Red Mortal (38 page)
Authors: Deidre Knight
Tags: #Man-woman relationships, #Goddesses, #Gods, #Paranormal, #Delphian oracle, #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal romance stories, #Immortalism, #Daphne (Greek deity), #General, #Leonidas, #Contemporary
Ari grinned. “It’s a proposal. Dude wants to marry your ass.” He slapped them both on the shoulders. “But first, let’s go home. Maybe it’s the way you two are looking at each other right now, but I’m dying to see my wife.”
Ari’s big brother Kalias came barging back into the cell, and for a minute stopped in his tracks and stared at Nik and Mason embracing. “Uh . . . we’ve got Caesar cuffed in the back of your truck, Mace,” he muttered, and the two men stepped apart. “Figure Leo might want to grill him,” Kalias continued. “See what we can learn.”
“I want a piece of him, trust me,” Mace said, glancing toward his boyfriend’s brutalized face.
“You know I do,” Ari agreed, thinking of Jules. All those years of wandering and pain. Delivering a little payback to Caesar would be a welcome opportunity.
They all filed out of the cell, and Ari couldn’t get a lungful of fresh river air fast enough. But as he pushed his way out to the cobblestone street, he noticed Nikos pulling Kalias aside, having some private word with Ari’s big brother.
And private, well, didn’t have a lot of meaning in their henhouse, so he strained to hear what big Nik was saying.
“Anything can happen, and if Straton won’t do it . . .” he thought he heard. “Stop wasting time.”
About what? Ari almost stalked right up to Kalias and asked him what their fellow warrior was talking about. But something in the way his normally unflappable big brother reacted, how he kept running a jittery hand back and forth over his military cut, gave Ari pause. So did the way Kalias flushed deeply enough that it could be seen under the streetlamp. All of his reactions, including the naked emotion in his brother’s eyes, well, it caused at least one or two light bulbs to go off in Ari’s shocked head.
And told him, that for just this once, he’d better keep his trap shut.
Chapter 29
D
aphne woke, sleepy-eyed and sated. She’d never felt more alive than she did right now, with Leo’s seed deep inside her. They might even have made a babe this time, created life out of nothing except the enduring truth of their love. The future was theirs, any obstacles easy to overcome; they’d vault them, crush them. Being together, so close like this, was all that mattered.
aphne woke, sleepy-eyed and sated. She’d never felt more alive than she did right now, with Leo’s seed deep inside her. They might even have made a babe this time, created life out of nothing except the enduring truth of their love. The future was theirs, any obstacles easy to overcome; they’d vault them, crush them. Being together, so close like this, was all that mattered.
Perfect. That’s what last night had been. She rubbed her eyes, fluffing the pillow beneath her cheek, and reached for her beloved. She stretched toward his side of the bed, expecting the feel of his muscular, broad body beneath her palm. Her hand patted down against a cool sheet.
She sat up with a start and discovered that Leo’s side of the bed was empty; she saw only rumpled, sexed-up bedsheets at first, and then an ivory envelope, sealed with his royal crimson insignia. The letter rested against his empty pillow, far too formal, almost as if it were some fancy invitation to a ball. Instantly, she knew better, her heart slamming in her chest.
She pulled the sheet up over her bare body, staring down at the plain card. Turning it in her hand, a stupid part of her romantic heart dreamed that it might be an invitation to their pending wedding, the one that Leo had barely spoken of again, not since Olympus. She pressed the vellum to her lips, smelling his earthy scent on the folds of paper.
Not an invitation, not a promise.
This creamy white envelope was death wrapped in formality; her Oracle’s mind knew it right then. Angrily, resolved, she ripped open the seal, tearing into the note that she knew would tear apart all of her dreams.
A simple sheet of paper with Leo’s elegant, familiar scrawl unfolded; she stared at it for several moments before the words began to sink in. The lettering swam like raindrops, blurred, but she forced herself, made herself, focus on each carefully rendered word.
