That both pleased and frightened her.
What if it did turn out that he was only interested in using her until he regained his power, forming no emotional attachment to her?
She would want to leave rather than allow that to happen.
Would he let her leave?
The dark possessive edge to his eyes and his touch said he wouldn’t. He would seek to keep her with him and convince her to surrender to him.
Would she be strong enough to resist him when her desire for this powerful warrior had already stripped away her defences?
She slowly nodded.
“Good,” he murmured and his gaze returned to her mouth, softening once more. “There are protection spells in place around my apartment. I will know if anyone tries to enter and will come straight back to you. I promise.”
Not good enough.
He released her and stalked over to his closet. Her body mourned the loss of his hands on her and the heat of his touch. He slid the door open and reached inside, and she expected him to go for his weapons but instead he came out holding the amulet she had seen. It had repelled her but he could touch it easily enough. Was it linked to the gate?
He tossed it onto the bed and then grabbed a black shirt and slipped his arms into it. He buttoned it and then took his holster and settled it around his shoulders. She still hadn’t figured out why a man with his power needed weapons. Was it so he didn’t draw too much attention to himself when fighting the daemons he and his brothers seemed to hate so much?
He picked up the amulet, slipped the chain over his head, and tucked the circular pendant inside his black shirt.
“I’ll be safest with you,” she said, unwilling to give up and behave herself like a good little girl.
She wanted to see that gate, and she didn’t want to be left alone. Going with Ares would fulfil both of those desires.
She found her black trainers by the couch and stuffed her feet into them.
He shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
He pulled a black band out of his pocket, neatened the top half of his hair, and tied it at the back of his head, leaving the underneath down. He crossed the living room to his motorcycle and shoved his feet into his boots.
“Please?” She hadn’t tried playing nice. Perhaps it would prove to be his weakness. He had blushed when she had thanked him. If she asked nicely, would he cave and let her come along?
He huffed and stalked back towards her, immense and formidable, looking every bit the warrior with his black clothing, weapons and the vicious edge to his eyes.
“The gate is a dangerous place. It attracts daemons. Daemons feed on fear, Megan. If one shows up and you’re scared, you’ll make it stronger and make it harder for me to deal with it.” He positively growled the words at her and for a moment she reconsidered her desire to go with him.
Only for a split-second though.
The thought of encountering more daemons unsettled her but she felt certain she could keep her head if anything happened because she knew Ares would protect her. She was better out there with him than in here alone.
He hesitated a few feet from her, the darkness in his eyes lifting, raising her hope with it, and then black smoke swirled up and around his legs.
Damn him.
The darkness engulfed him.
Megan lunged and grabbed whatever her hands hit, determined to make him stay so she could convince him to let her come along.
The colours of the apartment whirled together and her stomach twisted with them, her head spinning in the opposite direction.
Frigid air caressed her skin.
Something hit her.
Or did she hit it?
It hurt either way. She grunted as her shoulder and hip slammed into something damp and very hard. It smelled like grass.
“Stubborn,” Ares huffed and his hand claimed her arm and the world spun again, racing upwards this time.
Her feet hit the ground and her knees buckled. His grip on her tightened and kept her upright as the colours around her slowly arranged themselves into vague shapes and pitched up and down.
“Are you alright?” he whispered, concern lacing his tone and warming her.
She managed to nod and took a few deep breaths.
He let go of her arm and turned away from her.
The vague shapes surrounding her became clearer, gaining details. She turned slowly on the spot, taking in the scenery and rubbing her arms to keep the chill off them as the cold wind blew through her black jumper. Skeletal trees surrounded the clearing, their limbs black against the darkening sky. Buildings towered over them, dotted with lights of different intensities. The sound of cars filled the silence, a distant constant hum.
She was standing in the middle of Central Park.
The area around her was pitch black already but she had to be in one of the meadows.
“Ares?” she whispered, scouring the darkness for him.
“Quiet.” His voice came from barely a few feet behind her. She turned that way and squinted, trying to make him out. She could just about see his outline.
He moved and a bright purple flash blinded her, illuminating him where he stood with his right hand held out in front of him, his palm facing the distance. The silver and black disc of the amulet shone against his palm, streaks of light emanating from it.
A tiny purple dot formed in the darkness metres in front of him, glowing like a firefly.
His eyes narrowed on it and it dropped so it was a few feet from the grass and began to grow, forming a ring that lay flat above the ground. It spread outwards and flashed, and another ring appeared. Tiny glyphs tracked the outside of the smaller ring, shining green and blue. The larger ring flashed again and symbols appeared around the inside of it. It began to turn clockwise as the ring inside turned anticlockwise, and both grew. They birthed more rings and larger glyphs, all of them swirling in a rainbow of colours, shining so brightly she was sure everyone in the park must be able to see it.
Was this the gate?
