Stone Goddess (Isabella Hush Series Book 3)

by Thea Atkinson

  I liked the sound of a room designed for delicacy.

  "So where is it?" I said. "How do we get there?"

  He laughed at that question as though it was the most delicious joke and snapped his fingers. The nymphs ran in from thin air, crowding around him and pushing him back toward the sofa. The door I'd come in opened and the room flooded with naked humanness. They all rushed Pan and his entourage with a thrum of lustful excitement.

  "Well," I said, the impatience evident even to my ears.

  "Oh darling," he said, opening his arms to the throng of worshippers. "It's my concerned opinion that he will not be there." He nodded at Maddox with a sympathetic eye. "And I doubt you want to step over that portal."

  "And why is that?" Maddox said his jaw set tightly.

  Pan eyed me just before he disappeared beneath a wave of naked flesh that was transforming even as I watched into scaly, serpentine skin. The god gave a wave with a hand that sprouted talons.

  "Because it's a virgin sacrifice spectacle, dears, and you wouldn't want anyone to mistake you for an offering."

  Then he guffawed until he was smothered in flesh.

  CHAPTER 16

  I wasn't disappointed to leave Pan and his entourage behind. The last thing I wanted to remember was his transformation into a lizard to satisfy the lusts of a few reptilian shape shifters, so it suited me fine to weave down the corridor behind Maddox.

  We snaked down a long corridor lit by gas lamps and torches that illuminated frescoes painted with tangles of body and flesh. I guessed that the Vanilla door was a composite of multiple rooms, not just one expanse, and when doorways opened and closed, all but disappearing after guests entered or exited, I realized I was right.

  But the hallways themselves were a testament to the thoughtful planning. Errol had outdone himself with the details and I imagine he must have worked his magic for days to create it all.

  Either that or we'd stepped into and over dozens of portals, weaving in and out of realms with abandon and ignorance. However he'd done it, the soiree, as he called it, was large and complex. The hallways beyond the vanilla bean sign were stuffed with tables sporting toys, bars cradling drinks of all colors and the deeper we went, the more incubi emerged from the frescoed walls to tempt me with a scent or a touch. Sometimes they merely watched me, and I suspected that they were transmitting sounds just beneath level of hearing but that my body responded to without me knowing it. I certainly didn't want to think it was only sight that drugged me with that filmy gauze of desire.

  Twice Maddox had to tug at my chain as, blinded by the allure that crept back on me once I'd left Pan, I bumped into servers offering up human pets both naked and costumed.

  I couldn't help reaching out to a man dressed as a Highlander Scot. He was brawny and gorgeous and red-haired and I immediately thought of James Fraser from the Outlander books. I'd loved that man and devoured each book several times.

  I knew the angle of his jaw, the cant of his head.

  I wanted to be his Claire.

  "Leave him, Isabella," Maddox barked and slapped my hand away just as my fingers lighted on the man's ruddy-haired chest. "Eyes down I told you."

  I cringed beneath his tone but my hand lingered behind me as I was tugged further along the corridor, trying to memorize each curve of muscle.

  Maddox tugged inelegantly on his end of the chain.

  "Dammit, woman. Do I have to blindfold you?"

  I stopped short, jostling into his back as he halted abruptly in the middle of the corridor. He was already peeling off his shirt and tearing a strip from the hem. The way his muscles moved like small kittens beneath his skin made me purr teasingly but he just glared at me. The crease between his eyebrows cut into his brow.

  I saw his face loom down toward mine as he stretched out the band of material over my eyes, shutting off all but the dim light that fingered through the holes in the material.

  "How naughty," I said, feeling coy and in need of teasing the poor bugger. "Are you sure you're a virgin?"

  "If I wasn't, you'd be asking me an entirely different question," he replied.

  When he tied it off behind my head, his fingers caught in my hair and I thought I felt him tug at a lock. Maybe I heard him inhale; I couldn't be sure.

