by Zoe Forward
She’d never gotten over her crush on him. The man was the embodiment of every wild fantasy she’d ever had. He was the reason anything with other guys never lasted long, although she’d never admit it to him.
Perhaps, he was her destined guy, the guy chosen by the gods to be her soul mate. The one she was fated to have children with and spend however long she had before she died.
Nope. She’d been over this ground countless times before. If he had been, he wouldn’t have been able to stay away from her for a decade. Based on chitchats with the other Pleiades women and their men, once they met their soul mate, they couldn’t deny their connection, even if they wanted to. There was a magical draw between the two that made him as nuts about her as she was of him. As well, they were supposed to have amazing chemistry. Okay, check, she and Merck had the zing factor. That didn’t make them destined to be together. If so, he shouldn’t have been able to resist her last attempt to get him to kiss her outside his car.
The wicked-witch part of her teased he could be stubborn to the point of mulish. If he’d decided he wasn’t pursuing the attraction between them, then he might be tough enough to ignore it.
Mosquitoes hovered around her bare legs near the edge of her khaki shorts. Some of the flying demons braved attack and some floated in wait. She batted a few away from pale skin that could stand a few days in the sun and contemplated going back inside.
The curtain at the corner window moved. Even out here, Eli watched. She should find it comforting but instead felt stifled. Mosquitoes were preferable to Eli’s glowers, which were part betrayal she’d given him the slip the night before last and part eagle-eye supervision. She’d pursued a career as a contract cameraperson, taking short jobs on documentaries, a few reality TV shows, and on occasion traveling with a reporter for the sole purpose of freedom. Freedom from a druid lurking nearby as her assigned protector. On jobs to the more remote locations, like a few months ago when she went on Extreme Survivor as a request from Jen, a bodyguard couldn’t go because he was too obvious. What kind of cameraperson needed a bodyguard? Her father hated those jobs. In her mind the risk outweighed the benefit to have a few days of not being watched.
Her mother’s headstone read a rather generic: Do more than listen. Understand. Do more than exist. Live.
Unhelpful. It’d probably been chosen by a local engraver.
Unlike her, her mother had lived without regret—vibrant, even if strong-willed and always moving forward. Shannon wallowed in regrets, most of which revolved around her mom. The biggest was being the cause of her death. If Shannon hadn’t signed on to be a cameraperson on the Extreme Survivor reality TV show, even though Jen had needed her in that godforsaken jungle, then her mom wouldn’t have sacrificed her life to save Shannon when a producer went crazy.
I’m sorry.
She opened her eyes and wiped tears from them. A shadow stretched in front of her. Her head snapped around, irritated by the intruder.
“What’re you crying about?” Merck moved to stand in front of her. He clenched two white camellias by their small stalk in his right hand.
“Nothing. Why’re you here?” Her heart stuttered and tumbled over itself as her gaze drifted across his cheekbones to his lips.
“You visiting with ghosts? Do they talk to you?” He nodded his chin toward the headstones a few yards away beneath the large oak. The question didn’t carry a hint of sarcasm, only curiosity. He seemed genuinely sad for her. He’d believe her if she said yes. How many men would even consider ghost-talkers believable other than him? The trees swayed hard with gusts of wind as if reacting to the emotion on Merck’s face.
“They don’t give me any answers. Can you talk to them?” she asked.
“Wouldn’t know. I haven’t run into a ghost yet. Here. These are for you.” He thrust the flowers her way. His hands fidgeted, a quirk so at odds with the exterior toughness he presented to the world.
“Thanks.” She inhaled their powerful fragrance, flattered that he’d come all the way over here to bring her two flowers. “They’re beautiful.”
“I’ve got them all over my property. You feeling okay after yesterday?”
“I’m fine. Are you spying on me?”
“I just thought I’d check on things on my way in to the office. See if anything odd is going on over here.”
“Check on things?” She glanced around. “Did you pick up something not right around here?”
“Nah.” Although the denial didn’t carry conviction. He squinted toward the house and scanned the yard before returning to the headstone.
Then he nodded to her legs. “You’re welting up.”
“I’ll live. There’s no way they can suck enough out of me to kill me.”
“The bites will itch like hell in about ten minutes. Come with me.”
“Where?”
“I’ve got something in the car that’ll help the itching.”
She hadn’t even heard his car pull up. She gazed up at him, heart pounding. Damn her traitorous body, feeling things for the man standing in front of her that she hadn’t allowed herself to feel since she was a naïve high-school girl back when she’d wished to have this particular guy see her as more than a kid. He did, eventually. The memory of their first kiss replayed in her mind. She didn’t know what she expected from him. For him to kiss her again? Touch her? She was surprised by how much she wanted it.
Snap out of it. You’re going to die. That’s where your mind needs to be right now. Get him to help you.
Merck had to be the “he” who her mother said would help her. If he wasn’t, then he might know someone or something safe she could use to find the Trident, maybe something from his collection of weird items.
“I promise if you come to my car I won’t cuff you unless…” his voice dropped to a sensuous tone, “…that’s what you want.” His lips curved in a wicked half-smile that did funny things to her insides. She swallowed, her throat devoid of moisture.
