they had plenty of resources, plenty of goons, and the technology to block out the avatar’s connections to their patrons. On top of that, they could also overpower gods walking on Earth. That was not something to be reckoned with.

  Chapter 10

  Locke

  “I woke up in what looked like a dormitory,” Byron admitted. “I’d been hooked up to some kind of breathing tube, and when I tore it out, my brain kicked into survival mode even though the drugs coursing in my blood disoriented me.”

  God, how terrifying. I don’t know what I would have done in his position. Byron was always better equipped to handle stressful situations than me. I just curled up in a ball and cried like a big sissy.

  He sighed, burying his face in his hands. Something told me his heart was heavy with regret and grief.

  I swiveled on the bench to lean my body against him, my head on his shoulder. “Do you seriously think I’m going to judge you for whatever comes next? You were literally kidnapped and drugged by an evil organization.”

  “You might,” he said, rubbing his face. “The others were sleeping on the beds around me. The twins to my left, Ophelia and Connor on my right, and Rane and Mads on the opposite side of the room. Just as I was putting all of that together, I heard people coming down the hall.”

  The twins, blonde and gorgeous teenagers, name Lucy and Victor respectively, were the avatars of Artemis and Apollo. Snarky as hell, but oh so young, I’d met the little snots at the dinner in Louisiana. Pity threaded through my chest for them, thinking how terrifying it must have been to bear the weight of a god before they even graduated high school.

  “So, what did you do?” I prodded Byron, wanting to know every little detail no matter how much it hurt like a blade to the heart to know Mads and Rane remained captive.

  “I grabbed the apparatuses keeping the twins asleep,” he went on, staring off into space, his hands shaking. “And tore them out. It took them a moment to wake up. Meanwhile, I ducked behind the door before the men entered the room. Pure chaos erupted, avatars screaming, people being hurled across the room, men rushing into the around trying to figure out what had happened.”

  He stopped, his shoulders curling forward.

  I bit my lip while rubbing his back, waiting for him to finish.

  “In all the confusion, I ducked out.” Byron shook his head. “If I had stayed to fight, the three of us would have just been put right back where we’d been. I snuck out while the men wrestled to sedate the twins. I’m not fucking proud of leaving them behind.” The strain in his voice was enough to tear me in two. “I fucking used them as a distraction.”

  He stood up, roughly picking up a chair before throwing it.

  I flinched as it hit the wall, bounced off it, and clattered on the floor.

  “Do you want me to tell you that what you did was okay?” I asked helplessly, not knowing what to do or so to make it any easier on him. Clearly his actions ate him up already. No use rubbing it in.

 
Byron’s mouth twisted up a little as he paced the length of the table. “I’m not a child who needs absolution. I know very well what I did.”

  “What you did wasn’t okay,” I said, giving him the plain old, honest Locke Casey truth, hard as it was to swallow. “But you’ll make it okay, won’t you?”

  He stilled, looking at me, his expression unreadable.

  I stood, approaching him slowly, as if he were a frightened alley cat with a hurt leg that needed a vet. “Look, you did it because you had to do it. If you had said fuck it and just left them behind then you’d have been an asshole. But you didn’t, did you? You’re still here, trying to save everyone.”

  Byron nodded stiffly, as if it pained him to have his motivations revealed, so I let it go.

  “Hey, does this bunker have some food, a bed and a good shower?” I asked. “I’m filthy for the second time today after battling Bo the bull.”

  For one brief and glorious moment, I remembered what we’d done together the last time we’d shared a shower… hell, of what we’d done in our little rendezvous in the love cord connection thing. A gleaming memory in a time when everything felt dark and bloody.

  Byron bit his lip, looking at the ground, and it didn’t take having the powers of a love god to know that he was thinking of it too.

  “This way,” he said, directing me towards the steel shower in the back of the bunker, with a far more comfortable space than the makeshift shower I’d had this afternoon, and far wider than the bunker should have allowed.

  I wondered what it would be like if I asked him to stay, to see the water running down his body, to kiss him and to taste him. Right at that moment, I needed to touch him, feel him inside of me, and I felt like I might die if I didn’t. But maybe now wasn’t the right time with his thoughts caught up in his grief. If only I could kiss away that pain, even for a few minutes.

  Byron backed away hurriedly, closing the door behind him, and I sighed, leaning against the wall. Even thinking about it was ridiculous. We were here on a life-or-death matter and he likely had all sorts of things on his mind that didn’t include having sex with me.

  I showered, taking my time, which allowed me the freedom to absorb everything he’d said. In the end I was no closer to any answers. All I knew was that there was a deep craving that pulled Byron and me together, that made us long for each other in a way that defied everything else in the world. My godly powers told me so.

  When I stepped out of the shower, I found the pile of filthy clothes I’d left on the floor and wrapped a towel tightly around my body.

  “Byron, I don’t suppose the magical bunker has any clothes for me, does it?” I called out.

  As if he’d already thought about it, he entered, carrying me a change of clothes: army greens, grey shorts, socks, no underwear. Guess I could handle going commando for a little while. Hopefully we’d have the avatars out of this ghost town by tomorrow.

  I accepted the offering from Byron, but he remained standing so close, waiting for me. His breath fanned across my brow, the heat from his skin warming me, desire pulsing in his eyes.

  “Byron?” I voiced quietly.

  He didn’t say anything. Normally he had the right answer for every question, but right now, it seemed as if he were at a loss, almost as if he were afraid of what words might spill past his lips. Suddenly, he drew me into his arms. Then, tilting my head back, he kissed me. I knew in a heartbeat that it was a kiss that I would remember forever. Starting out shy, almost diffident, but in a matter of seconds, it warmed up, reminding us both what we had meant to each other, what we could still be to one another if we only allowed ourselves to remember. If I stayed and didn’t run away.

