Red Mortal

by Deidre Knight

  Chapter 11

  Leo cuddled Daphne close, stroking her hair as he held her. She lay sprawled atop him, her cheek against his chest. Both of them were still naked, and it felt so very right, to be with her this way, staring up at the moon and stars through the glass roof of the gazebo. Like being back in the fields of ancient Sparta, where things were natural and real. When life had been simple and pure, he and his wife, Gorgo, had sometimes made love up in the hills overlooking the Eurotas River, and they would lie in the sun-touched grass afterward.

  It wasn’t that he’d never loved Gorgo, for he had, and she’d been a good wife. It was that he loved Daphne in a different way; she gave his weary heart joy and lightness. She made him feel young again, not like a man of more than twenty-five hundred years.

  She’d been his only real hope in centuries, as year after year had mounted upon another. He’d not realized his own loneliness until the day she’d appeared as if from a mist on the moors behind his castle in Cornwall.

  That morning, just finishing his walk, he’d felt his ancient heart beat faster than it had in eons. When she left, he’d barely been able to contain his hopes that she’d appear again . . . and again.

  Even now, his heart beat powerfully in his chest. Daphne would claim that it was because of Aristos’s handiwork, Leo knew it was actually Daphne herself. Having her back, even for the past few hours, had infused him with life.

  She sighed happily, snuggling closer atop his chest. “We should go back soon,” she whispered.

  “Yes, I notice you seem eager to move from atop me.” He laughed.

  She made a point of burrowing even closer. “I’m too stunned by all the talking you did earlier. You’ve left me helpless in your arms.”

  He smiled, feeling reflective. He’d meant what he said about wanting to share everything in his heart, now, while he was still with her. They had no guarantees past this moment.

  He toyed with one of her braids, rubbing it gently between his fingertips. “When I’m with you, I always feel so alive, Daphne. From that very first day when I spied you on the moors . . .”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t imagine how surprised I was that day. After all those years, praying and hoping you might see me . . .”

  “And you appeared from a mist like the Lady of the Lake, and me your King Arthur. From that moment onward . . .” He thumped his hand against his chest. “You made my heart beat strong, and my heart love true. Alive,” he said. “Very alive.”

  She beamed at him, blushing beneath his words of praise. But then her light blue eyes grew very wide. She bolted upright, her braids and ribbons half-loose and tumbling across her shoulders.

  “That’s it.” She hit her forehead with the heel of her palm. “So obvious that I hadn’t even thought of it.”

  He watched her in confusion, then nodded, encouraging her to explain.

  “What if I could give you some of my demigoddess’s power?” she blurted excitedly. “You say you feel alive with me, maybe it’s because of what I am . . . maybe there’s something that you actually draw from me. Some kind of life.”

  “I was speaking about love,” Leo said plainly. “Not your demigoddess nature.”

  He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Daphne trying to give him her power because it seemed like a dangerous prospect. How could it not be, for her to meddle with Ares’s curse? He could only imagine what sort of punishments her brother might dream up if he learned about that.

  She shook her head. “But you touched on a possible truth, Leo,” she said. “A way we might be able to lift your curse by letting me feed you some of my own energy.”

  “And then Ares would feed you to his wolves.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “My brother doesn’t have any wolves.”

  “Well, then, to his fire-breathing stallions. Or better yet, he’d hurl you off Olympus, lock you in his castle. Any number of endless punishments, and I’m sure he could dream them up most creatively.” Leo scowled. “I won’t risk your life to save mine.”

  “You do realize it is a shared decision. I’m the one who would have to live here without you if . . .” She glanced away quickly.

  “And then what of me? Suppose your power saves me, but Ares retaliates? Harms you or locks you away from me. I’d spend eternity without you—and all that while I’d know you were suffering. At least if I pass away, you can take comfort in knowing I’m in Elysium.”

  Daphne covered her face with her hands. “I cannot live without you,” she said, her voice tight. “Allow me to at least try this. For all Ares will know, you were supplied by Aristos, not me.”