  "Did you just smell my hair?" I said.

  I caught the distinctive crack of bone on bone followed by the thud of a heavy weight landing. Something fell on my feet.

  "That was a beast with grabby hands," Maddox said. "Now, step large, Kitten. He's a big fellow."

  His voice was bright with pleasure that I guessed he enjoyed letting off a bit of steam at some poor sod's expense.

  I lifted my leg as high as I could, unsure what sort of gait would land me free of what I presumed was a monstrously sized jerk by the sound of his contact with the floor.

  I stumbled, hands out, sensing for something solid to guide me and found the harness of his back. I clung to it and had an image of us cavorting down the corridor in a limbo line.

  "I'm not sure what you're laughing at," he said. "But it's drawing too much attention."

  He pulled me to his side and the chains sang out as they mated with each other. The allure began to wane so that I could at least concentrate.

  "Better," he mumbled as though he felt the lust leave my body. "The sooner we get out of this den of iniquity, the sooner I can breathe again."

  His brief respite of pleasure fell off him the way a sheet of rain ran down a gunnel. For every step we took, I heard him beside me grumbling about the debauchery of every species no matter the world it came from as he tugged me along.

  "Doesn't the allure affect you at all," I complained, annoyed at my reactions. "I mean, you ARE a man, aren't you? Don't men love this sort of thing. Dream of it? Isn't it in every teenager's fantasies?"

  He said nothing to that, and I guessed that was as good an answer as any I could expect.

  Someone pushed past me, shoving me sideways. It was infuriating not seeing where I was going. Relying on his sight made me feel ridiculous considering I was a grown woman, and far more experienced than he was.

  "Shouldn't you be the one hiding your eyes?" I said.

  "I'm immune," he said. "You obviously are not."

  "Let me go," I said. "I can take it."

  "That's what she said," he drawled and laughed beneath his breath at the campy joke.

  "Really?" I said. "That ridiculous joke just proves how naive you are."

  "I'm a virgin, Kitten, that doesn't mean I'm inexperienced."

  "I thought it was exactly what it meant."

  In answer, I felt his fingers brush against the rise of my chest, just above the barely there bra cups. I sucked in my breath, enjoying the way the fine hairs rose to strain against his touch. For one hazy moment, there was no allure filling my nose, intoxicating my mind. It was a pinwheel of images that shuttered through my mind as though they were animation cards or slides on automatic show. No matter what the woman looked like, he was in each one of them.

  "How did you do that?" I said, remembering that something like it had happened before. The night I'd been at the museum, I'd been blasted with erotic images that included me with him and Kerri. I'd thought it was some deeply hidden rush of lust and not an intentional thing put there by someone else.

  Now I thought differently.

  "A man has to have some fun if he can't actually succumb to his desires," he said. "And I have skills. Mad skills."

  I narrowed my gaze beneath the blindfold. "Pretty skillful if you can inject dirty thoughts into my head when you've got no sense of what you're projecting."

  I felt his shrug. "I told you, I've been around." he said. "Virginity just means I haven't taken a woman to my bed or given her my chastity. It doesn't mean I'm not educated."

  I heard in the words the rest of the statement. He'd not taken a woman, but he'd touched them plenty. Maybe seen plenty if he'd been at soirees like Errol's before.

  I wondered how far he'd
allowed himself to stretch the boundary of his vows.

  "Cheater," I said.

  "I prefer to call myself a smart student."

  I was about to argue, but he paused, anchoring me to his side.

  "What's wrong?" I said, because I knew by the way his muscles had gone rigid beneath my palms that something was up.

  "They're watching us," he said against my temple, so I knew he was leaning down. A whiff of Old Spice seeped into my nostrils and coated my palate. I squirmed, trying to slip from his grasp because I found it ridiculously alluring all things considered.

  "Maybe they all know you're celibate and don't trust you," I said.

  "I am a man of my word," he said.

  "A monk in a whorehouse is about as trustworthy as a whore in church," I said.

