Service? Acceptance? Ava’s stomach flipped over. “Oh my God. This can’t be real and the fact I’m even sitting here listening to you means I must be as insane as you are!”
“I’m not, Ava, and neither are you.”
“There’s no other explanation, because there is no way I can believe this. Any of this.”
Brody’s mouth was a grim line. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“Your truth, maybe.”
“I don’t know how to make you understand this.”
“You can’t. Because it’s completely nuts.”
His blue eyes alighted on one of the framed paintings in the room, an ancient star chart depicting the world as the artist knew it then. “I know. Come with me.”
She felt a moment of calm when he didn’t reach for her, instead allowing her to follow on her own.
They left the basement and wound their way back through the house—back to the oversized staircase that seemed to be the center of this palace and up three flights of stairs. Finally, he led her to a door at the end of the third floor.
“Where are you taking me? And what is this place? You can’t actually expect me to believe we’re in New York?”
“We are and we’re not.”
“What?”
“You are in New York. In a building that, to the common observer, is a brownstone on the Upper West Side. If I gave you my address, you’d come in my front door. If you walked out my front door, you’d be on a Manhattan street.”
Reality warred with his description. “But this place is huge!”
“You’ll see. As Warriors, we exist in both the human world and the world of Mount Olympus.”
This just couldn’t be. It just . . . couldn’t.
“I know it’s hard to process. Leave it for now and come with me. I have something I want to show you.”
Brody opened the door at the end of the third-floor hall and she followed him up a small spiral staircase. His large body moved with immeasurable grace as he took the twists and turns that led to the roof.
“Where are we now?”
A small smile ghosted his lips. “Our original command center.”
Cold November air greeted her as the lights of Manhattan spread out before them. Above them, the sky looked ready to burst, it was so full of stars.
Unable to tear her gaze away, she mumbled to Brody as she looked to the skies. “I’ve never seen New York like this. Usually the city lights drown out the sky.”
“Up here, it’s a little different.”
She tore her gaze away, shifting to look at him—into those magnetic blue eyes that looked so sincere, even though she wanted to rage and call him a liar and a fraud.
But how could she?
She saw this; she was looking at it with her own two eyes. Belief without faith, but it was something.
“What did you mean by ‘original command center’?”
“I can communicate with my Warrior brothers from here.”
And then there were no questions as he showed her.
With deliberate movements, he removed his long-sleeved black T-shirt. His breath gave off little puffs of air, but he seemed immune to the cold. He had his back to her and his eyes facing skyward, so she could see a tattoo—this one of a lion—where it sat high on his right shoulder blade.
Unable to tear her gaze away, she drank in the perfection of his body. Broad shoulders gleamed in the moonlight as the tight play of muscles along his back responded to his every movement. His torso grew narrow as it descended to his stomach and formed into lean hips. A small network of scars crisscrossed his lower back.
Where had they come from? The scars were faded white with age, faint on his skin, but visible nonetheless.
He shifted slightly and extended his arm. An intricately designed tattoo decorated his exposed left arm. The ink had interlocking circles with a zodiac symbol she couldn’t identify clearly visible in the center of the pattern.
Brody tossed her a glance over his shoulder, a broad smile on his lips. “Ready?”
“For what?”
He pressed his fingers to the tattoo and light shot toward the stars from the symbol. The night sky made a dome around them like the ceiling of a planetarium. Ava couldn’t hear any noise except for the distant sounds of Manhattan traffic, but she could see various parts of the sky light up, blinking on and off.
“Are you talking to them?”
“Yep.”
“But how?”
“It’s a combination of light from the tattoo, telepathy and a bit of old-world Morse code thrown in.”
“Prehistoric text messages?”
He leveled her with another grin and Ava responded without thinking. Something carefree and wild landed in her chest as her knees quivered under the impact of that GQ smile. “I’m not quite that old.”
That response only added more questions. “How old are you, then?”
“I was born roughly ten thousand years ago.”
“Oh.”
More sections of the dome lit up as he continued to shift his arm, the light dancing across the sky as it projected from his forearm.
Ava moved closer, unable to contain her wonder at what he was doing. “Does it hurt?”
“Not at all.”
Yet another question spilled from her lips, her natural curiosity getting the better of her. “So, if you do this all telepathically, can you read minds?”
“No.” Brody broke the link, reaching for his T-shirt and pulling it back over his head. “The telepathy is tied to our link to one another through the night sky. Nothing more. One of my brothers is telepathic, but as the rest of us aren’t, outside of this realm we can’t communicate that way.”
She watched in fascination as the T-shirt slid over his washboard stomach. Check, Ava Marie. You were right on that guess. Those abs are to die for.
“Although it can be useful, it really is a primitive way to communicate. It’s why I called it our original command center. Nowadays, we do everything on highly encrypted computers. Warriors move within the normal dimensions of time, so modern technology has made our communication much easier. And instantaneous.”
“Same as for humans.”
