Red Demon (11 page)

“I’m not talking about that.”

The problem was that Nik really had no idea what Mason was talking about. “Then explain,” he said laconically.

“It was her eyes. The look in them. For a moment, she stared at me, and I swear it was like . . .” Mason raked his hand over his scalp again, back and forth as if trying to soothe his troubled thoughts. “Forget it. It’s fucked.”

Nikos leaned forward and took a risk, the sort he rarely had the guts to try with Mason: He slid a palm onto the other man’s thigh, resting it there. “Tell me. Say it.”

Mason looked down at Nik’s hand as if it were a disembodied object, as if he wasn’t sure how it had even arrived on his leg. But Nik went on instinct; Mason needed reality, needed connection, so he didn’t move.

“It was like, for this split second, that woman—demon, whatever—her eyes changed. They became . . . hungry. For me. She looked at me like she wanted me.”

Nikos almost laughed, as inappropriate a response as it would’ve been. Because he certainly understood looking at Mason Angel and wanting him. He probably did that at least ten times a day. Nik nodded for him to continue. “Go on,” he urged, keeping his palm steady on Mason’s leg, afraid any sudden movement would send him running for emotional cover. “Tell me, Angel.”

“I haven’t seen a look like that since . . .” Mason’s eyes closed again, and he gave his head a shake. “Fuck. I
am
losing it.”

“Where’ve you seen a look like that before?” Nikos insisted, desperate to keep Mason open and alert.

Mason only mumbled, “Forget it, dude. Just forget I ever said anything.”

“Do you still think she’s a demon?”

The human shrugged, slowly opening his eyes. “I’m not sure of anything anymore, Nik,” he whispered, sinking back heavily into a chair. “Not even me.”

“W
ell, now that we’ve managed to clear half the crew out, maybe you’ll tell me exactly what you are, hon.” Jamie Angel smiled like a perfect Southern gentleman, leaning one hip against the dining table. “My brother, Mason, clearly thinks you’re a demon, and my sister . . .”

Shay shrugged in response, folding muscular arms across her chest. She’d been fighting demons on an almost daily basis recently, and it showed in her strong, honed physique. “Jamie, really?” she said. “I got no clue on this one.”

“My sister’s obviously not sure what to make of you, either.” Jamie lowered his voice to a gentle timbre. “So why don’t you just tell me all about it, sweetheart.”

Ari felt no such gentle tendencies. Not when the imposter looked up at him, those beautiful, thick-lashed blue eyes almost more than he could handle. Gazing back at her, his whole body reacted—his groin, his heart, his mind.

No!
he tried telling himself.
Even if she is Juliana, she left you. Gave up on your love!

Flexing first one hand, then the other, he hated the buzz saw of electricity that kicked on inside his head. And his skull still hurt like a mother. He recalled his concussion then, that fact resounding in his head like the second boom from a mortar, the one that was much more dangerous than the first.

“Aw, damn it all,” he muttered as the room grew swimmy and dark. “Who hit the lights?”

Ajax was instantly at his side, helping him to his seat. “Come on, big bro, let’s go sit down.”

Shay followed Ajax. The married duo always seemed to move as one, and as Jax helped him into the chair, she handed Ari a damp cloth. “Here, press this to your forehead,” she urged, and he complied, leaning his head back. The cool wetness eased the thundering tempo in his brain slightly.

“Who is this female impersonating?” Ajax asked bluntly.

Ari heard a delicate sniff of feminine indignation from beside him. “Apparently manners do not run in the Petrakos bloodline.”

“I was in love with her,” Ari explained, holding the cool cloth against his eyes. “Here, in Savannah. Over a century ago. She’s been dead ever since.”

And so have I
, he thought.
So have I.

“I am very much here now, sir,” the female said tartly. “Do not speak of me otherwise.”

He peeled the edge of the cloth away, ready to give her the evil eye, and saw that Emma was walking into the kitchen, River right behind her.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” Ari groused, noting that both of them had wet, neatly combed hair.

The heat that had been lodged in his groin all night long hit overdrive as an image of hauling Juliana out of her chair and off to his own posh bathroom danced through his mind—of her bare body gleaming with droplets of water, his dark hands all over her porcelain skin. Maybe pulling her into the glass-walled shower, where he’d lather her up, drop to his knees . . .

