Chosen (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

K
yana sucked in a breath, feeling as though Ares had just punched her in the stomach. “You're an ass.”

He smiled, and she decided she liked his smile quite a lot. When it was genuine, it met his eyes, and the gray depths twinkled with merriment and lent a softness to his features that reminded her of Ryker.

“Am I? Are you saying you
don't
love my son?”

Her stomach clenched again, but this time it felt as though a net of butterflies had been torn and the creatures were fluttering about her belly.

“He's all right,” she said. “Do you? Love him, I mean. Your history together would suggest otherwise.”

“Ah. Averting my question by firing your own at me. My relationship with Ryker isn't nearly as interesting as yours so let's return to that, shall we?”

Her mouth was too dry. She sucked on a chunk of pineapple in hopes of moistening her tongue. It didn't work.

“I'm not playing tit for tat with you, Ares.”

“No, that's our game.”

Kyana looked up to find Ryker striding inside. He swung his cloak off his shoulders and passed it to the Nymph at the door. “Impromptu meeting?”

Ares reached across the table and took her goblet, drank a deep sip, and returned it to her.

It was Kyana's turn to raise her brow at him. “Thought you didn't drink.”

Ares cleared his throat as Ryker took the seat beside Kyana. “I think I'm due.”

“So?” Ryker asked, stretching his arm out to let it fall around Kyana's shoulders. He turned to Kyana, his expression one of worry. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” she lied. Her wound wasn't hurting so badly at the moment, but Ares's topic of choice was making her stomach cramp.

“Good.” He looked to Ares. “Why are you here so late?”

When Ares didn't answer, Kyana cleared her throat. “He was looking for you. What did Atropos want?”

His gaze shifted back and forth between his two audience members. “Some of her souls are missing now too.”

Kyana blinked. “What? Why would Cronos raise anyone who hasn't been sent to Tartarus? They'd be less likely to join him.”

“There are more important things to concern us now than the whys of it all,” Ares said. His words were beginning to slur and Kyana regretted requesting the wine. If Ares pricked Ryker's temper sober, she could only imagine how ugly things could get when he was drunk.

Ryker took the pitcher of wine and held it up so the Nymph could take it. “I don't think it's wise to be drinking.”

Before the Nymph could disappear with the spirits, however, Ares stopped her by grabbing her arm. “Leave it.” His stony expression fixated on Ryker. “You might want a cup yourself before we're done here.”

Watching her with a scrutiny that made her shift in her chair, Ares rubbed his chin. “I see no reason to stop our conversation just because Ryker is here. It has to do with him.”

Ares waved his hand in dismissal at the Nymph and set the pitcher back down in the center of the table. “We have tough days before us. One night of indulging ourselves might be in order.”

Kyana scowled. He'd as much as told her she was foolish for drinking when he'd arrived. Ares was even more responsible and duty-bound than Ryker, and that was saying a lot. What was he up to?

She was suddenly overcome with trepidation that whatever was on his mind would get spoken, regardless of the regrets they might bring in the morning.

“Ares, maybe you shouldn't—”

“I'll do what I damned well please.” He leaned back, his eyes so like Ryker's in the way they could pin her wherever she stood or sat. Powerful eyes. “Soon we will either be victorious in ridding ourselves of Cronos, or we will all be dead. I think the time for truths left unspoken is over.”

“Ares—”

He waved off her second attempt at a warning. “Whatever you're doing to or have done to my son will cease at once.”

Not at all sure what Ares meant, she looked to Ryker. “Have I
done
something to you?”

Ryker's expression was just as puzzled as Kyana knew her own was. “I don't know. Have you?”

“I don't think so.”

“He isn't as focused as he should be,” Ares continued. “Without focus, he'll be a, what do they call it? A sitting duck when Cronos arrives. I don't like seeing my son so distraught.”

Kyana snorted. “Distraught? You make him sound like a weepy woman.”

“My son does not weep. But he has taken up moping and staring out his temple window toward yours when he should be concentrating on strategies and preparations.”

“I'm sitting right here,” Ryker grumbled. “And my relationship with Ky is none of your business. I've been your lackey for centuries, Ares. Don't need you running my life anymore.”

Being alone was looking appealing again. Kyana sighed. “So, what?” she asked. “You want me to leave him alone so he can focus?”

“Precisely.”

Suddenly, the last thing she wanted was food. She pushed the platter closer to Ares before leaning back in her chair. “You're really protective for a guy who's never acted like a father.”

“All right.” Ryker stood and took Kyana's hand to help her to her feet. “We're done here.”

But Ares didn't seem to hear him. Angry lines furrowed his brow as he scowled up at Kyana. “Who are you to judge me as a father?”

“Who are you to tell Ryker who he can and can't be with?”

She felt Ryker tense beside her. The last thing she wanted to do was stir up another fight between them. “Never mind. We're supposed to be fighting Cronos. Not each other.”

