He stopped suddenly, swallowing hard and taking a step back, his mouth clamped shut. It did him no good; I already knew what he was going to say.
“You want to kiss me again,” I finished quietly. Despite myself, I smiled, looking at him curiously.
“Yes,” he nodded. “But more than that. I can’t explain it, not without sounding even more stupid than I already do.”
“Then why don’t you?” I goaded him. “You’ve already proved you could take me if you wanted to.”
“Damn it, Avalon,” he said, frustrated. “You don’t understand! I don’t want to take you. I want to—to have you give it to me.”
He continued to stutter through his confusion and it occurred to me that he hadn’t intended to tell me all of these things, not in the beginning anyway. This was the most vulnerable I’d ever seen him.
At the same time, my heart beat so quickly, my mind not wanting to believe what he was saying to me. It didn’t make sense, to feel this way for him, to want to make the pain he was feeling because of me go away. I shouldn’t be wanting him to take me in his arms and kiss me again, to run his fingers through my hair, and to take my breath away. It was like fate had pulled us together, forcing us to find one another, even if it was under terrible circumstances.
I knew the feeling he was talking about, the pain in his chest whenever he looked at me, the driving force behind wanting to take care of me. I’d felt it the day we’d been attacked by the harpies, the need to save him from being destroyed. The fear I’d felt while watching him fight the griffin hadn’t been for just myself either. I needed him to be safe just as much as he needed me to be.
Coming out of my own thoughts, I reached for his hand, lacing my fingers between his and pulling him closer to me. Before I could think twice about it, I rose onto my toes and kissed him, silencing the never ending flow of words he’d started.
Caught by surprise, he stiffened, his hand clenching around mine, eyes blinking furiously. Then, like the flip of a switch, his other arm circled around me, smashing my body against his, lips moving against my own with a need I’d never felt before.
My skin warmed again as his fingers left mine, brushing up my arm and into my hair, softly pulling on the locks. My heart was racing, soaring it seemed, about to burst from the flood of emotions I felt.
The Titan seemed indifferent, her curiosity at the act having been stated by our first kiss. It appeared now that all she wanted was to seize the opportunity to break free again. A very different kind of fire raced through me, though, giving me the power to push her away and keep control.
Kissing Cristos, I mean really kissing him, not being caught off guard and going with the motions, was incredible. He tasted like the cold, his stubble scratching against my skin in a way that was ridiculously nice. Wherever his body touched mine, electric currents seemed to run, tingling my skin, burning my insides with desire.
His mouth broke from mine, lips caressing over my jaw and onto my neck as I wrapped my arms around his neck, clinging to him as we finally let all of the emotions we’d been bottling up free.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re cold,” Cristos mumbled into my hair, tightening his arms around me, hugging me into his chest.
“Really? I didn’t notice,” I replied, snuggling my face deeper into the fabric of his shirt.
I could now say I’d been thoroughly kissed. Expertly kissed even. Just thinking about it made me grin stupidly.
We’d gotten carried away quickly, but the cold had managed to help us keep any clothes from coming off, with I was silently regretting. Something told me Cristos was doing the same. It was just as well—I didn’t necessarily want to be taken like that just yet. Not the logical side of me anyway.
We’d kissed until neither of us could handle any more, our lips bruised and swollen, hearts about to beat out of our chests. In an effort to cool down, we’d settled into the snow, leaning against a tree as we held each other, a comfortable silence hanging in the air. I knew there was more to say, but was willing to wait until he was ready, to save this moment for us.
The air changed, snow falling softly as he readied himself. I could tell from the way his heart picked up that whatever he needed to get out was important.
“Avalon,” Cristos started hesitantly.
“Hmmm?”
“I think you should run. Run as far as you can, away from all of this.”
“What?” I asked, sitting up in surprise. “Why?”
“It’s not safe,” he said desperately. “And you were dragged into it. You should escape while you can, save yourself from this world I’ve brought you in to.”
He looked so self-loathing as he spoke, hating the fact I was here because of him while apparently forgetting I wanted to be with him.
“I’m surviving just fine,” I argued. “Besides, you would be left here alone to fight this battle. I’m not going to do that. You said yourself, I’m the biggest bargaining chip we have right now.”
“I can’t hand you over to them, not now. Not after what we just did, after what I told you.”
He grasped my hands tightly, almost painfully as he spoke, the fears he’d never really voiced rising.
“You’ll come back for me,” I said, smiling encouragingly. “I know you will. I felt like you would protect me before and now I know without a doubt that you will.”
“I’ll do the same thing if you leave right now,” he urged me. “Go somewhere safe and wait. I’ll find you, I swear. It won’t be hard with my powers. You’ll be saved from the Titans.”
“And you’ll just abandon your family in their time of need?” I asked skeptically.
“No,” he frowned. “I wouldn’t come until I knew it was safe, after everything was over.”
“So, you want me to run and then wait for you, knowing it could never happen?”
