Poisoned Kisses (22 page)

E
ver since Renata sipped the ambrosia, time had passed in fits and starts. She was unable to keep a firm grasp of it. Had it been days or weeks since she’d been kidnapped? Worse, she didn’t even know where she was.

Asia. They were somewhere in Asia. That was all Renata was able to surmise from the penthouse window. The billboards that hung over the sprawling streets below were covered with symbols she couldn’t read. Chinese? Korean? Japanese? She just didn’t know. Renata saw thousands of cars, bicycles, and even the occasional covered rickshaw pass beneath her, but from the isolation of her skyscraper tower, there was no way to call for rescue.

Except for the oriental bathroom with the stylized waterfall tub, Damon’s penthouse was thoroughly Western in its sensibilities. The floor was black marble. The sofas were leather. The accent pieces—mostly Greek amphorae—were genuine antiques. The apartment was spacious, sparse and masculine. Renata might have marveled at the luxury were it not for the
advanced security system that had turned this apartment into her prison.

Until they were safely ensconced behind the steel doors and motion sensors, Damon hadn’t allowed her any privacy, but inside the penthouse, he gave her his bedroom and contented himself to sleep on one of the sofas.

And as soon as he left her alone, in the darkness that shielded her from the monitors, she slipped the little business card and the sketch wrapped around it out of her bra, and into the pillowcase beneath her head.

In the morning, Renata wandered into the wood-slatted bathroom and saw that a bath had been drawn for her. Fed by an artificial stream trickling over a decorative rock outcropping, the foaming bath beckoned. She peeled off the green dress she hoped never to see again, then climbed into the tub.

“There are new clothes for you on the bed,” Damon said, interrupting her tranquility. He was standing in the doorway without a care for her privacy. Instinctively, Renata sank lower into the water, letting the bubbles cover her nudity.

She knew he wanted her to say something, but she was silent.

“I had to guess at your size,” Damon said. “But my people did their best. If you make a list of things you need, I’ll make sure that you have garments to wear that are more to your liking.”

Again, Renata knew he was looking for a response, but she gave him none. Instead, she reached for a sponge and pulled it under the water, letting the rough texture scrape across her fingertips and awaken her inner sculptress. Or her inner gorgon. Which was which?

Damon crossed his arms. “You’re still not speaking to me, then.” It was a statement, not a question, but instead of
retreating and leaving her alone, he stepped into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub.

Renata felt exposed. She wanted to tell him not to sit so close to her, but that admission of discomfort would make her even more vulnerable. A few moments more of awkward silence passed before Damon asked her, “Is there something I can get you, Renata? Is there something you want?”

“I want my mother,” Renata said, before the thought had even fully formed in her mind.

He seemed uncomfortable. “Do you really want to involve your foster mother in this?”

“I want my real mother, but not you or anybody else can give her to me, because the soldier took her away.”

“Tell me,” Damon said.

Renata didn’t like talking about it. It was her pain. Her sin. Her secret. She could express herself in sculpture, but it had taken her therapist years to get her to open up. Did he really think he could handle what she had to say? “After the explosion, I was badly burned,” Renata said, tentatively. “My mother tried to take me to a refugee camp for help. As we hurried down the scorched side of the road, she kept telling me to be quiet, that the enemy would hear me screaming, but I was in so much pain. I couldn’t stop and so the soldier heard us. He pointed a gun at us and took her into the woods. I heard my mother cry out, over and over, but I never saw her again.”

The rush of the waterfall over the rock garden filled the room as if to hush her sad tale, and Damon was silent for a long time. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it was my fault. If I had been quiet, they wouldn’t have taken her,” Renata cried, and her eyes made clear that she would brook no argument.

The tilt of Damon’s chin lost its imperious angle. He stared down at the floor. Finally he asked, “Did you ever look for her?”

“After the war, when I was old enough, I called everyone I knew in Bosnia. My foster parents even hired an investigator. I’d hoped that with the publicity for my art that someone might come forward, but…”

He reached into the tub for her wet hand and clasped it in his own, his fingers twined with hers as if he was tugging something inside her, shaping it, the way she would shape clay. Then he was leaning closer to her. Was he looking at her with pity, or something else? Was it sympathy or desire she saw in his eyes, or both? And why, after having told this stranger her secrets, did she now want him so badly?

Maybe she just wanted to lose herself in a kiss, to forget about wars and gorgons and feel something warm and real. Or maybe it was something more base and raw—she couldn’t say. But in that moment, something made her offer her lips to him and something made him take them.

It was, at first, a gentle kiss. But then she reached up and wrapped her dripping arms around his neck. He seemed to tense, then snap.

