West of Want (Hearts of the Anemoi) (20 page)

Ella shook her head at Owen and nailed Zephyros with a direct gaze. “He’s giving me a little relief for this broken hand Eurus gave me last night.”

“E broke your hand? What the hell?” Chrys whirled on Zeph-yros. “He broke her hand?”

Dark light flashed from Zeph’s eyes. “Let me…I mean, may I heal it, Ella? Owen can help you temporarily, but I can fix it,” he said, his voice nearly trembling. He clenched his fists.

“Can you, Zeph?” She glanced to Owen, who dropped his gaze. “Seems you could’ve done that last night, but didn’t. So, why now?”

Chrys shifted feet, jammed his hands into his jeans pockets, and looked to the floor. Clearly, Owen and Chrys would’ve preferred to be anywhere else, but she was glad they were there. If she had to face Zeph on her own, she might give in to the soul-deep urge to fling herself at him, crawl up against his chest, and never let go. But that would be wrong on so many levels.

Zeph’s gaze flickered over the other men in the room, but he didn’t back down from her challenge. “I made a mistake last night, Ella. A monumental mistake. I know that now. And ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t begin to describe the depth of remorse and regret I feel. But, still, I am sorry. And if you’ll let me, I’d like to explain. Or try to.”

Ella pressed her lips together, clamping down on the naïve, knee-jerk “yes” her heart wanted her to utter. But even if his words tempted her to forgive him, even if she could put aside the memory of Eurus’s hands and body and mouth all over her, there was still the problem of her infertility. If what Eurus said was true and Zephyros was in need of an heir, she would never be able to provide that for him. As much as she already felt for this man, she knew her heart would never survive if she became more attached to something biology would prevent from ever really being hers. No matter how much they both might want it.

Better to not get in any deeper, then have to give him up later.

“You know, seems like we were just here,” she said, remembering Zeph’s troubled form sitting on the edge of her bed and asking for five minutes to explain. “Maybe it’s not supposed to be this hard.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and peered up at Zeph.

“Ella—”

Chrys cleared his throat. “I think I’ll just…” He thumbed over his shoulder and turned for the door.

Owen tracked his retreat with a sidelong glance.

Ella took pity on him. Touching his arm with her good hand, she caught his attention. “You don’t have to stay. It’s feeling better. So, thank you.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, frowning. “I should’ve taken you to the hospital.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. Thank you for helping me. Zeph can take it from here,” she added, letting Owen off the hook.

The younger man glanced over his shoulder and nodded. “All right.” He gently released her hand into her lap. Where it wasn’t bruised purple, her skin was bright red from the cold, but the swelling seemed to have gone down some. “I’m not leaving though. I’ll just be down there with Chrys.”

“Chrys, as in…”

“You’ve met them all now except my father. Chrys is the summer guy,” he said smiling. It was a warm, genuine expression.

“I might’ve guessed that. Wait. Can you, you know, be down there…with him?”

“I don’t—”

“You’re a snow god, he’s a summer god?”

Owen chuckled. “Yeah, as long as he doesn’t try to kiss me or anything, I’ll be okay.”

“In your dreams,” came a voice from downstairs.

Ella grinned, but the smile slid off her face. They would’ve been a really cool family to get to know. Hollowness filled her chest. Not gonna happen now. She wondered if she would even be allowed to remember them. Could they remove memories? Her stomach dropped at the thought.

Shaking his head, Owen said, “I’ll be downstairs.” As he passed Zeph, still standing by the door, he clapped him on the shoulder. It appeared a typical male greeting, but the way Owen’s hand lingered for a moment communicated silent support.

Zeph watched him leave then turned to her. “Ella—”

She put her hands up, and the movement made her suck in a breath. Not smart. The pain in her lefty was only dulled, not gone.

Zephyros stepped to the center of the room, then stopped. “Can I please heal you? I know I’ve fucked this all up between us, but that…that I can fix.”

