Fallen (Dark God Saga) (5 page)

          Simone shook her head. “No, Jan, it’s really good. I-I’m just not really hungry right now.” When she only received Janet’s blank stare, she tried to cover. “I told you I wasn’t that hungry on the phone. Remember?”  

          Janet clucked her tongue, and reached across with her own knife and fork to take a piece of the steak. She’d ordered salmon and had already wolfed most of it down. Janet despised the word “diet” and anyone foolish enough to suggest one for her was made to feel the vicious sting of her tongue.

          Brian had cleared away the plates and were looking over the dessert menu, when another server approached her with a white square plate with strawberries covered with melted chocolate, and what looked like a mixed white and dark chocolate fountain in the center. Simone blinked in confusion when he placed it before her.

          “I didn’t order—.”

          “Compliments of Mr. Aeron, the gentleman by the window.” He looked over in the direction of the handsome, dark-haired stranger, before smiling and walking away.       

“Oh, you’d better give him more than a thank you tonight...” Janet’s voice disappeared when Simone turned her head to find Dark-and-Handsome staring at her in an intense way that made her feel like his hands were running all over her body, particularly over certain, tingling parts... She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes at this distance but knew they were dark. A wicked smile suddenly curved his lips up and Simone felt her legs tremble. Her center moistened and she clamped her thighs together. She looked away briefly
. Oh Jesus.
What was wrong with her?

 And then she gave him a quick smile that hopefully conveyed her gratitude before turning her attention to the dessert, and her meddling friend.

          “You do know you’re going to have to go over there and thank him, right?” Janet asked, giving her the “what the hell is wrong with you” look that Simone had become long since been acquainted with.

          “No, I already thanked him.”

          Janet scoffed. “Sims, you need to thank him either on your back or on your hands and knees, preferably with your mouth or your pu—.”

          “Oh my god Janet!” Simone hissed, not even bothering to look around to see who’d heard her. 

“Come on, Sims. You’re twenty-six.” After glaring at Simone as if being twenty-six was a bad thing, Janet lowered her voice an octave and continued, “And you’re still a virgin. A true virgin too.” Her voice lowered again until it was a bare whisper, “Not even a finger or a hairbrush or a highlighter!”

          “Thanks, Janet, for telling me my history,” Simone bit out with a glare. Sometimes she regretted telling Janet about her non-existent sex life, but her pestering friend hadn’t relented until she had. The only orgasms she’d had were self induced through clitoral stimulation, and she didn’t have an extensive collection of toys like yours truly before her. Still, it wasn’t as if she was desperate to lose it. She’d actually come to treasure it, and wasn’t willing to blow it on some loser, a category that encompassed all of her exes and most of the “potentials” she’d come across.  

          “Sims, you know I love you, but come on, don’t you want to get laid?” Hazel-greens surveyed her as if she was a lab rat and an experiment was going on in her body. “Sometime before you’re gray, wrinkled, and losing bone mass?”

          “Can we not talk about this?” Simone dipped her spoon into the chocolate fountain and bought it to her lips. As the sweet syrup dissolved on her tongue, she sighed. Well, that was just perfect. Reaching for a strawberry, she took a bite and licked at her lips when the juice spilled over them. Another sigh joined the first as her lids fell. Sweet strawberries in the fall? How did they manage to find them? Dipping the spoon back into the melted chocolate, she brought it to her lips and savored the taste.

          “FYI, he’s watching you like he wants to be that spoon,” Janet said blandly. Simone blinked, caught her friend’s deadpan expression, and turned slowly to the man. He was watching her like...he wanted to walk over to the table, clear it, and throw her onto it. Damn the people who’d get a good show. She felt another burst of wetness and looked away. Strawberry covered chocolate and hot thoughts of a sexy man were not a good combination in public.

          “This is some serious bs, Sims,” Janet huffed. “I’m going to walk over there and give him your number.”

          Her manicured fingers touched the edge of the table as if she intended to push back and away.

“Janet! Don’t you dare.”  

“This is the first guy I’ve ever seen you react like this to. Sitting there

blushing like you’re twelve, and Nick from the Backstreet is telling you he wants it that way.” Simone frowned at the analogy but Janet wasn’t finished. “If you don’t walk over and get his number, I’m going to strangle you, right after I get the number for you.” When Simone didn’t move, Janet pushed up slightly.

          “No, Janet!” She passed a quick glance to the man, who’d stood and was actually making his way from the restaurant. “He’s leaving, anyway. See?”

          Simone watched him walk away, all tall, and Holy God was he tall, sleekly muscled, dark maleness. She was aware of the eyes, both male and female, that followed him as he walked, of the supreme confidence he emitted. She watched him approach the man holding the door, and easily slip a bill into his jacket pocket. The doorman nodded and said something, and then the gorgeous man—Mr. Aeron—disappeared.

          When she returned her attention to her friend, it was to find Janet staring at her in disappointment. She didn’t have to say anything. Simone felt the same.

Chapter Two

“What are you doing?”

          Simone started, clutching one hand to her chest to make sure her heart was still there, and the other to the pencil holder she’d almost knocked to the ground.  Spinning her swivel chair, she glared at Jackson Bard, her co-worker and one of her few friends at the Traveler. He was staring at her computer screen curiously. Although obviously Caucasian, with his shocking head of platinum colored hair and baby blues, Jack was one of the few
minorities
employed by the Traveler. He had a pair of heels taller than hers and Simone knew he could work them better than she ever could. She’d seen Jack in action on a catwalk, and had hooted and hollered along with Janet, and all the other patrons of The Whiplash.

