A Spartan's Kiss (20 page)

“Tabithia, be still. I sense an animal ahead. Aiden, perhaps.”

Animal? She didn’t think so. Now she had got her first smell of the beast, she could sense a great deal more. It was almost like someone had opened a door to reveal something evil waiting for them. She couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but whatever lay ahead of them was wild, wild and desperate, though it wasn’t a mere animal. It was something altogether more cunning.
Evil
. Its essence swirled up the tunnel and sent a wave of unease through the jungle she could feel even beneath layers of rock. Was this the presence causing Dare to hold her silence?

She hoped not. She pulled loose her favourite knife and started out again with it clenched in her fist. Two inches forward and Aeros moved his hand to her hip. If he moved his big hand just a smidge lower? He’d be cupping her ass. Like before.

“Tabithia, I don’t want you using that.”

“I might have to. Whatever is down there isn’t natural.”

“All the more reason to let me go first, baby.”

‘Baby’.
Goddess that was cruel. She liked him calling her that.

“I’ll go in first, I think we’re close to the end of this tunnel. If so, I’ll go first, light up the place and you can drop in. Deal?”

He reached up and caught her arm, holding her still and meeting her eyes in the dimness of the cave. “No, it could be simply there, waiting. I’ll be first this time. This creature is an animal, not magic, not in need of your spells. And most definitely not that knife.”

Well, he sounded determined.

“Listen, Spartan, I can—”

“You can let me protect you. You will do as I say, Tabithia. Now, put your knife away, and remember I go down first once we move out of this damn sardine can.”

A low growl erupted as soon as Aeros paused for breath. The hand on her arm stopped moving in a subtle caress, and tightened on her flesh.

Holy shit.

Aeros narrowed his eyes in a no-nonsense look. The captain of the Spartans certainly liked to take charge.

An image of him pinning her down and driving into her while she began to orgasm filled her silly head. She blinked and felt the heat hit her face.

“Tabithia—”

“Okaaaay. I’ll just hang back. You just let me know if you need the little witch to wave her wand, ‘kay?”

His grin really shouldn’t make her want to cup his face and kiss him, but yep, the tantalising thought filtered through her brain before she swatted it aside. He must have felt the same because suddenly he ducked his head and kissed her, hard and fast. Just as quick, he ended the kiss, saying, “Good. Now get moving.”

Geesh. Orders. He loved to dish them out. Still, she moved, not exactly certain she did so because he’d said or not. She had sheathed her knife again, though, and, damn it, she couldn’t remember doing that!

The stench grew worse the farther down they moved. It was overwhelming. If someone had taken rotten corpses and dumped them in the humid jungle and left them to decay, it couldn’t have smelt as bad as what met them as they continued on.

“Shit, I hate you being in this, Tabithia.”

“Uh, trust me, I hate it too. Gah, what is that smell?”

“It’s going to get worse.”

“Yeah, thanks for that but”—she broke off when her knee snagged another painful rock—“move faster. We need to fetch and carry the hell out of here.”

Aeros rumbled a deep laugh, but gripped her forearm tightly to halt her again. “Stay close, Tabithia. Let me take whatever waits, then we can find the godhead.”

Her eyes watered from the overwhelming odour. Aeros sounded indifferent, but she gagged when it filled her mouth with nasty. The end loomed ahead of them like a lighter patch of darkness in the otherwise dim, almost black world they moved through. If only there was a no-smell spell. She giggled but caught herself and swallowed the sound before the captain heard her.

One low whisper and her illumination spell slowly filled the darkness. Aeros laid his hand on her shoulder, squeezing once. She knew the gesture was simply a reminder to follow his orders, but she still got a tiny thrill out of his big hand on her.

The passage began to ease slowly downward, forcing them into an awkward position, but the decline was helpful in speeding things up. She didn’t want to face whatever was down there while jammed in tight in a dirt tunnel.

She only hoped she could find an alternative way out of this mess once they had Dare. Once she had Dare. The thought sucked.

She pressed her fingers to the warm rock along the left and suddenly felt the edge. She stepped cautiously forward and still met nothing. Immediately she stopped and reached back to squeeze Aeros by the hand. To her surprise, he threaded his fingers through hers firmly.