Anger bit at me as I spoke, frustration at his words refusing to let me see he was really trying to help. His type of helping wasn’t very fair for him, either.
“I can’t hand you over to them, Avalon,” he said simply. “I will die first. Which consequently, is probably what’s going to happen.”
The bitterness of his words shocked me and I leaned back into him, resting my head on his chest as he wrapped his arms around me once more.
Silence grew between us, but I knew he’d left out something, something that would change everything. Part of me didn’t want to hear it, to keep going the way we were now. It had to come out sometime, though, for both our sakes.
“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked quietly, fingers playing with the hem of his shirt.
A great sigh broke from him and he hugged me tighter, kissing the top of my head.
“I’ve been cursed with my own fate,” he said quietly. “It was the reason I came and found you, wanting to destroy you. But, I should have known trying to stop my own destiny would be what set it in action.”
“What do you mean?” I asked fearful of what he would say.
“Do you know who the Graeae are?”
“No.”
He explained about the witches and how he’d found them in the desert, fought them, and then had his fate revealed to him as punishment.
“I should have listened to Arsenio,” he laughed humorlessly. “He warned me that they would tell me where my life was going, but I was too concerned with taking down anyone who had helped anything from Tartarus.”
“What was your fate?” I asked quietly, knowing already it had something to do with me.
“I will join with the demi-Titan,” he started, squeezing me momentarily. “Before The Purge, which I have yet to discover what that is.”
“That’s it?” I asked, somewhat relieved.
“No.”
I looked up at him, watching as his teeth ground together, eyes shut in mourning.
“I will betray my father and be cast into Tartarus.”
“What?” I asked in shock, sitting upright in a bolt of movement. “That
’s impossible!”
“That’s what I said,” he chuckled, smiling weakly. “But here we are, an Olympian with a demi-Titan in his arms.”
“I’ll run,” I said with conviction. “I’ll leave and you can stay and finish this war, like you wanted. When it’s all over, then we can be together.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” he sighed. “All of it will come true, not just part.”
“We have a choice,” I argued. “Fate doesn’t determine everything. We can fight it, prove them wrong!”
“Fate sees the choices we will make. Whatever they predict will happen, like it or not.”
“You sound like you’re giving up,” I argued. “That’s not fair! Especially after all that just happened, everything you told me. You can’t tell me you’re going to be gone forever.”
“I tried to fight it,” he growled back, frustrated I wasn’t letting what he was saying be. “That’s how I found you and ended up bringing you along. I was determined to prove them wrong and kill you myself.”
“That’s why you were so mean to me,” I nodded. “I get it. But I can’t be the person who does that to you. I have a choice.”
“If you run,” he replied evenly. “I might not ever be able to come for you. I might be in Tartarus.”
“Are you just lying to me about everything?” I asked, feeling a tad hysterical. “You said you would come and now you’re saying you can’t? I don’t understand.”
“Listen to me,” he said strongly, hands gripping my arms. “I will come if I can. I will always come. I would go to Tartarus and back for you.”
The weight of his words shocked me again, the speed of his confessions and the strength of my own feelings astounding me. It seemed that days ago I would have liked nothing better than to be rid of him forever and here I was now, arguing that we were meant to be together for the rest of all time.
“I can’t run away,” I finally said sadly. “Not if it means I might not ever see you again. I would rather be with you, to spend as much time as we have left together.”
He laughed, sitting up and hugging me to him.
“I treated you so badly before,” he chuckled. “How can you forgive me so easily, let alone want to stay with me for fear of never seeing me again?”
“I don’t know,” I replied weakly, not really seeing the humor of it all. “But I do. Want to stay, that is.”
“I know you do,” he said seriously. “I can see it in your eyes. You get this look when you’ve decided to do something.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been watching you,” he said casually. “When you weren’t paying attention. I was trying to decipher you.”
I wrapped my arms around him tightly, holding myself to him as a torrent of emotions filtered through me. I wasn’t feeling lust, that much was certain now. Hearing he was going to be sent to the prison of the gods was like a slap to the face. I wanted to do whatever I could to prevent it. Staying would mean I could help, even offer myself to the Titans like he’d been thinking. Maybe if he got the helmet back, whatever he was supposed to do in the future would be outweighed and rendered unimportant. He would be the hero who saved the world.
“What are you thinking now?” Cristos asked, his voice breaking through my ponderings.
“I’m thinking,” I said slowly. “I need to learn how to fight if I’m going to help you.”
“I don’t want you to help,” he sighed. “I cringe every time I think about you going with them. I never should have even brought it up.”
“You did because it’s an idea worth trying,” I argued. “But I can’t go not knowing how to defend myself.”
“You’re right,” he nodded. “I don’t like it, but you’re right.”
“Awesome,” I grinned, trying to banish the bad feelings inside me. “Show me something then.”
He shook his head, sliding me off his lap and standing.
