“Oh look,” he said, studying the next page, “you get to feast on a drokin.” He peered down at the hound. He peered back, licking its chops. “Yum.”
Four hours later, Gideon was exhausted. He’d been stung, burned, and stabbed. His favorite coat had a hole in the sleeve from a venomous she-demon with two heads that shot poisonous spikes from her tail. He was ready for a drink. Maybe six.
Magnus was waiting for him at the front of Eden, a cigarette between his lips. He eyed Gideon with a raised eyebrow.
“You look like a hooker who had a rough night.”
Gideon flipped him off before wordlessly stepping into the pet shop to drop the hound off.
Magnus was still waiting for him when Gideon emerged a few minutes later, void of a hellhound. He pushed off the wall and joined Gideon back towards the car.
“How did it go?”
“I hate hunting,” Gideon grumbled.
“No you don’t.”
No, he didn’t. Still...
“Fuckers wrecked my coat.”
Magnus eyed the singe marks and the holes. “Don’t you have fifty of those jackets?”
Gideon looked at him. “What’s your point?” He fished into the pocket and pulled out his car keys. “How did you make out?”
Magnus shrugged as he rounded the back to the passenger’s side. “I finished three hours ago.”
Gideon stared at his brother a full minute with the key protruding from the keyhole. “There’s something wrong with you, you know that, right? You’re not normal.”
“Unlike you, I don’t give them a choice.”
They climbed into the car and Gideon started the engine.
“Mom wants us to give them the chance to come back quietly.”
Magnus snorted. “When has that ever happened?”
Never, but Gideon didn’t say as much.
They drove back to the manor, all the while discussing the hunt. But the minute Gideon pulled into his usual spot, he felt it—the humming cold of absence. It was as though every drop of heat in the place had been let out. The way an abandoned house echoed with sadness after years of being filled with love and light only to tumble carelessly into disrepair and abuse. The manor itself looked as it always had, dark, foreboding, and endless, but it had always felt like a home. Now it only made his blood chill in his veins.
“What?”
Saying nothing to Magnus’s question, Gideon hurried to the front doors. The bronze plates burned the skin on his palms as he heaved them apart. Inside, a fire had been lit in the upright dais in the center of the room. The warm glow spilled over the room like the first kiss of dawn. A few demons had arrived and were sitting stooped over their drinks. Octavian stood behind the bar, wiping glasses, and talking to Imogen. Riley wove through the tables, a tray balanced on the flat of her palm. His father stood over a table of wraith demons, laughing at something one of them was telling him. There was nothing out of the ordinary and yet, the phantom agitation crawled beneath his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch.
“Where’s Valkyrie?” he demanded the moment Riley turned towards them.
Her dainty brows drew together in puzzlement. “She said she had something to deal with, but she’d be right back, at least, I’m assuming she’ll be right back. She doesn’t exactly confide in—”
“Where did she go?” he snapped, feeling panic scuttle up his spine like cold, metallic claws.
Riley shrugged. “We’re not exactly that close.”
“When did she leave?” he countered.
“Um...” Riley checked her watch. “An hour? Maybe two. Why? What—?”
Shoving past Magnus, Gideon threw himself back into the setting dusk. Gravel crunched beneath his boots as he ran to his car. It wasn’t until he reached the driver’s side door that he realized Magnus had followed him.
“What’s going on?”
Gideon wrenched open the door. “She’s gone to face her father,” he barked. “She thinks if she throws herself at his mercy, he’ll spare her, or me.”
“So what are you going to do?” Magnus opened the passenger’s side door.
Gideon threw himself behind the wheel. “I’m going to get her back.”
But no sooner had he shoved the keys into the ignition when a high pitched roar filled the night. Light crashed through the clearing a split second before the giant, glinting motorcycle did with its leather clad rider. Gideon scrambled out of his car just as a long, toned leg struck the ground. The rider raised both arms and jerked the gleaming helmet off. Shiny, black hair tumbled in waves down a slender back.
“Valkyrie!”
She looked up in surprise as she twisted the key to shut the beast off. “Did you just get back?”
Every fiber of his being thrummed with the realization that she was there. That she was unharmed. The sight of her numbed everything but the need to hold her. Except that feeling of relief quickly evaporated into desperation and anger.
“Where the hell have you been?”
Blue eyes blinked and then narrowed. “I don’t answer to you.” She hauled her lithe frame off the bike and rose. “Where I go is my business.”
“My ass!”
Without waiting for her to react, he charged across the distance, and without breaking stride, bent at the waist and pitched her carelessly over his shoulder. Her cry of alarm and outrage spiked through the clearing. Her legs flailed. Her fists pummeled his back.
“Put me down!” she shrieked. “Are you out of your damn mind?”
With a humorless chuckle, Gideon shrugged. “If I am, you have no one to blame but yourself. You drive me fucking crazy.”
With that, he stomped to the house and kicked the doors open. What little chatter that had been going on instantly ceased and all eyes, demon and non-demon, fixed on them as he stalked into the room.
“Don’t mind us,” Gideon said causally as he made his way towards the kitchen doors. “Just passing through.”
