by Kim Harrison
“Because you had a bow and arrow, a serious squad, and obviously we’re evenly matched in a firefight. But, that wasn’t why I came here, anyway. We came for the hostages.” He had to wrest his mind back to the mission!
She nodded, her exotic eyes smoldering with something he didn’t want to acknowledge. “Your words again ring true. You saw me as an equal…none of the others did before, that is why they sealed their own fates—but that was a very long and bitter time ago.”
He stared at this beauty, a black widow that could most assuredly take lives, wondering how a gorgeous woman like this ended up as an assassin. “How many bodies?”
“If I ask you the same, could you answer?” she said evenly, no apology or defensiveness in her tone.
“Touché. We’re both soldiers.”
“Warriors,” she corrected. “To be a soldier is to take orders, hence why I rarely execute soldiers. They are only doing the bidding of those who control them. A warrior, however, is under his or her own command.”
He nodded but looked away for a moment, wishing that the times were different and that he could be a warrior.
“You may be conscripted into service by them, but you still have the presence of a warrior,” she said quietly. “I did not mean to offend.”
“No offense taken. You spoke the truth.” Again his gaze searched her face. There was something magnetic about her, something almost supernatural, like she claimed. “And you are definitely a goddess with a sound mind and decent heart…you know that no good end will come of this if you persist. Why don’t you let the hostages go or tell me your demands for them? Give us a chance to work something out before you have blood on your hands and a murder rap you can’t shake.”
She sighed. “Their bodies will return and they will not be dead. In this era of disbelief nothing I do holds together for long. The temples are now for tourists, true believers are too few against the world gone awry with carnal distractions. I just wanted them to feel the terror of being hunted for no purpose. That will stay with them forever, even as all else fades. My goal was to humble, that was all.”
The melancholy tone of her voice, the new shimmer of tears in her eyes, and the way her fingers traced his open palms was mesmerizing. Relief also wafted through him—she’d promised not to kill the hostages. Progress…even though she’d given him ridiculous wood.
“What do you want in exchange for their release?”
She looked away, and he slowly closed his hand around hers, almost swearing that he could hear his own heartbeat pounding in his ears when he did.
“To break my vow. It is no longer of use. I have fought the good fight and now wish to take my place with the others as a distant memory.”
He wanted to tell her not to commit suicide, that she didn’t have to become a distant memory, but what promises for a good life beyond prison walls could he offer? A free spirit like this would surely die behind bars. Once she turned over the hostages, the authorities would hunt her down to the ends of the earth. He could offer her no assurances; he was in no position to cut a deal. That was the stuff of lawyers. He was just Special Forces, a soldier, and all of this was well outside his realm of expertise and comprehension. But people’s lives were at stake, so he had to set aside any personal concerns about this abductress.
“Break your vow with me, Artemis,” he said, not even sure what her vow was. “Trust me. I—”
The sound of one of his men’s tortured moans made him stand and grab his weapon. Artemis was also on her feet in a flash, but staring at the tent wall, rather than down the barrel of a gun.
“If any of my men are violated—”
She covered her heart for a moment and grabbed her bow. “Never! That was not supposed to happen. If it has, then my own have betrayed and shamed me!”
“Take me to them now!” he shouted, all previous negotiations vanished.
“As you wish,” she said, unafraid and seeming to do so from some personal sense of integrity, not from any threat he imposed.
Running in tandem, they followed the sound of the cries, barging into a very small tent that expanded inside into a huge space with floors covered in white pelts and pillows. Artemis and Vincent stood at the entrance and became very, very still. He opened his mouth and then closed it. She tried to look away, but couldn’t.
Artemis felt her face flame hot. She did not believe her eyes. Never in her existence had humiliation singed her so completely. There was no way to blame this on the barbarian; he was bound.
Deep shame made her simply give her bow over to the Titan beside her. The nymphs of her sacred grove had desecrated a body. The reign of the goddesses was surely at an end, if it had come to this.
