Bliss

by Renee Field

  Prologue

  Sesta’s weary body vibrated through time. She couldn’t believe it happened to her again. How dare he? she fumed. The emotion was raw and powerful as she tried hard to shed the unwanted feeling from her celestial being. As the Sister of the Future, she should have foreseen this.

  “We were meant to be together.”

  Retan’s voice was like a soothing drop of rain as it coursed through herconsciousness, soaking her with his love.

  “You are my Sokhan. You are my only,” he said, trying once again to wield his powerful magic into her soul.

  Sesta shook her head. She fought the strange hum of desire spiraling like a hot red poker through her mind, twisting her thoughts from her original plan. “I cannot,” she squeaked.

  A strange part of her ached for his dominance and his understanding, while a wild part of her yearned to give into his passion. It was a passion scorching all her souls. For in the intensity of that one emotion – passion - she recognized her old-self.

  The self before the Creator chose her to right the wrong. After all, that was what she had bargained for. If Retan, the Titan who had loved her for centuries, learned the truth of what had happened on that fateful day eons ago, then none of this would have come to pass. Of that she was certain. It had been her choice, her fate, and she had embraced it lovingly at one time. Now, however, time was catching up with her. In fact, it was becoming her nemesis. She almost laughed at how absurd that sounded.

  However, it was now up to her. She had to right the wrong that had happened centuries ago if her mardom, her people, the Sirens and Titans of the undersea kingdom, were going to have a chance. She owed them that. Even if it meant the end of her own existence.

  “Please forgive me.” She whispered the words in reverence, hoping Retan would forgive her sometime, even as she used all her power to spin beyond his control and into another time and dimension.

  His piercing scream soared through time and space as he fought to keep her with him. “No. I will never give you up. You are mine!”

  It was a warning. All her long-thought-dead Siren senses awoke as they clamored to the surface, all but begging for his touch, his passion and his love. Mentally shaking herself free from the deep soul-ache she felt, she knew she couldn’t stop. To do so condemned them all to Hades’ wrath. If only he would understand. Sesta pressed on, her celestial body materializing for one nano-second in one time and dimension only to dissolve into the next. To stay in one spot for any length of time was certain death for all of the beings she loved. And, worse she would find herself once again caged by Retan’s Titan demands.

  Then she felt the brief touch of her siblings, her Sisters of the Past and Present. They were using their combined mind-link to sift through time. Sesta pushed herself well past her limit. She felt her sisters’ laughter vibrating through the time waves, and that worried her. They probably thought of this as a game.

  It was a deadly race against time. Time that was hers to wield. Time that for some unknown reason was only making things worse for her beloved creatures.

  With a last push, she focused her thoughts and shimmered into reality. She felt the heat of another soul and sensed the purity of the being. She didn’t hesitate as she gave up a fraction of her essence to the creature looking up at her with wide, dark brown baby eyes of wonder.

  Chapter One

  Darius Fairbanks cursed in more languages than he could remember using in his long life. What had started out as a simple assignment had turned into a living, breathing nightmare. And it was only getting worse. While cursing alleviated some of his tension, it did nothing to shed light on what had gone horribly wrong. One fleeting moment the ancient book had been in his hands and then whammo, an electrical bolt that packed more punch than Zeus’ Triton had slammed hard into his left side, causing him to drop the sacred text.

  He growled as Aphrodite’s chief Titan slave trader chased him. I’m not going down without a fight.

  He pushed himself up from the sea’s floor. His muscular arms easily propelled him forward while his Titan form attempted to heal itself. Hot, blinding pain filled his blurry vision. He shook his head to clear his troubled eyesight. His back itched with heat from the sea dragon’s fiery brand he had received half a century ago. He ignored it all. Grasping the ancient book with one hand, he vowed to get it back where it belonged.

  When it became known that the book was missing, it had been up to him as sea guardian for his kingdom, the North Seas, to track down the culprit. At first he had thought humans had somehow discovered it. Worse was finding out that the culprit was Zeus’ own semi-god-nephew, Rylan. The delinquent teenager was known throughout the realms for his pranks, and the kid did not disappoint. He is a royal pain in the ass. Darius was miffed that he’d been tricked into showing up at Aphrodite’s harvest ball months ago with the promise Rylan would hand over the sacred relic he had stolen – as if!

