South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi)

by Laura Kaye

  “Uh.” Bare skin. Streaming water. Hot steam. The images shot arousal hard and fast through his body. “No problem.”

  She tilted her head. “You sure?”

  His erection strained against his jeans and demanded he volunteer to wash her back. “Yeah.”

  “‘Kay.” She stood and crossed the room. Finn jumped down and followed her.

  Chrys tugged himself up onto the couch and fell back against the cushion, which smelled of her summery scent and still held her warmth. Groaning, he adjusted himself, but his mind remained hyper-aware of the fact that, just down the hall, she was getting naked. The whine of the plumbing sounded out from the back of the house.

  Now she’s naked and wet.

  For fuck’s sake.

  He was just on edge. Focused as he’d been all summer on the situation with Eurus, he hadn’t allowed himself the usual opportunities to release some of the heat and energy his godhood generated at the height of his season. It was part of the reason the weather had been so volatile. But next to the problem of his brother’s imminent death, dipping his wick hadn’t seemed a priority.

  That’s not what these feelings for Laney are about.

  Sure it is.

  Really, dipshit? Then why are you so compelled to touch her all the damn time?

  Chrys shoved off the couch. Great. Now the voices in his head were arguing with each other.

  At loose ends and far too wound up to do anything but pace, Chrys wandered around her space. He was careful not to disturb anything—he didn’t want to move something from its careful placement. Horse figurines filled a corner cabinet in the living room. Pictures lined the big mantle. A much younger Laney with Sappho. Laney with a group of kids. Several with an older, white-haired man. None of or with people that looked to be her parents’ ages. None with men she appeared to be close to. He frowned. Except for one on the end of her and Seth sitting on top of a fence rail, arms around one another, heads tilted close.

  “Hey, Chrys?” she called from her room.

  He stepped to the head of the hallway. And was immediately awash in her scent, made more potent from the warmth and dampness of her skin and hair. Oh, fuck. “Yeah?”

  Dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, she dropped her gaze and shifted her feet. “Do you think you could, um, help me with the bandages? I can do it, but you could do it faster.” She shrugged a shoulder. “I just figured—”

  Chrys was in motion, the offer to touch, to help, to ease too much to resist. “Of course.” He stopped in front of her, and the heat rolling off her brought his cock back to life. “I have a better idea, though.”

  She tilted her head back. “What’s that?”

  “Let me heal you.”

  “Oh, I—”

  He pressed in closer, until his chest brushed up against her breasts. “Please, Laney. I want to make this better.” He slid his fingers into the sleek length of her damp hair and forced her head back even more.

  The sweet scent of her arousal joined her natural perfume. “I…I—”

  Suddenly, Chrys needed her taste on his tongue again. Unable to resist the draw to her any longer, he claimed her mouth, devouring, searching, taking.

  Laney froze, then was right there with him.

  Their tongues met, dueled, twirled. He fisted his hand in her hair and guided her, deepening when he wanted, restraining her when he needed.

  Her hands slid up his chest toward his neck.

  Chrys gasped into the kiss, but fought the reflexive desire to pull away. Instead, he pushed her back one step, then another, until her back encountered the door. He grabbed her arms and pressed them to the surface over her head. The control flooded relief through him and fueled his arousal another notch.

  “I want to touch you,” she whispered around a kiss.

  His brain scrambled for a moment, and then he wedged his body in tighter, the ridge of his cock coming in snug against her belly. She unleashed a strangled moan as Chrys plundered her mouth, relished her sweet taste, bathed in her life-giving heat.

  Good gods, her body was absolutely alive with her arousal. She clenched and unclenched her hands, her arm muscles flexing where he restrained her. Her abdomen writhed against his, creating a maddening friction against his erection. Her thighs shifted and squeezed.

  It was only with the barest of restraint that he resisted willing her clothing away, turning her to face the wall, and tugging her hips out so he could bury himself deep.