“No cuffs. It might be nice not to have the itching.” She gripped the camellia stalks tight between her fingers and followed.
He opened the front seat passenger door and waved for her to hop in. She watched with fascination as he removed an unlabeled brown bottle from the glove compartment. He emptied a bit of beige ointment into his palm. An astringent smell burned her nose, drawing her back to days when they had horses down here. She missed the ornery Quarter Horse she’d ridden every day after school.
She tucked her legs away from him when he neared with a dab of the stinky concoction. “Horse liniment doesn’t work on bites.”
He laughed low and shook his head. “Secret concoction from a friend good at remedies, but it’s not horse liniment.”
“I think they’re pulling your leg, then.” She didn’t get a chance to argue further before he cupped the back of her calf and rested her sandal on his thigh. Her foot looked tiny against him. He examined the bites and applied a small amount to each welt. Amazingly, the itchiness disappeared within seconds.
She tried to think of anything other than the intimacy of her foot on his hard thigh. So close to… Don’t look. Of course, her gaze went there. The hard bulge between his thighs signaled he wasn’t immune to what bounced between them.
His gaze swung upward. The intensity in his eyes was thrilling. With a frown, his capable fingers left her leg and touched her neck. “Mosquitoes got you there too?” He rubbed softly over a welt.
She couldn’t answer, hypnotized by his touch on her skin. Her body remained frozen and her breathing shallow as he explored her neck and upper chest for more bites. His fingers dipped beneath her neckline, finding a welt. He slipped his hand into her shirt and applied the concoction.
“More?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “I’m good.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “Where’d you really get this stuff?”
“It’s a potion from a Wiccan woman who lives down near Savannah. She’s a sweetheart and likes g
iving me stuff like this when I visit. She’s also a great cook. Her biscuits and grits are incredible.”
“Is she someone you like for more than her biscuits?”
He chuckled. “Don’t go sounding jealous, darlin’, or I might think you like me.”
A bird cried out while flying overhead. Another answered. Egrets. They sounded irritated. He gazed in the direction of the ocean.
“No jealousy here.” She hopped out of the car.
The birds cried out once more. Alarm traveled down her spine.
He caught her arm before she could move away. “Do you feel it?”
“Yes”. She batted at a mosquito on her arm.
“Something’s off. The birds… Put the flowers on the seat.” He slammed the car door and grabbed her hand in a tight, painful grip.
At a jog, he pulled her toward the side of the house and down to the creek bed. It wasn’t a short walk, but at the speed he was dragging her through the damp forest, they made it to the water in minutes. He squatted next to the twenty-foot wide creek and placed a hand in the water.
“Yeah, it’s infested with monster mosquitoes down here. Worse after the rain.” She batted a few away from her face. With a kick she flicked wet debris off her sandal-clad feet. The shoes weren’t intended for marching around damp forest. She plucked out a leaf caught in her left shoe and flicked a tick off her leg.
“There’s something out here far worse than bugs. I don’t know why you’re attractive to the shittiest of the scary shits, but they’re here.”
“The land is protected by an old spell. Only those of nonthreatening intent can get on the property.”
“Unless the trespassers are far more powerful than whatever your people laid down.” His arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her away from the creek, into the thick woods and behind a tree. Something smacked into the bark above their heads. He whispered, “Ericthonians.”
What? Shannon sensed a strange power around them, something simultaneously slithery and forceful. How could someone with an evil purpose get through the protections on the property? “What are Ericthon—”
He put his hand over her mouth and whispered into her ear, “Shhh.”
Clouds drew in overhead, darkening the forest until only flickers of light peeped through the leaves. The temperature dropped several degrees.
“No sounds or we both die.” He removed his hand from her mouth and led her to the left. He halted behind another large tree and gestured with a finger against his lips to keep silent.
The threatening presence marched nearer. Not one, but many.
She whispered, “Who’s out there?”
“Not one hundred percent sure yet, but if it’s what I think, then we’re both up shit creek.” He gazed at the rapidly moving water. “Too exposed for us to try to get across.”
“It’s too deep after the recent rain.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. Depth can be varied.”
She liked his closeness and the heat of his breath on her cheek. She glanced up, far too aware of him. Put her in heels and she’d reach his chin. His essence seeped deep into her lungs. He smelled of danger and…something mesmerizing. Her heart, already pounding, went into a bongo rhythm. Wrong time. Definitely the wrong place for attraction to kick in.
Do not stare at him.
The slashes of his eyebrows drew low. “We have to get out of here. We’ll have to run for it. Better cover for us in the darker forest.”
She blinked a few times to break her fixation. He hadn’t unwound his arm from her waist. The gentleness of his touch was at odds with the threat in his stance. Something hot and dangerous glimmered in his blue gaze, which cried out to her.
“Pray to whatever you believe in that they don’t send the snakes.”
“Snakes? I hate snakes.” She shivered.
He grabbed her hand and dragged her into a sprint. Bark exploded around them. Must be suppressed gunfire since she hadn’t heard the expected crack of a gunshot. A glance up saw six small knives lodged deep into the tree bark. Not bullets.