That wry grin was back. “That would be because we are humans.” He moved up close to her and took her hand in his, laying it against his chest. Despite his recent bare-chested stint in the cold, all she felt was delicious warmth through the fabric of his shirt. “Feel me, Ava. I’m as human as you.”
His heart beat firm and strong under her palm. “With some exceptions.”
“I’m human.”
Ava searched the depths of that gorgeous, sky blue gaze. She wanted to believe him—wanted to believe in him.
But . . .
Look, Ava Marie. With your own two eyes. Look at this man. Look at his world.
Feel it.
Believe it.
Shaking it off, she stepped back to put some distance between them while the pesky scientist in her continued to pepper him with questions. “So what happens to those who are in different parts of the globe in daylight?”
“They can respond later.”
“Did you have any, um, messages when you logged on just now?”
Brody reached down to tuck his T-shirt into his jeans. “No. As I said, we do pretty much everything on computer right now. Besides, I knew there wouldn’t be anything. My tattoo pulses when there’s something to go find.”
“Like cosmic voice mail.”
His bark of laughter echoed around in the cold observatory. “I guess you could call it that.”
“So how many of you are there?”
“When Themis first created us, we were twelve bands of thirteen, tasked to roam the earth as humanity’s protectors.”
“Were?”
“We’ve lost a few Warriors. Some to death. More to Enyo.”
“Brody, I want to believe you—honest, I do. I’m looking at you and I’m feeling”—she broke off, glancing around the
observatory—“this. But Enyo? Themis? They’re just myths.”
“Myths were born of something.”
“Yes. Idle imaginations trying to make sense of a world they didn’t understand. Hesiod and Homer. They didn’t have the tools to understand their world the way we do, so they made up the myths.”
“No, Ava.” Brody shook his head. “They were whispered to them so the truth would be written somewhere.”
“But it defies everything I know as a scientist.”
He took her hand as he led them back toward the door. “But you feel it?”
She sighed. Every rational thought she possessed screamed that this couldn’t be, but heaven help her, she did believe him. She understood there were things happening that went beyond normal human understanding. “I do.”
He opened the door for her and she walked through, descending back down the narrow, spiral staircase.
She felt his heavy footfalls on the stairs behind her, his tone open and giving as he said, “Is there anything else?”
As she took the last twist and stepped off the bottom step, Ava’s gaze alighted on yet another tapestry hanging in the hallway. “Actually, yes. What are you? You know. What’s your sign, baby?”
“I am Leo Warrior.”
The last piece of the puzzle fell into place: the bossy personality that acted decisively and wanted to do things his own way; the mane of hair, just shy of vain on a man; the pompous, know-it-all, I-can-handle-anything attitude.
Suddenly, she knew exactly why she’d seen a lion roaming the streets of London.
He was standing right in front of her.
Chapter Eleven
Brody loved watching her. The expressions on her face. The movements of her body as new thoughts struck her. The rapid questions as she worked to process new information.
Innate beauty. Bone-deep intelligence. Endless curiosity.
She was a wonder.
He took her hand and led her down the hall. They needed to get back to London and he wanted to eat again before expending all the energy required to port. They had no idea what awaited them at the British Museum and he didn’t want anything to threaten his strength. “You seem a little calmer. Is this starting to make sense?”
She quirked an eyebrow at the calmer comment, but her voice stayed level. “So you’re a lion?”
“No. I’m a man. An immortal one, but a man all the same.”
“But the lion. The one I saw. It’s a part of you. It fits you, you know. I’d already thought your long blond hair seemed like a mane and there is a fierceness to your features that reminds me of a predator.”
“I’m not a lion.”
“But you have one. As a pet?”
“Not exactly.”
“You might as well bring it on. You can’t shock me any more than you already have.”
He doubted that but kept the observation to himself. She’d started to relax and he was loath to do anything to remind her that she’d wanted to leave fifteen minutes before. But she had asked. And seeing as how he’d scared the shit out of her with his tattoo during the fight under the bridge, he figured she had a right to know.
Reaching down, he grabbed fistfuls of his T-shirt again and pulled it back over his head. Turning, he presented his back to her, his lion tattoo high on his upper-right shoulder blade.
A wave of need rushed him as Ava’s small fingers brushed the top of his shoulder blades as she pushed his hair aside to get a better look.
Soft, tentative fingers stroked over the tattoo, and he could feel the rumbling purr in the lion’s chest at her touch.
“What is it?”
Her fingers continued tracing the lion’s shape, the movements sending shock waves through his body. His stomach muscles tightened at the sensual torture of her touch and his erection—the semihard state he’d spent the last four days in around her—climbed to full strength. “It’s a tattoo.”
“But it’s not.”
“No, really. That’s all it is. It’s part of my aura. It can’t be separated, but it can come to my aid and protection.”
The lion shook his head and flicked its mane under her stroking touch, and Brody felt an answering roar rise up in his own chest.