  Lost in the imagery, Chrys didn’t notice the change in her movements until she slowly dragged her injured leg up the outside of his. Her wrists pressed against his hold and a yearning moan worked up her throat. “Chrys,” she whimpered, her thigh moving higher and wrapping around.

  His pulse lunged into a sprint. Damnit. He pulled back and stepped away, the phantom feeling of her flesh trapping his spiking fear through him. “I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing his lips, regret a rock in his stomach. He could still feel her, taste her. Making sure she was steady on her feet, he dropped his hands from holding hers.

  Hurt flashed through her expression, but she met his gaze. “Why do you keep apologizing after you kiss me?”

  “I’m supposed to be protecting you, helping you, not, uh, taking advantage of you.”

  She sighed. “Right.” She pushed off the door and grabbed its edge. “I’ll be out in a few.”

  Still breathing hard, he caught the door with his hand. “Let me heal your leg.”

  “And how will I explain that to Seth? Or to the doctor when I show up to get my stitches removed in a few days?”

  He frowned. Damn human conventions. “Then let me help. With the bandages.” Anything to make it up to you.

  She stepped clear of the door but left it open. He followed her into the bedroom, then into the bathroom in the corner.

  Warm steam still hung in the air. Chrys breathed it in. Her perfume surrounded and invaded him, keeping his body ready and wanting, but at least the heat eased the turmoil roiling through his gut. He concentrated on calming his damn self down. He wanted to kick himself for hurting her feelings.

  Facing the mirror, Laney gestured to the medical supplies spread out on the counter. “Everything you need is right here. Just position the long rectangular gauzes lengthwise over the cuts, tape them in place, and then we can put on the tubular bandage to cover the dressings. It’s just in a bit of an odd place for me to reach.” She braced her hands against the edge of the sink and leaned forward. Her backside pressed out toward him.

  Damn it all to Hades. Chrys was immediately rock hard. She couldn’t have known what she’d done, of course, or how he’d take it, but this was the position he preferred when he fucked. He could control the act and limit his lovers’ ability to touch him. Without question, he was tempted, but he also couldn’t ignore the odd prickling of his scalp when he thought of taking her just as he had so many others.

  “Chrys? Are you going to help me?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Laney’s heart still hadn’t settled down from the kisses up against her door. She studied Chrys’s glowing form in the bathroom mirror. Something about the reflection made his features harder to see.

  “Yes, I’ll help you. Though what I want to do is heal you, but I won’t.” He walked up behind her, grabbed a couple of supplies, and sank down beside her leg.

  Generous as the offer was, how would she ever explain it being totally healed? Besides, at this point, it was only a few more days til the stitches came out. She released a shaky breath. “I thought standing would be easiest. Or would you rather I—”

  “This is fine,” he said, his voice gruff.

  Oookay. His fingers moved against her calf, scrambling her already confused thoughts. When he’d kissed her again, he’d caught her totally off guard. But, damn, it had been an incredible kiss. Possessive, commanding, consuming. The way he towered over her. How he grabbed her hair. His restraining grip on her wrists. Never had a lover handled her that way. In hindsight, she wondered
if Ryan thought her too fragile, and her only lover before him, well, they’d both been too inexperienced to do much more than insert Tab A into Slot B. She pressed her lips into a line to hold back the chuckle that threatened.

  “You okay?” Chrys asked, securing another bandage in place.

  “Uh, yeah.” But one thing was for sure, she’d liked the urgency and intensity of Chrys’s touch. The rough pads of his fingers smoothed tape against her skin. She bit back a moan. Actually, she liked his touch any way he gave it. Every way. And she thought maybe he felt the same way about her, too.

  So why had he pulled away? Again?

  She sighed, doubtful that staring at the ugly marks down the back of her leg heightened her sex appeal in his eyes. Between her puckered wounds and the twists of black stitches, she was totally channeling Frankenstein. Awesome.

