He gave me a few more appreciative licks and kissed up my stomach, sampling each nipple before returning to my mouth. I tasted myself on his tongue, the heady flavor of our entwined bodies. As he positioned his shaft at my entrance, I dug my nails into his back.
Gods, was this happening?
He released my mouth and rose on his elbows. His fangs were in full view. Their razor edges made my breath hitch before I looked into his eyes, alight with the passion that burned inside him, burned for me. Trust. He let out a deep growl, and he ground his hardness against me. I thrust in answer, high on the sensation of his body.
He scraped the tips of his fangs over the pink mark on my neck, making my nerve endings tingle all over my body. I should be afraid. Instead, I felt powerful. Dominant. I needed him inside me, his fangs and his length imbedded deeply. Reaching down, I freed his shaft from his boxers. The tip was wet, and I swiped my thumb around its head, feeling its smooth, hard length. He groaned at my touch, a deep sound of wanting. His mouth joined with the smooth skin of my throat, teasing me, promising to take my vein but not telling when. Gods, the pleasure.
But then I felt something burning at my back. Something wasn’t right. I stilled. Then I realized it. Menelaus’s mark. It was on fire.
Paris
I sensed the change in her and felt the threat. I rose from the bed and scoured the crag beneath us, looking for any sign of danger. There, in the early morning light, shadows moved, climbing upward. More demons than I had ever seen were now amassing on my doorstep. It was the horde come for Menelaus’s prize.
Below, flames roared through the streets of Pyli. The town would soon be destroyed, nothing more than a pile of ash and embers. I cursed, bitterness rising in me and replacing the honeyed taste of Elena on my tongue. She had already jumped from the bed, dressed quickly, and was throwing clothes and items into a pack she’d found in the closet.
“They don’t know our exact location, or they would have been on us already.”
“Agreed.” Her voice no longer had even a hint of its earlier heat.
“Meet me when you’re ready.” I dashed to my room and began packing a similar bag. “Daphne!” I called out as I collected gear.
I yanked a weapons stash from under my bed.
Pulling on a gray T-shirt and some jeans, I cursed Menelaus in three different languages.
Daphne rushed through the door, her pointed ears at sharp attention. “Demons! They’re coming!”
“I know. We have to run. You ready?”
“Yes. We can go to my people.”
I shook my head. “You know I would never risk you or them.”
Daphne and the nymphs of the Woodlands were brave, but they were not hardened warriors. Menelaus would overrun them and bathe in their blood.
Her eyes welled with tears, distorting the friendly golden flecks dotting the chocolate irises. “Pyli’s on fire. Where can we go?”
“Fuck!” I kicked the foot of the bed, the wood exploding and sending splinters flying. There was nowhere else. I had no home, and now, thanks to my duplicity with Artemis, neither did Elena. We had no protection, no benefactor to see us through the coming storm.
Elena appeared in the doorway, dressed in some of Daphne’s tight-fitting leathers that hugged her hips and a black T-shirt. Her hair was whipped back into a high ponytail, and the air near her shimmered with that otherworldly glow.
“Got a plan?” Elena was calm as she bent down to raid my trove of weapons and magic ingredients, loading up her pack.
“The portal in Pyli is probably destroyed. We have to run.” Letting Menelaus take her again was not an option.
Daphne dug a sparkling ocarina from her bag and played a loud, intricate tune. I knew the sound. The glittering magic shot from the small instrument and out through the windowed ceiling. Daphne was summoning Zirga, her winged horse and the last of its kind. It answered only to the nymphs, having freed itself from the chains of Olympus long ago. I had a weakness for anything that was the last in its line, even though Zirga had already made her contempt for me known. I rubbed my chest, remembering a vicious hoofprint and broken ribs. Even so. “Daphne, you can’t get her mixed up in this. She could be killed.”
“Zirga decides what she will and won’t do, who can ride her and who can’t. Besides, you have any other ideas?” Daphne put her hands on her hips, still fighting back her tears.
I glanced back down at the demons quickly scaling the sheer cliff wall. It was only a matter of time before we were overrun.
“The nearest portal is in the Bloodkeep?” Elena asked.