The phone rang just as she reached the stock-room door. She froze and glanced toward the counter. A strange vibration hummed along the base of her spine, near her birthmark.
Be careful. Don’t buy things at face value.
She lifted the receiver and mustered up her courage. “Once Upon a Time.”
“Casey? It’s Jill Carrow.”
Her doctor. Casey pulled in a breath. “Hi. I was hoping you’d call.”
“I have your test results back.”
No beating around the bush. This couldn’t be good. “And…?”
Jill hesitated, and in the drawn out silence, Casey heard her answer before the words were even spoken. “And I think you’d better come in so we can talk about this in person. I’m afraid we found something.”
It was dangerous to open the portal in the same place he’d exited only days before. To keep from drawing unwanted attention, Theron chose a location fifty miles from Silver Hills and hot-wired a car he lifted off an abandoned side street to drive himself back to the small town.
Man, it would just be easier if he could flash from place to place on earth like he could in Argolea. But no, that was an ability he and his Argolean kin enjoyed only in their homeland. And truth be told, if any humans saw him disappear into thin air, they’d probably freak out more than if they knew daemons roamed the lands around them.
Since he’d walked among humans most of his life, he had a fair working knowledge of their technology, so the mechanical aspects of driving weren’t a big deal. He normally wasn’t one to steal, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and he was anxious to get to Silver Hills and get this little job over with.
He slowed as he neared the town’s city limits and turned onto Main Street. A series of shops lined both sides of the street, while little banners announcing the annual Autumn Harvest Festival flapped in the wind from old-fashioned-patina light posts every two hundred feet. A few leaves desperate to hang on to summer clung to branches above the road, but their days were numbered. Mother Nature was in a foul mood, judging from the swirling black sky above, and she looked nearly ready to unleash.
It was, Theron suspected, the quintessential American small town. When he’d passed through here only days before, he hadn’t paid it much heed, but now he did. The gingerbread trim, the hand-painted signs, the dried hops strung around doors and wound into wreaths. Part of him wondered what the humans who lived here would do if they knew one of his kind lived among them.
His kind?
No. Not his kind. This time the woman he’d come to find was nothing more than a human with a little something extra. Something Isadora needed.
He parked the car halfway up Main Street and climbed out. Crisp air surrounded him as he headed down the sidewalk. The king had given him only a name—Acacia Simopolous—and told him of a store the woman’s family had run for the last twenty-odd years. He figured it was the best place to start.
A few cars were parked along the street, but there were surprisingly few humans roaming around for this time of day. All things considered, it was fairly safe. Daemons didn’t like to come out during the day, though that didn’t mean they wouldn’t. Scanning businesses he passed, Theron spotted his target.
A tingle ran over his spine, and he fleetingly thought of Casey again and wondered if he’d run into her on this trip.
He hoped not, for more reasons than the most obvious.
A “closed” sign swayed from a hook on the inside of the door. Theron peered into the shop and saw some of the lights were still on. Strange to be closing so early in the day, but what did he know of human behavior?
He decided to try the door. To his surprise, it pushed open.
A bell jingled above, and as he stepped inside he was immediately enveloped by warmth and scents of paper and vanilla wafting on the air.
“I’ll be right with you,” a female voice called.
Casey’s voice hit him like a punch to the gut, stealing the air from his lungs and nearly buckling his knees. The wicked attraction he’d felt for her at first sight erupted in his chest as he stepped farther into the store and saw her at the far end of an aisle of books, standing three steps up on a ladder, replacing leather-bound tomes on a high shelf. His body hardened with just one look, an urge to touch her soft skin, to feel her flesh against his, to finish what they’d started, as strong as it had been the night they’d been together.
But now that desire was overshadowed by the reality that he’d been wrong. This human—whom he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for three long days—was the woman he’d been sent to find.
The king’s long-lost daughter.
The lone woman who would save his race.
The one he would lead into certain death.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She should have been shocked to see him again, but Casey was too numb to feel anything other than irritation at the interruption. “We’re closed early due to the weather.”
“I—” Theron cleared his throat. “I’m looking for Acacia Simopolous.”
He didn’t even know he was looking for her? Wonderful. Her day was sooo getting better.
“You found her.” She refocused on her task and shoved a book on the shelf harder than it needed. “And for the record, the only person allowed to call me Acacia is my grandmother, who, thanks for reminding me, is dead. Now, if that takes care of the reason you’re here, you can head right back out the way you came in.”
He let out what sounded to her like a frustrated breath. As if she cared.
“I’d like a few minutes to speak with you—”
She turned to flick a withering look his direction from above. “My friends call me Casey. Since you are neither a friend nor relative, you can call me Ms. Simopolous. Assuming, that is, you can remember my frickin’ name.”
When he continued to stare up at her with a befuddled expression, her last shred of patience broke. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. What the hell are you doing here, Theron? You made it perfectly clear the other night you didn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“You remember that? I didn’t—”
“Trust me, buddy. I’d like nothing more than to forget I ever met you.”