“You son of a bitch!” Valkyrie seethed. “I am going to kill you and spit on your grave!”
The rest of her words were a series of very colorful and appalling cuss words that shocked even Gideon, not all entirely English.
“Hey!” He gave her a sharp swat on the backside that made her squeak and jump. “Language. God, you have a filthy mouth.”
“I’ll show you filthy mouth!” she screamed just as he kicked the kitchen doors open. “You just wait until I get my hands on you!”
Gideon snickered. “Calm down. Save some of that dirty talk for when I get you in bed.”
With that, he marched them up the stairs with her describing in painful detail what she was going to do with his male reproductive origin once she got her hands on her daggers.
“You know, for a virgin, you sure know the right things to say to turn a guy on.”
Her vicious snarl made him snicker.
They passed his horrified mother and an amused and embarrassed Imogen on their way to his bedroom. Valkyrie continued to call him every name under the sun, some possibly invented as he stomped into his room and kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot. He marched them to the bed and carelessly tossed her down on to the mattress. She bounced once, flailing and kicking before he was on her, pinning her down and settling his hips firmly between her legs.
“I swear to God, Maxwell!”
“Gideon,” he reminded her with amusement. “We’re in my bed. You know the rules.”
She bared her teeth up at him. “I told you I won’t!”
Rolling one shoulder, Gideon bowed his head and began nuzzling the arch of her neck. “You said that last time and I remember someone moaning it pretty loudly as I made her come again ... and again...”
“Stop it!” she half snapped, half moaned.
Beneath him, her body gave a shiver. Her hips twitched.
“Stop what?” he coaxed as he let his hand glide down her side to hook beneath the tight band of her pants.
Her sharp little inhale
propelled him to push in deeper, past the elastic of her panties to curve over her mound. The fine speckle of hair tickled his palm as he parted her lips and sunk into a pool of hot, sticky arousal coating her opening.
“I hate you!” she sobbed, hips pushing up against his hand. Her own fingers closed in his hair, the other anchored with sharp little nails onto his shoulder.
“Yet you’re so wet,” he murmured with a taunting purr into her ear. He circled her slit once before pushing just the tip of his finger inside “Should I stop?”
Her sweet cry of pleasure rang through him. Her back tore off the mattress as she lifted herself up to him for more. Hairs were torn from their roots as she clasped him tighter.
“No!” she gasped. “Don’t stop.”
He mashed his grin into her jawline while his hand rocked against her, rubbing and penetrating at the same time. He was careful not to go past his nail to the first bend in his finger. While he didn’t think he could take her virginity with just his fingers, he wasn’t going to take the chance. Nevertheless, she came with a low whimper. Her body shuddered and bucked against him.
“Still hate me?” he teased.
“Yes!” she panted.
He hummed quietly against the curve of her jaw. “That is unfortunate considering how good I make you feel.” He dragged his wet fingers up to circle her clit. Still sensitive, the nub pulsed and she gave a violent jerk. “Especially when there are so many other things I want to do to you still. But...” He expelled a frustrated breath. “I can take a hint...”
“You stop now and I will cut your hands off at the wrists!” She hissed between uneven gasps.
Gideon chuckled. “If you insist, love.”
He brought her over slowly the second time and drew it out until the last shudder had left her and she lay lax in his arms. While she floated back down to earth, Gideon preoccupied himself with sprinkling kisses across her cheek and down her throat. The taste of her skin was addictive.
“You smell like a dragon’s ass.”
Gideon stilled, her comment not one he was expecting in the throes of passion. “Seriously?”
He raised his head and the grin on her face was so much like the one she used to give him that he almost forgot to be insulted.
“I never joke about dragon ass,” she retorted with an absolute seriousness that contradicted the shimmer of laughter in her eyes. “It’s awful.”
Gideon lifted an eyebrow. “Smell dragon ass often, do you?”
“Only when in your presence.”
While he gasped in feigned outrage, she had already rolled out from beneath him with a riot of laughter that he hadn’t heard in centuries and made a dash for the door. He caught her in three quick strides and shoved her forward against the wood, pinning her there with his body.
“Are you going to take that back, or do I have to put you over my knee?”
Wheezing between bouts of laughter, Valkyrie tried to push back, all the while, her head rocked wildly from side to side. But he caught her wrists and wrenched them behind her back. He held them there with one hand and splayed the other across her quivering abdomen, curving her into his body.
“No...”
It took him a second to realize she was no longer playing. That her entire body had gone rigid and her uneven breathing had nothing to do laughter.
He released her immediately. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t turn, but drew her hands around to cradle against her chest. “Nothing.”
Careful not to hurt, or scare her, he took her shoulders and gently eased her around to face him. The color that had darkened her cheeks only moments ago had gone ashen. Her eyes were dark, the irises straining over the blue.
“Kyrie...”
“It’s nothing!” she cried when he reached for her.
“Did I hurt you?” he demanded, refusing to let it go. “You need to tell me if I—”
“It wasn’t you,” she interrupted.
But she continued to massage her wrist like there was a phantom pain there that refused to subside.
It hit him then.
He took her hands, ignored her sudden tension and pulled them to him. He turned her palms up and pushed her sleeves up.
