by Linsey Hall
Leave her bow. She shuddered. It would be as good as gone; she had no idea how to get it back from the hold. Didn’t even know where such a place would be on such a big plane.
“I’ve seen how you hold it,” he said. “You clutch it when you’re nervous. I noticed that back when I first met you.”
That made her turn her head to look at him. The aloofness had faded from his eyes. The gray was warm with memory, his lovely mouth slightly upturned in his harshly beautiful face.
“Really?” she asked.
“In the forest. I’ve seen you do it recently, too.”
He’d noticed that about her? Her bow was more than just a thing to her. It defined her—restrung thousands of times, imbued with magic to make the wood last. It was her safety blanket, as stupid as it sounded.
“I know how it feels,” he said. “Giving up my bow after godhood was one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. Took a hell of a long time to get used to.”
She couldn’t even imagine. “This is the first you’ve really spoken to me in almost two days.”
“Been thinking.”
“About what?”
~~~
“About a lot of things. About how to help you get out of Otherworld.” Cam’s eyes met hers. Hers looked a little less panicked, he noted with relief.
Her jaw slackened. “Wow. Thanks. Does this have anything to do with what happened when you tied me up?”
“Maybe.” But he’d been headed toward this decision for longer than that. If anything, the night in Bruxa's Eye had tipped him over the edge. He’d backed away from Ana since that night because the things he was starting to feel freaked him the hell out. But he couldn’t avoid it any longer.
“Well, whatever the reason, thanks for the help.”
“Sure. Don’t know what the hell we’re going to do though, because I’m not too keen on going back.” The idea made a muscle at the corner of his eye twitch as memories of Otherworld surfaced. He wasn’t cut out to be a god. When he’d been young, he’d assumed he was destined for greatness. How could he not, having been born into such power?
He’d been wrong. As the years had passed, he’d grown to hate Otherworld and the other gods. He’d been the only one to feel emotion, that lowly element that separated the mortals from the gods. Becoming enamored with Ana all those years ago had led him to fuck everything up. No matter what he’d thought as a kid, he wasn’t destined for greatness. Certainly not as a god.
“We’re going to the university first, right? I called my friend Esha to see if she knows anything about Druantia. Hopefully she’ll learn her location or something else useful.”
“If she discovers something, we can stop by.” For someone on the run from gods, it was safer than anywhere else in Scotland. Gods who hadn’t been granted permission to be on campus couldn’t trespass on the grounds.
“Good.”
“You’re really friends with a soulceress?” Creepy and dangerous, they were.
“She’s not as bad as everyone thinks. She gets a bad rap for stealing people’s power, but she doesn’t mean to.”
Perhaps not, but Cam didn’t fancy having the strength of his immortal soul sucked out of him. But he stayed silent, not wanting to insult her friend. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore how good it felt to hold her hand.
Just as he was debating letting go, her voice broke the silence. “Do you think about Otherworld at all?”
He shrugged. Of course he’d thought of it. If you escaped prison, how could you stop thinking of it?
“So you don’t miss anything about godhood?” she asked.
“Parts of it, sure. Aetherwalking. My bow. Miss that a hell of a lot. Having a role and a job that’s valuable.” Though he’d been shit at being a stone cold god after he’d met Ana, he’d been a damn good god of war. He’d kept the battles even—for the most part—and the casualties not overwhelming.
Her eyes caught his, her brow scrunched. “Is that why your drug company is non-profit?”
He twitched. She’d always been insightful, but it was annoying when she caught something he felt weird talking about. At her unwavering stare, he said, “Yeah, I suppose so. I guess I got used to making a difference in Otherworld, doing something important. The company is my way of doing that here on earth.” And of making amends for everything that I screwed up by sticking you in an awful fucking afterworld.
“Interesting choice. Most Mytheans wouldn’t care about helping mortals.”
“Yeah, but I started out as a god. That’s our job. Doing that on earth, albeit in a different way, just made sense to me. Though it took me some time to figure it out.”
“It suits you, running all over the Amazon looking for fancy plants. Fighting in bars at night. Making out with nymphs.”
The word nymphs made him flinch, though he didn’t know why. But she was right, the life did fit him. Adjusting to life on earth had taken centuries. The more fun he’d had, finally free of responsibility and with access to the lowlier pleasures earth offered, the guiltier he’d felt about ditching godhood. He’d run from his problems and was probably still running from them. He shook the thought away.
“Yeah,” he said. “The Amazon works for me. No rules, not too many mortals to worry about.”
Plenty of things to keep his mind occupied. So what if the nights in places like the Caipora’s Den had started to get lonely? He still liked the fights, if only as a way to temporarily clear his head, and the women were nice. But even variety got old once you’d had enough of it.
“And you’re doing good work there, with your cures,” Ana said.
“Yeah. The work has taken decades. For the two cures to be available at the same time, because of the same plant… Huge deal. We had a sample of the plant, Rosa McManus. We just have to find the source of it now.”
It was the main reason he could never even consider going back to Otherworld.