His hands went to her hair, his lips crushed down upon hers, and he started to pull her against him, heedless of the warm water they were spilling upon the floor.

His grip tightened and he kissed her hungrily, as if he were made of the same fury that was inside her. She parted her lips for him, and his tongue captured hers as if in triumph. Renata’s breath quickened as the electricity of their kiss sparked through her, but then he was trying to lift her up out of the water, and she flailed, desperately gripping the edge of the tub to stop him.

His voice was throaty. “I want to see you. I want to touch you.”

“I have scars,” Renata replied, breaking apart from him and slipping beneath the water, denying the ache of her body for more.

“I don’t care,” Damon said. “You’re beautiful, so beautiful.”

Renata knew that the surgeons had repaired the worst of her damaged skin. That in reality, only faint traces of her injuries remained. But in her mind, she always imagined that her scars were deformities so ugly that seeing them would turn a man’s desire for her to something brittle that would crumble away. Were her scars her gorgon skin? She couldn’t bring herself to ask.

Perhaps sensing that she could be persuaded, Damon offered her a towel, holding it open for her so that all she had to do was step out of the tub to him and come into his arms. She wanted to. Oh, she wanted to, but she said, “I’m not ready yet.”

Damon looked as if he might argue, but then slowly nodded. Whatever had been about to happen between them would wait.

He set the towel on the edge of the tub and leaned over to kiss her again. This time, a tender kiss, filled with self-control. “Renata, I know that hearing the truth about what you are has frightened you. I can take that fear away, if you want me to.”

“I’m not frightened that I’m a gorgon,” she said. “I’m sickened. You tell me that I can kill with my hands, just by forcing stone into the shapes I see in my mind. That I have killed…before.”

“It isn’t your fault,” he said simply. “You can’t be blamed. You didn’t know what you were doing when you carved those men. Now that you know, it won’t happen again.”

She eyed him carefully. “How do you know it won’t?”

“Because, Renata, I’ll never let you sculpt again.”

L
ater that night, Deimos received the phone call he’d been dreading.

“You had no right to give the gorgon ambrosia,” his twin brother snarled into the other end of the phone.

They had not seen one another in years, but Damon could still imagine the way his twin scowled when he said it, black eyes glowing like coal.

“It was only a tiny bit,” Damon replied. “But I have enough to make her immortal if I choose, so don’t push me.”

“It’s our crafty aunt who will push you, not me.” Static crackled on the line. “How long do you think you can keep the gorgon away from us?”

“I’ll keep her as long as I have to,” Damon replied.

“We will find you.” It was a threat. “You can’t hide her forever. I know all your haunts.”

“No, you don’t. Not all of them,” Damon replied much more calmly than he felt, then hung up before the call could be traced.

Just that morning, his men reported seeing an owl perched on the penthouse balcony—probably one of his aunt’s many spies. Luckily, this foreign place had many old gods of its own who would not take kindly to her showing too much power here.

Still, it was time to move again.

Renata had been subdued since their kiss in the bathtub and she did not argue when he asked her to pack her things and board the plane again so soon.

This time he took her to his snow-covered chalet in a northern country.

As their entourage marched up the trail, Damon marveled at the way Renata’s cheeks turned rosy in the cold, and how the falling flakes settled into her wild black curls. He first thought perhaps she was only a local beauty, that her mortal charm might fade against a different backdrop, but now he saw that she was captivating in any setting. If only he could know what went on behind those stormy gray eyes of hers.

Once they were inside, she stared out the frosted window panes over the pine-dotted hillside and asked, “Where are we?”

He no longer felt the need to keep it from her. “Finland.”

Norse territory. An unfriendly place for his aunt, he hoped.

Renata let her breath fog the checkerboard window while her fingers explored the crevices between the rough-hewn logs that made up the cabin walls. It made him sad to see her sculptress fingers still grasping for every sensation, but some things could not be helped.

When he’d planned Renata’s abduction, he’d been thinking only of how to keep her powers out of destructive hands. He’d thought he’d have to keep her chained and that she’d fight him every step of the way.

But Renata hadn’t triumphed at the knowledge that she had
the power to kill. She’d been sickened by it. She’d actually used that word. She wasn’t some murderous monster who would take justice into her own hands, renewing the cycle of revenge that turned old grievances into new ones and led to war.

Why hadn’t it ever occurred to him that she might not want to use her powers for revenge? Why hadn’t he considered that she might simply become his ally instead of his enemy? Maybe he didn’t need to keep her as his prisoner. Maybe if he needed to keep her at all, it was only to protect her.

Or to be near her.

