by Laura Kaye
“No,” he said, unable to hear her tear herself down after everything she’d done for him today. He grabbed a towel off a bar and handed it in to her. “Cover yourself. Please.”
When she did, Devlin pushed the curtain open wider and crouched at the tub’s edge. The towel, now wet where it covered her chest and lap, conformed to and highlighted the beautiful, pale curves of her body. But he fixed his gaze on her face and held it there. “Not stupid at all. You’ve been nothing but brave,” he said, gripping the side of the tub.
Her eyebrows quirked upward as if she questioned his praise, but he meant it from the bottom of his heart. She’d been thrown into the deep end of a pool she hadn’t even known existed and managed not only to stay afloat but help others while she was treading water.
And he’d repaid her by putting her in danger. Regret welled up inside of Devlin until it felt like Olympus weighed on his chest. “I’m sorry I crash-landed on your life.”
Anna looked at him a long minute. “I’m worried for my father, Devlin, but I’m glad I met you. And that you’re here.”
The easy acceptance. The freely offered kindness. He’d so rarely encountered either that he had no idea how to respond. All he knew was that her words sent him soaring even as an old angry, knee-jerk response made him want to shake some sense into her.
She gave him a small smile and broke the awkward silence. “I just need to wash my hair and then the shower’s all yours.”
“I could—” Devlin ate the words, not sure where the impulse had even come from.
Her brow furrowed and then her eyes went wide in apparent understanding of what he’d nearly offered. Truth be told, what he still wanted to offer, although she’d probably think it strange. Hell, he found it strange, but it was crystal clear she needed comfort after everything the day had thrown at her, and his instincts roared with the need to be there for her. In some way. In every way.
She licked stray droplets of water off her lips. “You could…?”
Devlin stared into those gray eyes for a long moment, and then he shoved down the awkwardness that had his hands strangling the tub’s edge. “Do it for you,” he said with a shrug. An odd flipping sensation in his gut, like free-falling from the very top of the sky, had his instincts roaring to retreat. “Never mind. It’s dumb. I didn’t—”
A warm, wet hand settled on top of his. “Yes, please.”
She couldn’t have surprised him more if she’d sprouted a pair of wings. “Oh. Yeah?” As the idea settled into his brain, a low hum of satisfaction spread over his body. He accepted a pink bottle she grabbed from the corner of the tub and squeezed a small handful of creamy shampoo into his palm. Just as he debated the best way to do this, Anna tilted her head back and let the water stream over the silk of her hair. The position bared the tops of her breasts to him, even as she used one arm to hold the towel in place.
Devlin was fucking mesmerized. The curves of her breasts, her throat, her shoulders, captured his gaze and made it impossible to look away. He wanted to trace every one with his fingers. And his tongue.
Squeezing the excess water out of her hair, Anna shifted so her back faced him.
Devlin blinked away the impulse and ignored the aching need between his legs. “Tell me if I’m too rough,” he said as he rubbed his palms together. And then he laid his hands on her. Her heat and softness soaked into him, as if there were something magical about touch alone. For him, there was. Since for most of his life he’d never been touched in anything but pain and punishment.
Half afraid of somehow hurting her, Devlin worked the sweet-smelling shampoo into the top and sides of her hair. Stretching over the side of the tub, he focused on taking care of her as if it was the most important job he’d ever done. And maybe that was going too far, but it was certainly the most meaningful. To him.
The throaty moan of satisfaction she unleashed reached into his body and absolutely owned him. He would’ve done anything to elicit that noise—and others—again and again. “Is this okay?”
“It’s perfect, Devlin. Don’t stop,” she said, all the strain gone from her voice.
As if Zeus himself could pull me away.
