Wicked

by Elisabeth Naughton

  But she couldn’t get his other words out of her head no matter how she tried. He’d called her princess again. He knew she was Argolean. He had to have seen her markings. Everyone knew the Argolean queen’s daughter was not an Argonaut.

  And why in bloody hell did he keep calling her mono mia? She wasn’t his. She wasn’t anyone’s. So why in the name of the Fates did she keep responding to it, as if she’d heard him call her that before?

  Nothing made sense. Everything was in turmoil. All she knew for certain was that she was trapped, bone tired, and she had a splitting headache that wasn’t going away.

  Easing back into the pillows, she stared up at the beamed ceiling and tried to figure out what the hell she should do next.

  People would realize she was gone at some point. Her father would come looking for her. But if what Zagreus said was true, that this whole damn kingdom was protected by magick, they wouldn’t find her. No one would find her. And Max…

  Her eyes stung, but she blinked back the useless tears, refusing to give in to the rush of emotion.

  He had to be alive. He was strong—way stronger than her. While her gift was physical strength, he possessed the power of transference. He could utilize the abilities or magick of any being around him. He could outmaneuver a stupid pack of satyrs. With any luck, he was already back in Argolea, alerting the Argonauts to what had gone down.

  With any luck…

  That was the key, wasn’t it? Judging by how her luck was going these days, the odds were not in her favor.

  She drew a deep breath, closed her eyes, and reminded herself she was a warrior. Even without her gift of strength, she was smart. And regardless of whatever silly things Zagreus said, she could still win.

  Running wouldn’t save her?

  Bull-shit.

  She’d find a way out of this bloody prison if it was the last thing she did. And before she ran once and for all, she’d make sure Zagreus never abducted another female again.

  Chapter Six

  He was hot. And bothered. And not in any of the ways he wanted to be hot and bothered.

  Zagreus moved into the bedchamber he rarely used and let the heavy wood door slam behind him. Torches already lit on the walls cast a warm glow over the large four-poster bed and the plush velvet furnishings arranged in front of the stone fireplace, reflecting off the dark arched windows that looked out into the courtyard and over the lake down the hill. A low fire burned in the hearth, adding to the ambience, but it did nothing to ease the ball of stress inside him.

  He bypassed the table already set, kicked off his boots, and headed for the bath. Just as he reached the foot of the bed, Ana stepped under the bath’s archway.

  “My Prince.” She drew up short with a towel in her hands. “You’re back. I had the servants bring up your meal.”

  “I’m not hungry.” He stepped around the nymph and into the marble bath to find the sunken tub already filled with steaming water. Candles were lit around the periphery of the room.

  “Your water is all prepared,” the nymph said at his back, not taking the hint he wanted to be alone. “I’ll get your wine.”

  As she scurried out, he stripped off his filthy clothes, dropped them on the marble tiles, and sank into the hot water.

  He had no use for the nymph tonight, but he needed wine. If not to dull the unease inside then to take his mind off the black-haired vixen locked in his tower.

  He’d watched her sleep for a long time. And it had taken all the self-control he possessed not to wake her with his lips, with his hands. Not to take her and remind her with his body to whom she belonged. But giving in to the urge would not have given him what he wanted. The female was stubbornly resistant to anything he said or did, even when he knew she felt the flames flickering between them. Which meant, he needed to be patient.

  He didn’t have a lot of experience with patience. Not when it came to her. He never had. But he was confident she’d give in eventually.

  She always did.

  Footsteps sounded at his back. Zagreus stayed where he was, reclined in the sunken tub, as Ana set a goblet next to his hand then moved about the room gathering items. She came back as he sipped his wine, knelt behind him, then dipped a sponge and a bar of soap into the water and began scrubbing his shoulders.

  It was a ritual he was used to, but tonight her touch only made his skin crawl.

  “So…” she said after several moments of silence. “The female must be awake if you’re down here and not up there.”