“Oh, my God!” Emma cried suddenly, eyes still locked on the Juliana imposter. She pointed, turning toward River in explanation, then jabbed her finger significantly. “That’s
her
. That’s Aunt Juliana, in the chair. That’s my great- great-aunt.”

“Actually, Mason doesn’t think she
is
Juliana,” Ajax corrected. “He says she’s a demon. One masquerading as your dead relative.”

“Hey, wait!” Ajax looked at Emma. “Was she
Shay’s
great-great-aunt, too?”

Emma nodded, frowning as she swept her gaze up and down Juliana’s form. “Yes, Juliana was our greatgrandmother’s sister.” She hesitated, gesturing toward the woman. “I’m sorry; not to dispute my cousin’s word—I mean, Mason’s really good at what he does—but that
is
Juliana. She has the same spirit I channeled earlier tonight. I sense it.”

Ari’s head only pounded harder as the group talked over one another, debating whether Juliana was the real deal or not. He rubbed his temples, almost daring to hope Emma was right, but his heart clenched at the thought, even as it tried to embrace the possibility.

She had broken him, with both her rejection and her death. Now, if she truly
had
returned? How could he ever trust her again, much less risk his heart?

He groaned. “My head, gang. Is Sophie coming? She gonna heal me or what?”

Emma moved to his side instantly, pressing the cool cloth against his brow again. “I couldn’t reach her for a while, Ari, but she’s on the way now. She’ll take care of you.”

He noticed that “Juliana” was watching the action very closely, blotches of color staining her cheeks. The little hellion had the nerve to be jealous? And of Emma?

“So Juliana was a Daughter of Delphi, too,” Ajax resumed, sounding as if he were a hound chasing down a fox’s trail. “Like you, like Shay. The gifts came down through the female bloodline, correct?”

Emma nodded, gaze locked on the woman she clearly believed was her great-great-aunt. “All the way back to ancient Greece. It’s in our family journals; the exact lineage is traced.”

“Your point, Jax?” Ari asked, dropping his hands to the table. At that exact moment, “Juliana” spread her palms openly in front of her, causing their fingertips to graze. It was like being touched by wildfire, Ari’s entire body tensing and electrifying in response. For such a simple touch, it sure incited a complicated, intense reaction.

His brother kept talking, oblivious. “Well, as a man who happens to be married to a very powerful Daughter of Delphi,” Jax said, “I’ve learned they’re capable of quite the supernatural feat. Channeling the Highest God, seeing the future, hearing the dead . . .”

Ari turned to look up at his younger brother. “Again, Jax, get to the point.” He knew he sounded raw and irritable, but physical awareness of the female beside him was starting to burn a hole in his consciousness.

Ajax smiled slowly, a warm, genuine expression that reached his eyes. He bent over Ari’s shoulder, his voice so low that only the two of them would know the secret. “Brother of mine, I’m suggesting that you might be sitting beside your one true love.” Jax paused, letting those intense, meaningful words sink all the way in. “So close, Aristos, that you could turn and kiss the lass if you wanted.”

Then Jax straightened up, raising his voice for the whole group to hear. “There’s only one way to confirm the woman’s identity for sure that I can think of, and that’s to summon a very old, dear friend of mine. Of ours.”

 

Oh, by the Highest, Leonidas would think she’d come of her own volition, Daphne thought, afraid to even breathe. Ares had spun her through the dimensions, torturing her as she hung in between for what felt an eternity—but was probably only a few hours. Now she’d landed gracelessly in the king’s intimate chambers, clearly her brother’s notion of a cruel joke. Or a dangerous temptation.

Leo was unaware of her silent arrival, kneeling before a makeshift, candlelit altar, lost in prayer. His head was bowed, one hand pressed over his heart, quiet and earnest words spilling past his lips. She closed her eyes, willing herself to vanish or move through the heavens without lifting so much as a pinky, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the man she loved.