He worked more shampoo into the length of her hair, massaging her scalp and rubbing the ends between his hands. Through the thin veil of her hair, his fingers pressed into her neck muscles, using the lather to allow his touch to glide over her skin. She moved her head in response to his touch, tilting this way or that to give him access to one area, then another. And damn it all to Hades and back if the little caught breaths and moaned sighs didn’t ratchet up the tension flowing through his body. Because even as he was entirely content to bask in the satisfaction she nearly radiated, he was still a long-abstinent male touching an incredible naked woman. And the most masculine parts of himself envisioned him pinning her up against the shower wall and burying himself deep into her heat from behind.
“Thank you,” she whispered, turning her face to glance over her shoulder. The wet shine on her pale pink lips scrambled his brain so hard he could only nod.
“Turn toward the water,” he finally managed. He held out thick strands of her hair and let the water stream over until every sud was gone.
“I’ll rinse the top,” she said, and then she grabbed onto the built-in tile handle on the soap dish and rose.
Devlin had absolutely no idea where to put his gaze, because as she unfurled her petite form, the towel plastered to the front of her and her back bare, everything attracted him at once. Shapely legs, curved hips, the rounded softness of her bottom.
Anna slipped, throwing out an arm to brace against the wall. Devlin was off the ground without a conscious thought and steadied her with one hand on her arm and the other on her waist. His reach into the shower had his arms and upper body nearly as wet as her. Her gaze raked down his bare chest, and Devlin forced himself to let her look her fill. She licked water off her lips and met his gaze. “You’re all wet now. Might as well come in.” Then she stepped backward once, twice, and tilted her head into the running water.
The invitation pounded blood hot and fast through Devlin’s body.
As Devlin watched, she worked at rinsing the soap out of her hair with one hand and held the towel draped to the front of her body with the other. Drawn by the soul-deep need to keep touching her, he toed off his borrowed boots and debated removing his jeans, but knew there was no way he wouldn’t be all over her if her gaze caressed his cock the way she’d just looked at his chest. Plus, the fucking cilice. So, yeah, for now they stayed on. He stepped over the edge of the tub, and the water added weight to the denim, but Devlin hardly noticed because Anna stepped closer and then used both hands to wring out her hair. Wet as it was, the towel stuck to her skin, but just one little gust of the East Wind and he could take care of that.
Not that he would do that to her. But it was sure as shit fun to visualize.
She met his eyes and he didn’t think he was imagining that hers were filled with scorching heat. Grabbing the open shower curtain, she walked toward him and closed them in. His muscles braced when she came to stand in front of him. “You’re still dressed.”
“I only meant to check on you,” he said, his brain scrambling to resist the urges slowly turning his blood to liquid fire.
She nodded. “I appreciate that very much,” she said. “I feel better.”
His shoulders sagged in relief. “Good. That’s good.”
Anna stepped closer and nailed him with a stare. “I’m going to hug you now.”
Despite the warning, his muscles still braced. He managed a single tight nod. And then she was on him. Her softness pressed against his hardness and her arms wrapped around his back. She was so much shorter than him that when she laid her head on his chest, he had to lean down to press a reverent kiss against the top of her hair. Slowly, carefully, he wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders and held her to him.
And it was like being found after a lifetime of being lost.
His muscles might’ve ached from the effort it took not to let himself tremble in her arms, but that didn’t change the fact that holding Anna close filled him with a sense of rightness he couldn’t ever remember feeling.
Her right arm moved and Devlin sucked in a harsh breath a moment later when she dragged a washcloth down his biceps. Then again. And once more, shifting against him to reach all the way down to his wrist.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice raw with emotion.
“Taking care of you,” she said simply.
He shivered. “Anna—”
“Shh. Let me.” The warm, wet cotton stroked over his shoulder next, the side of his neck, the pad of his pectorals. She pulled away, but Devlin only let her go so far, because he wasn’t sure he could handle the tension roaring through his body unless he was holding on to her.
Anna smiled up at him, warm and reassuring. She washed his neck, his chest, his ribs. No matter how tightly he tried to hold himself, he couldn’t restrain the occasional flinch. Each time, she’d meet his gaze as if assessing how much he could take, as if she understood that sustained touch like this pushed him way the hell beyond his boundaries. The cloth dragged over his belly, back and forth until her hand brushed the waist of his jeans.
