it to you when you leave his world. Leave here now, Empusa- but don’t remain too long in the mortal world before you go to Poseidon. Your safety depends upon it.”
He waved his hand and I was suddenly waking up, still curled in the safety of Brennan’s strong arms.
My brow was damp from anxious sweat and I impatiently pushed my hair out of my eyes. That was a strange and intriguing experience at the same time. Why had my mother sent a message through Ahmose rather than just coming herself? Something was going on- and I was sure that I wouldn’t like it if I knew what it was.
I glanced at my watch. The luminous hands said that it was just after 3:00 am. Dreamwalking always took up more time than it seemed. Brennan breathed deeply and evenly, his arms still wrapped securely around me even in sleep. I smiled and brushed his hair back with my fingers. He was boyish as he slept and I couldn’t help but stare at him.
His cheekbones were chiseled, his lashes long. He had a very Roman nose, proud and aqualine. It gave just the right amount of character to his face. His lips were soft and pink and I ached to bend and kiss them.
“So, do it then.”
I startled as he read my mind, then laughed. “You faker. I thought you were sleeping.”
He tightened his embrace around me before he answered. “I was. But I’m a very light sleeper. When you woke up, you woke me up. If you want to kiss me, just do it.”
I pulled away from him so that I was able to freely move. Running my hand along his cheek, I bent my head and kissed him lightly on the mouth. He tasted like youth and sunshine. I couldn’t help but moan into the kiss and he grabbed me again, flattening me against his chest.
“I think I’ve been waiting for you,” I murmured, stroking his collar bone.
“Really?” He eyed me. “For how long?”
“Forever,” I answered quietly. “You were made for me. I know it.”
His breathing quickened and I could hear his heart race. Cautiously, I moved backward a little bit. We couldn’t get carried away.
“No,” he growled, pulling me back to him. “I never want to be away from you again. I’ve only been alive for eighteen years, but when I am with you, I feel ageless… and I start regretting all of the years that you’ve lived without me. I’m jealous of time itself, because it was with you when I wasn’t.”
“Silly mortal,” I laughed. “You’re jealous of time? Don’t be. Time is nothing. We can bend it to our will, laugh at it, stomp on it. You’ll see- once this is over and we ask Zeus for your immortality… you’ll see. Time will fall away.”
“What will happen,” Brennan began, “If something happens to me before that? Will I die like a mortal?”
It felt like my stomach was wrapped in a vise grip at his words and I gasped. “Don’t even say that. Nothing will happen to you. I won’t allow it. And besides, demi’s are harder to injure or kill than a mortal. It would take a lot to hurt you.”
He nodded. “I’m not worried, simply curious. And slightly uncomfortable having my girlfriend protect my life. I need to learn some skills before my manhood gets sucked away.”
I laughed again. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, you’ve got plenty of ‘manhood.’ But you’re right. You need skills. We’ll work on them again in the morning. Well, later in the morning.”
He chuckled and we snuggled even more closely together. I closed my eyes once again. It didn’t matter what we had to face in order to get this curse reversed or to get Zeus to grant Brennan immortality. I would do anything.
* * *
We stood on the top arch of the Gryphon roller coaster hundreds of feet above the ground. We were so high up that the birds sitting below us on the fairway looked like tiny specks. The wind whipped wildly around us and we constantly had to re-balance ourselves on the steel track so that we didn’t fall.
“Why again, are we up here?” Brennan shouted to me as he balanced precariously on the edge. He almost slipped, then righted himself.
“Because you need an incentive. You need to move us from here to the ground so that we don’t fall to our deaths.”
“You won’t die,” he growled.
“True,” I answered cheerfully. “So move us to the ground before you fall to your death.”
He glared at me for a moment, before his brow furrowed in concentration. Far below us, dead leaves rattled as they blew along the ground. Another wind gust buckled my knees and I swayed to combat it, reaching out to hold onto Brennan. There was no way in hell that I would let him fall, but I wasn’t going to announce that. He needed this.
Brennan’s brow remained furrowed for a few minutes longer, then he scowled. “It’s not happening. I’m never going to be able to do it!”
He opened his eyes as we teetered on the thick orange rolled bars of the coaster’s track. I wasn’t scared of heights, but being up here in the wind without anything to hold onto but each other was even making me feel queasy.
“Just put us on the ground,” he urged. “I can practice down there just as easily.”
“No, you can’t,” I answered calmly, swerving into him as the wind blew sharply once more. I readjusted my footing and glancing away from him, I stared at the lake. We could see for miles across it from here, as well as every inch of the amusement park. It seemed so eerie when no one was here.