The skin there was jagged, torn and risen in shiny, white ropes where she had been suspended for days, possibly months without reprieve. The wounds were old, but there were so many overlapping and none of them had been properly healed so the scars were horrific slashes over her otherwise flawless skin. The sight of them wrenched his heart.
“Kyrie...”
“Don’t!”
He refused to let her jerk away from him. He kept his grip firm, but gentle as he traced her uneven flesh with only the pads of his thumbs. Gingerly, he lifted first one, then the other wrist to his lips. All the while, he kept his eyes locked with hers.
“Take a walk with me?”
He led them out of his room and downstairs to the backdoor. Night had fallen like a velvet blanket over the manor, but the path was hardcoded into his very DNA. Neither spoke the whole way. Gideon mostly out of fear that she would come to her senses and pull away. Her hand was a tiny, sleeping bird in his and he knew at any moment, it would struggle to be freed. In the meantime, he cherished the moment.
They reached the wall of trees guarding the only place in the world that could ease the aches and pains thrumming through his thoroughly abused body.
He had been there when the sanctuary had been created. He had offered up his own powers to forge a place of peace and healing. During the Great War when heaven and hell raged against one another and the veil creatures had been sacrificed as pawns, his kind had banded together to create a place of refuge. It was why selkies no longer had powers. Why he no longer had his powers. Every last drop of it had gone into protecting the Eden hidden from anyone who didn’t possess selkie blood. He knew Octavian brought Riley there sometimes and Gideon himself had been there with her once to hide Octavian’s pelt, but that was only because she was Octavian’s mate. The magic sensed that, otherwise, she would only see a barrier of trees. He hoped the same rules applied for Valkyrie.
The entrance opened into a high dome made entirely of knotted branches. Flowers bloomed no matter what season it was to the rest of the world. Smooth, flat stones paved a path across a carpet of lush, green grass to a set of nature made steps that ended on a platform ... and a pond, which was currently occupied.
Along the edge, two figures lay intertwined, naked except for the blanket covering them. The warm, golden glow from deep within the pool shimmered over bare skin and shone through their damp hair. Gideon would have slipped back out and waited, but they appeared finished and he hurt. A lot.
“Perhaps we should...”
Shaking his head at Valkyrie’s hesitant suggestion, he propelled them up the steps, undressing as he went. The clack of Valkyrie’s heels alerted the other two that they were no longer alone and they glanced around at them in surprise.
“Jesus!”
“No...” He grunted as he kicked off his boots. “Just Gideon.” He tore out of his coat and shirt. “Don’t mind us.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Octavian demanded, jerking the blanket more securely around Riley.
“Getting naked. Something you should be very familiar with.”
He thrust down his jeans, kicked them aside and stood butt naked with his toes touching the lip of the water. He glanced at the trio watching him with stunned expressions and grinned broadly.
“Why, yes. I am a natural blond.”
With a wink to a stunned and moderately amused Valkyrie, he dove into the water.
Chapter Twenty
The transformation was freeing. The moment he sliced through the water, the skin confining him dissolved and the weight in his chest, the one that required air to live vanished as his lungs filled with water. He closed his eyes and sank straight to the bottom. All the aches and pains were soothed. The exhaustion left him. He was whole.
&
nbsp; Opening his eyes, he watched the light shimmer off the stone walls in hypnotic ripples. The light had no source. It shone from everywhere and nowhere. It was the water flowing through him. He would have happily stayed there, but Valkyrie waited above and already, as illogical as it should have been, he missed her.
Also, a vague voice reminded him, it was nearly suppertime and Daphne would be arriving soon.
With a lash of his tail, he shot to the surface. Riley and Octavian were dressed and packing up to leave when he broke through. Riley jumped. Her aversion to anything with fishtails was entertaining. She wasn’t as bad as she had been, but the only selkie she liked seeing in fish form was Octavian.
Nevertheless, he splashed her just because he could.
“Hey!” she said with a scowl that was contradicted by her grin.
He motioned for her to get in.
“Yeah, not happening,” she said. “I have to take a shower before supper.”
He made a noise that to him sounded like whining, but Riley told him, to her, their talking was grumbling. And in that form, he couldn’t talk to Octavian either.
He threw up his hands, hands that were now long and wide with sharp talons and little membranes in between the fingers. Unlike his brothers, his scales were silver with hints of gold under the right light. His hair, which had grown longer around his much broader shoulders was still the same blond and his eyes were still gray. He just looked meaner—or so Riley once told him.
In his selkie form, he was bigger, stronger, and faster. That was because, before the Great War, the threat wasn’t on land. They fought underwater creatures as big as apartment buildings and were deemed the rulers of the ocean because of their strength. They had always been warriors. Now, the only place they could take their true form was in a tiny pond, hidden away from danger. It was disgusting and pathetic.
“Do you need a towel?” Riley asked as she slung a tote bag over her shoulder.
Realizing only then that he hadn’t thought that far ahead, he nodded and watched as she dug through her bag and emerged with a rolled up wad.
Gideon's Promise (Sons of Judgment Book 2) Page 27