  “She is.”

  “And she’s coherent?”

  “Yes.”

  “No lingering… injuries?”

  Something in the nymph’s tone told him she was hoping the answer would be yes.

  “She’s fine. Now.” His lips thinned. “I know how concerned you are.”

  A huff sounded near his ear, but he ignored it as she went about rubbing soap over his back.

  In the silence, his mind drifted to Talisa in the tower. Only this time it didn’t fixate on her nearly naked body under those thin blankets. It drifted back over their conversation and how concerned she’d been for the male—her cousin—who’d been taken by those satyrs.

  Family was a foreign concept to him. His family certainly didn’t give a shit about one another. He never saw his mother, only saw his father when the god was on the warpath, and though he had a half-sister out there somewhere, he’d never met her, nor did he have any desire to.

  As for cousins? The gods were always procreating with each other and with mortals, so he had numerous relations all over the cosmos, but they meant nothing to him, either.

  “What are you planning to do with her?” Ana asked, moving the soap to his arm.

  “Does it matter?”

  “It may. Those markings on her arms prove she’s linked to the Argonauts. And the one on her hip means she’s bound. If she’s bound to one of the Argonauts and they come looking for her—”

  “She’s not bound to an Argonaut.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I do.”

  “You hope,” she muttered, moving to his other arm. “Argonauts have soul mates. If she’s someone’s soul mate, he’ll never stop looking for her.”

  His patience reached a breaking point. “No Argonaut will ever find this kingdom. And the topic of soul mates is finished. She’s my prisoner, and that’s that. Are we clear?”

  Ana’s hand stilled against his shoulder. She didn’t answer, but he knew from her silence she’d gotten the hint.

  Talisa was off limits. He wasn’t about to discuss her with this nymph or any other.

  Ana went back to rubbing the soapy sponge over his skin. He leaned forward so she could rinse his back then reclined once more so she could clean his chest, pushing the chain around his neck to the side as she worked.

  Candlelight flickered over the water and his skin. She was silent, but he sensed something lingered in her mind. Something she was working up the nerve to say.

  “Your shoulders are tense,” she said softly.

  Yeah, no shit. His shoulders were always tense.

  She splashed water over his pecs with her free hand. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

  That wasn’t a surprise, either. He rarely slept.

  She ran the soap over his chest then down to the edge of the water and beneath, across his abs, edging lower with each pass. Against his ear, she breathed, “I could help you with that.”

  His skin tingled. The only person who’d ever been able to completely make him relax was his mono mia.

  The female currently locked in a tower in this very castle.

  Ana’s hand slipped lower, beneath his belly button, but before she could release the soap and wrap her fingers around his cock, he captured her wrist and lifted her hand out of the water. “Stop.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m tired.”

  And because he wasn’t interested in her. He’d never been interested, but that didn’t s
top her from trying.

  “I can finish by myself.” He took the sponge and pushed her hand away. “You’re relieved, nymph.”

  She didn’t move. Just knelt silently on the tiles at his back.

  Tension crackled in the air between them. He’d just ticked her off, but he barely cared.

  She was clever as far as nymphs went, and she’d proven herself a good student, picking up spells more easily than the others when he bothered to train them. She would make a good mage one day, maybe even a healer for her people. But he wasn’t attached to her. No more than he was attached to any of the others. If she’d gotten her hopes up for something more, that was her misunderstanding.

  “If you’re sure,” she said quietly at his back.

  “I’m sure.”

  “Very well.” She pushed to her feet, her motions jerky, telling him she was anything but well. “I’ll just leave you to it then.”

  He could say something to break the tension. Regardless of the fact he had no use for her personally, he didn’t need her causing problems with the other nymphs. He knew how they could get worked into a frenzy if led by the wrong person.

  Words lingered on his tongue, but he didn’t speak them. Her footsteps sounded across the carpet in his bedroom, then the heavy wood door opened and closed, leaving him in silence.