  Leo sighed. Her anguish was palpable, and he had to ease it. “How would you go about it?”

  She chewed on her lip. “I don’t know precisely. Maybe when we reconvene the meeting, the other Daughters of Delphi could prophesy or receive some instruction to tell us how.”

  Leo liked the plan even less now that he realized she had no idea how to enact it. Anything might go wrong. But he’d heard heartbreak in her voice as she spoke about losing him, and all the complications if they couldn’t beat Ares at his own game.

  So he held his tongue. “Here,” he said, “let’s rise and dress. See what the Daughters advise.”

  Too bad that the best associates often lurked in dank, gloomy dungeons like this one. Ares searched the pulsating crowd, many of whom were already high on drugs or drunk out of their minds, and it wasn’t even past ten yet.

  Didn’t they realize that a god walked among them? Deigned to wear human clothing—common clothing when he loved to let his golden energy radiate, from the jewelry on his fingers to the cloak upon his back. But glowing like that in a subterranean demon den would only attract unwanted attention, so tonight Ares had donned black jeans and a black T-shirt, and shod himself in black cowboy boots.

  The labyrinthine club was at the seedier end of River Street, out of the lights, more toward the shadows, in the cellar area of an old cotton warehouse. Ares felt as if he’d entered a lurid cave, and it was insulting that he even had to tread such dirty ground.

  Disgusted, he wished to be rid of the filthy place. He flicked a hand against his T-shirt-clad chest—his one fashion concession had been with that shirt, which bore only the word WAR, applied with gold dust.

  The sooner he looked after business, the sooner he could restore his visual glory. Keeping it muted was exhausting, and if he was going to be mucking about in lowly places, he preferred to attract some decent worship and attention while he was at it.

  He could smell his quarry and knew that it was here in the bar. Not in this room, but the next. Ares moved like liquid, tuning out the hammering, monotonous bass beat of the dance music, honing his senses until he could find the one he sought.

  As he rounded the corner of the bar, the overhead spotlights gleaming on bottles and glasses, Ares spied his business associate. The creature—for to call Caesar Vaella a man was entirely laughable—was leaning against a barstool. A human female stared up at him, giggling. She was fully deceived as to his appearance: that much was obvious from the way she blushed and gestured. She couldn’t possibly see the demon trader’s sunken cheeks and near-lifeless eyes. The last he’d heard, Caesar was pushing almost two hundred years old. Not a demon, not an immortal—a human who subsisted on the power he received from trading human souls, enslaving them to demons. Making them turn dark. For every transaction, Caesar gained another year.

  And he clearly had plans for the pretty blonde, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two in human years. Ares sighed. He’d have liked to teleport her to his palace, and he’d be polite to her . . . for a time. At the very least, he didn’t enjoy the image of her being bound into soul slavery.

  With a snap of his fingers, he used his god’s power to reveal Caesar’s true face. Ares laughed at his cohort’s reaction the moment Caesar knew his game was up. Pretty Blond Girl screamed and knocked over a stool as she tried to get away. Caesar looked up and met Ares’s stare, shrugging. C
learly losing interest in the transaction he’d nearly made.

  He pushed off the barstool and sauntered in Ares’s direction. “Thanks for spoiling the action, brother.” The trader glanced around to see if Ares had come alone.

  “Just me, of course,” Ares told him irritably. After his earlier exchange with Sable, which had been riveting . . . downright inspiring, Caesar already bored him. But Ares required Caesar’s assistance, so he forced himself to behave. “I have a job for you.”

  “Yeah? What makes you think I’ll take it?” Caesar’s empty gaze fixed on him.

  “What makes you think I won’t strike you dead for disrespecting me?” Ares slanted his eyes at the creature angrily. “I’m a god, you fool. You’d best show the proper respect.”

  To emphasize the point, Ares moved his fingers and at once Caesar’s demonic horns and tail emerged. He’d earned them fair and square—by converting enough human souls to darkness, and by gaining the trust of demonkind. But he didn’t like to show them in public, even in a den of depravity like this one.