His bronzed complexion paled and his eyes turned near black as they shifted toward his son. “Why stop now? I said I had truths to tell and I mean to speak them.”

“I'm not having this conversation. Ky, I'll be in your rooms.”

Kyana grabbed his hand, keeping him from storming out. Getting it all out in the open might do them both good, and if it was under the guise of wine, so much the better.

“Sit,” she said. “Drink the wine, and you two have it out right here and now. Ares is right. We're about to go to war. You might never get this chance to have your questions answered again.”

He jerked his hand free. “I don't need my questions answered. What good would come from finding out why he raped my mother? It only matters that he
did
.”

“Go or stay.” Ares stood, looking formidable in his stark white tunic and bloodred cape, his sword glimmering in the firelight as it clinked against the table. “But before you walk away from me, I will say this: I have enjoyed many perks of my godhood, Ryker. But never have I taken a woman to my bed who didn't beg to be there.”

Kyana wasn't surprised. She'd had trouble believing Ares to be a rapist since Ryker had confessed that bit of his past in their game of tit for tat several weeks ago. He was nothing like Zeus, who played human women like a game of checkers.

To her surprise, Ryker sat back down, his face red and his fists clenched. “You're a liar.”

Ares shook his head, the pained expression on his face pulling at Kyana's heart, though her loyalty and concern here fell fully with Ryker. What if this didn't turn out well? Was he going to blame her for not allowing him to walk away?

Well, so what if he did? It was unhealthy to live under a roof made of lies. He might be angry with her, but at least he'd know more about himself. “Go on, Ares.”

“It is long past time that I stop protecting false memories of your mother. You are no longer a child to be coddled and she . . .” Ares shook himself. “Have you not ever questioned your eyes? How they shift to red when you're angered? Or how that shift gave you the power of telekinesis? Have you ever seen mine do such a thing?”

Ryker wanted nothing more than to stand back up and walk the hell out of the hall, but he couldn't make his legs obey. Beside him, Kyana was eerily silent, a witness to what was to come. He wasn't sure if that made him more comfortable or less as he considered Ares's question.

Of course he'd thought about his eyes. The strange way they shifted colors when his ire had been pricked. So what? They didn't mean anything. All demigods were different. He'd just always assumed they'd come from his mixed heritage.

“You're saying I got my eyes from my mother?” he asked, struggling to remember the color of her eyes. He couldn't. There were many other things he remembered about her in great detail, but not her damned eyes.

Ares nodded. “She wasn't human, Ryker.”

“Fuck you.” He felt Kyana's hand squeeze his, but it did nothing to calm him. That he was half human was the only part of his bloodline he was proud of.

“She was a Mage with powers I'm ashamed to say intoxicated me. It is her blood that gives you the power to move things with your mind. It made you the most powerful soldier in my ranks, fighting without ever having to lift a hand.”

Ryker's hands were trembling. Kyana reached around him, filled a goblet with wine, and pressed it into his hands. He took it and without thinking, downed the whole cup.

When he was done, he slammed the goblet on the table. “You're a lying bastard.”

“Believe what you will, but it is the truth. And while I am spewing truths that should have been spoken long before this night, I did not claim you because of your powers as I know you believe. I claimed you because I needed to, as much as you needed me to. She wasn't kind to you, Ryker. And she did everything in her power to keep me from you.”

Ryker's brain latched on to the words coming out of Ares's mouth and the memories they'd triggered. He'd been ten when Ares had come for him. It had been winter and the third day in a row that he'd spent locked inside his mother's herb closet, the scent of leaves and poultices gagging him as he'd stuck his nose to the cracks in the wood in an effort to breathe.

He could have gotten out, but doing so would have earned him even more of his mother's wrath, so he'd stayed, stilling his mind against breaking open the doors.

It wasn't until he'd been moments from blacking out from lack of air that he'd given in and used his mind to set himself free. She'd come home to find him sprawled on the floor, covered in his own filth, and had proceeded to beat him until he couldn't walk.

She would have killed him if Ares hadn't shown up to take him away, and as hard as it had been to leave with the man Ryker had believed had raped his mother, it had been a relief to watch her grow smaller as they'd disappeared.

“I'm sorry,” Ares said. “I never wanted you to hate her, Ryker. I was hoping you'd forget all she'd done.”

He nearly had, or the bad parts anyway. But now, as his mind wandered back over those first ten years, he could see her green eyes turn to red, swirl each time she lifted her hand to him and screamed at him for destroying her life.

“Why?” he heard himself whisper. “Why did she hate me so much if I wasn't a child born of rape?”