  With a frown, he lifted the goblet to his lips and took a deep drink. He could control the nymph. She wasn’t a threat. He just needed to make sure she stayed far away from his captive in the tower.

  His captive.

  His mono mia…

  His blood warmed as he sipped his wine again and slinked lower in the tub, resting his neck against the edge so the water hit at his chest.

  Images filled his mind. Images of Talisa in that big bed in the tower. Wearing the gauzy white nightgown. Her pert breasts pressing against the thin fabric. How the small silver balls on each side of her pierced nipples would feel rolling between his fingers. Sliding under his tongue…

  The marking on his hip warmed, spreading heat all through his groin and up into his torso. He pictured her marking—the same straight lines and curved arcs that matched his—heating and glowing against her pale skin, radiating warmth all through her body as well. Imagined her stirring in that big bed, pushing the covers down her body and slowly releasing the buttons of her gown one by one until the flimsy fabric fell open against the mattress, leaving her naked and hot and aching for something only he could give her.

  Touch yourself, mono mia…

  A groan echoed in his mind. A groan that hadn’t come from him. A groan, his senses told him, that was soft and feminine and reaching him through wood and glass and stone because his life force was now connected to hers.

  He closed his eyes and saw her fingertips trailing down her flat belly, grazing the soft curls at the juncture of her thighs, then disappearing between her folds.

  She was wet. Very wet judging by the way her fingers slipped as she stroked. He watched with rapt attention as her back arched. As her breath caught. As she tipped her chin up, eyes closed, and touched herself again, exactly as he’d urged her to do right here from this bath.

  Oh yes. Just like that, princess…

  Unable to stop himself, he wrapped a hand around the base of his already hard cock beneath the water and slowly slid his palm up to the tip. Electricity arced through his whole body. He cuffed the head, twisted his wrist, then slowly slid back down again, watching with his mind as she touched herself, growing bolder with each pass, lifting her hips as she rocked up against her hand.

  Mm, yes… That feels good, doesn’t it?

  Another groan echoed in his mind, only this time he felt it vibrate through his balls, making him hotter than before.

  His hips lifted. His hand slid up and down his thick shaft, tightening with every stroke. In the virginal white sheets of her massive bed, her fingers moved faster against her steamy sex, her body twisting, light from the low lamps reflecting off her creamy skin, off the silver balls on each side of her hard, little nipples just aching for his mouth.

  He wanted to taste them. Wanted to draw them between his lips and suck. Wanted to drive her mad with his tongue while he thrust hard into her body.

  Imagine it’s my touch teasing your tight pussy, mono mia. My tongue flicking your sensitive clit…

  She grunted. Her back arched higher. Knowing she was close, he tightened his grip and stroked faster as he watched her writhe against the mattress and toss her head from side to side.

  “Oh gods, yes…”

  Her voice echoed in his mind, causing pleasure to gather at the base of his spine. He thrust faster into his hand. Stroked harder. Perspiration dotted his forehead. Water sloshed over the side of the sunken tub.

  His attention was fixed solidly on her. On the way her body undulated against the sheets. On her mouth-watering nipples pointing straight up. On her fingers rushing over her clit as he drove her toward a blistering climax he couldn’t wait to reach with her.

  Mm, yes. Just like that. Feel me touch you. Feel everything, mono mia. You want to come, don’t you?

  “Yes… Yes…”

  Surrender to me, and I will show you a pleasure so intense, you’ll never crave anyone but me.

  She grunted. Her fingers raced like lightning against her sex.

  His skin grew hotter, tighter. Every muscle in his body contracted in anticipation of her release. His hand moved faster beneath the water, stroking in time with her hips rocking up higher and quicker against her fingers. Searching… Needing… Aching for that one scorching moment…

  Yes, mono mia. Yes, there… Come for me now. Come for me right… here.