The soldier with long onyx hair who had the likeness of a Persian barbarian was lashed to a tent post with his hands over his head, his body drawn flat against the floor pelts. His legs were splayed, each ankle bound by heavy silk cords…his manhood naked and rigid, that is, as much as one could see beyond the homage her most loyal nymphs paid to it. She didn’t need to investigate further, knowing full well the extent of the so-called torture being delivered to her captive’s men. So engrossed in their love play, the nymphs never looked up and the captive never opened his eyes.
Artemis thrust her bow at Vince and turned away. “Shoot them all,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “It is your right. I would have done no less if three of your men ravished one of my maidens. Your soldier probably wants to die from this humiliation as well.”
The room went still. Nymphs shrieked and scurried away from Donovan’s body. Vincent looked at the bow in one hand, the Glock nine in the other. Confusion tore at him as he stared at Artemis’s back and then the plea on Donovan’s face. He frowned at his man for a moment—these chicks could claim they were raped in the capture, would have DNA evidence on his man, and all of this bull could compromise a case and military careers. Shit!
“Let’s, uh…let this matter go under the banner of détente and not kill anybody. There’s been enough bloodshed and I don’t think these ladies meant him too much harm while trying to extract vital information,” Vince said, returning Artemis’s bow. Without arrows what good was the partial weapon? Besides, he needed to understand what freaky trap they were laying.
“That was our only desire, goddess,” one of the nymphs said, covering her nudity with her hands as she knelt on the floor. “Throughout the ages we have remained celibate in your honor—but we were instructed not to hurt them and to extract vital information…that was our quest.”
Vince looked at Donovan and tried not to crack a smile, despite the compromising position. The man could barely catch his breath, and since Donovan was still tied up, it wasn’t like he savaged them…maybe a lie detector test would save the man if the madness ever came out.
“Can I check on my other men…just to be sure they’re not, uhmmm, being molested? And, maybe, let this one be untied so he can defend himself against further ravishment? Again, all in the spirit of dètente.” He shot Donovan a glance and his man silently acknowledged the look while trying to steady his breathing.
“What is dètente spirit? I don’t know this word. I have never heard of this entity.” Artemis stared at Vincent for a second and then looked away, appearing horrified and flushed by what she’d witnessed. She wouldn’t even dignify her nymph’s entreaties.
“It means relaxing the hostilities between warring nations, I believe.”
Artemis nodded. “In dètente, then, release that prisoner and feed and clothe him.”
She stormed out of the tent with her head held high and her back rigid. Cool forest air from the chilly spring slapped her cheeks and the sudden temperature drop was welcomed. A troubling heat had unleashed itself between her thighs…along with a thawed river that dampened her hotly swollen valley. She could barely take a step without a stab of need piercing her as though one of her arrows, and her breasts suddenly felt heavy, the very tips aching like bees had stung them. When the barbarian
stood next to her, it seemed as though all the air had left the clearing, even taking the smallest amount that remained in her lungs with it. What was this magic he owned?
Not sure where to begin, and for the first time in her life feeling shaky, she glanced at the semi-circle of tents. Pointing toward one at random, she sucked in a deep breath, set her shoulders, and forged ahead. She didn’t care that the barbarian found this amusing. His customs were clearly very different from hers.
Closing her eyes briefly, she peeked in a tent, and then dipped her head out before the large warrior beside her could enter. She stopped him with both hands against his chest.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice a raw whisper. “I…I don’t know what has become of my followers.” She covered her mouth and then turned away.
“Allow me to inspect my men,” Vincent insisted, hoping that nothing crazy like a butchering would meet his eyes. If they all went out like Donovan, fine. But crazy people had a way of turning fun and games into something deadly.
Still on guard, he pulled back the flap a bit and peered in.