  One look from Aphrodite and he had sensed trouble. The goddess of love didn’t take kindly to being turned down. But Darius had heard enough over the centuries to know that saying yes to her highness wouldn’t have made a difference. He admitted she was a sight to behold. Hair spun of gold fell in waves to her feet. A sheer translucent gown edged with silver thread that let everyone in the room see her perfectly sculptured body had been a shocking tease. Even though most of the guests were from the undersea kingdoms, she had chosen her more traditional and alluring human form. After all, she was a goddess, and she could do whatever she wanted.

  When her pale blue eyes inspected him from head to tail he had felt his blood heat and his heart pound. That had been the moment when he realized that was exactly what Rylan had hoped for. If Aphrodite wanted him, she usually got what she wanted. After all you had to be insane to say no to the goddess of love. But insane he had been. There was no way he was going to be a pawn, played about by a juvenile delinquent.

  So he did the unthinkable. He had turned away from those shimmering pale eyes and swum out the door, vowing to get Rylan to hand over the relic at another time, and what had it earned him? Nothing but trouble. Aphrodite’s chief slave trader, Muroka had been hunting him for months because no one turned down the goddess without repercussions. Finally, Muroka had caught up to him. A zap jostled Darius out of his not so pleasant daydream.

  “Not so tough now, are we Darius?” mocked the all-too-familiar voice of Muroka.

  “Go to Hell!” Darius set his body into attack mode. He would go down scarred or even dead before giving in to Muroka.

  Plus he didn’t have time to deal with this. His father had recently ordained Darius as the sea guardian and protector of all things sacred to the Titan way of life. That included the Text of Ashimori which had a detailed map of the ancient ruins of Atlantis – the so-called fabled island that had made its way into human mythology. If Homer had only been a good guy and a player, Atlantis still would be a safe, sacred place for all of them. Now, thanks to Homer’s apt pupil, Ashimori, who had had the audacity to draw a map outlining the Titan holy land and where it was located in the Atlantic Ocean, their undersea kingdom was in jeopardy. If the ancient book fell into human hands, it could be the end for his kingdom.

  A second bolt of electricity caused him to gasp loudly as he drove his body hard into Muroka. The two clashed together like a mad cyclone, one trying to topple the other. Then a new sensation filled the water, causing Darius’ nostrils to flare. Please do not let that be who I think it is. Instinctively, he sought the source of the irritation while trying to free himself from Muroka’s death grip.

  From the depths of the sea he heard the scratchy adolescent voice he dreaded. Before he could prepare himself and shout, “No!” he made out the faint voice of Zeus’ nephew saying, “I’ll get you out of this mess in just a minute.”r />
  That was the last thing he heard before his body dissolved into a fine mist.

  The fourth tequila burned down Kassandra Delong’s throat, causing her eyes to tear. She forced the cough back as her friends, Melissa and Sarah, pushed two more tequilas in front of her.

  “Ahh, now dat guy’s a doll,” drawled Melissa, her French accent getting heavier with every tequila she downed.

  Kassandra fought the urge to look at the so-called “doll.” She knew Melissa’s type. A he-man clad in tight jeans equipped with not one speck of intellect.

  “He is not. Gross!”

  Thank god Sarah agrees with me. Kassandra squeezed the yellow tumbler which held her drink to oblivion and beyond and prayed it would soon work its magic. That’s how her friends referred to tequila. Truthfully, reaching oblivion and beyond seemed to be taking one hell of a long time. She gulped down her fifth tequila. This time there was no stopping the cough. As she sputtered and tried hard to regain her composure, she heard the loud chuckles from her friends.

  “Never could hold a drink down.”

  “She’s not even tipsy. Bartender, two more drinks,” shouted Melissa over the loud crowd.