“We’re at the end of the tunnel. I’ll flood the space with light, maybe blind the thing, but close your eyes tight at first or we will be as well.”

"Right, on the count of three," Aeros whispered, trusting her so completely she felt a surge of guilt hit her chest.

"Right, you count," she managed to choke out past the stupid lump in her throat.

"One, two," he squeezed her hand once more and let her go and whispered, "three."

Now the real fun began, or the real pain—she wasn’t sure. She drew her power around her like a cloak. With her spell, she illuminated the space in front of them with enough brightness that anything living down below would hopefully be blinded. After a few seconds she grabbed Aeros’ hand again and squeezed. She dimmed her light back to normal and glimpsed a huge cave littered with bones and what looked like sheepskins, but nothing else. Dropping down the two feet to the cave floor, she quickly positioned herself with her back against the wall and watched Aeros practically launch himself from the tunnel like a cannonball.

He took just an instant to survey the cave, but she’d bet her true name he’d memorised every inch of the creature’s den.

At least the smell made sense now. Fresh carcasses of sheep and some other nasty beasts were piled up against the far wall, flies buzzing angrily around them. Where the hell did the creature get sheep?

“This is not good.”

Aeros backed up next to her and gripped her upper arm and squeezed. His strength reassured her. He looked invincible. Dressed in his dark fatigues, his machete out, he looked like some Greek god come down to earth to fight in a twenty-first century battle.

Oh, yeah, he nearly was.

The machete just added to the barbaric look of him.

A deep, grotesque growl brought her focus back. Aeros broadened his stance and positioned himself in front of her.

She sidestepped so they were next to each other and immediately wished she hadn’t.

Facing them was a creature the size of a medium bear, with yellow, reptilian spines rising from its back like a spiked mane. The beast lowered its broad head and a long tail like a cat’s rose straight up behind it. In fact, the animal looked a hell of a lot like a scalded cat. An immensely pissed off, ugly-as-hell scalded cat with a bear’s head and a reptile’s eyes and spines.

Holy Three protect them. What was it?

Fangs yellowed with age and red with fresh blood reminded her of a vampire’s two sharp canines, but bigger, way bigger. Red eyes, bright and glowing, watched them, reflecting a cunning intelligence she just knew was sizing them up.

“Holy Hecate.”

“Get back, Tabithia.”

She sidestepped to give Aeros more room, but prepared herself for the battle. Where in all this was Dare?

Ten feet away and across from them, she spotted the chalice on a small shelf of rock, almost looking like it sat at the centre of an altar of bones and odd-looking designs. Designs painted on the rock with blood. Her head spun with the implications of what she saw. This creature wasn’t from this plane, not even from this world, she was guessing. Evil radiated from the spells covering the wall surrounding Dare. The spells would need to be broken before she could even hope to gain the chalice, let alone free Dare.

Eyes back on the dangerous creature, she nudged Aeros’ leg with her boot. He shot her an angry look, but followed her gaze to the chalice. His frown deepened at what he saw. He glanced down at her and nodded tightly.

“You can free her?”

“Yes.” She hoped.

“You free her. I will deal with the demon.”

Demon? She didn’t think so, but what did she know?

Aeros didn’t wait. He knocked the creature away with a powerful kick and turned, carefully positioned her so her back was to the wall, and turned to face the creature, his big body once again blocking her. Protecting her. He gave her a firm look over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes.

“Tabithia, do not—”

“Don’t say it! I swear, if you order me, I will never forgive you.”

He snapped his mouth shut like she’d shocked him with her screech—she probably had—and gave her an incredulous look. He opened his mouth to say more.

“Look out!”she yelled.

He spun in time to almost take the thing’s head off. Machete low, he kept the creature as far from her as he could while he manoeuvred the monster away from the chalice.

He was magnificent. Clearly, this man was created for battle. Every move he made seemed easy. His blade blurred. Jumping over a sheep’s corpse, he backtracked quickly and stabbed the creature twice in the gut. The thing reared up on its hind legs and roared at him. Disgusting spittle hung from its immense jaw as it shook its head almost directly in Aeros’ face. Aeros stood his ground and before the creature had even finished bellowing, Aeros stabbed it with his machete right in the throat. The monster staggered back with a whine but struck out at Aeros with a huge claw. Aeros ducked under its arm and jumped back from the next stroke of razor claws.