“Acacia—”
She waved a hand and continued to roll right over him as the pressure in her chest intensified and every one of her worries hit full force like a Mack truck. “So there’s really no reason for you to be here now, is there? Just turn around and go, because I don’t want you to…be…here right…”
Oh, God. She was gonna lose it. The pressure built until it felt like a ten-ton bomb was sitting on her chest. Tears pushed at her eyes. She would not cry in front of this man. She wouldn’t give him a single reason to think it was about the way he’d treated her, because it wasn’t. It was about everything else. Everything Jill had just told her.
She climbed down off the ladder quickly and pressed a hand to her chest.
“Meli.” He advanced on her.
“Don’t!” She held up a hand to block him. There must have been enough panic in her voice to get through, because he stopped two steps away. She focused on taking several breaths, on clearing her head, and when she felt calmer, she opened her eyes and looked up.
His skin had healed so well, there were no remnants of the accident he’d been in. He was, she noticed now, just as rugged and dangerous and sexy as he’d seemed that night in XScream. The stubble on his jaw, the dark, silky hair brushed back from his face, the strong square chin and those deep-set black eyes. But he also looked tired. Worn. As if he carried the weight of something mighty heavy on his shoulders.
Well, that made two of them. And she didn’t have the time or energy to worry about what the hell was up with him.
“I asked you to leave. I’d appreciate it if you’d do at least one thing I asked.”
“Are you all right?”
Was she all right? What a joke. She wanted to scream, No, I’m not all right. I’m never goi
ng to be all right again, you idiot! But she knew it was useless and childish, and she had just enough self-respect left to keep from making a fool out of herself in front of him. She’d already done enough of that the other night, when she’d nearly gone to bed with a complete stranger.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, jerking her hand away before he could touch her. Why wasn’t he leaving?
He glanced around the store as if taking it all in. “How do you…?” He gestured to the stacks of books. “I thought you worked at that club.”
Oh, that’s right. She’d not only almost gone to bed with this guy. She’d almost gone to bed with him after meeting him at a strip club. Yeah. She got the gold star for brains this time around.
“I do,” she huffed. “Part-time. Not that it’s any of your business anyway.”
What could only be described as pity crept into his eyes. Pity that fueled her temper. “I’d really hoped I was wrong.”
Wrong? Oh, now he was gonna get it. “Look, buddy. I’m not completely sure what the heck is going on here, but—”
His spine stiffened. “I have something very important I need to talk to you about, Acacia.”
The clip to his voice stopped the argument on her lips. “What could you possibly have to talk to me about?” she asked hesitantly.
“Your father.”
Okay, she’d been wrong. Seeing him again wasn’t the biggest shock of her life. This virtual stranger had just dropped the f-bomb on her.
“My father?” she asked in stunned disbelief. “My father’s dead.”
“No, he’s not. He’s very much alive. At least for the moment.”
Casey eased back against the shelf and steadied her hand on a stack of books. Paperback novels pressed into her spine, but she barely felt them. For the first time since Jill had told her of the test results and the extra battery of tests they wanted to run, she wasn’t thinking of herself.
“Wh-Where is he?”
“Far away. But he’s asked for you. He’s a man of great importance where I come from. There isn’t much time left.” Theron held out his hand. “If you come with me, I’ll take you to him.”
Casey looked from his strong hand up to his intense, midnight eyes and back again. He could take her to her father. To the man who’d known her mother. To the man who should have been the one to raise her and love her and take care of her. To the one who could put together the broken pieces of her family and answer all her questions about who she really was.
Slowly she extended her hand. Warmth and electricity zipped along her skin even before their palms met. She looked up, surprised, and that’s when she saw it. Just a flicker behind his hard eyes. A window into his thoughts. And what she saw there chilled her.
Lies.
She jerked her hand back before he could touch her, and closed her fingers into a fist. “Before I agree to anything, I want to know what’s going on. Who are you?”
A menacing chuckle came from the doorway. “A hero who’s about to die.”
Theron whipped around at the growling voice, and what Casey saw standing in the middle of her store was straight out of a nightmare. A towering figure with horns and fangs and claws so big, it looked like something come to life from Alien vs. Predator.
The beast’s eyes turned a blinding, glowing green. And from the periphery of her vision, she noticed two more just like the first, standing in the shadows, waiting to strike.
Her eyes flew open wide. She’d seen them before. In the parking lot behind XScream. With Theron.
The fuzzy memory she’d been fighting the last few days came back in a rush.
Theron’s big body moved between her and the first beast. His muscles coiled tight as he sprang down into a fighter’s stance. In a flash, he reached over his head and pulled a weapon that was a cross between a dagger and a sword and as long as his forearm from somewhere inside his jacket.
A momentary thought hit—that somehow she’d stumbled into some freaky sci-fimovie and none of this was real—and then she tracked nothing. Not the movements in front of her, around her or above her. All too fast for her eyes to follow. But she heard it. The clash of metal against flesh, of claws against skin, of teeth against bone.