  Remember, the kiss seemed to say, and boy did I ever. It lingered on my lips for long after we were done.

  Byron held me tighter, as if he were afraid to let me go. This was the man who had been in my life since before all the god business. Whose own past held things he had never wanted to show me in fear it might cast such shadows over me. In some strange way that I was only just beginning to understand, we belonged to each other no matter who else I loved, whom else I touched. The dream of him, Rane and Mads all rooming together confirmed this. At the bottom of it, I suspected, I would always belong to Byron, and this kiss reminded me of that.

  Strong fingers pushed into my wet hair, pulling my head back and baring my neck to him. His teeth nibbled between licks, barely holding back, tasting me when I knew he wanted to devour me.

  I dug my nails into his shoulders, not stopping until I heard him cry out softly.

  “More,” I whispered. “I want more than that.”

  A deep and golden warmth pooled inside me, and I knew it was more than the need that Byron and I had for each other. It swept over me as if it were enclosing me in a gorgeous sparkling light, and when I opened my eyes, a deep and abiding need rested at my core.

  “What do you want?” Byron whispered urgently. “Dear God, I want to give it to you.”

  That’s what his mouth said to me. His cord begged me to stay and never leave—to be his forever. To love and acknowledge him in the way his parents never had… no, not in a creepy motherly way, but in a heart’s true desire way. It broke my heart to peek into his soul without his permission, but I couldn’t help it. While Rane hid his darkest secrets from me, and I promised not to look, Byron’s cord practically shouted them at me.

  I stretched up on my tiptoes to whisper in Byron’s ear. “Take me to bed.”

  With a soft groan, he scooped me up in his arms. He was dressed only in a paper-thin T-shirt and camouflage pants. The quiver in his taut muscles told me how much he wanted me. Already his cock thickened for me, pressing between us as he carried me to the rear of the bunker, where through a narrow door was a series of bunk beds. Something about those beds being old, long and empty made me shiver, and he laughed.

  In my soul I knew that no matter what I wanted, he would give it to me, and he smiled as I rocked restlessly against his body. Grinning, he set me down on my back on the nearest bed. It was so narrow that we had to lie on our sides, pressed close. I tried reaching for him, but he kept me pinned in place with ease.

  “Let me touch you,” I gasped.

  He laughed in a way that teased me. “Why should I?”

  I smiled back. Byron liked to be in charge in the bedroom. But tonight, I wanted something different and I might have to charm him into submitting. I needed him, and that was my source of strength.

  “Because I want to,” I insisted, power lacing through my words.

  “What do you want me to do for you, princess?” he murmured, peeling the towel away from my body. I’d never heard a nickname so sexy as when he whispered that in my ear.

  “I want you.” And that was all he needed to know for the moment.

  “I’m here,” he said. “I’m yours.”

  He knelt beside the bed, and I reached out leisurely to tangle my fingers in his hair, getting lost in the haze in his awed and completely perfect eyes.

  “Good,” I murmured. “Because I don’t let go of things that are mine. Not ever.”

  He shuddered at my words, pressing closer to me. His shoulder twitched as if he wanted to pull me into his arms, but I wasn’t ready to let him go so easily, to fall back under his command. I took my time, making him wait, clasping his face gently between my two hands, holding him in place as I kissed him. At this, he made a soft sound against my lips that was utterly delicious. The naughty boy tried to deepen the kiss before I was ready, so I gave his hair a quick tug. I pulled back just in time to see a flash of silver go through his eyes. Instead of scaring me or making me self-conscious, it only made me grin a little more.

  “She doesn’t like me, does she?” I asked.

  Byron hesitated. “It’s complicated.”

  A laugh resonated deep in my throat. “Is it complicated because she wants me too?”

  This time the flash of silver was more pronounced, but I saw Byron fight back until it on
ly he remained.

  “Don’t taunt her,” he said, trying to kiss me again, but I pulled back.

  “Spoil sport.”

  “I’ll share a lot,” he said by way of explanation, “but I don’t want to share this.”

  I laughed softly at him, and in reward, I tugged his head down for another kiss. It was impossible to forget how good Byron felt, the hardness of his muscles, the warmth of his skin, the slickness of his lips on mine. Despite the utterly terrible circumstances we found ourselves in, there was something utterly perfect about this moment, him, us.

  With a gentle tug to his hair, I pulled him on top of me. It should have been irritating that he wasn’t as naked as I was, but something in me liked the difference, loved the pleasure of being completely nude while he was still confined by his clothing. That way I could undress him the way I liked.

  I brushed his hand aside when he touched me as I reached down and grabbed his cock. He welcomed that with a groan and bent his head back. I tucked my head against his shoulder and ran my hand lightly along the shaft a few times. Doing so gave me a thrill of ownership, asserting my rights over something that should have been mine in the first place.

  Byron gasped when I closed my fingers around his cock, stroking it firmly, sparking a dribble of pre-cum out the tip. My hands glided with his wetness, making my heart beat even faster.

  “Mine,” I growled with an edge of possessiveness, something a little darker than I’d intended.

  Byron watched me with dark eyes. “Of course I’m yours,” he said.

  My pulse stormed through me at his magical words. The sky was blue, the ocean was wide, and he belonged to me. I pulled him in for another kiss, one where I wanted as much of me pressed against him as I could get.

  He was wrapped around me as if I were the only important thing in the world, and every time he groaned I stroked him, stoking the desire inside me. I didn’t care any longer if it was something that the gods had put in me or in him. All that mattered in the world now was me and Byron.