She met his gaze, held it, and put her hand to the top button on his fly. He didn’t react fast enough, and she pulled the button free.
His heart was a stampeding herd in his chest. Devlin jerked, accidentally knocking the rag from her hand. She knelt to retrieve it, and the picture of her kneeling at his feet pounded blood through his body and into his cock.
Her gaze lifted upward from the floor. She gasped. “You’re bleeding.” Her hand fell on his left thigh.
The cilice. Realization slammed into him and embarrassment and shame smothered his arousal. “Fuck. Don’t, Anna,” he rasped and backed into the cool tile wall behind him.
“But you’re—”
“I said don’t.” The trembling was out in full force now.
She knelt frozen on the floor of the shower, one hand outstretched toward his leg. His gaze dropped to where the shower water had caused some of the blood from his ancient wound there to ooze out from underneath the wrapping and onto the skin visible through a tear in the old denim.
She frowned. “There’s a bandage. When…is this from today?” He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. “Please let me. I won’t hurt you,” she said, her voice tugging at something raw and exposed in his chest. She crawled closer. Closer. Until she was kneeling at his feet once again, his back up against the wall.
As her fingers separated the gap of denim, Devlin’s breath sawed in and out of him, emotion overwhelming him. Soft pressure and an intensifying ache from the metal teeth’s bite into his skin told him she was touching the bandage.
If she saw, he’d have to explain, he’d have to give voice to this fundamentally good, true woman what he’d done to deserve paying this penance. His hands fisted. He banged his head against the tile. But in the end nothing he did could restrain the volcano of anxiety and worthlessness welling up inside him.
He grasped her wrist in his hand and yanked it away. She gasped and her eyes went wide as they cut up to meet his.
“Too. Much,” he ground out, not wanting to scare her or take her head off, but needing her to understand. Her touch and his discomfort left him feeling so exposed he could barely breathe.
A fast nod, and she scooted backward, but she could only retreat so far because his grip remained firmly planted around her wrist. Finally, she rose to her feet and slowly closed the distance between them again. “Okay, Devlin,” she said, looking into his eyes. And while there was a little hurt there that cut into him and made him wish for maybe the millionth time that he wasn’t such a fucking misfit, there was also a knowing, an understanding. And that rubbed him raw, too, because it meant she perceived something about the psychosis that made him act this way. “I’m gonna get out now.”
Devlin released her wrist and stared at her as she stepped through the gap between the curtain and the wall, turning her bare, uncovered back to him. She tugged the curtain tightly closed again, and though only a thin piece of fabric separated them, the distance allowed him to pull in his first real breath in several minutes.
Small sounds filtered in from the room. The slap of the wet towel against the sink. Cabinet doors opening and closing. The shift of cotton against skin. And then the bathroom door opened and closed, and Devlin could tell from the stillness of the air in the room that she’d gone.
“Welcome to your fucking life,” he said to himself. And then he stepped into the stream of water, wrenched the temperature nozzle hard to the right, and braced as ice-cold water rained down over him.
The shock of cold reality was exactly what he needed.
Because the past five minutes had shoved into his face as maybe little else could’ve why he wasn’t good enough for Annalise Fallston and never would be. And if the gods possessed any mercy where he was concerned, she’d come to the same conclusion.
Chapter Thirteen
Despite it being the middle of the night, Owen and the others materialized in the Hall of the Winds to find Megan, Ella, Laney, and Laney’s human friend Seth waiting there. Seth had gotten sucked into their world when he’d arrived at Owen’s immediately after the battle and refused to leave Laney’s side. Owen hadn’t had much time to spend with Seth so far. He spoke little and always stuck close to Laney as though he was watching, protecting, guarding. Truth be told, something about him made Owen a little…not uncomfortable, exactly, but maybe wary. Yeah, there was something about the guy.