“It’s moving.” The wonder in her voice shot another round of sparks through his system. Although rarely in doubt, he had debated whether or not to show her his tattoo yet. Inked images that moved didn’t exactly incite waves of calm in people, but her reaction was much more controlled than he ever could have expected.
It was . . . sweet.
“It likes you.”
“It’s almost like in the Harry Potter movies. Where their photos move. I’m looking at this and it shouldn’t be moving, but it is.”
He closed his eyes, welcoming her touch—taking it in and warming the places that had been closed off for so long.
Separate, she’d called them.
And now, as her fingers brushed the lion’s mane, not separate. Connection. They were connected.
Ava watched as Brody doused his third stack of pancakes in syrup. The man had the eating habits of a gangly, growing teenager. Thankfully, his manners were those of an adult. His napkin was firmly in his lap and his lips stayed closed as he ate.
“Hungry?”
“I have to keep my strength up.”
“For what? You just had Chinese food about an hour ago. At least I think it was an hour ago.”
He glanced at his watch. “Yep. We haven’t been here that long. And I need my energy for porting.”
“That depletes energy?”
He nodded, then swallowed his latest bite before responding. “A hell of a lot, as a matter of fact.”
“Will you die if you run out of energy?”
“No, not at all. But the weaker I get, the more vulnerable I am to attack. My brothers and I stay on our game. That means taking care of the body.”
Made sense. Food fueled the body. “Anything else besides lack of food?”
“Sleep and sex.”
Sex? As in a lot or none at all? “I get the sleep part. But sex? Are you allowed to have it?”
A wicked grin answered that question and Ava could feel hot waves of heat creep up her neck to flush her cheeks. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Orgasm returns us to one hundred percent.”
“Even without food? Or sleep?”
“Yep. It’s like an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card.”
“Well, there goes all your hard work in getting me to buy into the idea you’re human.”
A frown crossed his mouth as he swallowed his last bite. “Why’s that?”
“Most men need food and sleep after sex. You are clearly not a human male.”
Great waves of laughter greeted her across the table and Ava couldn’t stop the answering laugh in return. It felt good to laugh—a moment of normal, in the midst of all they were dealing with.
Now . . . if she could only get the idea of him as a human equivalent to the Energizer Bunny out of her head, maybe she could stem the arousal threading through her body in great, warm waves of need.
An orgasm to regain strength. Who knew?
“Are you a Gemini?”
“What?” The change in topic caught her off guard. The fact he guessed correctly on the first try was even more surprising. “How’d you know?”
“You’re incredibly curious. Even when you’re not asking questions, I can see them etched across your face.”
Ava wasn’t sure why that embarrassed her, but a light flush crept up her cheeks as one of her grandmother’s ever-vigilant philosophies came to mind. Girls who talk like walking encyclopedias need to remember reference books don’t get taken out. “Occupational hazard, I guess.”
“It’s adorable.”
“Hardly.”
At that he snorted. “Darlin’, I’ve got far too much pride to make shit up. If I say it, I mean it.”
“So why does it matter if I’m a Gemini?”
“It doe
sn’t matter as in good or bad. It’s a point of definition. Of who you are. Of the forces that shaped you.”
“Modern science disproved astrology quite a few centuries ago. And genetics has a heck of a lot more to do with who we are than anything else. Again, science’s contribution to our understanding of ourselves.”
“Just because science has proven things about us doesn’t mean there aren’t grains of truth in the things we can feel. Do you think I’m a fake?”
It was getting harder and harder to think of him as anything but one hundred percent real. “No.”
“Ah, but I still see the skepticism. And here I thought you wanted answers to your questions.”
“I do.”
“Then why do you find it so hard to believe what I’m telling you? My Warrior brothers and I, we really do have the traits of our signs.”
Where had her brain gone? She was a learned scholar. A PhD, for cripes’ sake! Why was she listening to this? Encouraging it?
Ah hell, why start questioning your sanity now, Ava Marie? Go along for the ride. You know you want to.
“Okay, fine. Look, even if I can buy into the rest of it—the whole Themis-made-you-Warriors thing—you can’t possibly believe the idea that you think the way you do and act the way you do just because of your sign.”
“I don’t just believe it. I know it. It’s the very definition of who I am.”
“Right. You are Leo; therefore it dictates every action you have?”
The corner of his eyes crinkled up and he ran his fingers over his chin like a detective. “What was your first thought when you looked at me?”
Oh my God, my panties have just exploded into flames. “He’s cute and I think he may be trying to kill me.”
The crinkles at his eyes spread farther as his lips turned up in a smile. “I mean when you met me at the museum.”
“Why has this cute jerk followed me to work?”
“Nope. Wrong answer, Dr. Harrison.” He leaned forward, his blue eyes full of good-natured merriment. “Try again.”
She wasn’t sure what did it. The light teasing between them that felt more natural than breathing or the sheer pleasure of being the sole focus of his attention. But something—maybe a combination of both—had her sharing the truth. “I’d like to climb on top of him and take him for a ride.”
Warrior Ascended Page 15
