A Spartan's Kiss (39 page)

‘Never want to stop, Aeros. Can you feel me?’

She’d saved his life. But he’d done something for her as well. Warmth flooded his heart until it felt too full for his chest. She loved him. Didn’t she? He loved her. Loved her so damn much he was a goner. Goner.

“Damn, you are such a sap. She saved you. Now, let her out of your bed so she can save you again.”

She’d be worried. She was worried, he realised now, about him coming here to meet with Ares. Instincts warned him she’d been worried about him finding out she’d made love to him to save his life.

He focused back on Ares. The god of war had wiped most of the blood off his face with his T-shirt. He stood shirtless, watching Aeros with a blank look.

Ares was lying about something.

“How? How has she saved me by making love to me?”

A powerful shoulder lifted in a too casual shrug. “You were nearing your end. You needed her, I’m not sure why, but you did. She brought you something.”

Ares didn’t know, did he? He had no clue. The selfish god hadn’t ever lived. Oh, he’d fucked his way through life. Fought and fucked. But he’d not lived.

Tabithia had brought him a life.

He’d tell her as soon as he returned home. He wasn’t angry at what she’d done. How could he be? She’d given a part of herself to save him. No wonder she’d needed the pendant. His chest nearly burst with the pride and love he felt for her. Felt. For her. Tabithia. His witch. She was so fuckin’ brave.

A thought occurred, and he speared Ares with a glare.

“Men, my men. Will this happen to them?”

Ares folded his arms over his chest and frowned. The frown suggested that the thought at least worried him. “They will be fine. You’re the one who never had a life before you answered my call.”

Never had a life? Hell no, he hadn’t. He’d served Sparta.

“Answered your call? Did I have a fuckin’ choice?” he demanded.

Ares speared him with a narrow-eyed glare. “If you had, would you have not come? Not had this woman?”

“Like you knew I’d ever fucking meet her!” he bellowed and swung out again, connecting with a force he felt all the way to his shoulder.

Ares roared and hammered him down with punch after punch. He managed a few more dirty ones before they both staggered back breathless and pissed off.

“Fucking idiot. If not for me, you’d not have her. You may still not have her. Damn it, Aeros, stop!”

He swayed to the side of the boat again, gripping the side hard enough to bend the metal rail. “What the hell are you talking about, then? Explain.”

“She’s in trouble. And I’m not the one you need to talk to. You go deal with her, settle things with her and then get her to take us to Daracha, damn it. Think, man, think. If you want this woman, you need to get me mine.”

Fuck. What the hell did that mean? The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. The look in her eyes, the shadow of something in her expression, tension, something tight and hard, felt suddenly dangerous to him. What if she’d left him?

“Don’t call me again, Ares. I’ll come to you, but no more will I answer your every fucking summons. I’ve paid. More than paid. I’ll get you Dare, and we’ll see if you get what you want. Until then, leave me the fuck alone.”

“Dare?”

“She likes to call herself Dare now, and, buddy, she’s not going to take you back lightly. She’s safe and at a club. Evie’s.”

It was Aeros’ turn to grin when Ares’ face, covered still with traces of the macabre blood mask, turned pale. His fists clenched, and every muscle in the war god’s body tightened.

“Say that again?”

“You heard me. Whatever the fuck you have for brain cells had better start working. You’re a god, for fuck’s sakes. Act like one. She’s singing at Evie’s, and, if I understand the place correctly, even you, oh mighty war god, can’t enter unless invited.”

“Aeros, how the fuck did you let this happen? My woman is at a sex club! What the fuck were you thinking?”

Ares’ panicked roar was gratifying.

“Look, you wronged her. Tabithia saved her. Just how long were you going to punish her? For what?”

Ares glared, but didn’t speak.

“All right. Well, the woman still loves you, who knows why? Hell, all those women you had at your place and she still wants you? I’d count myself lucky to still have my balls.”

“I never fucked those women, Aeros, and you wouldn’t understand. I found her with my brother—”

“Look, whatever—”

“No! Not whatever. She’s mine. Mine alone. No one else’s.”

Aeros rubbed a wrist under his nose and came away with blood on his hand. Ares looked ready to blow again, and, right now, Aeros hurt enough to want to stall that fight.