Yes, he mustn’t lie to himself about that. He remembered the way he’d kissed her in the bath and how she had responded. He remembered the taste of her, like slow-flowing honey. She’d stopped him before he went too far, but left the promise of more. “I’m not ready yet,” she’d said.

He could respect that, for now.

The next morning, Damon found her in her room, curled up next to the fire, wearing a bathrobe. “I hope you enjoy crepes,” he said, coming into her room bearing a tray.

“You’re delivering me breakfast now?” she asked. “Don’t you have people for that?”

He was glad to see her in better spirits. It was, he suspected, her fierce resilience that drew him to her, that made him want her so much. “Yes, I have people for this, but I wanted to bring it myself before I went out.”

She blinked. “Out? Where are you going?”

He hadn’t left her alone before. He’d been too worried that she might run. But he felt he knew her better now. She wouldn’t run from him, and if someone tried to take her, they couldn’t make her kill.

“I have some work to do, but I won’t be long,” he said.

“So I have to stay here alone with your goons?”

He arched an eyebrow. “My goons, as you call them, will
stay out of your way. If you need me, for any reason, they can reach me on my cell phone.”

Renata smiled and waved as he left, as if he were her lover and not her captor. But in her mind, she replayed what he’d said after they kissed.

When he’d told her he’d never let her sculpt again, her heart had hardened against him. Her art was her life. It wasn’t just her job; it was her vocation, her identity. She was an artist, and she’d worked hard to become a success in a profession where so few ever made it.

She didn’t know precisely how long she’d been away from her studio, but she already missed the feel of her tools in her hands almost as much as she missed her pet python. Poor Scylla. Had anyone found her? Renata had been gone so long she wondered who was feeding her snake. Who was, even now, comforting Renata’s foster mom and telling her that Renata would be all right?

Renata had let herself grow complacent. She’d let herself fall under Damon’s spell and forget that he was holding her against her will. She resented the security system, the monitors that tracked her every move. And in an act of rebellion, she now climbed beneath the covers and pretended to nap.

Using the coverlet as a shield from the cameras, Renata carefully extracted the paper from her pillow case, and unfolded it from around Ms. Kokkinos’ business card. She spread out the sketch of the soldier who had taken her mother and stared at it. She was no longer afraid of him. Tracing the lines of his face with her fingers, she knew she held power over this villain now. She could take his life just by carving his likeness in stone. Why didn’t Damon want her to use her powers to give men like this one the ending they so richly deserved?

Perhaps because Damon was some kind of demigod of war, it made sense that he’d want to protect the evil men who helped him instill terror. Perhaps this is why Damon was
shielding these wicked criminals from her righteous anger. Somehow, Renata knew she had to escape him.

Just then, she realized that Damon hadn’t bothered to unplug the phone by the bedside. He’d trusted his cameras to warn him if she was doing anything he didn’t want her to do. But if he was gone for the day, Renata had to wonder if his goons were as diligent at spying on her as he was.

Turning in such a way that the comforter obstructed their view, Renata snaked her hand out and pulled the bedside phone beneath the covers. Then she waited, her heart pounding as she pretended to be asleep. One. Two. Three. Renata counted the seconds, forcing herself not to move too quickly lest she alert anyone watching.

Renata’s first instinct was to dial 911, but then she realized that she was in a foreign country. Did they even have 911 in Finland? Panic frayed her nerves as she realized that she’d never been able to remember country codes. Who would she dial for help?

In her hand, she held the business card. Ms. Athena Kokkinos, it said, and below was printed the number, international country code and all.

She began to dial.

She had only pressed three numbers when the door flew open and Damon burst in, warmth in his tone. “Renata I forgot to tell you—”

Startled, Renata let the comforter slip, and now the telephone was in plain sight. She and Damon stared at one another as her fingers hovered over the buttons, frozen in fear.

“Who are you calling?” Damon demanded, all the warmth gone from his voice in an instant.

When Renata didn’t answer, he charged towards her and plucked the business card from her hand. When he read it, a terrible shadow passed over his eyes, and he grabbed the phone. “Did you reach her?”

Renata scrambled back on the bed to escape his wrath. “No, no, I didn’t get that far,” she babbled, knowing she shouldn’t provoke him further, but unable to keep her own temper from rising. “But you can’t hold me captive forever. Some day, some way, I’ll get free of you. You can’t watch me every second.”

“And when you do, you’ll run to her?” Damon growled. “Even knowing what she wants you to do with your powers?”

“Why shouldn’t I run to her?” Renata demanded. “Why shouldn’t I save the world the burden of having to hunt these men down? They killed my family. I can return the favor.”

“Who killed your family, Renata? Do you even know? Was it the Serbs, the Bosniaks, the Croats, the Montenegrins? Who killed their families before?”