Ares closed his eyes, his chest rising as he drank in a deep breath of air. “She seduced me. Gods save me, I was weak to it. She thought that begetting me a son would give her a powerful place among the gods. When she was told after your birth that she could not accompany you to Olympus, she went mad. I thought if I left you with her, it would lessen her hurt. I was wrong, and you paid the price for it. I can never tell you how sorry that has made me.”

Somehow, by the blessings of the gods, Ryker managed to find his feet. His head was spinning from the wine and from everything Ares had told him. He didn't want to believe a word of it, but he knew if he didn't, he'd be a fool. It all made sense to him now. His mother's hatred and abuse.

“Ten years,” he said, moving away from the table, finally breaking his hold on Kyana's hand. “Why did you wait so long to come for me if you knew what she was doing to me?”

Ares swallowed, and for an instant, Ryker thought he saw his eyes turn glassy. “When your mother learned she'd never be allowed on Olympus, she disappeared. The magic she possessed was very powerful. I'd never seen you, but you are a part of me and I loved you because of it, not because of what you were, but because of
who
you were. It took me ten years to find a way to break through her spells. The instant I did, I brought you home.”

Ryker stood frozen for a long moment before finally giving Ares one curt nod of understanding. Something had shifted between them tonight and a burden had been lifted off Ryker's shoulders that he hadn't known he'd been carrying all these years.

Unable to speak, he turned and left the room, realizing that for the first time in his life, he'd finally heard someone tell him he loved him.

Chapter Twenty-two

“S
till awake?” Kyana muttered beside Ryker, curling against his side, her warm breath coating his neck.

“It's not as if he's spent the last centuries being father of the year,” he murmured, not caring that he was forcing her into the middle of a conversation he'd been having quietly with himself. “He never even
tried
to make me like him.”

“You heard what he said. He was protecting your memories of your mother.” She sat and twisted to look down at him, her mouth stretching open in an enormous yawn as the sheet fell away from her breasts, finally giving him something to divert his thoughts. “I think he trained you to become his general and that was his declaration of love. I'm only sorry the real words took so long to be said.”

He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her exposed nipple. “It should have been you.”

Leaning into his hands, Kyana gave a soft moan. He had been in too foul a mood to make love to her when they'd gone to bed, and she'd been too tired from her injury. Now, however, it was all Ryker could think about.

“What should have been me?”

He kissed the dark peaks before tilting her head down and placing a soft kiss on her lips. “Ares told me he loved me tonight. Real or not, it was the first time I've ever heard those words. They should have come from you.”

She pulled away, suddenly rigid. “You think I love you.”

He nodded.

Kyana sighed and gave her head a light shake. “Ares wanted you to know how he felt in case he doesn't make it through this war alive. I believe he wanted to wait until you accepted him. He ran out of time.”

“We're all running out of time,” he muttered, slipping his fingers through her hair.

“Yeah, well, I don't plan on dying. No need for any huge declarations from me.”

He smiled, taking no offense. “I know you love me whether you want to say it or not. I can say it enough for both of us.” Ryker leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers. “I love you, Ky.”

Kyana chewed her bottom lip and watched Ryker watch her. “Thanks. I think.”

He grinned, flashing his dimples and making her all dizzy and hot in one crazy instant. “You're welcome.”

He trailed his lips down her neck and she turned her body, shimmying along the mattress until she sat facing him so she could wrap her legs around his waist. As she let him rain kisses along her shoulders and throat, she sighed and tried to find some small thing to give him in return.

“I don't want you to die” was all she was willing to concede.

“Why not?”

She leaned in enough to let the heat of her hover just above the bit of him growing hard against her thighs. Her whole body was far too warm, but as much as she didn't want to have this conversation, she wasn't going to run from it. While she couldn't give him exactly what he wanted, she had to give him
something
. Ares had taught her a lesson tonight—that the threat looming over all of them was too real to allow so many loose ends to be left untied.

But how much was she willing to give Ryker right now?

“I don't want Geoff or Haven or Silas to die either. I'm not wanting to commit my life to any of them, but it doesn't mean I don't care.”

“You already have.” His smirk irritated the shit out of her.

“Excuse me?”

“You've already dedicated your life to them because you love them. You'd lay down your life for any of them and nearly have because you . . . Love. Them.”

Kyana swallowed. “So?”

“So . . . you've already risked your life for me once.” He slid his hand beneath the sheets, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin below her hip, just inches from where she really wished he'd play. That part of her was aching, burning for just one brush from him. Anything. “I think you'd take a bullet for me because you . . . Love. Me. Too.”

It was all she could do to remain focused on the conversation and not impale herself upon him right then and there. He looked so damned sexy and sure of himself she wanted to eat him alive.

“I'd take a bullet for you because a bullet wouldn't kill me.”

“You'd bathe in pure undiluted ambrosia for me, then.” He slipped his finger inside her and she cried out before she could mute herself, her body folding against him.

“No,” she whispered, raising her hips slightly to give him better access.