“Well, now she’s up on stage singing for a hell of a lot of others. So maybe get a grip on that temper.”

Ares nodded tightly, his bloody mess of a face forbidding. “Fine, how do I get her back, then?”

“She wants her demands met. Tabithia told you those, remember?”

“Fuck that. I want her here. Now!”

The power in that voice nearly broke Aeros’ eardrums. “Why would you want her if she chose your brother over you?”

Ares froze in his pacing. He turned his head and stared at Aeros for several long moments.

“She didn’t choose him. He wanted her. She denies it, but—”

Holy shit. The stupid jealous bastard.
Aeros watched Ares break off and turn to continue his pacing of the length of the yacht, clearly agitated.

“I was gone, I came back and she was in her home with my brother. His interest was clear—”

“Ah, shit, I’m not Oprah, man, but did she indicate she wanted him? And which brother are you talking about?”

“Apollo.”

Ah, okay, that sucked for Ares. Apollo had a reputation with the ladies. “And? Did you ask him? If he touched her?”

Ares speared him a dirty look from under the blood. Obviously he had.

“He claimed she turned him away. But he’s a god and—”

“So are you, right? What the fuck? She loves you, is willing to forgive you fucking imprisoning her for centuries—”

“I didn’t make it seem like centuries. More like weeks.”

What?

“Whatever the fuck you did, she is willing to forgive you. Tabithia said you had her shaved? Dressed in slave clothes.”

Ares fiddled with the railing and blew out a breath. The blood began to clear from his profile. After a few moments he turned, clean of the mess Aeros had made.

“Yes, I did. She angered me.” He paused and frowned hard. “I see my mistake. She spoke the truth. Still, I can’t let her make these demands.”

“If you want sex ever again, you will.”

Aeros took the chance on his guess and was rewarded with a glower from Ares. Ah, so the witch was his bonded. Gods had bonded. Who knew? But that meant Ares couldn’t take another woman. Not if he bonded with Dare. She had him by the balls, and heart it would seem—if Ares had a heart.

“So, let’s just cut the macho shit and get down on your fucking knees if she asks, whatever it takes. By what Tabithia says she’s a good, strong woman. You don’t fucking deserve her. But hell, whatever she asks, just do it. Just send me the fuck home.”

“Damn, Aeros, I thought getting laid would ease you, not make you more of a hardass.”

The grumbled words sounded more like a kid getting caught with his hand where it didn’t belong than a full-grown god of war. Aeros broadened his stance on the rocking boat and folded his arms.

“Just grow the fuck up and send me home.”

“I think you’d prefer to go to her.” Ares met his gaze square on, and, in the depth of the god’s eyes, Aeros saw sorrow, regret and compassion.

Before he could ask what the hell was going on, he found himself shoved off the boat and falling, only to land in a dark room. He hurt—everywhere. The room was not completely dark, he realised as he braced himself against a wall. Moonlight flowed through the empty windows. No curtains, no blinds, just bare walls, bare floors, bare everything.

He turned in a circle, taking in the dull surroundings, the lack of anything. Tabithia. He smelt her. The scent broke his heart in fucking two because it penetrated the place. This was her home. This was her home?

His eyes caught on a doorway, and he walked quietly through another empty room to face a closed door—a closet door. He knew this place. Tension hardened his body, forcing him to grip his aching side. He walked closer, trying not to make a sound. An inch from the door, he heard something, something very soft, sounding like a whispered prayer. He swallowed and grimaced at the pain obstructing his throat.

If she was cutting herself, he was going to break. She might hate him if he burst in. But how could he not? His hands clenched tight as he resisted the urge to turn the knob. He might lose it, yell at her. She might be crying, ashamed. She might be in pain. She might hate him. She might leave him and go where he couldn’t find her.

The soft, whispered word cut across his senses again, and he recognised her voice, low, intense, the prayer to her three goddesses shaky on her lips. Was she already cutting her beautiful skin?

He stepped back, undecided for the first time in his existence. His instincts were in turmoil, so confusing he couldn’t latch on to what he should do. He stood still when all he wanted was to rush forward. All his life, he’d planned, strategised, and taken his time with decisions. Even that first kill, so long ago, he’d planned. Each strike, duck, retreat, advance had built upon the one plan of killing the other boy. Or dying. But dying hadn’t been an option.