It slowed to a halt, measuring more than twenty metres across, a huge circle of symbols that hovered flat above the ground, and faded in brightness so her eyes could make out all the tiny details, the elaborate swirls and elegant symbols, and the rings that encompassed them all.
It was beautiful.
Her stomach vibrated with the energy that pulsed off it in waves.
The central circle flashed and suddenly a man was there, slowly rising out of the swirling mist of colours. He floated upwards until his feet were visible and then stopped. He neatened out his long dark winter coat and walked towards her, floating on air.
The man reached the edge of the gate and stepped down onto the grass. He nodded to Ares, his vivid golden eyes glowing in the darkness, and then smiled at her and walked away into the night.
Ares continued to stare at the gate.
It began to move in the opposite direction, shrinking at the same time, the glyphs disappearing with blinding flashes. It grew smaller and smaller, until only the one ring remained, and then collapsed with a harsh burst of purple light.
When her vision came back, the gate was gone and Ares was staring at her, the amulet in his hand still glowing faintly.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The darkness and ice in his tone made her jump and she took a step back as he advanced on her. “It was stupid and dangerous.”
She ignored him and looked beyond him to where the gate had been. “It was impressive, and beautiful.”
He huffed, grabbed her arm and pulled her flush against his hard body.
Heat flashed over her skin, chasing the chill away, and she looked up into his eyes.
The red and gold in them brightened when she settled her hands on his chest, feeling his warmth through his black shirt and his heart pounding erratically. It skipped a beat when she pressed her fingertips into his hard pectorals and held his gaze.
That gaze lowered to her mouth and she tilted her head back, silently urgi
ng him to put her out of her misery and go through with it this time. She just wanted one kiss, needed to know his taste. She would make it stop at just a kiss. She would. She wouldn’t let him use her and she wouldn’t use him. It would go no further than a simple kiss until she was certain of her feelings for him and his for her.
She swore it.
Did she really care if he was out to use her?
Her heart said no. Her mind said yes.
They pulled her in opposing directions and all the while Ares held her, his eyes locked on her mouth. His lips parted and she mirrored him, staring at his mouth and wondering what he would taste like. She ached with the need to know, with the desire to feel his mouth on her.
He held her for what felt like hours, his eyes never leaving her mouth and his heart drumming out a fast rhythm against her palms. He slowly tightened his grip, drawing her closer, crushing her against his body and forcing her to tip her head back further in order to keep looking at his mouth.
Kiss me.
She couldn’t take it.
She leaned into him, tiptoed, bringing their mouths closer together. Just centimetres of cold night air separated them. He would barely have to dip his head to capture her lips.
Didn’t he want to? Didn’t he crave her as much as she craved him?
She could barely breathe. Anticipation coiled tightly inside her, squeezing her lungs, and she was ready to explode from the slightest brush of his body against hers.
His chest heaved against her palms, heart working overtime.
He craved her. She knew it. He was fighting his hunger and she cursed him for it, for torturing her with the thought that he might kiss her as his warm breath washed over her face.
Damn it. If he wasn’t going to kiss her, then she was sure as heck going to kiss him.
Megan pushed herself up to do just that.
He closed his eyes.
Darkness swept in and cold swirled over her skin. Her stomach spun with it and she clung to Ares, head reeling and heart hammering.
Her backside hit something soft.
She realised she had shut her eyes too and slowly cracked them open. The apartment wobbled around her and she closed them again, afraid she would lose what little she had eaten if she didn’t wait for the dizziness to pass. Her hands gripped the seat of the red couch, holding on to it as fiercely as she had held on to Ares.
When her head had settled, she opened her eyes.
He stood before her, hunger burning in his eyes, the dark abyss of his pupils eating away at the chocolate of his irises. She felt like a fool, knew this was only going to end in heartache and misery, but she still wanted him to kiss her.
“Do you have to stand by the gate all night waiting for people to knock? It must make you look like a bit of a pervert in the park.” She pressed her hand to her forehead and breathed slowly, focusing on it to block out the effects of teleporting twice in such a short space of time. How the heck could Ares stand doing that all the time?
“No.” He frowned at her, dark eyebrows pinching tightly above his beautiful eyes. “I can feel when it needs to be opened or if someone is trying to open it.”
He stepped closer, crouched and gently stroked her cheek. She shivered and stared deep into his eyes, losing awareness of her surroundings as she fell into them. God, she wanted, no, needed him to kiss her. She needed to know if he kissed as good as she imagined he did.
“Are you alright?” he murmured and his frown became one of concern.
Before she could answer, his phone rang. He drew his hand away from her face, stood and pulled the phone from his pocket. He brought it to his ear and stepped away from her, his expression losing all trace of warmth and something surfacing in his eyes.
“I’ll be there,” he said before pocketing his phone and turning back to her. “I have to go out to a meeting with my brothers. They might have found out something about the daemon and how to get my powers back.”