Cam blinked. Consider going back to Otherworld? He’d never had that thought before. Was he really considering it? Fuck, ’course not.
But he looked down at Ana, the one who was suffering in his place there. He rubbed his chest absently. Shit.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ana was screwed. No doubt about it, she was falling hard for the man sitting next to her in the plush seat of the small private jet. She could believe he’d agreed to help her get out of Otherworld—that’s just the kind of guy he was. He’d tried to protect her so many years ago by letting her take his place in Otherworld. It might suck up there, but it was better than being an automaton or having her soul obliterated. He even understood what it was like for her to be away from her bow. He was like Marrek, in the way he understood her.
If he kept this understanding, protective business up, she’d be a goner.
“You good?” he asked her.
She nodded, gratefully eying her bow, which leaned against the wall next to her.
They’d arrived in London earlier that morning. She’d never truly appreciated aetherwalking until she’d had to wait at a baggage claim for her bow. There were definitely some aspects of being a god that rocked. At least Cam had the contacts to get her a fake passport.
“Thanks for getting the private charter to Edinburgh,” Ana said.
Talking to Cam on the last flight had helped her forget most of her anxiety, but she was glad that his thoughtfulness—and deep pockets—kept her from having to go through that again. Not to mention the fact that she was grateful for the hotel room he’d rented them in the airport while the jet was prepared for takeoff. The quick shower made her feel a million times better, not to mention the clean clothes she’d conjured that were more appropriate to the cooler weather. They’d both studiously avoided looking at the bed.
“Traveling as a mortal takes a decade,” she said as the plane hurtled into the air. By her calculations, they’d been on about three hundred planes in the last few days. Exhaustion should haunt her, but she’d gotten some decent sleep on the last plane.
<
br /> He laughed, low and husky, and squeezed her hand briefly. Her mouth kicked up at the corner.
Yep, she was screwed.
She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. Though he’d changed into clean clothes in the hotel, he still looked out of place on the plane, just as he had when striding through the London airport. He should fit in here, with his Celtic coloring.
But he didn’t. He was made for the jungle. Out of his element, the contrast made him more intimidating, more deadly. His eyes and mouth were too hard, too wary. His body too tall and dangerous. No doubt there were places in London where he would fit in, but it wasn’t the airport Hilton. Maybe that was one of the reasons he hung out in the jungle. He looked like a mortal, but didn’t quite pass for one.
She shifted in her seat. The memory of what he’d looked like in the ring, fighting like an animal, flashed in front of her eyes.
She could warn herself away from him all she wanted, but it didn’t seem to be working.
Her eyes trailed down his chest to the long legs that stretched out toward the seat in front of him. She glanced at the door leading to the cockpit. It was visible over the top of the chairs in front of theirs. If one of the pilots came out, she’d be able to see Cam’s head but not much else. There was no flight attendant on this flight.
Ana gripped the arm rest of her chair, debating. Then grinned. She wanted to live dangerously, right?
Swiftly, she unbuckled her seatbelt, climbed out of her chair and onto Cam’s lap.
“What are you—”
She cut off his question with her mouth and ran her hands up to his shoulders. She waited for him to give assent. It’d been days since they’d touched like this, both of them warily circling each other, and it was torture not to touch all of him.
He groaned, and she felt his big hands grip her waist. Reveling in the strength of him, she smoothed her palms along his strong chest. She’d admired it on the boat and then again in the hotel room in Bruxa's Eye.
But this was the first time that she’d actually gotten to touch, to feel all the hard muscles that could do so much damage.
His hands tightened briefly on her hips and he dragged his mouth away from hers. “Ana, this is—”
She pressed a finger against his mouth while she ran her teeth along a straining muscle at his throat. He groaned and his head dropped back.
His skin tasted amazing, fresh and clean with the faintest bite of salt.
It made her wonder what the rest of him would taste like. She slid off of him until the hard floor bit into her knees.
He looked down at her, brows arched and lips parted.
“Ana, you know this is a bad idea.” His voice was rough, sandpaper once again, and she shivered.
It was a bad idea. She’d been telling herself that since she first saw him in the Caipora’s Den. But he turned her brain to mush.
“I want to return the favor.” She reached for the fly of his jeans. “Anyway, it’s just sex, right? Don’t overthink it.” She didn’t believe it even as she said it.
His hand gripped hers where she’d started to unbuckle his belt, so she slipped the other one up to cup the bulge in his jeans. Heat bloomed between her thighs. She wanted this. Wanted to taste him. Wanted to hear the sounds he made in his pleasure.
~~~
Cam met Ana’s eyes as she massaged his cock through his jeans.
“Come on, Cam, I'm just returning the favor.” She licked her lips, and his hand tightened on the arm rest. He barely remembered not to crush the small fist he still held in his other hand. “I won’t kiss you anywhere else. Same as what you did for me.”
Fuck. He dropped his head back against the seat. He got where she was going with this. Less intimacy from less kissing and touching. But hell, what her eyes promised… That was intimacy enough.
“You need this, Cam. I can feel it.”
Hell, of course she could. But by her logic, he’d needed it from the first time he saw her at the Caipora’s Den.