  I tried to peer beneath the fabric where a crack of gloomy light shone through. He merely grunted his displeasure at my joke and went silent for long moments as he guided me along. It was getting downright uncomfortable dealing with his seething silence.

  "So?" I said. "Why didn't you tell me what you were when you asked for my help? Why use a fake client?"

  He sighed as he steered me to the left. "I did not use a fake client. I really do have to reclaim the stone and they really are a client."

  "Except it's not because they're paying you; it's because you have to."

  I was beginning to believe I'd been duped. "Were you ever going to pay me?"

  I felt his hand smooth down my hair to cup the back of my neck.

  "I have refrained from sex for a millenia, Isabella, despite many, many temptations," he said. "What do you think?"

  I could barely hear him over the sounds of partying all around me, and I could tell by the shift in energy that we were nearing a new spectacle. I got shoved and brushed against more often, but Maddox was careful to keep me from being man-handled again. I matched his pace as well as I could with my feet taking three steps to his one, but I could always feel him there, guiding me. I began to trust his guidance and stumbled less.

  With each step, the sounds and smells shifted.

  "That mark," I said. "It marks you as a member of this stone order?"

  "The Guardians of the Stone order; yes."

  "Does it do more than that?" I said, thinking of his ability to give back to someone the pain they'd inflicted.

  It took him a while to answer and I thought at first that we were nearing a space where he didn't want anyone to hear but the noise was so loud around us, I doubted it could be that. When he did answer, I heard in it a note of wariness.

  "The mark has its own powers," he said carefully. "But they belong to the stone. Some things are my own, earned after centuries of work, and some are bestowed. Dormant, lost, or found, those things cannot be stripped from me even if the stone ceases to exist."

  I heard the hidden meaning in those words. Celibacy, Immortality. All those things were irreversible.

  "How are you going to get me to finger the guy if my eyes are covered," I said, then laughed out loud at the pun, admittedly as ridiculous as his earlier joke.

  "I'm sure you'll find a way to shove that finger where it doesn't belong," he drawled. "It seems to be your specialty. Now, hush. We're almost there," he said.

  I snickered beneath my breath at the sound of my surname mixed with such an obviously ribald euphemism.

  "You do know you left yourself open there."

  "Juvenile," he said, but there was humor in his tone, an indulgence that wasn't there before.

  The sounds of our footfalls and the clamor of the corridor got swallowed up suddenly in something soft and lush enough to reach up over my elven boots to tremble against my ankles. My skirt swished against my legs as he spun me forward. The chains bit into my skin and I swore at the sudden discomfort.

  "Hush," he said. "I think I can see the light from the gate."

  "I think you like saying my name," I said and began humming a Beyonce song until he clamped his palm over my mouth and whispered that I should listen.

  I cocked my head to the side, trying to make out what had his attention. The low thrum of chanting broke through the veil of moans and whispered obscenities that filled the corridor. I thought I heard a feminine scream, a high pitched warbling sound that died out the way it does in horror movies: slow and stark.

  "Sweet Jesus," I said. "That can't be good."

  I had images of bloody knives and altar stones and virgins in white cascading dresses.

  "Take this damn thing off," I said, scraping the blindfold from my eyes but getting it no further than my eyelid.

  His hand touched down on mine, the warmth of his palm radiating to my face as he eased it to below my nose.

  "Just for a second," he said. "I can't risk you getting all hot for me."

  It was a joke, and I knew it, but something in his expression spread a flush across my chest, made it bloom up my neck to my cheeks. I wasn't sure why my body wanted to react to a man who was the supernatural equivalent to a priest.

  I guessed forbidden fruit had its own allure.

  "I feel ridiculous blindfolded," I complained. "I'll stand out, and not in good way." I didn't want to admit that I really wanted to see what I might be facing. Foreseen meant forewarned.

  He ran his palm down along my arm, stopping at my wrist. I thought he could feel my pulse speed up.