  He barked at Ares, trying to take hold of his tail and shove it back into his pants. The horns, of course, were an impossible effort.

  Ares grabbed those horns and pulled him close. “Now, old friend,” he said in a silky tone, “shall we try this again? I have a job for you.”

  Caesar met Ares’s gaze, all defiance gone from his malevolent stare. Then, just as he’d said from the beginning of their association more than a hundred years ago, the trader asked submissively, “How may I serve you, Lord Ares?”

  Ares relaxed his grip, and led the trader toward a darker corner. Once they were removed from sight, he began to reveal his plan. “It’s about some former associates of mine . . . and yours.”

  Sophie pulled into the circular parking area in front of her cousins’ family home. She’d been driving Emma’s Volkswagen Bug lately because nobody thought it was exactly wise for a woman almost nine months pregnant to be jetting around town in little more than a tin can. Emma was the best, too, because Sophie hadn’t even had to ask to borrow the fantastic convertible. Her big sister had straight-up offered, dangling the keys from her fingertips with a huge grin. So Emma was now driving their mama’s Volvo, Sophie had taken over the VW, and their mother was motoring around downtown in Sophie’s old Impala.

  Sliding the car into park, Sophie turned to the passenger seat, grabbing her crochet bag. She knew firsthand that these big team meetings ran on and on until her eyes nearly crossed; she might as well work on Emma’s matching baby blankets during the coming hours.

  Besides, her thoughts were in an epic, crazy whirlwind ever since The Kiss. All this time, she’d waited and wanted Sable to kiss her, but never once in those daydreams had the scene ended with him galloping off across a field, without looking back at her even once.

  That was okay. She refused to let it discourage her or bring her down; she’d seen their future and she knew the goodness in his heart. That kiss, hot and sexy as it had been—oh good lord had it been a scorcher—it was only the beginning. She sat still in the driver’s seat now, touching her lips for a moment, reliving the way his full mouth had felt against hers. Shockingly gentle, that’s what he’d been with her, yet unapologetically sensual. And what guy had ever kissed her like that? As if he meant to reach all the way inside her and rearrange every notion she had of what a kiss should be. Like he knew what it was to worship a woman—and knew just as well to offer her only a quick, addicting taste.

  The jerk. He’d done all that and left her standing in that field with a damn curry brush in her hand. She blushed at the memory, cringing in embarrassment. She closed her eyes, trying to forget the ending, wanting to remember only the beginning and the middle of that moment.

  That reverie was interrupted by a loud rapping on her car window. She yelped, jumping in her seat. All she could see from her low-riding VW were four muscular black horse’s legs—and one impatient hand, lifting to knock on the window again.

  “Hang on. All right, already.” She rolled down the window, poking her head out. “You about gave me heart failure, just so you know, Romeo. And please mind the hooves around my sissy’s paint job.”

  Sable placed a forearm on the convertible top, slanting his torso downward to stare into her window. It was like being pulled over for a ticket by the ultimate mounted police.

  “Could you please get out, Sophie, so we can talk? You’re practically sitting on the ground in that thing.”

  “Well, if you didn’t stand almost seven feet tall, then it wouldn’t matter so much.”

  He grunted. “I’m not that tall.”

  “Whatever. Back away from the vehicle so I don’t hit you with the door.”

  He grunted again, trotting past the car and cutting a circle. As she climbed out, he stood bare-chested as always, arms folded in an impatient gesture. What did he have to be pissy about, anyway? She hadn’t pulled a runner on him after their first kiss.

  “What’s up?” She flung her crochet bag over her shoulder, determined to exude as much impatience as he was.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, that takes nerve,” she shot back, starting toward the house. He immediately cut her off, and it was hard to get around Sable when he wanted to block you.

  “I came to apologize . . . for earlier.” He didn’t quite look at her, his blue eyes fixed first on her shoulder, then her crochet bag, then on her other shoulder.