“There’s no moral equivalency,” she snapped. “Don’t equate what happened to them to what happened to us.”

“I’m not,” he started to say, but she was already clawing at him for the phone. She was on her knees, her legs tangled in the blankets as her nails dug into his black dress shirt.

She got hold of the phone and held on to it with all her strength. “Let me call her, Damon. You can’t stop me from sculpting.”

The more she wrestled with him the more it seemed to enraged him. “Let go of the phone,” Damon snarled.

“You’ll have to break my fingers first!” Renata shouted.

His jaw clenched as he brought his face close to hers, warning, “I’ll do just that, Renata. I’ll break your fingers, one by one, before I let you pick up a chisel again.”

The force of his threat carried on his breath as it puffed into her face. It had the scent of gunpowder and the iron tang of blood. It carried the stench of corpses and carrion. It carried the very essence of dread. It was more than just a scent. It was a power that overwhelmed her. It was terror in its most primal form, and Renata could not fight it.

A thousand snakes of terror slithered inside her, coiling
and striking her conscious mind. As the memories of her childhood flowed over her, she fell back on the bed and began to scream. Her scream came from such a deep part inside that it exploded out of her and scraped her raw. Her scream was a mixture of keening and rage, of grief and frenzy.

A mirror across the room from the bed shattered, glass shards scattering across the wooden floor like shell fragments.

What had he done to her? He was killing her.

Renata screamed again and the cabin windows rattled ominously. She was hurting her own ears and her skin felt like it was on fire. She was burning, burning. She would make the whole world burn with her.

“Renata, stop!” Damon was shaking her.

She saw him shout the words, reading his lips rather than hearing the sound. All she could hear was her own scream. She felt like her fingernails were fraying, hurt slicing through her, and she couldn’t stop screaming.

It was agony.

Damon pushed her down, smothering her body with his own, urgently offering his flesh as the only respite from the pain. “I’m sorry!” he was whispering. “I’m going to take it away.”

Desperate, she pressed her cheek to the bare skin of his chest where she’d torn his shirt. Where his skin touched hers, she felt the familiar tingle, the tug at the fear inside her, as if he were drawing it out of her, as if he were devouring it.

His mouth was open in silent feasting, twisted in a grimace. “Give me your terror. I’ll take it away.”

Renata didn’t fight him. She let him have it all. Every nightmare, every secret, every horrible burden she carried. And as he drew the terror from her, Renata’s screams turned to whimpers as she shivered against him.

Slowly, he eased her from dread to contentment, and her breathing calmed, easy and languid. In a rush, she scented
the woodsy smoke of a warm meal spent in her father’s lap, then the cherry Popsicles she used to bring her littler brother, which made him smile and stick out his red-stained tongue.

Damon gave her back these happier memories, eased her down into the bed, and let them flow over her.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, in his arms, but soon found that she was as calm and relaxed as she’d ever been. She wanted to tell him that he’d taken enough, but he kept holding her, kept pulling from her the fear, the tensions, and more. He lay gasping on top of her, as if he were now the one in terrible pain.

He had taken the poison in her and pulled it into himself. He had saved her. She knew it as sure as she knew her own name. He had saved her, and he was the only one who could.

Beneath him, she felt her body tighten again, but this time with arousal. She wasn’t afraid anymore, not of anything. Not of her wants, not of her needs, not of the raw desires that ached in her belly and breasts. Like she had in the bath, Renata wrapped her arms around his neck, but this time without restraint. Writhing beneath him, she kissed his neck, his chin, his mouth.

“Renata—” he began, but she cut him off.

“I want you,” she said, and started to unbutton his ruined shirt. “I want you to see me. I’m not afraid.”

His expression was pained. “That’s because I consumed your fears. I went too far.”

Undeterred, she pulled his shirt over his shoulders, and now that she saw the carved lines of his muscled chest, she wanted nothing more than to run her fingers over them. “Even so, I want you,” she said again, reaching for his belt with a wanton freedom she’d never felt before.

He growled low in his throat, as if it was taking his every effort to resist her. She felt the hardness between his legs, but still he held back. “Not tonight,” he said. “I took your inhibitions from you—this isn’t right.”

“Inhibitions only stop me from doing what I want to do,” Renata said. She was wet, she was wanting, and she could not help but grind her hips. “You gave me terror—you can give me this.”

It was too much for him. Using one arm to lift her up, he used the other to untie her robe. They undressed in haste, clothes kicked off and left crumpled wherever they fell. His mouth came down on her nipples and they hardened in reply. His thighs pushed between hers, splaying her beneath him. Then he was pushing inside her, filling her, and she arched up to meet him stroke for stroke.