Vicious Champion (Games of the Gods Book 2)

by Nikki Kardnov

  I inhale deeply. The air is sweet and fragrant.

  “I can’t believe we actually made it,” I say. “I thought we might just be on that path for the rest of our lives.”

  Haven turns his gaze on me, but it’s his colorless eye I see, since he’s mostly in profile. There’s a smug grin on his face. “I said I’d get us here, orphan.”

  We stand there at the entrance for a long time, both unmoving. Whatever lays beyond the mouth of the cave, it’s impossible to see it out here from the light of day. The cave is dark and for all I know, bottomless.

  “So...how do we do this?” I ask.

  Haven keeps his gaze on the cave. “We can only go one at a time.”

  Of course. That’s the way of most things here in Olympus—everything of importance must be done alone.

  “Who’s going first?” Not me. Not me. Not me.

  Without hesitation, Haven says, “I’ll go.”

  “Really?”

  “Are you afraid, orphan?” He looks at me again and this time he’s straight on so I get the full effect of his mismatched eyes. The urge to look away bristles up my spine. I don’t give in.

  “I’m not afraid of my future,” I say.

  “Nor am I,” he answers. “Because mine has been destined since the beginning.”

  There’s a finality to this proclamation, a resigned sadness.

  His admission in the maze comes back to me, when he told me I was lucky to be an orphan because it gave me freedom to choose.

  He takes a step toward the cave’s entrance.

  The wind cuts into the glade and whips my hair around my face. My chest is suddenly heavy. I can’t tell if it’s fear for Haven or something else.

  Russ comes up beside Haven and whines at his feet. She peers up at him with big puppy dog eyes and I’m immediately envious of her candor. The look she gives him says, Don’t leave me. I want to say the same thing.

  Maybe I am afraid of my future. Maybe I’m afraid of what it has in store for Haven and me. Only one of us can win the last trial. There’s no way around that.

  And if there was, would I want it?

  Haven crouches down beside Russ. Tarter quickly bounds over too. Haven gives them equal attention and they lick his face for the effort.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, “I won’t be long.”

  Partly pacified, they sit back on their haunches panting as he stands again.

  “Good luck,” I say.

  He looks at me over his shoulder. “Thanks, orphan.”

  The wind has tousled his hair and it hangs over his forehead in messy abandon.

  I want to reach out to him. I want to hug him. I want to tell him...everything.

  Instead, I smile and turn away and when I chance a second glance, he’s already gone.

  Chapter 14

  To busy myself while I wait, I pick flowers. It’s something that’s familiar and comfortable and it helps calm my nerves. I take great care with the daphne blooms since their flowers are smaller and more delicate.

  The weria vines are a hearty bush and the flowers are no different. I clip off several flowers with my fingernail.

  When I stand back with a fresh bouquet in hand, I’m ridiculously happy that the flowers haven’t withered and died in my care and I have to wonder if Haven’s lesson from the day before has not only helped me call my magic, but keep it at bay too.

  I break off a bit of vine and tie it around the flower stems.

  How long has it been since Haven went inside the cave? No sound comes from the darkness. What if he fell and is calling for help? Maybe I should go check on him.

  No. He’s fine. It hasn’t been that long.

  I go to the cliffside and look out. The north side of Olympus spreads out as far as my eyes can see. The horizon is misty with the late afternoon light. The sky is painted in pastel shades of blue and pink and purple. Wispy clouds make painter’s strokes against the sky.

  It’s ridiculously beautiful.

  Now that I’m standing here near the top of Mount Ida, I’m realizing just how little of Olympus I’ve traveled. Sure, I occasionally left home with Hestia, and sometimes Clea and I would sneak away to explore, but none of that is the same as this. I’m far outside of Olympus City and while I’m aware that more dangers lurk out here, I can’t ignore the feeling that it’s somehow purer. It’s allowed to be wild and untamed.

  As I’m admiring the view, there’s a shuffling behind me.