My Beloved Daphne,
Last night was the closest to Elysium that I might ever hope to reach while still here on Earth. If I could unfurl my wings and seize the moon upon my feathers, I would be no closer to embracing beauty than I came while holding you last night, my love.No, I’ve never known true magnificence until these cherished days; until I beheld you, splendidly naked astride me, beneath me, ah, and about me, my love. The taste and scent of you linger upon my body, my very senses, making this letter all the more painful to compose.I woke this morning . . . and found you in my arms, my bed. The happiest man alive, immortal, or dead, was I, stirring from slumber to discover you still within my arms.Yet I awoke this morning to another fact, a startling one. As I drew you up against my chest, I discovered that the blight upon my body had escalated during my sleep, transforming me like some demon’s poison draught. Your brother, it seems, has tightened his noose about my neck, clear punishment for our joining last night. I am sure he is laughing within the walls of his palace, knowing that he’s made me a man who can never proudly join with you again, dear Daphne.I know you well, my love, you are right; you would stay with me until the bitterest of ends. Therefore it is I who must leave this time. I am sure you could prevail upon your powers to discern my location, but I ask you to let me protect you in this. You must not suffer with me; you are young—too young to watch me die.Please respect this old man’s remnants of pride and courage. For truly it took the latter to leave you at all, much less sleeping in my bed, believing me still beside you. But my love for you, my need to stand between you and this pain, empowers me.Know this, my darling: I will always, throughout time and eternity, love thee.Yours, forever,
Leo
Daphne stared at the letter, at the swimming scrawl; for how long, she did not know. The only thing she was thoroughly convinced of, sitting there in Leo’s rumpled bed, smelling his sex and love, was that her brother, so determined to kill her—body, soul, and spirit—would pay.
She just wasn’t sure how to bring about that death, not yet. But give her time, she thought. Give her an eternity’s worth of time, and she would see the deed done.
Leo paced the stony floor of his great hall, talking to Ajax on his cell. Cornwall had been the only place he could think to go after Ares’s most recent work over. In those hours after making love to Daphne, he’d been punished thoroughly. He now appeared to be a man of about sixty, a walking imitation of Sean Connery—when he was
well
past his Bond days, and without nearly as much in the good looks department.
well
past his Bond days, and without nearly as much in the good looks department.
“We’re still interrogating Caesar, and Mason’s taking his time about it . . . Nikos took a pretty nasty hit,” Jax was explaining, but Leo only halfway listened. After a moment his warrior asked, “Leo, are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“The main thing we’ve learned from Caesar is that Ares was using him to lure Ari away from you, to prevent him from healing you. That was how he figured into the plan.”
“Good,” Leo said distractedly as he caught sight of himself in the massive mirror that hung over the fireplace. It dated back to the 1700s, and its surface was unreliable, but as he paced, he could see the facts—more scars exposed now, along his throat, his jaw, beneath his eye. His hair and beard had not even a single dark hair left in them.
“Leo, are you all right?” Jax persisted. “I don’t understand why you’ve gone to Cornwall . . . especially now.”
“This will be our battleground,” Leo rasped. His voice had deepened, become rougher, in the past hours. “The demons will train and fight with us here; we will draw Ares into a trap . . . and this is our stage.”
He’d grasped desperately for anywhere to go in the aftermath of his lovemaking with Daphne. And that was when the idea had formed: Cornwall was home to him. Nearly as much as Sparta at this point, after so many years when he’d lived on the craggy moors, when he and the men had trained and quartered here.
It was also remote enough that they could bring down hellfire itself on the place, and no mortals would be the wiser. The perfect stage for his own personal Armageddon.
He was going down, that much was obvious, but Ares was going right down with him, if it was the last thing Leo did in this life. After holding Daphne last night, the passion of it unlike any he’d ever known—and realizing new depths to his love for her—he was more determined than ever to leave this world knowing Ares was gone. Daphne had to be safe.
“Jax,” he said into the phone, “bring all the men here. In the next hours, once all are strong enough. I need everyone, the humans, too. And Sophie.” He thought of the help she’d been able to give him with the knee. “I absolutely require Sophie. One of you can bring her, right?”