After a long pause, he let the flap fall very slowly and straightened himself, rolling his shoulders. He needed to walk away for a minute to get his mind together and to shake off the hot shard of desire that had filled his shaft. The image of what he’d witnessed replayed itself a few times like a CD with a skip in it before he could get the visual out of his mind.
“Horrible, wasn’t it?” Artemis said quietly, touching his shoulders. “Virgins since longer than I can remember and now it has come to this.” She looked up and swallowed hard. “I wish they would have never called me back here.”
For a moment, he just stared at her. Virgins? They were all virgins? What kinda insane environmental cult was this?
“Can I check on my remaining soldiers?” he asked, forcing his voice to be rough, forcing his mind to remain focused on the very real dangers these women presented…trying to get the hard-on to die down.
Artemis nodded but didn’t move. He could tell that she was giving him permission to go look, but that she didn’t want to see any more for herself. In a way he couldn’t blame her and was glad that she’d simply be staring at his back as he took a glimpse inside each tent.
“It is bad, is it not?” Artemis asked as he slowly returned to her side.
He nodded, mouth dry, and kept his gaze on the horizon. “Yeah.” That was all he could say before turning so that she couldn’t see his arousal. “I have one more man to check.”
Artemis graciously nodded as he strode away, peeped into the tent that held Jesse captive and winced. He quickly dropped the tent flap, inhaled a deep breath through his nose and tried to do math in his head to regain focus on the mission.
“The offense is grave,” Artemis murmured when Vince returned to stand before her.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “So, how do we resolve this?”
“My nymphs are in the wrong, therefore, by rights, as has always been; you may decide the punishment…even though I am a goddess. There are still laws.”
“All I want,” he said quietly, “is for the hostages to be returned unharmed, and for me and my men to be able to walk out of here alive.”
She frowned. “That you would doubt my word when I said they would be unharmed is troubling.” She turned away and headed toward her tent.
“You also said they would be unmolested, and they have been.” There was amusement in his tone as she stiffened and dipped inside her tent.
He put the safety back on his gun and watched her pour water from an urn into a basin to splash her face. “Mind if I do the same?” he said calmly, watching her from across the expanse.
“Yes, I mean no—you are more than welcome to wash the stain of humiliation from your face.”
“I am not embarrassed,” he said in a low rumble. “It’s spring.”
She dabbed her damp cheeks with a thick towel and then wound her hair up into a knot atop her head, applying the wet side of the towel against the nape of her neck. A deep rosy hue stained her cheeks and small beads of perspiration kissed her cleavage. He couldn’t help allowing his eyes to travel down her breasts and over her erect peaks, knowing that if she felt anything near what he was feeling, she was also wet.
Against his better judgment, he neared her and gently removed the towel from her hands, dipping it in the cool basin water and then dabbing her collarbone with it.
“What was the vow?” he murmured, staring at her.
“That I would remain a virgin always until the end of time…as would my nymphs.”
Her breathing had become shallow from his attention, and it had the effect of stilting his too.
“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “To what end?”
She licked her lips as they parted and the pink tip of her tongue darted out. “Because rutting males are barbarians that pillage the wilderness,” she whispered.
“But what about marriages to honorable men, and then having children?” he asked, stepping in closer. “You need us barbarians for that, right?” Then again, he thought about the advances of technology and realized that that wasn’t a given.
“I don’t understand what has happened…why this time when we were called it was so different…why they would break a vow held for so long?” Her voice was an exhausted lament as she stared up at him. “Unless they felt the decency in each of you that I felt?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, finding it very hard to keep up any ruse with her or even to think of her as the enemy. There was something completely disorienting about her the moment he stood physically close to her. It also dredged the truth, this magnetic pulse and he fought with himself not to ask, but caved to the need to. “What is it about you that the moment I’m close like this, I…”
“My aura,” she murmured in a near rasp, her eyes now heavy-lidded and her breathing shallow. “I’ve never let any male being get this close—you have one, too…an aura field that is…spectacular.”