  The thought about Frankenstein gave her the oddest sense of déjà vu. For less than an instant, her mind conjured the image of a deformed man, but then it was gone, and she couldn’t bring the picture back into focus.

  “Almost done,” he said in a low voice. “How much does this still hurt?”

  The question yanked her from her dazed thoughts. “Oh, um, not nearly as bad anymore. Unless I pull at the stitches somehow, it’s just—” She twisted to look down at him, and the rest of her words lodged in her throat. He’d glanced up at her in return, and she would’ve sworn his eyes flared with golden light, more focused and intense than the aura that usually surrounded him. “…uncomfortable. Your eyes,” she whispered.

  He rose and crowded in close to her, bringing that preternatural glow nearer. “Can’t be helped. It’s literally everything I can do to not hold you down so I can heal your pain. But once I start, I don’t think I could stop exploring your body with my mouth.”

  Laney’s jaw dropped open and her heart tripped into a full-out sprint. His words resurrected her earlier arousal. Her nipples pressed against the cups of her bra and her panties grew damp. “That, uh, sounds…really…good,” she managed, her brain struggling to string the sentence together. She reached out.

  “Don’t.” He grabbed her wrist.

  Her stomach flip-flopped at the tightness of his grip. A trickle of sweat ran down Laney’s back. Was it getting warmer in here? Or maybe it was just her body preparing to spontaneously combust. All around her, the air felt suddenly charged. The hair on her arms stood on end.

  “Chrys?”

  The sound of her voice seemed to startle him. He dropped her hand and stepped back. “What else do we need to do?” His gaze fell to her leg.

  She forced herself to focus. “Just the tubular bandage to cover the dressings. Um.” She slipped by him to sit on the toilet lid. “Probably easiest if I sit for this.”

  Tension rolled off Chrys’s body and seemed to fill the small room with male heat. Having already cut a bunch of bandages to the correct length, Laney grabbed one and slipped it over her foot.

  “Here,” he said, brushing her fingers away. He slid the material up her leg, stretching it so it settled over the dressings on her calf. His knuckles grazed over her skin and she sucked in a breath. He bit out what sounded like a curse, from the tone of it, though Laney didn’t recognize the language. “That it?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” In a series of quick movements she couldn’t quite make out, he was up and out of the room.

  “Maybe I should just stay here,” she called. Not that she wanted to miss out on the time with him, or meeting his family, but Chrys was clearly agitated by her.

  “Come on, Laney. Please.”

  She pushed herself up and limped into her bedroom, her gaze first finding his unique light and then settling on his face. “I guess I’m ready.”

  For a moment he didn’t respond, and then he stepped in front of her. “I want you to have something.”

  “What?” she asked, hoping he didn’t hear the breathiness of her voice. Her brain was still stuck on his mouth exploring her body.

  He grabbed her palm and turned it upright. Something cool and metallic fell against her skin. She traced it with her fingers. “It’s for protection,” he said, his tone deep and solemn.

  Marks had been etched into the face. “What does it say?”

  “Forged in righteousness.”

  Emotion welled within her. Honestly, she didn’t get the significance of the inscription, but the gesture was beautiful. “Thank you.”

  “Here, let me.” He lifted the necklace and she offered him her back, pulling her hair into a handheld ponytail. His fingertips skimming the back of her neck tickled and fueled her arousal. “Done,” he rasped, his breath ghosting over her skin. She turned back to him. “To work, it needs to be worn against your bare skin. Like this.” He slipped it under her shirt and the metal fell against the skin of her chest, cool and heavy. “Against your skin, it will prevent magic being used against you. Okay?”

  She nodded, his seriousness beckoning hers.

  He tugged it out and laid it atop her shirt again. “But, for what we’re doing next, I need it off your skin. Which leads me to a question.”

  Something about the tone of his voice was odd, hesitant. “Uh, sure.”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “What does that have—”

  “Please. Just tell me.”

  She searched his face. His eyes were absolutely blazing at her, that intense light again playing around them, seemingly coming from them. “Yes,” she said.