“Oh. Okay.” The spot behind her chest ached and she resisted the temptation to rub it as a strange sense of disappointment crushed her heart.
She had known he would get his powers back eventually but part of her had expected it to take a while and that she would have some time with him before it happened. It was wrong of her, but a small piece of her heart didn’t want him to get them back at all.
Selfish.
She had seen the pain in his eyes when he had spoken to his brothers about his power. A blind person could have seen it in him. He suffered without it and who was she to wish such pain on him, wanting him to never retrieve his fire?
If she honestly felt something for him, anything at all, then she should want him to get his power back and be happy again, shouldn’t she?
But having his power hadn’t made him happy. That power had cursed him to a life of loneliness and pain.
She looked up into his eyes.
The desire was gone, replaced with hurt and a sense of vulnerability and even fear. It was as though hearing his brother talk of his power had stripped away all of his strength and confidence, all the brashness she had come to like about him.
It struck her that his brashness was just a front that he broadcasted to protect the truth underneath. A truth she had just realised.
He felt lost without his power.
And she had hoped he wouldn’t get it back. It had been brief, only a heartbeat of time, but she had still wished it.
“Stay in the apartment this time and don’t follow me,” he said and she nodded, lost in her thoughts and hating herself for wanting him to suffer just so he could be with her.
He disappeared, leaving only tiny swirls of black smoke behind.
Megan sighed and sank into the couch.
She hoped he could get his power back.
She had never wanted hers but she felt that it was a part of her and it made her who she was. She wasn’t sure how she would feel if the Frenchman had taken her power rather than Ares’s.
No, she was sure.
She would have felt as lost as Ares did.
A sense of determination and resolve flowed through her as she thought about that and she made up her mind.
She would help him get his power back if she could because he had lost it protecting her.
She would do all she could for him, even though she knew that when he regained his power, he would lose his ability to touch her.
The ache in her chest worsened.
He would leave her.
CHAPTER 12
Ares appeared in the middle of the front garden of the elegant Japanese mansion. Large stone lanterns lit the winding gravel path between the impressive covered wooden gate that broke the line of the whitewashed wall behind him and the large wooden single storey building that sprawled in front of him. Fingers of pink and gold clouds laced the lightening sky above the mansion, signalling dawn was well underway, and a chill hung in the damp wintry air.
Lamps in the entranceway of the building threw golden light upon the underside of the graceful ribs of curved grey tiles of the porch roof and the raised wooden floor, a warm welcome that drew him towards it.
His boots crunched on the gravel as he walked, insides a swirling maelstrom of emotion that refused to settle. The light early morning breeze rustled the skeletal trees dotted around the grounds of the mansion and soothed him, easing the edge off his nerves.
He didn’t want to be at this meeting, even though he knew that this place was where he belonged. He should be here with his brothers, not hidden away in his apartment, snatching what precious time he had with Megan.
He should have taken her home already, ridding himself of temptation so he could focus on his mission.
It had crossed his mind several times in the past twenty-four hours, but each time his heart had pushed it away, stamping it out of existence and telling him to keep her.
He couldn’t keep her, no matter how much he wanted to do just that.
It was impossible.
He toed his ri
ght boot off, set his foot down on the porch floor, and removed his left one. He picked both of them up, depositing them with the other shoes and boots lining a shelf closer to the door. He hated having to walk around in his socks like this but Esher was particular about the mansion and since it was now solely his home, Ares didn’t have the right to complain. He had chosen to leave decades ago, along with many of his brothers. Only Daimon had remained with Esher in Tokyo, and even he now split his time between this city and Hong Kong.
Ares smiled with the memories this place always brought to the forefront of his mind. They had shared this mansion for over a century, safe here surrounded by powerful wards and spells. There had been fights, more than he could count, and laughter, and good times, as well as bad.
They had taken care of each other, a group linked by more than blood and brotherly love.
This was where he belonged, and as much as it pained him, he had to remember that.
He had to get his power back.
The slatted wooden door opened in front of him.
“You’re late,” Esher grumbled but stepped aside to let him enter.
His younger brother hadn’t changed the place much in the past few decades but the alterations he had made were ones they all agreed made the place far more comfortable.
The huge open plan central room of the mansion stretched over fifty metres from one end to the other, linking the two wings of the horseshoe-shaped complex. On the left side of it, near paper walls that divided it from the kitchen, was a long low wooden table and cushions. On the right, Esher had brought in cream couches that formed a semi-circle around a huge television in the corner. Definitely an improvement, although the viewing left much to be desired.
Ares had lived in Japan for over a century, but he had never grasped the language.
Esher spoke it like he had been born and raised in the country.
He found that strange considering Esher very rarely spoke to mortals.
Why bother to learn how to communicate with them if you wanted nothing to do with them?
Not that he could blame his brother for despising humankind, not after what he had been through.
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