Merck shifted positions, pushing her in front of him. A few paces later he stepped on her heel, catching the back of her sandal. She stumbled. He slammed into her back. Her side whacked against the rough bark of a tree.
“Sorry,” he grumbled, catching her before she nose-planted into a new tree.
Yelling echoed from behind them in a foreign language she didn’t understand.
She refused to stop. She fixed her shoe, grabbed his hand, and pulled hard.
Something burned into her back and side. She stumbled again and hit the ground, her face landing on wet leaves and pine needles. He fell to his knees next to her, clutching his side.
“The snakes are here,” he announced.
Her neck hair stood on end as the air around them cooled. She scanned the terrain for movement, snagging on something in the shadows near a tree. A serpent the size and look of an adult cottonmouth slithered their way. Her nightmare—chased by a cottonmouth. It’d happened when she’d been about ten or eleven. They were vindictive snakes that didn’t run from people, at least not in this area.
“Don’t let them strike you.” He jumped up and kicked the closest slithering serpent against a tree. Its thick body fell, unmoving. Dead? Or stunned?
She froze when the mother of all snakes reared up in front of her face poised to strike. The creature was anaconda gigantic. The opaque fangs oozed clear fluid. Time went into slo-mo. She could hear it breathing and see the coiled base tense.
In a whirl, Merck tossed his knife at the snake. It fell, decapitated.
Her back screamed as if she’d been bitten. She twisted to find two knives lodged deep into her skin. Her heart rate soared as she tugged and seesawed them out, which hurt. Wow, it hurt.
Merck darted around the perimeter of the small clearing in which they’d fallen. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but suddenly he pivoted and tucked a small vial into his shirt pocket. “That should keep at least the snakes away for a while.”
“What was that?”
“Special potion.” He squinted toward the house and scowled. “Shit.”
He retrieved his knife and dove for another snake, cutting its head, and landed on his side a few feet from her.
“They’re resistant to the deter potion. Damn it.” The pain hazing his gaze indicated probable knife hits, maybe a snake and who knows what else. Him dying wasn’t an option. He had to be the person who’d help her, the one her mother referred with her dying breath.
She curled her small hand around his. “Please don’t die. I think I need your help. I think that’s why I’m here.”
“I am helping you. I’ll distract them. Go wherever you go when you Pleiades witches disappear.” He wiped debris off her face.
“How do you know that I can…” Jump dimensions? she added silently. She should leave. She could pop away to her alternate dimension and, even though she hadn’t tried it since she got her magical powers, she was guaranteed to arrive somewhere not surrounded by demonic snakes and whatever else was coming for them. Her chest jerked at the thought of leaving without Merck.
His eyelids drifted closed for a moment.
She shook him. “Don’t you dare pass out or die on me. You have to help me or the world will end.”
“Who told you this?”
“A Greek god threatened me.”
“Is that why you were after the scrying glass?” In the scant light peeking through the foliage, she made out his skyward eye roll. “We’re both descendants of Greek gods. They like to sell that crap about end of the world scenarios to get us to play their games. Do you think they really want the world to end?”
“Right now, it sure feels like they do.” She traced the jagged scratch-like scar on his cheek. The old damage incited her need to soothe, which made no sense.
His gaze met hers, so intense her breath caught. Then his eyelids drifted shut. “Damn it. It’s too late.”
“What?
Are you dying?” Her hands roamed his chest, neck, and arms.
“I wish. Please get out of here. Go.” He grabbed his knife and pulled himself up using tree branches. “These guys are particularly nasty. Don’t let them touch you.”
He faced a horrific creature that was the size of a man and shaped similarly to one, but its head was narrowed to a point and covered in dark scaly skin. A few slits of skin composed its nose. Rows of sharp teeth gaped open as the creature panted. Bulbous eyes locked on to her. It jumped for her, but Merck tackled it. The creature’s clawlike fingers slashed down Merck’s side.
The snake creature was fast.
Merck was faster. The snake man fell to the ground, its neck gaping open from Merck’s knife. Its body still twitched as Merck attacked a second snake man. She saw only a blur of motion while they parried into the woods.
Stay or go?
She couldn’t leave him. She should attempt her newly inherited elemental magical skills to help him. No water or fire nearby to draw upon. Wind. You’ll botch it and might hurt Merck.
A third snake man appeared and stalked toward her. It almost seemed to be leering, although emotion with the toothy mouth was difficult to interpret. She crab walked backward until her back hit a pine tree.
On instinct, she reached for wind, hoping to whip up enough of a gust to throw the snake man away from her. A strong blast pushed against the creature, keeping it at a distance from her, but not powerful enough to toss it away. She needed the wind to be fierce.
I can’t do it. Crap.
The wind died. The snake man caught its balance and headed her way.
Merck attacked the snake man threatening her, jumping onto its back and slashing at its neck before it could react.
“You okay?” he asked while pivoting as if in search of the next one.
“Yes.”
“More are coming. You can’t get scratched. It changes people into one of them.”