Letting out a shaky breath, Ella nodded.

He appeared at her bedside. She hadn’t even seen him move. This time, she knew he probably hadn’t. Or, at least not in the usual way. His urgency warmed her heart and made it ache. “Do you want to lie down?”

She dragged her knees up and braced her elbow against them. “No. Just do it.”

Zeph nodded. He held her gaze for a long moment, then reached down and placed his hands where Owen’s had been. This time, instead of cold, there was light. That warm glow she remembered from…God, how many days ago had that been? Reverent words in that language she didn’t understand spilled from Zeph’s lips as the buzz of energy seeped into the structure of her hand.

Avoiding his eyes, which were too laden with emotion for her heart to resist, Ella dragged her gaze over Zeph from short hair to jeans. Memorizing every detail. The spot of gray at the temple. The way his brown hair just turned into a curl at the ends. The hard angles of his face and jaw, and the way a smile could make him look so much younger and freer. The broad shoulders, visible under the tight fit of his T-shirt. And, Jesus, no one wore a pair of jeans like Zephyros.

Her gaze trailed to his hands. No chance she’d ever forget them. How they healed her. How they touched her. How they made her hope again.

The scowl on Zeph’s face drew Ella’s attention. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

He released a troubled sigh. “I’d say that’s pretty obvious, love. This is an incredibly serious injury.”

She barely heard the end of what he’d said for his use of the term of endearment. She just…couldn’t. “But you can fix it, right?”

Zeph shifted feet and nodded.

“You can sit down, you know.” She swung her legs to the side.

Eyes trained on their hands, he sat. Heat radiated off his body, and it took everything Ella had not to lean into it, especially since moving made it clear that her clothes were damp all down her backside. She couldn’t wait to get them off and take a shower.

She sucked in a breath. “Oh, God. Did he mark me again? Are you gonna have to—”

“No,” he rasped. “He didn’t. I’d be able to feel it now.” He nodded to their hands. “You’re okay. Or at least you will be.”

She nodded rapidly, her eyes blinking back threatening tears. “Okay. Okay.”

“Gods, Ella, I am so fucking sorry.”

The tight rein she’d held on her emotions slipped. Her breathing hitched. She clapped her good hand over her mouth and shook her head.

He swallowed thickly, the sound loud in the room. “Can you hold your hand out straight? I want to do a pass from the elbow down, just to be sure.”

Ella extended her arm, grateful for something clinical on which to focus.

Gentle fingers bathed her in that preternatural light, starting at her elbow, trailing down her forearm, pausing over her wrist. He focused the light over the center of her palm for a long moment, and it was the oddest sensation—the bones seemed to tumble over one another and click into place, like the pieces of a 3-D jigsaw coming together. He moved on, then, and stroked each of her fingers from knuckle to tip in succession. The pain relief was so complete, her body began to react to his sensual, caring touch. Ridiculous. Dangerous.

Impossible.

With a tender squeeze, the light faded away within Zeph’s grip. He looked up at her, eyes on fire. “It is done.”

Yes, and so are we. Done and over
. Or, at least, given what he needed and she couldn’t provide, it should be. Ella bit her tongue and nodded, heart in a million pieces in her chest.

“Okay. I won’t take long.”

“Take whatever you need, Ella.” Zeph meant that in any and every way she might interpret it. For her, he would give anything, do anything. He turned and left the room, though it made his chest ache to separate himself from her. For a long moment, he held his hand flat against the wood of the closed door, willing her to understand, to accept, to forgive. If it would make up for the horrible mistake his blind mistrust and self-loathing had led him to make, he would spend the rest of his life earning those things from her, showing her he deserved them.

Zeph braced for the shitstorm that was awaiting him downstairs. He took the steps slowly, like a man on his way to the gallows.

Expressions filled with a whole lot of what-the-fuck, Chrys and Owen both stood in the center of the living room, his brother with his hands on his hips, Owen with his arms crossed over his chest.