And she screamed just as the beast to her right charged.
Isadora jolted awake in a cold sweat.
The sheets beneath her were wet and her heart was pumping as if she’d just competed in the modern-day Olympics. She focused on drawing air into her lungs as she glanced around the plush bedroom, with its heavy brocade drapes, antique furnishings, curved sitting area and soaring ceilings.
The castle. Her suite. A place these days she hated to call home.
It took her moments to realize she wasn’t actually in a small corner bookstore in the human world, one lined with wooden shelves and trailing plants and smelling of smoldering vanilla and the stench of impending death.
But she knew, without a doubt, that Theron was there. She could see him as clearly as if he were beside her now.
She threw the covers back and bolted for the door, barely caring that she was wearing her sleeping gown, that her hair was a mess or even that her feet were bare. She needed to get to her father. To find Theron. To warn him before he walked into a trap.
Her bedroom door flew open and banged against the wall. She gathered the floor-length, flimsy white skirt of her gown in her hands and raced down the corridor. As it was night, candles lit by servants lined the stone hallway. For a fleeting moment as she ran, she found it ironic that in this day and age, with their technology, her father still insisted on burning candles in the castle. He was as old-school as they came.
She rounded the corner, her hair flying behind her, and reached one hand out to grab the stone balustrade. The muscles in her thighs burned as her feet landed on the marble steps and she skipped stairs to get to the fourth floor as quickly as possible. Breathing heavy, she palmed the last railing and sailed around the corner, only to slam into a wall of muscle.
A gasp rushed out of her. Her hands flew out to the side to steady herself as the floor gave beneath her feet. And for one illuminating moment, she had a horrible premonition she was going to fall to her death from a towering height.
Which was ironic, and just plain wrong, wasn’t it? She could see into everyone else’s future but her own, so she didn’t know exactly how she was going to die. Though this would be a nasty way to go.
Strong fingers dug into the flesh of her upper arms, and before she could right herself, she was jerked forward and up against solid steel once more. She recognized the scent of the Argonaut holding her. And the wicked chuckle rumbling in his chest was one she’d never forget.
“Oh, Princess. What a precarious position we find ourselves in this night.”
Demetrius.
She teetered dangerously close to the edge. All he had to do was let go and she’d tumble backward and crack her head wide open on the marble her father so loved.
“I find myself in a conundrum,” he whispered in a menacing voice close to her ear. “To be the hero—or the villain, as you so peg me. Beg me to save you, Princess, so I can choose which one to be.”
Isadora’s adrenaline spiked. Every horrible sensation she’d ever had about Demetrius rushed through her. She knew he would let her go just to watch her suffer.
“Demetrius!”
Heavy footsteps echoed at Demetrius’s back. Isadora gasped again as those bruising hands yanked her against that unforgiving chest and Demetrius turned them both.
“What’s happening here?”
She recognized the other voice. Zander. One of Theron’s Argonauts. The most unpredictable, and rumor had it, the only one who couldn’t be killed.
Right now, teetering on the edge of this precipice, with Demetrius the only thing between her and death, she’d have loved to be immortal.
“Just saving the day,” Demetrius said, pulling her even closer until she felt like gagging. “It seems the night has drawn out all kinds.”
“I—I’m fine.” Isadora wiped a hand over her brow, swallowed hard to get her composure. And remembered why she’d flown out of her bed in the first place. “I need to see my father.”
The two Argonauts exchanged looks, and as always, Demetrius was a like a solid, stone, unyielding presence beside her, one she couldn’t get away from fast enough.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Zander said. “Your father’s resting.”
“You don’t understand. I have to—”
Zander turned her toward the stairs. “We’ll take you back to your suite.”
“No. I—”
“These are dangerous times, Princess. And you’re not well. Your father’s asked that we ensure your safety.”
Dangerous times? What in Hades did that mean?
Isadora found herself being led down the stairs away from her goal, while questions and disbelief whirled through her mind. Demetrius’s heavy footsteps echoed closely at her back.
When they reached the second floor her brain finally kicked back into gear and she jerked to a stop. “No. Wait. I need to find Theron. I need to talk to him. I need—”
“Theron’s on business for the king. He’ll contact you when he returns. Now, Princess—”
Screw that. Isadora’s jaw flexed and she dug her bare heels into the marble. She was going to be queen. These two Argonauts couldn’t tell her what to do.
And just as she was about to lay into Zander with that, those sickeningly familiar hard arms swept her off the floor from behind, and she found herself cradled, not so gently, against Demetrius.
“Enough argument. You’re to remain in your suite until the king deems you’re well enough to venture out. End of story, Princess.”
The last word was sneered, and she struggled against his hold, but it was useless. Moments later she was dumped on her bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, with the echo of resounding footsteps swirling in the room as the Argonauts swept out. Then she was alone, the only sound the click of a key turning in the double doors from the outside.
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