“Highest Lord, Father of all, guide our steps. Lead us from the path of evil. Protect us from the arrows that fly by day and by night,” he prayed, but then his words simply faded to nothing. With an anguished groan, he rubbed both palms over his face. “Highest, what is she, this woman I love to the point of distraction? A goddess? Half a goddess? And what are these gods, when you command them all?”

Leonidas kept his face buried in both palms, moaning low in his throat. “I’ve never wanted anything for myself. Not glory, not handsomeness, not even immortality. But this Oracle, this mystical Daphne . . . I want her to the point of madness.”

Daphne stifled a gasp, eyes wide and fixed on Leo’s profile. In the candlelight, his dark skin and hair appeared to glow with otherworldly power. As if the fire crowned him somehow, making him shine from within, reflecting all the noble goodness and heat she always felt simmered inside his quiet nature.

He let his hands fall away then, and she saw what his palms had concealed: Tears shone in his brown eyes. “God of all, Highest of all, who is this Daphne, the one I love so fiercely?”

She could not keep silent, not now. “I am just a woman, my king,” she whispered, barely able to find her voice. “A woman in every way.”

He jolted, whipping his head in her direction, pinning her with a severe gaze. “I thought you would not return,” he said without blinking. “You said that you would not come to me again.” The words were almost an accusation, with undisguised pain behind them.

That was what she ached to cry out, but didn’t dare. The moment Leo understood how easily he could have her—fathomed how deeply she would always love him—she’d no longer be able to resist him. Those long-pent-up emotions were so strong, if they ever gave way, she knew that she and Leonidas would be swept up in the roaring tide, no turning back.

And they could never have a relationship like that. Not any relationship at all ever again. Because if they did, then Ares would not rest until he chased Leonidas to the ends of the earth. Her brother would hunt and destroy Leo for one single reason: his own raging jealousy.

If he hadn’t targeted him already, she thought in alarm, recalling the veiled threat he’d made about Leo’s immortality.

Slowly Leonidas rose to his feet, favoring his right knee briefly. That old war injury that had never stopped causing him pain, she thought, feeling a sharp, sympathetic ache in her own right knee. “No answer for me . . . Daphne?” He whispered her name with more fever and intensity than anything else he’d said so far. As if just using it after not being allowed to know it for so many years was something of a prayer in its own right. Then he repeated it, dropping his voice into a lower, huskier timbre.
“Daphne?”

She flattened herself against the door to his chambers. “I wasn’t spying. I really, truly wasn’t spying, my king.”

“I never accused you of it.” He took several slow steps toward her, head tilted down slightly so that his gaze fixed on her with a focused intensity. “I merely pointed out that you’d said we could not see each other anymore. That you would not come to me except as your duties required. Are you here with a prophetic word now?”

She swallowed and shook her head.

He smiled, the harsh scar that split through his lower lip twisting his mouth into a rough expression that she always found oddly beautiful. “Somehow I thought not.”

She placed her palms flush against the door, half thinking she should teleport, and half wishing that he’d sweep her into his strong arms. “I didn’t come here, my lord.”

“You’re here now.”

“I . . . I was sent. Thrown here, I mean. Well, teleported against my will.”

He stopped right in front of her. Only a minute distance separated them; he stood so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath, smell the tantalizing, musky, male scent of his skin. His eyes flickered for a moment. “Ah, so the only way you’ll visit your king now is against your will?” he asked, lifting one thick eyebrow. “I suppose that should surprise me.”

She flinched at the words, splaying both palms against his chest in an involuntary response. “My king, don’t say cruel words just to spite me.”

He stared down at her hands, distanced from the physical intimacy. “You heard my prayers.”

“Yes.”

He was quiet a long moment, then: “You know how I feel.”

“You’ve always known how
I
feel, my beautiful king. At least, ever since you could see me. I hope you have.”

He shook his head, gaze still averted. “I’m not sure how you ever felt, Oracle. I have not seen you in two months. You come and go at will, and every time you leave, I swear you only possess me more.” Slowly he lifted his own hands and covered hers against his chest. “I want to be angry. I try to be, but now that I see you? Now that I feel you here, so close against me, all I want is to make love to you at last. For hours and days, I yearn to hold you in my arms, like this. Yet closer.”