“Yes.” His thumb flicked her clit and she bucked, her whole body seizing as it broke into a buffet of tingles and gooseflesh. “And since you can't say the words, you're going to show me. Now.”

He dipped his head and caught her nipple in his mouth, stealing her words and her breath in one suckle.

“Ryker!” But her protest sounded weak, even to Kyana.

With a moan, she pressed her hands to his shoulders and pushed away, leaning backward so she could see him more fully and watch what he was doing to her body.

His broad shoulders and well-toned arms looked all the more muscular as he worked his hands between them, penetrating her with first one, then two fingers while she watched. He slid them back out, covered with her slick need, and Kyana thought she might pass out.

The mere sight of him, naked and powerful, dried her mouth and dampened her thighs. Broad chest and narrow waist, all kissed by the sun. The fine trail of golden hair that slinked its way from his navel to his groin, where it encircled the part of him that pulsed for her now.

Strong thighs, dusted with small blond curls, pressed against the inside of her smooth ones. He was hard, she was hot. They were ready.

Using his shoulders, she pulled herself to her knees and pushed him backward. She straddled him, buried her face in his neck as she suckled his ear.

Could she do this? Having sex with Ryker was no problem. But could she do what he'd suggested she might and show him all she felt for him right now? Tenderness wasn't exactly her specialty, and while she wasn't ready to confess her love for him, she did truly want to show him that she cared deeply for him, that she was on the verge of something more than that.

This time, it couldn't be a screw. A good lay. This time, she had to make love to him.

Closing her eyes, she forced her heart to slow and her body to calm. Her need for him was going to drive her mad, but she had to keep control. Had to take this slow and fill every second with a realness she hadn't given him before.

She trailed her lips down his neck, her stomach in knots. What if she was no good at this? What if she didn't know how to communicate with her body any better than she did with her words?

Ryker could feel Kyana's tension grow by the second. He didn't know what was bothering her so much, but if he didn't make her relax, she was going to bolt. He could feel it in her tense muscles, in the stiff legs that now straddled him.

He found her mouth and kissed her as gently as he could, which was no easy feat since all he wanted to do was devour her. Slowly, blessedly, she relaxed the tiniest fraction and opened her mouth to him. Her tongue was warm and slick, her breath sweet. The long curls that tumbled across his face and chest were like silk, and as he ran his fingers through them, he paused long enough to cup her face.

Gently, he slid his arm behind her to cradle her and slowly lowered her onto her back. The moment he took over, he could feel the tension in her drain.

“You all right?” he asked, dipping his head to suckle her breast as she arched toward him.

“Mm hmm.”

He lifted her leg, settling it atop his shoulder, and turned his kisses to her calf. As he inched lower and lower toward her thighs, Kyana's breathing became erratic.

She lifted her hips off the bed toward his seeking mouth and he granted her wish, tasting her, licking her, making her ready for him.

He wasn't going to fulfill her, though. When she came, he wanted to be inside her, wanted to feel her tighten around him and call out his name. Instead, he lapped until her breath became soft hiccups, then trailed his tongue to her navel, then breasts, then neck.

He'd be willing to bet that the word
love
hadn't been any more in Kyana's lifetime than it had been in his. It was going to be up to him to teach her what it meant and how to say it.

“I love you,” he whispered into her ear, nudging her thighs apart and placing the tip of him against the center of her. “I love you, Kyana.” He pressed slightly, the head of his dick pushing her open as she moaned against his throat and nipped at his Adam's apple. He slid inside, pulled out again. Repeated the whole process until his body trembled with the need to go faster, deeper. “I love you, Kyana.”

Her nails raked his ass as she lifted herself toward him and wrapped her legs around his hips. He drove into her, whispering his mantra into her ear with each penetration as he felt her body tighten a bit more with each plunge.

Kyana kept her face turned into Ryker's neck and dug her fingers more deeply into his flesh with each word he muttered. With every confession of love, another hot tear broke free to streak her cheeks. With every movement of his hips, her body ascended into another realm. Her emotions and her physical being were at war with each other. Her heart wanted to beg for him to stop but her desire for him wouldn't dare tell him to.

Please shut up. Shut up shut up!

But as he said those damned words again, her heart silently begged him to keep going. Something inside her was breaking. Crumbling. Dissolving. With each quiet tear, a fear escaped and she was able to breathe more deeply. Her body was spiraling out of control and she clung to Ryker, thrusting against him, loving the way shivers rose upon her skin each time he moaned her name.

He forced her to look at him, rubbing his thumb along her face to wipe away tears he would never dare mention, then kissed her as her body sprinted for release.

“I love you, Kyana,” he said again, and she lost it.

Her body came off the bed as her climax stole her breath. She bit into Ryker's shoulder to keep from screaming the angry words that were on her lips.

I love you too, damn it! I fucking love you too!