  "Whoever the princess is that you mentioned earlier, she couldn't have rocked that bra like you do."

  It was a compliment that flustered me, and I reacted with exactly the same amount of dignity that the costume imbued to me.

  "She's not real." I yanked the material down all the way to my from my eyes and tucked it into the left cup of my bra. "She was a character in a scifi movie."

  "Ah, that explains it," he said.

  "Explains what?"

  "What kind of man would think that getup was sexy."

  I rocked against him as someone jostled by. He grabbed for me as though he thought someone was going to make off with his pet.

  "Are you afraid?" I said. "You're acting afraid."

  "I've never been afraid," he said.

  "Tell that to the nymphs that just made you run like the devil was on your heels."

  "Maybe he was," he said.

  He halted mid-step and held me against him as someone fell against us, jostling me enough that I stumbled. I thought I smelled caramel and candy floss and then the pungent aroma of sulfur and smoke seeped along beneath it, lifting to my nostrils and smothering me.

  "What is that?" I said.

  "The sacrifice spectacle."

  Clipped and tension filled if ever a statement could be.

  "Prepare yourself," he said. "Because the hairy part just got dirty."

  CHAPTER 17

  He sucked in a breath and I felt his palms on my shoulders. Whatever he planned to say, it mattered to him. I looked up into his face.

  "Before we commit to this," he said, "I want you to know I've not been called to service in a hundred years. I didn't think it important to mention."

  Not important, meaning I was nobody. A human. A pet. He wanted to be perfectly clear what I meant to him. What he thought of me throwing myself at him. I recalled his disgust with the flat out lust of the place, and imagined he felt the same about me except he was too polite to say anything while we were working together.

  I stiffened beside him. "I understand," I said.

  "Do you?" he said. "Because you look like you don't."

  I waved my hand, getting caught up in the length of chain and I wrenched it back against my leg.

  "I'm fine," I said. "Let's just get this over with."

  There was a bit of pressure as his fingers loosened the knot from the back of my neck. My forehead butted into his chest and for one moment, I let it lay there, soaking in the feel of hard muscle and the sense of comfort and safety he gave off. It was totally inappropriate to be annoyed that the kiss we'd shared in my apartment meant nothing but hundreds of years of sexual frustr
ation and I knew I shouldn't have spared more than a passing interest in it.

  And yet it bothered me and the thought that it did was a wound I didn't expect to suffer. I watched his face as the fabric unwound from my neck but my mind started its necessary machinery, shutting down the last remnants of my feelings where they couldn't bother me anymore.

  He held me an inch away and I knew he was looking down into my face. I couldn't look at him. I could barely speak for heaven's sake. My throat ached and my eyes were burning.

  "Isabella?" he said. "Are you alright? Did I hurt you?"

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

  He knew I was lying. He had to. He thumbed a stream of liquid from my cheek, smearing it into my hairline and I twisted away from his touch.

  "What did I do?" he whispered. "I've done something."

  It was laughable and it showed exactly how experienced he was with women. A virgin indeed.

  "It wasn't anything you did," I said.

  No. Because it was all on me. I'd imagined something more in his touch, and I only just realized how much when he'd admitted what I meant to him.

  I was a means to an end.

  "Let's just do this thing," I said.

  Work was as good a balm as anything. Maybe in time, I'd be able to touch on the memory and laugh over my own sexual frustration.

  "So," I said as I surveyed the area that stretched out before us. "This is where virgins come to die."

  There was no hint of room at all. We could have been standing on the top of a mountain for all the surroundings held no hint of Errol's back room. Misshapen stone and beds of red hot coals surrounded an open pit. Sulfurous smoke rose from various pits, leaving bits of ash everywhere. I held out my hand, palm up, to catch a few flakes.

  The dull thrum of chanting rose from somewhere behind my ears, and through the smoke, shapes took form, shadowy and black at first, but becoming more clear with every waft of breeze that moved the smoke.