“Really?” he asked quietly, his groin throbbing so hard that he could barely breathe. “Your nymphs, they have this, too…is that what seduced my men or were they drugged?”
“We don’t use drugs; only Aphrodite does…it is their auras, which is why we stay in the wilderness and away from humans…normally.”
He didn’t know if it was complete hocus pocus or what, but the rational side of his brain was oozing out of his ears as she began to slightly pant. Her dewy skin made his fingertips burn to touch it, but he didn’t want to take liberties that could get anybody killed, so he kept wetting the towel and slowly bringing it over the swell of her breasts and down her bare arms, teasing her neck as they spoke in dètente.
“I am not against marriage,” she gasped, “and I am the protectress of women in labor…during childbirth.”
“Then why do you shun one of the most fundamental rites of spring…mating, making love, and becoming one from two?” He couldn’t deny it; he wanted this woman—bad guy or not.
Her answer was a quick gasp and a shudder as his thumbs finally grazed the swell of her breasts and he dropped the towel, standing inches from her. “I cannot remember.”
CHAPTER 4
A YEAR OF ABSTINENCE WHILE UNDERCOVER imploded in his groin as he took her mouth and summarily drowned in the sweetest kiss he’d ever tasted. He couldn’t help it; it was an involuntary reaction to stimuli too great to ignore. Her smooth hands fought with his jacket and stripped away the heavy outer layer, and she pulled back, her eyes glittering with pure fascination as her fingertips gently outlined the definition of his chest, making him suck in air quickly between his teeth.
“Your bodies are so different from ours,” she murmured, her gaze following her hands.
He didn’t breathe for a moment as she explored, then gasped as her fingertips left his abdomen and settled on his groin.
She drew away confused and concerned. “I’m sorry I hurt you, I—”
He stopped her apology with a kiss and sought her e
ar. “No, it doesn’t hurt…but aches like this,” he murmured and then kissed down her neck to spill the attention down her collarbone to bring a distended nipple between his lips through the sheer fabric she wore. When she gasped and arched, he gently thumbed the other nipple and then kissed her earlobe. “It hurts like that.”
“Oh…” she whispered on a rush of breath, sealing the space between them. “Then it is normal for every place else to hurt, too?”
He gently cradled her face with both hands and kissed her forehead, her eyelids, the bridge of her nose, and then softly swept her mouth. “Yes…you tell me where it hurts, and I’ll kiss it till it stops aching.”
She closed her eyes and turned her face away.
“Especially there,” he murmured, gently bringing her face back to his with a finger beneath her chin and then slowly taking her mouth.
He lifted her with care, knowing he was wrong, knowing he was out of order, was so far off mission he couldn’t get back on track—but another more primal mission had taken priority. At least for the moment. Right now there was only right now, and the goddess draped in his arms clung to his neck with complete faith in her eyes.
When he deposited her on the bed amid the silk and pelts he studied her, taking his time to pull his t-shirt over head, slowly, cautiously, removing his weapon, unlacing his boots, wondering if he’d lost his mind…but her agonized stare wasn’t something that could be feigned. He unzipped his pants; she licked her dry lips and slid off her sheath. That was when he was sure it was safe. If she knifed him in bed…well…that was a risk he was willing to take. Never in his life had he been so drawn to a woman so fast, who was this beautiful, and so very off limits.
Thousands of years came to a central ache of need between her legs, so strong that she almost cried out with no shame when he freed himself from his clothes. Definitely a Titan, his body was pure chiseled symmetry, his mane a gorgeous rival to the most majestic of creatures on earth. Her hands throbbed to touch him, the center of her palms burning, her fingertips tingling. Unable to restrain herself, she reached out, and his burning body covered hers. The sound that rushed from her came up from her diaphragm, forced out of her by the sheer weight of him covering her. She arched and writhed against him, not exactly knowing what her body craved but sure that he owned it.