The warriors would fly the heavens, a strange mix of teleportation and actual flight. The travel time from Savannah to Cornwall would be roughly thirty to forty minutes, draining to carry a human, but not undoable.
“I’ll see to it that she comes, my lord,” Jax said. “But Emma’s obviously out, and I think Jules should stay with her in case the babes come. Shay and Sophie, Mason and Jamie . . . we’ll get them there.”
“Good.” Leo stroked his beard. “But we need Sable, too. I can’t do this without him.”
Jax groaned into the phone. “Commander, I know you’re dead set on this demon army, but are you sure about Sable?”
Leo considered the statement. “He led us to Nikos and Ari,” he said. “That was a loyal move. He and I spoke last evening, as well. We came to an understanding.”
There was a long crackling silence, and Leo knew it had a lot to do with the history Jax and Sable shared, none of it good. “All right, sir. I’ll make sure we corral him, too,” Jax said with a snide laugh. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”
Leo snapped the phone shut and walked out of the great hall. He took uneven footsteps all the way to a giant set of wooden doors that had hung there for centuries. Beside the door were umbrellas and even a couple of canes that some footman or another had relied upon over the years. Scowling, but knowing it necessary, Leo chose the least offensive of the walking sticks and headed out onto the moors.
One last look, perhaps, at the craggy hillsides and waterfalls. Or maybe he’d have a few more last looks after today. Whatever the case, he’d come home—like some old dog, he’d returned to a beloved place so he could die. And so he could touch the memories that hung about these moors. Beginning his hike out into the misty landscape, he strode purposefully toward the one place he had in mind, the spot that he absolutely needed to see.
The high and windy spot behind his castle where he’d first glimpsed Daphne.
There was only one place left to turn—and only one where Daphne had unfinished business, unsatisfied optimism. Using her mental map, she teleported to her most recent position on Olympus, Apollo’s palace. She hurled through gray mist, and slowly everything became solid, until she stood facing that broad oak table and the tasteful ivory columns of the god’s dining hall. Here they had eaten of Apollo’s feast, drank of his wine . . . and dreamed of an unwinnable victory.
She’d believed it all.
That had been before her brother’s true skills of treachery had shined like Olympus’s midday sun. She’d learned better since then. And now, for some reason, the fact that Apollo’s polished table stood empty caused tears to well in her eyes; it was such an image of all her dashed hopes. Bounty gone, replaced by famine and nothingness.
She stepped toward the wooden expanse, planting palms against it, and released her first unhindered tears in days. Hope was lost, sustenance was gone. All that remained for her in the years to come was a future of nothing, where once there had been joy and abundance and love.
She sank to her knees, still clutching to that vast wooden slab. Even Apollo was absent, painfully vanished from his palace of life and nurture.
I am alone in this. There is no one to help or aid me.
“Daughter, rise.”Apollo’s voice was full of authority—more commanding than she’d ever heard from the god. But she couldn’t find strength enough to face him. She sank farther down upon her knees and pressed her forehead against the table’s polished surface.
A large, rough hand stroked her cheek. “Have you given up so easily, dear Daphne, mine?”
“He is lost to me,” she cried, hiding her face, lest her god see such ugly tears. “It is over, all of it. Every wish I ever cherished, finished for good.”
Another voice interrupted her grief, tinkling as chimes and just as soothing. “Oh, Aunt Daphne, you haven’t let him win?” Eros. Her beloved nephew.
She’d never felt more ashamed than at that moment, huddled against the table like it was an altar for her grief, knowing that her hopes were spent. All washed down like rain, a river to nothingness.
She sensed Apollo behind her, her nephew, too. Both of them, here and waiting for her; as if they’d been expecting her all along.
Apollo patted her cheek like a father. “I knew you’d return—come back to me for the right answers.”
She sank back onto her haunches, gasping for breath. Hiding her tear-stained face in her hands, she whispered, “Are there any answers in this?”
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