  Not that Melissa needed to shout. Every movement brought her black, lacy, bra strap one notch lower, exposing her voluptuous cleavage. While Melissa looked like the typical dumb blond, Kassandra knew she was anything but. Her naval reserve friend was brave, bright and fluent in three languages, including the most important one – how to get a man to buy you a drink. Since the moment the three of them had walked into O’Reilly’s Bar, Melissa had worked her magic. She had flirted and flaunted it all – all for Kassandra’s sake.

  Her two friends were out to get her laid, as they not-so-politely told her. First their goal was to get her as drunk as a skunk for her twenty-fifth birthday and then they planned on picking out her man of mystery for the night.

  But getting drunk seemed to be hard to do. Her mind kept going back to what she had found closeted away in the back storage room of the library. A very old book written in a strange language she couldn’t decode. And that was a novelty for her.

  Kassandra was the code cracker, as her parents and friends called her. Besides of her love of all things ancient, she couldn’t resist the challenge of decoding things. She called it making sense out of the insensible. That was why she had joined the naval reserves in the first place. She had finally given into her father’s argument that the navy was the best life. Joining the reserves was her truce, her compromise, but truthfully from day one, when she had joined at the age of seventeen as a cadet, she’d loved it. Not that she’d ever tell her father. The last thing he needed was more ammunition to get her to quit her day job as Assistant Librarian of Antiquity for the local university. She’d gotten the job because of her fluency in multiple languages and the fact she was willing to work evenings and weekends.

  Truthfully, she loved the physical aspects of the reserves but what had kept her in it over the years was one special section – intelligence. Two years into her part-time job, her commander had taken her aside for a specialized series of tests. After that, well, she’d been granted access as a reservist to something that usually only full-time naval intelligence had. Twenty hours a week she worked closeted away in the back room of HMCS Scotian. She was hooked up to Ottawa’s naval intelligence via computer. Every day a series of suspicious emails or texts thought to be from spies would arrive in her in-box. Her job was to decode any words that made reference to where Canadian naval ships or personnel were located.

  “Kas, you paying attention to me?” Melissa gave her an elbow in the gut. “Pout your lips and toss your hair. Come on, Kas, look sexy.” Her friend whispered the words in her right ear as she wriggled her finger at the “doll” who was sauntering their way.

  With her long, chestnut hair and brown eyes, she knew from personal experience that she was plain Jane. No matter how many times her friends tried to dress her up, they just couldn’t make her look sexy. Case in point: tonight. She attempted to paste a polite smile on her face as Melissa’s beefy guy elbowed his way over to their station at the bar.

  “Ohh, he’s sooo ‘andsome,” drawled Melissa.

  Kassandra gave her credit. She had it. And knew what to do with it to get what she wanted.

  “Nice thighs,” smirked Sarah, giving into another round of giggles.

  As the man got closer, Kassandra felt Melissa tug her sweater. Well, okay, not her sweater. The purple, open-neck cotton shirt was Melissa’s, and she’d insisted Kassandra wear it, on two conditions—that she kept her hair down, and that she exposed a bit of cleavage. Neither condition was the norm for her. But, heck, how many times does a woman turn twenty-five? She resisted the urge to push up the low-cut shirt.

  “Ladies.” The man nodded at them as he pushed his way into the center of their party.

  Grabbing her last tequila, Kassandra prayed for the drink to take effect. She also prayed her friends didn’t have their hearts set on her getting laid tonight. It wasn’t like she was opposed to the idea. And while she hated to admit her year-long dry spell without a man sucked royally, she wasn’t taking just anyone to her bed. After all, she had learned a hard lesson thanks to her ex-boyfriend.

  Captain Tom Stronach, the man in her life for two solid years, had made her see the light. All men were sleazebags. What she really wanted—no, desired—was a prince in shining armor. One also equipped with a solid moral sense and code of ethics. Like that’s ever going to happen. Just once she wished her special talent for finding lost things worked her way. Find me a prince, she recited over and over again in her head, hiccupping against the round of giggles simmering below the surface.