“Hey,” Owen said, walking up to Megan. “What are you doing up?”
“We all decided we couldn’t sleep until you got home,” Ella said, pulling Zeph into a hug. “Hi.”
Zeph kissed her cheek, and beyond him, Chrys and Laney were reuniting, too. It was clear that every person in the room understood the cloud of danger hanging over their collective heads. For himself, Owen felt it acutely.
“Aeolus,” Laney said. “Your friend Tisiphone dropped in after you left. She said she’d return when Devlin did.”
Aeolus nodded and something unusually soft passed over his expression. Owen had overheard Chrys and Zeph discussing that something was going on between Aeolus and the Fury who punished crimes of murder and had apparently been helping Aeolus train Devlin. Her particular skill set made Owen glad to have her for an ally, but that didn’t mean he was thrilled to have the snake-headed resident of the Underworld hanging out here with Megan when he wasn’t around.
“What are those?” Laney asked.
Owen followed her gaze to the grouping of Anna’s paintings at Aeolus’s feet.
“They’re paintings,” Chrys said. “Why? Are you seeing something?” Owen’s gut clenched. Laney’s visions were a double-edged sword, bringing them the advantage of advance knowledge while also forcing them to confront some tragedy yet to happen. Come to think of it, Anna’s paintings were the same way.
“Not a vision. They’re glowing with light, like the auras I see around you.”
“More proof that Devlin’s Anna has divine ancestry,” Aeolus said.
“Who’s Anna?” Ella asked, walking toward the paintings. The others followed to form a small circle around Aeolus, the canvases in the center.
“Anna,” Zephyros said, putting his arm around Ella’s shoulder, “is apparently Devlin’s…” He waved a hand as if he didn’t know how to characterize her.
But to Owen, what was between Devlin and Anna seemed pretty damn clear. “She’s his girlfriend, or at least they’re heading in that direction. She’s human. And she’s apparently descended from the goddess of the rainbow, Iris.” Not to mention someone else none of them could identify, but hopefully Iris could shed some light on that when she and Zeph met. He’d sent a request to her on their way back to the Realm of the Gods.
“Wait. Devlin’s interested in a human woman?” Ella asked.
“Eurus’s son, Devlin? This is good news, right?” She turned to Zeph, who begrudgingly nodded.
“So, Anna’s a painter,” Megan said, bending over to study the painting of Devlin finding Eurus’s key. Painting reminded Owen of Tabitha, their neighbor from the human realm and also an accomplished painter. She, like Seth, had been swept up into this mess during the battle the other night. And thinking of Tabitha led Owen right back to Boreas, because there’d been a spark of interest between them that they’d never had the chance to explore. But honestly, grief was like playing a never-ending game of Six Degrees of Separation, because just about everything could somehow be associated with the one you’d lost. “What is this painting supposed to be?”
“Well, interestingly,” Chrys said, taking Laney’s hand, “Anna started having visions about a week ago, visions that compelled her to paint these images. They’re all of either Devlin or Eurus. When she painted them, they were all of events from the future. This one is of Devlin finding the key to Eurus’s lantern—” He pointed toward the stylized E on the compass rose tiled into the great mosaic floor. Lantern light spilled from the floor at each point around the compass, the light of the divine energy locked within by the master of each of the directional winds.
“Oh, God, please tell me that’s good news, too,” Ella said, her gaze meeting each of the men’s. “What happens if someone unlocks the lantern?”
Aeolus crossed his arms. “If someone consumes the energy within, they gain mastery over that wind, and the former master dies.”
Gasps and wide-eyed smiles emanated from the women. Not that the men weren’t as moved by what accessing Eurus’s lantern could mean, but they also knew it meant a trip into the Eastern Realm.
Laney frowned. “What are the others? Can someone describe them to me?”
Tension zinged among the men. Owen really didn’t want Megan seeing the painting of the moment before Boreas’s death, and neither she nor Ella needed to see the one depicting a limp body in Devlin’s arms.