“Focus. Picture exactly where you want us to be, focus on every minute detail of it. Picture your limbs fading from here…and it will happen.”
His forehead scrunched again as the wind blew his hair away from his face. Long minutes passed and sweat formed on his brow from his heavy concentration.
“You can do it,” I urged quietly, clutching his forearm tightly in the wind.
He opened his eyes. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
I sighed and reached for him. But as I did, I lost my footing. I barely had time to scream before I was suddenly on the ground, scooped into Brennan’s arms.
“What the…” my voice trailed off as I gazed up at him.
“I guess you did give me the incentive,” he mused.
“I didn’t do that on purpose,” I insisted, tightening my grasp around his neck.
“Whatever you say,” he grinned.
“I didn’t. But what a nice result. You saved me from falling and you moved us! Do it again! Put me down and transport yourself somewhere.”
Obligingly, he set me gently down and scrunched his eyes closed. A muscle in his cheek ticked with concentration and within a minute, he was gone. Whirling around, I found him standing on the roof of a nearby maintenance building, grinning like crazy.
I clapped in appreciation and he bowed. Before I could blink, he was standing next to me once again.
“Show off,” I laughed.
“You were right,” he admitted. “It was easy once I broke through my own mental block. I feel like I could do anything right now.”
“You practically can,” I pointed out. “You don’t even know the half of it yet. And I can’t wait to show you.”
“So show me,” he commanded, reaching out to pull me to him. I backed out of his reach.
“I can’t just now,” I told him, watching in amusement as he glared at me. “We have someplace that we need to go first. I can show you the other things as we go along.”
“Where are we going?” he asked curiously. Once again, he didn’t seem nervous in the slightest. He trusted me and that knowledge warmed me from the core of my heart to the tips of my toes.
“Oh, we’re going someplace interesting,” I answered, as vaguely as I could.
He raised an eyebrow. “Such as? What’s the zip code?”
“Where we’re going doesn’t have a zip code,” I answered with a smile. “Can you swim?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Of course. Why?”
“Because we’re going to pay a visit to Poseidon.”
Chapter Nine
We stood with our toes hanging over the white fiberglass hull of a boat that I had conjured from
thin air. The blue sparkling waters of the Aegean Sea rocked us gently and Brennan turned to me.
“You can’t be serious?”
We were so far out to sea that even the sea gulls couldn’t find us and I smiled.
“Dead serious. We have to jump in and start swimming, then I can transport us to Poseidon’s gates. But we have to jump in first. It’s just the way it is. Why? Are you scared?”
He scowled. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous. Why would I be afraid of jumping into the middle of the ocean without a wetsuit or oxygen tank?” he asked teasingly. “It just seems silly that you can’t just deliver us into his city without getting all wet, that’s all.”
“Are you so sweet that you’re going to melt?” I asked saucily. “Because I really don’t think that is a concern.”
He laughed, wiggling his toes.
“Tell me more about Poseidon before we go. What’s he like?”
I pictured Poseidon’s solemn, stark face in my mind. “He’s… um… stern.”
“Stern?” Brennan raised a golden eyebrow. “Stern as in unfriendly?”
“Stern as in… sort of rigid. He’s very fair with almost all things except for women. He seems to enjoy… shall we say, taking women by force.”
Brennan’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously? Poseidon enjoys raping women?”
I shrugged. “Apparently. But I’m not worried about myself. My mother would never send me to him without procuring my safety first.”
“You’re certain?”
“Of course not. But I know my mother would die to protect me. She would never send me to him without brokering a deal for my complete safety. I know that.”
Brennan didn’t look thoroughly convinced, so I grasped his arm and squeezed it gently.
“It will be fine, I promise.”
He gave me a wry look. “You can’t promise me that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Quit being such a girl. We’ll do what we have to do. Do you want to be together?”
He nodded. “Of course I do. And I’m not being a girl. I’m just worried about you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“Then we’ll have to trust my mother and just do this. We can handle whatever comes. Do you trust that?”
He studied me quietly, his hazel eyes flashing liquid gold against the azure backdrop of the sky. “Yes. And I will go with you anywhere.”
“I know,” I smiled. Catching him off guard, I gave him a shove and he went flying into the sea. Within a few seconds, he re-emerged from the surface, sputtering.
“I can’t believe you just did that!” he shouted, shaking the water from his hair as he tread water.
“Why not?” I laughed. “You already told me that you can swim and that you would go with me anywhere. I thought that was permission.”
Before I could blink, he was standing beside me once again, dripping water onto the boat deck in fat droplets.