Deftly, she slipped her hand from his and pulled at his belt. He gripped the arm rests and stared at the door to the cockpit. What the fuck was he doing?
Something he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to. She tugged his jeans down to free his cock. His eyes darted down to see her small hands gripping him. The dusky head of his cock flared above her pale hand.
She stroked him and his breath caught in his throat.
The sight of her pink tongue darting out to lick the head made his shaft twitch. The silken glide forced a strangled groan from his throat. He stifled a shout when she took him into the heat of her mouth. She stroked him and sucked until his mind fogged.
His chest heaved as he watched her. He prayed she’d let him come in her mouth. Not because it was hot, which it was. Because he didn’t think he could recover from it if she wanted to hold his gaze with her own while he came in her fist. A direct parallel to the night in Bruxa’s Eye when he’d wanted to hold her gaze with his own.
She looked up at him and withdrew her mouth. His heart clutched.
“Show me what you like.” Her lips were shiny and her cheeks flushed.
Comprehension and lust hit him hard when she picked up one of his hands and put it to her head. Her eyes told him to add the other as well.
His eyebrows rose. Seriously?
“I’m a goddess, Cam. I don’t need to breathe. Show me what you like.” Her voice was firm, husky with arousal.
He groaned, fisted his hands in her silken hair, and lowered her head until the heat of her mouth enveloped his cock.
“Fuck, Ana.” He gritted his teeth, fought to control himself and his movements.
He set an easy pace, the mere sight of his hands pressing her mouth down onto his cock enough to make his thighs tremble.
Her low moan vibrated around his cock, and he realized that her hips were unconsciously moving as if she was as turned on as he was by this act. He heaved out a shaky breath, trying to make this last, knowing it wouldn’t.
Eventually, she seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to put much force behind moving her head. She cradled his balls and took him deeper into her mouth than he’d dared press. Pleasure spiked through him and his hips jerked uncontrollably.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he rasped.
She didn’t pause and continued to fuck him with her mouth. Soon it became too much—the heat of her, the smell of her, the sounds of her. Heat suffused him and pressure rose in his shaft.
“Ana, I’m close.” He tugged lightly on her head, but she sped up, heat and wetness and friction working his cock.
He groaned deep in his throat, well past caring where he was. The orgasm blasted through him, so strong it was almost painful, and it took everything he had not to lose control of his hips and thrust uncontrollably into her mouth.
When he finally recovered enough to focus again, he looked down to see Ana panting, collapsed back on her heels and watching his face. At some point during the orgasm he’d apparently let go of her head to squeeze the seat’s arm rests. A good thing, considering the grip that he had on them.
He heaved out a sigh, still shaky from the pleasure.
“Thanks.” His voice was raspy, as if unused for a thousand years. He reached out to rub a thumb across her cheek.
She grinned. “No problem.”
He zipped his fly while she stood and headed back toward the lavatory. His head turned to follow her, disappointed. He’d wanted to kiss her.
He dropped his head back into the seat, squeezed his eyes closed. Damn it. He was a goner.
~~~
Ana’s hands trembled as she struggled to shove the lock into place in the tiny airplane bathroom. She turned toward the sink, gripped the plastic edge and leaned over it, gasping.
What the hell had she done? She’d totally wanted that, no doubt. Wanted it so bad that she’d told herself it was just sex and it didn’t matter. Fates, she was actually bullshitting herself and falling for it. The shaking breath that sh
e drew in did little to fill her lungs. Which made sense. Her brain wasn’t working, so why should her lungs?
Not to mention her heart. She pinched the bridge of her nose. She should not be thinking about her heart. That was ridiculous. But of its own volition, her hand moved from her head to her chest, rubbed absently. Ugh, this was awful.
When she’d decided to escape Otherworld permanently, she’d wanted all the feelings and emotions to be had on earth. To live and feel and enjoy. But this? This was not what she’d signed up for. This was too much.
Had she ever felt like this when she was mortal? Like there was a wild thing scrabbling around in her chest, desperate and anxious for something? For him? She had no idea how to deal with it. How to deal with him. Their past was a pit of snakes that she was trying to cross on a tightrope. And now he was the only person who could take her place in Otherworld. And idiot that she was, her chest was going crazy over him. For the man who was probably going to leave her stranded on the tightrope.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Do you come back to Scotland often?” Ana asked Cam. It was the first she’d spoken since they’d departed the Edinburgh airport twenty minutes ago in one of his company’s cars.
“No. I don’t like it here.”
“Why not?” she asked from the passenger seat.
Apparently neither one of them wanted to talk about what had happened on the plane. It was fine with him. That conversation couldn’t go anywhere good, considering that one of them would end up back in Otherworld at the end of this.
“I just prefer the jungle. And since I’ve been lying low, it’s safer there. The company has staff that deals with things here, like testing and grant writing. And they have excellent research facilities that we partner with. The operation is too big to not be involved with the university. We need staff, and most prefer to live here around other Mytheans. Company meetings usually happen in Rio. That way, I can stay in the jungle.”