Owen cocked an eyebrow, waiting.

“What do you want me to say?” Zeph asked, his ears picking up the whine of the plumbing as Ella turned on the water upstairs.

“Gods, Z, he broke her hand,” Chrys said. “Where were you?”

“And that’s not all,” Owen said, voice quiet. Chrys’s gaze cut to Owen. “When she said she was assaulted, she didn’t just mean her hand.”

A burst of wind whirled through Ella’s living room, lifting the curtains in waves of fabric, scattering magazines. “I swear to the gods, Owen. What. The fuck. Are you saying?”

The younger man heaved a breath. “She’s got marks on her ear and throat, Zeph. Um, bite marks.”

Zeph went elemental. It was the only way he could cope. He remained in the living room, and knew his brethren would be able to sense his presence. But he needed an infusion of metaphysical energy to deal with the mounting pile of evidence of his massive fucking failure. As a man. As a lover. As a protector.

Owen’s words forced him to face the truth of it: he watched Eurus assault Ella, the woman he loved—yeah, he knew that shit now, without question—and did abso-fucking-lutely nothing about it. Worse. He left her to it.

How could she ever forgive him? How could he expect her to? He knew, right down to the bottom of his soul, he didn’t deserve her, but that didn’t keep his selfish heart from wanting.

Chrys sighed, his voice softer now. “So, I gotta ask again, Z. Where were you? How did E get his hands on Ella?”

Returning to corporeality, he sagged onto the couch, arms braced on his knees, head hanging. “Ella and I…we were at dinner. I didn’t pay enough attention, and let her feed me something that turned out to be scalding. I went elemental to heal the injury, back to the Realm of the Gods.” He sighed, his voice going more and more monotone in his own ears as he spoke. “Earlier in the day, I’d learned she had all these associations with the East, there were all these coincidences piling up, so I was already suspicious.”

“So you thought she’d done it on purpose,” Chrys stated. It wasn’t a question—he knew Zephyros well.

Zeph nodded, finally looking up. The combination of pity and understanding from the pair of gods was a real kick in the ass. “When I returned, hoping I was wrong, I found them kissing. She appeared a willing participant. I’d found exactly what I’d been looking for all along—proof she was too good to be true.”

“So you left,” the blond said.

“So I left.”

Owen cleared his throat. “Do you love her, Zephyros?”

“Yes.” He spoke without thinking. He knew it to the very marrow of his bones.

The men exchanged glances. “You realize there’s another thing you’re going to have to deal with here, right?” Chrys asked, tugging a hand through all that hair.

Zeph frowned and nodded. He’d been wondering when Chrysander would pounce on him for this healing. He hadn’t required a sacrifice from her—because it wasn’t her sacrifice to make. But, in so doing, he’d violated a major tenant of the use of divine magic in the human realm. “It was worth it.”

“You’re going to have to see Father, Z. No doubt he already knows.”

“I know. I have something else I need to discuss with him anyway. But right now, I just need to talk to Ella. Father can wait.”

Chrys groaned. “The longer you wait—”

Zeph flew off the couch, appeared right in Chrysander’s face. “I’m not leaving her! What part of that don’t you understand? I did that once, and look what happened.”

Owen put an arm, then a shoulder, between them, proving he was madly brave or just plain mad. He’d never been as strong as the Cardinal Anemoi, and as a demigod, was even less so. But what he lacked in power, he made up for in character and integrity. Zephyros nodded to him and stepped back.

Chrys squeezed Zeph’s shoulder. “When you’re ready to go, I’ll go with you.”

Zeph stared out the front window for a long moment, then turned back to Chrys’s serious gaze. He nodded “Thank you, brother.”

Upstairs, the water shut off. Zeph’s eyes tracked the sound.

Owen got right in his line of sight. “Fight for her, Zephyros. It’s worth it. I’m telling you. You have to put all the shit aside and fight.” Wisdom and compassion flashed out of those strange mismatched eyes.