“And you already taught me to teleport,” he reminded me laughingly, scooping me into his arms and tossing me. I sprawled into the air and then landed clumsily into the water, sinking into the dark blue depths. From under here, the boat above looked like a massive white whale. I kicked away from it and emerged a few yards away.
“Nice,” I commended him. “I’ll have to keep in mind that you’re a tricky one.”
He dove cleanly into the water and I stared nervously around me, waiting for him to appear. He grabbed my legs before I could locate him and pulled me under.
As I slid beneath the surface, his hands glided smoothly along the length of my leg, stopping at my hips. He pulled me to him under water, the length of his body hard and warm. I clung to his neck, staring into his eyes. Here, in the tranquil, underwater abyss, we felt like the only two people in the world. But we weren’t. And as my oxygen ran out, reality called.
Kicking to the surface, I pulled him by the hand and we emerged together, bobbing in the blue water.
“As much as I’d like to play all day, we have things to do,” I reminded him.
“Spoil sport,” he muttered, trying to pull me to him again. I almost relented, just for a minute. The sensation of his strong hands on my wet body was tantalizing, to say the least. But I knew it wasn’t smart to get distracted right now. Too much was at stake. If all went well, we would have forever to play.
“Let’s go,” I urged him, tugging his hand. “Take a deep breath. We’re going to swim downward and I’ll hopefully get us transported to Poseidon’s gates.”
“Hopefully?” Brennan repeated doubtfully.
“Probably,” I revised. “I’ve never actually been there before. But I think I can do it.”
“That’s confidence inspiring,” Brennan grinned, grasping my hand. “Well, I have faith in you. So, let’s do it.”
“Ready?”
He nodded and we both took a deep breath and dove beneath the sparkling surface. We swam down, down, down and I concentrated on Poseidon’s gates. It was a feat harder than it sounded since I had never actually seen them. But the essence of the thought must have been enough because a scant moment later, we were standing on dry land in front of enormously tall glittering golden gates.
Brennan and I both stared at them for a moment and then each other. We were standing on sand beneath the water, but we were perfectly dry. Not one drop of water was on either of us. It was as though we’d never been in the water at all, as though the sea wasn’t all around us.
“What the hell?” Brennan breathed.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I’ve never been here before.”
He looked up at the dark blue sea above us. “It’s like we’re inside a bubble,” he observed. “The water is all around us, but it can’t close in on us.”
I nodded. “I’m guessing that this gate is enchanted. It’s probably a portal. Once we enter it, we’ll be in an entirely different world.”
I could see Brennan swallow, but he didn’t voice his hesitation. Instead, he grasped my hand once again. “Well, what are we waiting for?”
“Nothing,” I answered, reaching out with a shaky hand to push at the gates. Nothing happened. The cold golden bars remained rigidly closed.
“Hell,” I muttered. “How do we get in?”
“Don’t look at me,” Brennan quipped, his hands splayed open at his sides. “I’m the newbie here.”
I rolled my eyes and pondered our situation. There was a keyhole in the large golden door-handle, but I didn’t have a key. I sighed, but as I did, I recognized a pounding sound coming from somewhere. Brennan and I both turned to find the source of the noise.
A huge gray stallion thundered toward us from the distance, its black mane and tail streaming into the wind behind it as it tossed its head proudly. Something hung from its mouth and as it drew closer, I saw that it was a key.
“Is that…”Brennan murmured.
“Yes. It’s a key,” I confirmed.
“Unbelievable,” he shook his head.
“Get used to it,” I instructed. “Things are different in the world of the gods. You’ve only just begun.”
He shook his head again, but he didn’t have time to say anything. The horse had reached us and knelt onto one front knee so that I could take the key from its mouth. Its eyes were large and wild and I was slightly nervous to reach so close to its enormous teeth. But I did and he didn’t hurt me.
Inserting the key into the massive lock, I turned it and the doors swung open.
“Welcome to my home.”
The words came from behind and I spun to find Poseidon himself standing where the horse had just been. I felt like smacking myself. Of course- one of his symbols was the horse. I should have known it was him. His face was sharp and fierce, his hair a sandy blonde. Like most of the Olympians, he had silver eyes and they glittered now.
I dipped my head in deference.
“Poseidon. Thank you for having us.”
Poseidon eyed me up and down, his gaze sliding from my legs, to my breasts and finally
to my face.
“Oh, I’d like to have you,” he confirmed. “But I promised your mother that I would not. And as you know, she is a formidable woman.”
I felt like smirking. I knew my mother had secured my safety. I could feel Brennan’s incredulous stare on my back, but I didn’t turn around.
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