Losing Tabithia wasn’t an option, either. But he had no weapon, no plan to save her. What to save her from…herself. How did a man save the woman he loved from herself?

Why was she cutting herself?

He’d thought her happy, content even, with him. He’d seen the shadows in her eyes when he left, but he’d thought nothing of them.

Indecisions spun in his mind. His fists cracked. Fuck it. He’d have to rush forward, rely on instinct and emotions to guide him.

Fear crawled up his spine, as unfamiliar as entering an unknown battle.

He raised a hand and touched the doorknob, the cool metal knob twisting as he turned his wrist.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tabithia jerked when her phone rang. Her knife glistened, already wet and bloody on her arm where she’d carved deep enough to feel the pain of metal hitting bone.

She swallowed several times, trying to get her heart rate back to normal, and slowly drew the knife along her pant leg to clean it before setting the blade carefully beside her hip. Her phone stopped ringing then quickly started again.

Trouble.

Her hands shook but she picked up the phone and clenched it until her knuckles turned white. Sure of her steadiness, she clipped it open.

“I need you. Now. My place. Ten minutes.” Trouble sounded breathless. The phone disconnected before Tabithia could say a thing.

What the hell?

Blood, sweat and tears felt like they covered her. The panic she had tried to ease remained, a solid block of fear clogging her throat. Her arms ached painfully. Some of the wounds were already healing over, but the burn of the deeper cuts still worked a dull, constant pulse into her body.

Aeros. Would he want her if he knew how screwed up she was? Goddess, why did she still think this way?
No. No, Tabithia, he would not want you.
Perfect, steady, honourable Aeros would never understand her, the pathetic woman she truly was. Tears flooded her eyes, and she rubbed them with a wrist hard enough to make them stop.

Tears. She’d cried more in the last hour than she ever had in her life. She felt drained. Empty.

The knife beckoned, offering to fill the emptiness with pain. She resisted, placing it carefully on her parents’ chest, and turned from both. The house was quiet around her, still as only an empty house could be, but she paused, unease creeping up her spine.

Aeros. Had his scent lingered on her skin? She could smell him—warm, caring Aeros.

She shoved the thought away and ignored the pain of his memory. She hurried and cleaned up, splashing water on her face and neck before cleaning her arms and changing into a long-sleeved, black T-shirt.

Two minutes later, she was weaving through the busy streets to reach a nearby portal so she could reach Trouble’s home.

Ten minutes later, she didn’t bother to knock and opened the door to let herself in to her aunt’s flat. Silently, she waded through Trouble’s clutter to the downstairs kitchen-living area.

“So, what’s so important—?”

Words escaped her when she turned the corner and she got her first glimpse of Trouble. Red hair up in a ponytail, face flushed and sweaty, she was on an exercise machine, one of those treadmills, running at a pretty fast freakin’ pace. Both her grey sports bra and black running shorts were drenched with sweat marks. It looked like she’d run a whole day.

Tabithia’s first thought was this was what Trouble had brought her all the way around the world for? To work out?

One look in her aunt’s eyes and Tabithia’s mind went blank. Tears glistened in her eyes, tracks marked her face, unchecked and seemingly unnoticed, while she kept up her fast pace. Trouble grimaced, shaking her head as if in pain, but continued to run.

“I failed you, didn’t I? Here I thought I’d done so well, letting you have your distance, your crutch, when I should have pulled you close, held you tight, and forced you to let the past go.”

Tabithia fell backwards, as though Trouble had slapped her. The air left her lungs, and she reached blindly behind her for the counter, feeling like she’d been turned to stone and might just crash to the floor and shatter into a million pieces.

Trouble grimaced again and increased her pace, running so fast her feet pounded on the rolling mat, the machine whirling to keep up. It didn’t stop her from speaking, barely made her breathe hard as she continued.

“Do you know, Tabithia, you were such a beautiful baby? Such a joy. So small, and vulnerable, but so powerful in your own little childlike ways that we all loved you more than anything else in that god-forsaken world we lived in. You saved me. I thought when you were taken my world would never see the brightness of joy again. But we found you, didn’t we? We saved you from a monster you should have never learnt existed. But we didn’t. The monster is still here. I thought I had saved you, but I didn’t, did I?”