  “What part of earlier?” Hell no, she wasn’t going to make it easier on him. Nothing gave her more pleasure than forcing Sable to squirm over anything—especially his feelings for her. Which was probably a tad perverse, but he had to acknowledge things. Not just their relationship, not just his feelings for her, but the overall transformation taking place inside his soul.

  He rolled his pale blue eyes. “Damn it, woman! You know what part of earlier.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. He was absolutely adorable when he warred internally like this, hell-bent on being mean, and yet unable to keep up the pretense that he didn’t care about her.

  “Well, I think in this instance, if you’re issuing apologies, you should be specific.”

  He released a slow, agonized breath, kicking at the sandy drive with first one hoof, then another. “I’m sorry that I kissed you,” he said at last.

  Her heart skipped a beat, clenching. She honestly hadn’t thought that was what he was going to say—she’d been sure he wanted to apologize for the leaving afterward part of what happened.

  “Oh. Okay. It’s like that, is it?” She brushed past him, heading toward the house without another glance.

  “Sophie, stop.” She heard his hoofed feet crunching on the sand and pebbles behind her. But she didn’t turn to face him. “Would you please . . . look at me?” His voice was rough, his tone uncertain.

  With a sigh, she spun to face him. “You know, I never asked you to kiss me, so it’s not like it was my fault. I mean, I can’t help it that you’re always everywhere I go—who even asked you to do that, anyway? You seem to despise me, constantly pick at me . . . and then you go and kiss me. It’s like living inside a blender. A romantic Cuisinart, where you just keep slicing and dicing and you’re on one moment, off the next—”

  He cut her off by leaning down and kissing her again. Silenced her completely with that wickedly sensual mouth, which tasted inexplicably tangy, but in the best possible way.

  She reached all the way up, wrapping her arms about his neck and holding him as close as she could. She dared to touch his hair again, loving the silky texture, adoring the fast beating of his heart that she could feel in her own chest. The entire moment was so deliciously wonderful, that before she could stop herself, she moaned right into his mouth.

  Which, naturally, was the stupidest thing she could’ve done, because he froze right in her arms. His tongue halfway in her mouth, one arm around her back, he stood still as a marble statue. She managed to disengage from the kiss, although he still held he
r.

  “Oh good lord, it’s only a kiss,” she gasped, pushing against his chest. He didn’t budge, and he didn’t remove that arm he had about her.

  He looked her dead in the eyes. “I’m not sorry,” he admitted. “I lied. I lied like the demon that I am. I’m not sorry for either one of those kisses, and not for wanting it . . . you . . . the kiss . . .” He gave his head a clearing shake. “What I actually came to apologize for, Sophie, was the way I left you earlier. That was rude.”

  “Rude, unromantic, ungallant, dorky, and so totally the wrong thing to have done.” She ticked the adjectives off on her fingers, grinning up at him. “Good news, though. You’re getting smarter, the lighter you get. Me? Not so much, seeing as how I’d kiss you again in a freaking heartbeat. And that’s not really so brilliant on my part. I mean, kiss and gallop—I can see how you are, although I guess it’s better than not calling the next day.”

  He planted both hands on her shoulders. “Sophie, for the love of Ahriman, would you stop rattling on and on? I’m concerned about you. That’s the other reason I’m here. I’ve sensed something . . . some danger around you.” He glanced up at the brightly lit home. “Around all of you.” He seemed to struggle a moment, staring at his hooves and blinking rapidly. “I don’t know how I can help, but I need to be here. Leonidas has obviously called a big meeting. I’d like to . . . perhaps they’d allow me to join.” He wouldn’t look at her or meet her gaze, and for a fleeting moment, she wondered why he seemed so uncomfortable. There was the niggling sense that he was still lying, only about something much more important than a kiss.

  She tried to get a glimpse of his eyes, afraid she might see red, but when he did finally gaze at her again, their clear depths were still the lightest, most beautiful shade of blue.