“Tomorrow,” he said in a matter of fact tone. “Arsenio is probably already wondering why we haven’t returned to camp yet. We need to go back before he comes looking for us.”
“Arsenio,” I said, finally remembering him where’d we’d left him. “That’s true.”
“Don’t tell him about any of this, Avalon,” he said seriously. “It’s not that I want to keep us a secret from him, but I haven’t told him anything. He doesn’t know about my fate. He didn’t even know about you until we found you.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I asked, surprised. “You two struck me as the type that shared everything.”
“We do,” he said grimly. “Except for my fate. I won’t have him cast into Tartarus with me. The less he knows, the better. Otherwise, he’ll try and stop it and we all know how well that went when I tried.”
Turning back towards camp, he held his hand out to me and I took it willingly, still reeling from everything that had happened.
His lips brushed over my fingers as he raised them to his mouth, eyes burning with the want for another kiss, which I was more than happy to oblige him with.
The heat I had tried to banish before easily returned, encasing me in pure happiness as I let all of the revelations and worries for the future fade away. There was something that happened to me when he touched me, like he held the power to just wipe everything away until only I was left, a woman ready to be swept up in his arms.
His lips burned against mine, fingers holding onto my face gently, body against mine as our breath mingled together, unspoken promises passing between us. I’d never felt this way before, like I was so completely claimed by another person. I’d thought I liked men before, loved them even, but it wasn’t even close to Cristos. We’d been drawn together, even if it was for a horrible purpose, but I refused to let him fall as had been predicted.
“Avalon,” he said again, breaking away and holding me in his embrace. “I have to go back to being distant. It doesn’t change what I said or how I feel. I can’t let anyone know how important you are to me. They’re already trying to take you, I don’t want them to have a reason to try harder. You understand?”
“I do,” I nodded. “But I can’t promise I won’t wake up tomorrow and think this was all a dream. It happened so fast.”
“No, zoi mou,” he chuckled. “It took far too long.”
Chapter Twenty
It was two days before Cristos said anything to Arsenio about teaching me how to fight. True to his word, he’d remained distant, speaking to me only when I first initiated conversation and maintaining a sizeable distance between us at all times. I’d stayed as true to my part as I could, mentioning nothing to our fellow traveler and acting like I remained with them only because I didn’t want to be captured by the Titans.
“I don’t intend to let her stay with the Titans,” Cristos reiterated, looking around the camp for something. “And, if she’s to be trusted, she doesn’t want to stay with them either. She needs to know how to take care of herself if she’s going to get away in the end.”
Arsenio nodded, finishing his last bite of food as he looked me over.
“I agree,” he said, after swallowing. “We don’t really have any extra weapons, except for some small knives and the axe I use to chop firewood with.”
Cristos retrieved it, apparently having been looking for that exact thing. With a grin he quickly hid away, he handed it over to me, watching as I bounced it in my palms, getting a feel for the weight of it.
“It’s not very big,” I said uncertainly. “Will it be enough?”
“A rock, in the right hands, is big enough to bring even the largest giants down,” Arsenio smiled.
“Right,” Cristos started, coming over to me. “You want to hold it like this.”
He arranged my hands for me, showing me the difference between a good and bad grip for various moves, all the while talking about the best places to catch a Titan off guard.
“The neck is always the best place,” he said, drawing a finger over my skin there.
; I suppressed a shudder the best I could.
“Titans can’t be killed with anything but the substance they were made from, so if you’re going to take one out you need to know as much about them as you can. This will delay them for sure, but they’ll be back with a vengeance if you stick around.”
“Got it,” I said, concentrating on what he was saying.
“Now, if you can’t get to the neck, the back or the chest is the next best place. Your axe is more likely to get lodged in these places, so if you hit them there, be ready to pull hard to get it back, understand?”
“Yeah,” I nodded.
“Enough talk,” Arsenio chuckled. “Get her practicing some. That’s the only way she’ll really learn.”
Cristos grinned at him and then turned to me, pulling his sword from his bag on his back.
I shrank back at the sight of the lightning, knowing I probably wouldn’t do so well if I got struck.
“Don’t be afraid,” he encouraged me. “The helmet will already being doing that for you, you can’t make it that much easier for them.”
“I don’t want to be barbequed,” I laughed nervously, still edging around him.
“You won’t,” he coaxed me. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded again and then stepped forward, going for his neck weakly.
Easily deflecting my advance, he shook his head, frowning in disappointment.
“You have to mean it,” he growled. “They won’t give you another chance.”
“Okay,” I said, trembling.
“Again,” he ordered.
We went on like this for a few hours, both men giving me pointers and taking turns being my point of attack. After I managed to successfully assault both of them, which was really just luck on my part I thought, they had me turn my back and took turns confronting me.
I was much worse at the second half of training.
By the end of the night, I felt thoroughly shaken and like I was certainly going to meet my doom at the hands of a Titan.
Adrastia (The God Chronicles Book 4) Page 14