  “What do you tink of my friend ‘ere?” Melissa flashed a blazing smile at Mr. Beefcake while winking at her. Kassandra smirked. The guy was practically salivating over Melissa while her friend tried, yet again, to get him to notice her.

  Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Kassandra accepted the tumbler Sarah was pushing toward her. Some of the liquid spilled onto the bar. Kassandra watched Sarah dip her fingers into the sticky liquid to lick the spill. Wait until tomorrow.

  She grinned with delight, reveling in the moment when she would reveal that meticulous, germ freak Sarah actually licked tequila off the bar. Her friend wouldn’t believe her, but heck, that’s what drinking did to you. Tipping her head, Kassandra downed the burning booze.

  She slammed the tumbler on the bar counter as she disentangled herself from her two friends. “I’m heading home.” As she straightened Sarah so she wouldn’t topple off the bar stool, Kassandra heard Melissa say, “Aw, come on, Kas, we’ll find you one.”

  “You can borrow my Mike,” said Sarah, her head leaning too far to the right.

  Kassandra looked at her friend. Sarah was a cop. Although she looked tiny and defenseless, she could tackle anyone twice her weight thanks to years of karate training.

  “Yeah, think I’ll pass on that. As much as I like your Mike, I’m thinking he’s not into the share department,” she replied tartly, finally standing on her own. “Need I say more?”

  Both friends turned to watch as Mike LeRue, Sarah’s fiancé, elbowed his way to their corner. A good six feet in height, Mike was built like a tank. But while his body was all muscles and bulges, his heart was pure gold. Case in point tonight. Kassandra watched Mike take in the scene with a practiced eye.

  “Now, that’s a pretty sight.”

  Kassandra wrinkled her nose at his sympathy wink. Pushing up her shirt she groaned in despair. “They made me wear it. I had no choice in the matter. Sarah threatened me with her cuffs.” She wiped the sticky tequila from her hands onto her jeans, thinking she should have picked the cuffs over the sweater.

  Mike laughed. “Honey, you can practice those cuffs on me,” he said sweetly into Sarah’s ear, while adjusting her more firmly onto the bar stool.

  Sarah playfully pushed him away. “Cut it out, Mike.”

  “You look pretty, Kas.
”

  “Aw, Mike, Kas don’t want to be pretty, she wants to get laid,” slurred Sarah, just before Mike caught her from falling off the bar stool.

  With her face in flames, Kassandra took a step back. “Thanks for sharing that info.”

  “She doesn’t mean anything by it, Kas. Look, we just wanted to help.” Melissa pushed Mr. Beefcake off her.

  “Yeah, well, thanks girls. I know. But, I’m calling it a night. Touch base with me tomorrow, okay? Take her home, Mike,” she added. Even though she wasn’t happy with Sarah at the moment, she didn’t want to see her fall flat on her face, either.

  “That’s the plan,” Mike said easily. “Come on, Sarah. It’s time to go before you really regret it.”

  With a quick goodbye, Kas fled the bar, happy for the long weekend ahead of her. The cool summer breeze caused her to pause. It signaled the end of one season and the beginning of the other. She could smell the salt from the harbor, a fact she rejoiced in daily. The small city of Halifax was home now. After years of wandering the continents with her military parents, it had finally been the Atlantic coast that lured and snagged her. Her parents found it hard to fathom why anyone would want to live in one place for eternity. But that was exactly what she wanted.

  A career, home, white picket fence, a husband, and let’s not forget kids. But kids meant first getting laid. That thought sobered her, until she realized that with advances in medical science she could get artificially inseminated. The idea did not appeal. “Yuck!” she said loudly, causing people to turn and stare at her.

  O’Reilly’s Bar was a good three blocks from her cozy apartment. Staggering slightly as the effects of the alcohol made its way into her system, she realized something that had been eluding her all night. Finally, the strange etchings on the ancient book made sense. A smile lit up her face. She had done it—decoded the symbols on the book she had found… and taken the liberty of sneaking home with her for the long weekend.

  “Damn, those tequilas were good for something after all.” Muttering to herself, she attempted to walk straighter and faster back to her apartment.