  I turn around and find Haven stumbling out of the cave, drenched and breathing heavily. He’s lost his shirt somewhere and is only in his pants. The wet material sticks to the muscular cut of his thighs and the rise of his groin.

  I look back up at his face, a blush spreading from my cheeks down my neck. “What did you see?” I ask, although I’m aware I have no right to the answer. “Are you okay?” I try instead.

  There’s an expression on his face that looks something between shock and awe.

  Did he see himself winning the trial?

  A streak of something sharp runs through me.

  If he wins...

  “Haven?”

  Water drips from his hair and from the tip of his nose.

  “It isn’t what I saw,” he says and swallows. “It’s what I was given.”

  Tarter and Russ go to smoke and disappear completely.

  “And what’s that?”

  Something shifts in the air. Not danger, exactly, but...something like it. I can feel it along my skin. It lifts the hair at the back of my neck.

  “Permission,” Haven answers. “Permission to have what I want.”

  He looks at me and licks his lips. My heart is pounding in my head. A great tidal wave of anticipation washes through me and I realize this entire journey, I’ve been waiting for him to look at me like he is right now—the way he did after our first trial, like he’s just got the taste of cool water for the first time in his life.

  My hands tremble. A thrill builds in my chest.

  “And what’s that?” I ask, my voice shaking.

  He closes the distance between us, grabs my face in his hands and kisses me.

  I don’t fight it. I don’t fight it when Haven runs me back against the mountain’s mossy rock wall. I don’t fight it when the moss soaks my shirt and the rock digs into my shoulders.

  I don’t fight it when his tongue flicks out and meets mine with a sensuous graze and his hands grab at my shirt and yank it over my head.

  Fire fills my veins. The hair lifts along my arms. The air crackles around us.

  It’s not until moments like these that I realize I’ve been a fool to think I had any choice about this at all.

  When I’m captured by Haven, I’m nothing but a slave to my body’s desires and his clever hands.

  I hook my leg around him trying to pull him in closer, as if we could never be close enough. I can feel the hard shape of his cock between my legs and my center grows slick at the thought of him wanting me as much as I want him.

  “Haven,” I moan into his mouth, though I’m not sure what I mean to say after that because he hooks his hands around the back of my legs and hoists me up. He spins me around and I feel us fall back. For a second, I think we’ll slam against the ground, but I’m nestled amongst thick, down-filled blankets.

  I blink up.

  A gossamer canopy hangs overhead from a four-poster bed. Weria vines climb around the posts and are threaded in and out of the canopy. The day has turned to night and the air is comfortably warm. Fireflies glow around the glade.

  It’s so ridiculously beautiful that tears spring to my eyes.

  Haven pulls back. “What is it?” he asks, concern pinching between his brows.

  “I’m sorry...I didn’t mean....no one has…” I trail off and inhale, trying to get my thoughts together. Finally, I say, “Is this real? Half the time I think you hate me,” I add.

  “And the other half?” he says, his voice husky.

  A tear leaks out the corner of my eye. “T
he other half is desperate for you to touch me.”

  The fire comes back to his gaze. He coaxes my head to the side and kisses his way up the column of my neck. A bone-deep shiver wracks my body. He nips at my ear lobe causing me to gasp and then he quickly sucks it into his mouth chasing away the sting.

  In an instant, he deftly shifts his weight overtop of me and positions himself between my legs. He lifts me up and cradles me in his lap. He’s still hard. Still throbbing under the thin material of his pants.

  In one swift move, he liberates me of my bra. The cool air makes my nipples harden as his breath teases at the tender flesh. When my hair spills over my shoulders, Haven takes a chunk of it and yanks it, forcing my head back to expose the rapid beating of my heart at my throat. He kisses it gently.

  Everything about us, this dance we do, is sharp and gentle all at once.

  It’s a rock and a feather.

  Brutal and caressing.

  “Your heart is racing, orphan,” he says.

  I moan as his hand comes up, his thumb pausing just below the curve of my breast.