Upright, the monster stood taller than Aeros by at least three feet. With a nasty snarl, it drew back a paw the size of a dinner plate and swiped at Aeros again.

Seriously, Aeros was going to give her a heart attack. She looked for a way to help, but Aeros seemed to sense her thoughts and shifted in front of her again, exposing more of his side to the creature than she liked.

The creature attacked again, going at Aeros’ exposed side, head down and jaws snapping. Aeros lost his balance, catching himself with a shoulder to the side of the cave wall and barely avoiding having the monster bite his stomach out.

Enough of standing on the sidelines. Centring her mind, Tabithia reached for the jungle’s power. Strength surged through her, swelling with her fear to an impossible level. The pressure built. She clenched her jaw and drew more. This was no ordinary jungle animal. No animal could survive what Aeros was dishing out. She needed a spell to kill, and killing with magic wasn’t as easy as killing with her blades.

In front of her, Aeros went down on a knee in the goo and her concentration slipped. Her heart raced so badly it hurt, but with a boatload of cursing, he avoided another snarly attack by tossing the creature over his shoulder and onto its back.

Fighting for control of the power flooding her, Tabithia reached out and jerked him by the back of his T-shirt until he stood. As soon as he reached his feet, she hit the beast with a spell hard enough to topple a herd of rhino.

The thing barely paused.

Shocked, she watched as it reached up with a big claw and swiped at its head—trying to clear away her spell she assumed. Tossing its head, it then tried to break their eardrums with an appalling roar. Immediately, it went after Aeros again.

“What the hell?” Tabithia used her flow to blast again, this time spelling a lightning strike to the chest.

Snarling, it flew backward and landed in a pile of fur near the wall where the chalice stood. Damn it! She wanted the monster away from the chalice, not nearer to it.
Think, Tabithia, think!

One hard shake of its head, and it met her eyes. She swore it grew bigger as their gazes locked. A sickly light filled its eyes, turning them from red to a silvery pale.

Holy Bridget. Think, Tabithia
. She focused on the chalice, and the bloody spells she sensed binding Dare to the altar. She hit again, this time with enough juice to knock out all the power in LA. At first nothing happened but, as she watched, the spells began to smoke, the blood the creature had used melting from the rock. The stench was almost worse than the massive amount of foulness filling the lair. She called wind and blew the nasty out and away. The creature shrieked, but she kept her spell on breaking the bindings around the chalice and didn’t glance away.

Suddenly she felt a pop followed by a crack in the binding spell. The chalice toppled from the altar and hit the floor with a dull thud. Dare misted into the chamber, green eyes round, clearly more frightened then she should be. She was a witch, for crying out loud!

“Sonofabitch.” Aeros scanned Dare from head to toe and turned to meet her gaze. She could see when he realised exactly what a jerk his god was. His face darkened and his eyes narrowed, flickering back over Dare, then back to Tabithia as if gauging her reaction. His gaze was intense, mesmerising, as time seemed to slow down around them.

Would he try to stop her from saving Dare now he knew the godhead wasn’t simply a beaten-up chalice, but a prison to hold a woman?

She’d never see him again, would she? After this, she’d never know him. His tender looks, the way he seemed to always want to touch her, the low, gravelly murmur of his voice, the scent of his skin on hers, all which was impossible now. Now there were no more illusions, no darkness to hide in, only the truth.

“Don’t do it, Tabithia.”

“Tabithia! We have to go,” Dare yelled loud enough for the gods to hear her.

Aeros certainly did and shot her a warning glare.

Shit.

Focused on Tabithia, rather than the beast, Aeros took a hard blow to the side. Immediately, blood began oozing from five horizontal slashes along his torso.

“Aeros! Kill the creature already!”

“Don’t leave, Tabithia.” His measured tone brought her up short. They could be arguing over what to have for dinner for all the inflection he put into his voice. Men. They really were strange.