  “Oh fuck…” Her spine bowed. Her groan jumped an octave as she threw her head back and screamed.

  Heat gathered in the marking on his hip, and as electricity shot into his balls and exploded through his cock, he knew the same blazing orgasm was consuming her high up in the tower in that big bed.

  The wicked power of their joined pleasure exploded in every nerve ending until he knew nothing but mindless, boneless, hedonistic bliss.

  Zagreus slumped back in the tub as the smoldering orgasm slowly receded. Breathing heavily, he opened his eyes and stared up at the beamed ceiling reflecting the flickering candlelight.

  If he hadn’t known before that she was his, he did now. There was absolutely no mistaking it any longer. Her being with him here was not chance. It was fate.

  Their fate.

  And it was only a matter of time before she realized that fact for herself.

  Spent, he slowly climbed out of the bath, dried off, blew out the candles, then moved into his bedchamber. Dropping his towel on the floor, he slid beneath the covers and eased into the pillows, more relaxed than he’d been in—well, in nearly five hundred years.

  As sleep tugged at him—the restful sleep that had eluded him for so long—he thought of her once more and told himself that this time everything would be different.

  This time he’d do whatever was needed to make her his for all eternity.

  Even if he had to keep her as his prisoner to do so.

  Cynna paced the length of her sister Isadora’s office, where Elysia had left her and told her to wait.

  After twenty-seven years, she still wasn’t particularly comfortable in this castle, but she’d never dreaded being here the way she did right now. What she had to tell Casey…

  Her stomach rolled, and she stopped and placed a hand on her belly, this queasiness not from her pregnancy but from dread over what was happening to Talisa.

  Cynna knew full well what kind of kinks Zagreus was into, and all she could do now was hope Talisa was strong enough to get through whatever he had planned for her. That and pray that Talisa wasn’t really who he thought her to be.

  Footsteps echoed outside the queen’s open office door, followed by voices in the long corridor. Female voices.

  Cynna turned just as Elysia stepped into the room with her mother the queen, follow
ed by Casey and Callia.

  “Cynna.” Isadora crossed to Cynna and quickly hugged her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  They looked nothing alike—Cynna with her dark skin and hair from her father, Isadora taking more after their mother with her pale flesh and blonde locks—but over the years they’d become close. And though Cynna was no blood relation to Isadora’s other half-sisters, Cynna considered Casey and Callia to be surrogate sisters as well.

  Which, considering what she’d come to tell them, made this whole damn situation so much worse.

  “Of course,” Cynna said, releasing Isadora. “I want to help. However I can.”

  She looked toward Casey and Callia. Both shared the same violet eyes with Talisa, and both looked shellshocked and terrified. With good reason. “I’m so sorry to hear what happened.”

  “Tell us whatever you can,” Casey said. “About where he took them. We tried to use our gifts to see into the present, but we can’t find either of them. They’re hidden to us.”

  When the three sisters joined their gifts, they could see into the present and locate any soul in any realm. The fact they couldn’t see Talisa and Max now told Cynna things were worse than she’d thought.

  “I don’t know that I can help you there. When I was with Zagreus, he never mentioned any other hideouts or locations where he might be keeping them.”

  Casey’s eyes fell closed. At her back, Callia rubbed her forehead.

  “Tell them what you told me,” Elysia said at Cynna’s side. “About the nickname he used for Talisa.”

  Casey’s head came up, and fear darkened her eyes. A fear that told Cynna she knew something she wasn’t sharing. “What nickname?”

  Cynna’s chest tightened. Glancing at Isadora on her other side, she said, “You all know I voluntarily went to Zagreus. He didn’t find me or kidnap me.”

  “We know,” Isadora said, touching her arm. “You thought Zagreus could help you exact revenge.”

  Cynna had. She’d been so stupid back then. Not just for blaming Isadora for her parents’ deaths, but for thinking a lifetime of hatred could change anything.