  Touch me. Gods. Please touch me.

  “What was that, orphan?”

  “Did I say that out loud?”

  Haven sucks my nipple into his mouth.

  I gasp. His tongue slides around my peak and a new pressure builds between my legs.

  When he lets my hair out of his grip, he lays me back on the bed and grabs at the waistband of my pants.

  “Wait.” I stop his hands with mine.

  There’s a flash of disappointment in his gaze, but he softens. “Do you really want me to stop?” he challenges.

  I’m practically shivering and not from the cold. I know I’m two seconds away from jumping into the deep end and I don’t think anything in the world could stop me from taking the plunge.

  But I want to know. I need to know.

  “Why are we doing this? Do we hate each other? Or maybe we don’t? Why do you treat me like your enemy sometimes and yet...right now...this…” I can’t get my thoughts straight. I can’t make sense of anything right now other than the desperate need vibrating through my body and the sharp beating thrill between my legs.

  “Why do you do this to me?” I finally ask.

  His amber eye glints in the night. He almost looks sad as he answers. “Because when you’re shuddering beneath me, orphan, I don’t feel so powerless and alone.”

  I think this might be the truest thing he’s ever said to me and the vulnerability somehow makes him more beautiful.

  And I am undone by it.

  By him.

  Over and over again.

  I give him a barely there nod and he is suddenly moving again, so eager, so hungry for me.

  He yanks off my pants, then my panties and I quickly curl into myself, a leaf trembling against the gale force that is Haven Knightfall.

  But he coaxes my legs open and says, “Don’t hide from me, Ana.”

  Tears burn again in my eyes.

  He rips off his pants and lowers himself over me. The head of his cock swells and teases at my opening. I moan and grip at his shoulders.

  I’m a virgin. I’ve never done this before. I have a rational moment and almost tell him, but somehow, I think he knows. He’s taking his time.

  Holding his weight up, he slips a hand between us and his fingers slide down my wetness as he kisses gently at my breast. There are so many sensations hitting my nerves all over my body that I buck beneath him.

  His hardness slides between my folds and a fresh wave of pleasure washes over me.

  I want to feel him inside of me, fill me up, unleash this...this building pressure inside of me.

  “Not yet, orphan,” he says and I practically mewl in disappointment.

  He leaves a trail of kisses from my breasts, down my stomach. Then he’s hovering over my mound looking up at me from between my legs and for a split second, I wonder if my dream from the other day was somehow a premonition.

  My inner walls tighten just thinking about what he might do to me with his tongue.

  “Fuck, you smell so good,” he says, his voice husky and wild.

  I shiver and then cry out when his tongue flicks over me.

  “Gods,” I gasp.

  “You taste good too,” he says and teases at my clit.

  My insides light up.

  “Haven,” I moan. I can feel my wetness coating me. I’m shivering with need. I’m like a flower starving for the sun. I want my edges to unfurl.

  “Haven,” I beg again and then he rises up and over me. Some far off glowing light rims him in a halo. In that moment, I realize that I will forever be changed after this.

  I will forever be chasing this feeling as if I’ve detached from my body and am floating above the clouds of Mount Olympus.

  “Haven,” I breathe out. “I want you…and me…” I can’t seem to get the words out, but he knows what I want. He lowers himself again and I can feel the heat of his cock at my opening. Every nerve in my body is a wick ready to ignite.

  “Are you sure, orphan?” he says. I can’t tell if he’s asking for my permission or if he’s forcing me to beg for it. I don’t care which it is. I already know the fucking answer.

  “Yes!” I shout.

  His gaze flares with hunger and then he plunges inside of me.

  My hands curl into the sheets. There’s a burning sensation at my opening as his thickness stretches me, urging me to take the full size of him.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe out. I knew this would happen. I’m ready for it.

  Haven pulls out and presses in again, driving deeper this time. His cock throbs inside of me as his momentum picks up. Muscles twine along his shoulders.