  “I don’t have a car.”

  “I know. You have a truck.”

  “Wha— Oh. No. I don’t have a truck, either.”

  “You drove one here yesterday. And what does this have to do with how I wear my necklace?”

  He tugged his fingers through his hair and groaned. Man, how she’d die to do that. Just once. “Never mind about the truck. I need the necklace off your skin so I can do this.” His hand clasped hers.

  Suddenly, the world disappeared. Laney screamed as light and color exploded all around her.

  …

  “Are you sure about this?” Megan asked. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

  Boreas crossed his arms and nodded. “Do it.”

  “This is crazy.” She stepped to his side.

  “Maybe. But it is also time. If I want to participate in your world, I need to look the part.” With everything going on, being at Owen and Megan’s wasn’t even a question. He wouldn’t leave them unprotected. He’d made that mistake once before. Never again. He tugged the towel tighter around his shoulders and shifted in the chair.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, taking a long lock of his hair in hand. “You can’t be mad at me if it doesn’t turn out.”

  He chuckled. “Fear not.”

  “Sure, easy for you to say. Here goes nothing.” She lifted the scissors and cut off a length of his hair. “Oh, my God.” Megan held the long white strand so he could see it.

  “Excellent. Continue.”

  She dropped the hair to the kitchen floor. Speaking no further, she worked around his head. Each cut of his hair left him feeling lighter, freer.

  His thoughts turned to Ori. Orethyia. His Athenian princess. From the first time he’d seen her dancing on the banks of the Illissus, he’d wanted her. And she’d wanted him in return. They’d run away, angering her father, who spread rumors that Boreas had abducted her. Ori paid the stories no mind and insisted he not do so, either.

  Years later, her death came as such a shock. At her father’s invitation, she’d returned to visit him. Boreas had wanted to accompany her, but she’d begged him to let her attend her first reunion with her father alone. She’d feared that Boreas’s presence would antagonize him. Finally, Boreas had relented.

  The greatest mistake of his life.

  King Erechteus had slain her for disobeying and humiliating him before his people, for honoring a god above her father. Only the fact that the king fell at Poseidon’
s hand in a war not long after prevented Boreas from exacting his own revenge.

  Upon the sight of his beloved’s body, her face frozen in a pale mask of death, Boreas’s hair had turned immediately and irrevocably white, a physical badge of his shock and grief.

  Afterward, he cared for nothing but their children and his job as Supreme God of the North Wind and Winter. He paid no mind to his appearance. He made no effort to soothe his heart with new love, even eons after the fact. He worried not about trivial needs like happiness and companionship.

  And then Owen, the son he’d adopted long, long ago, met Megan. Megan’s love had restored Owen to the world, returned his humanity, and gave him a blood family he’d never before possessed.

  And their joy had thrown into stark relief everything Boreas had given up on.

  But he could fix that. Now was as good a time as any. No. For Owen, Megan, and Teddy, now was the time to rejoin the living.

  Not to mention, Tabitha…

  He sighed. One change at a time.

  “You okay?” Megan asked.

  “I am fine.” Or would be.

  “Beard, too?” She stepped in front of him.

  He smiled. “Beard, too.”

  She shook her head. “Okay. I’ll cut it short and then we’ll use the clippers.”

  “Good.”

  “I still can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, tugging at a hank of hair on his cheek.

  “Well, I cannot believe I’ve waited so long to have it done.”

  She paused and met his gaze. Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “You look so much younger already.”

  “Yes?” He arched an eyebrow. “Do not cry or you will be unable to see where you are cutting.”

  Dabbing her eye, she gave a watery laugh. “Okay.” She finished trimming his beard.

  Boreas ran his hand over his head, his face. He smiled.

  Megan traded the scissors for a pair of clippers. With slow upward strokes, she ran the clippers through his hair. “I don’t know if I’m getting this exactly even.”

  “Worry not.”

  “Owen is going to flip out when he sees you.”