  “Fuck,” he breathes out. “Fuck, Ana. You feel so fucking good.”

  My chest tightens. My belly rolls. The pressure builds and builds at the center of me.

  It’s as if I’m standing at the cliff’s edge again, but this time, I want to jump off. I want to soar. And just when I think my body can’t take any more sensation, Haven reaches up and pinches my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. The pain is just enough to send a shockwave through my body.

  “Rub that wet clit, orphan,” he says. “I wanna hear you cum.”

  I’ve never touched myself before. It’s impossible to have privacy in a house full of children. Sometimes I wanted to.

  “Go on,” he urges.

  I reach down between us and find that needy, swollen spot. Somehow, I know exactly what to do. I know exactly what I need. And when Haven quickens his pace and thrusts in and out of me, the pleasure bursts through me in a great, jolting wave.

  “Oh gods!” I grab at his hair as my body convulses through the crescendo.

  Haven growls and pumps harder, punishing my inner walls as I throb around him.

  He lets out a roar and spills himself inside of me. He pulls back and thrusts again as his own pleasure rolls through him, his muscles tightening all across his shoulders.

  I breathe out. Haven collapses on me. I’m tingling all over, muscles jolting, as the aftershock rocks through me like heat lightning. Haven takes my hand and squeezes it tightly.

  I think I’ve left my body. I think I might be on another plane altogether.

  How can my body do those things? How could I not know all along that that’s what it was capable of?

  Gods, I’ve been missing out.

  “Orphan,” Haven says. “Are you all right?”

  I exhale. “Better than all right.”

  My heart is racing and my body is warm and I had no idea I could ever feel so lit up and slaked at the same time.

  Haven lies next to me and nestles me into the crook of his arm and tucks my head beneath his chin. Suddenly a thick blanket appears over top of us. I can barely keep my eyes open, but I see the fireflies wink out.

  “What about you?” I ask, my voice faraway and muzzy.

  “I don’t know if I’m better or worse,” he says, slightly teasi
ng. “It’s never been…before…” He sighs. “I feel wrecked by how fucking good that was.”

  “That can’t be true,” I argue. He’s probably had lots of sex with lots of girls much more experienced than me.

  “Oh, orphan,” he says against my hair, “you have no idea what you do to me.”

  His words wash over me and I sink into the mattress and cuddle into his warmth, and before I can think of a witty reply, I’m out.

  Chapter 15

  When I wake near dawn, the illusion is gone and Haven and I are tangled together in the grass still naked with Tarter and Russ on either side of us. Haven is sleeping soundly. Tarter snuffles but doesn’t wake.

  Slowly, so as not to wake Haven or the dogs, I shimmy out of the pack and quietly climb over Russ at Haven’s feet. Tarter opens his eyes to watch me, but when he’s sure I’m safe, he lays his boxy head on Haven’s outstretched forearm and goes back to sleep.

  After dressing, I go to the mouth of the cave and peer inside.

  Haven came out looking like he got exactly what he wanted from the Fates.

  Will I get a bright future too?

  What if I come out of the cave with nothing but doom?

  For a moment, I think about lying to Haven and Hades and Monstrat. I think about telling them I went into the cave and was given nothing in return.

  But it’s curiosity that propels me forward.

  As soon as I’m through the mouth of the cave, an eerie stillness surrounds me as though the cave itself is another world. I can’t see the floor from the ceiling, but it doesn’t feel like the walls are closing around me so I keep going.

  Every now and then, I reach a hand out to double check that the rock walls are still there and when it bends and descends deeper, I slow, keeping one hand on the wall and one in front of me.

  I finally come to a stop at a smooth wall that feels almost like glass. I run my hand down it looking for an opening or a door handle when all of a sudden, it shimmers away to reveal a small pool in a rocky cavern.

  At the pool’s edge, I peer down into it. Bolts of light shoot across the water, but there’s no sound to it, so I don’t think it’s electrified. On my knees, I bend over the rocky edge and reach out to test it with a finger.