          “Why are you researching the Monster’s Ball?” Jack asked lazily, reaching into the cubicle beside hers and pulling the chair out. It was unoccupied due to recent layoffs. He was holding a bag in his hand, which he opened and pulled out two subs. He handed her one, and Simone knew it was a chicken breast sub on wheat bread with a touch of special sauce from the deli next door. She didn’t care what the hell went into the special sauce because it was just amazing. Jack plopped into the chair and continued, “It’s not like the Traveler, or any other magazine for that matter, is ever going to get an invite. That place has got more security than Fort Knox and the White House combined. Plus, I’ve heard some horror stories about journalists and reporters going missing after they tried to sneak into that place. What? What’d I say?”

          Journalists going missing? Simone blanched. She hadn’t heard anything about that. “You’re joking right?”

          Jack reached into the bag and removed his own sub, peeling back the wrapper and taking a large, messy bite.

          “What does it matter if I’m joking or not?” he asked, chewing and lifting a brow at her. “It’s not like any of us are ever going to see one inch—wait, what’s with the look, girly? Did you get an invitation or som—?” He broke off immediately, and chewed faster, eyes widening until his lids all but disappeared, and fanning his throat as if pushing the food into his esophagus. His voice was definitely octaves higher, hitting soprano, when he screeched, “You got an invitation to the Monster’s Ball in Virginia? Like the real one? Not the fake ones in Hollywood and New York, right? Seriously?”
          That was all it took. Within seconds, her cubicle was flooded with journalists curious to know if she had or hadn’t been invited and when she finally gave her response, the noise became unbearable. So unbearable that Mr. Johnson, Editor-in-Chief and all around dick, came to see if his staff had all lost their damn senses, and when he found out, he seemed to lose his mind as well. He even asked her to call him “Egan.” So that was what the “E” stood for. And that was just the beginning. The Traveler was going to sponsor the entire thing, her plane ticket, her hotel stay, her clothing, anything that she needed for the Ball. All she had to do was get a few pictures, some recordings, write a great piece that encompassed exactly what happened at the Ball, and she could even be promoted. 

          It sounded great. It was great. The only thing was that despite how wonderful it sounded, something told her there was more to this Monster’s Ball than was thought, and much more than she wanted to find out.

***

          “You’re not going?”

          Thanatos looked up from his Blackberry to the one person who’d never left his side since his “banishment.” While his parents and other siblings were never more than a summons away, Hypnos was almost always present. Sometimes it seemed as if he was serving Thanatos’s sentence with him.

With one leg propped up against the other, Hypnos looked relaxed sitting in the large leather chair that faced Thanatos’s desk. On his brother’s face was a look so smug, Thanatos was curious. “Going where?”

          “The Ball, Cinderella. Where else?”

          Shrugging his shoulders, Thanatos returned his attention to his Blackberry. Technology was one of the things at which the human race was successful. And they couldn’t even take all of the credit for that. Their not so human counterparts, vampires, werewolves and witches, still held the patents and copyrights to many of the technologically forward products. Cell phones, television, the internet, even the Blackberry in his hand...

          “So, are you going?”

          “Why should I?” Thanatos murmured, lifting his gaze to his brother. Hypnos was speaking of the Monster’s Ball, the event that had begun in the last years, and that usually housed an array of species of the paranormal, along with many unsuspecting human counterparts. It was humorous, that humans assumed everything at the Ball was an acted-out Halloween script. Every year since the event had begun, he’d received an invitation from Thoth, the warlock host. Thanatos had attended twice. Many of the immortal species who attended were cursed in some way, just as he was, but unlike him, they were looking for mates to either undo their curse or make it significantly better.

As a god, Thanatos didn’t believe in the idea of a mate, well a mate for himself. He’d met enough werewolf couples to know that within their species existed the phenomenon, possibly because of their animal nature, but no two gods would ever uphold vows only to each other for eternity. His parents loved each other as much as any gods could, but Erebos had fathered children who did not belong to Nyx, and Nyx had taken gods to her bed that weren’t Erebos. Jealousy had ensued, but in the end, it was their way.

          “How long have we been brothers?”

          That question alerted him that whatever Hypnos was leading to would be important. The last time his twin had asked that question had been ages ago when Hypnos, learning to control his powers had unconsciously listened in on Cronus’s thoughts. It hadn’t helped that the all-powerful Titan had known it was one of the dark gods, and came demanding answers. In the end, Thanatos confessed to mischief--he couldn’t die after all--but Cronus had dismissed it as a ‘boon’ to the dark gods.

Thanatos lowered his Blackberry to the smooth top of his office desk. His eyes wavered left, catching the Empire State building and surrounding buildings in the skyline. When he’d come to New York to expand his financial empire, he’d chosen this building particularly for that skyline. It was a shame the Towers were no longer there, that human hands had played a part in bringing down such magnificent buildings. On that fateful day, and although it was against the rules, he’d wished for his powers to have Death claim those who’d so callously orchestrated the taking of so many innocent lives.

          “What are you trying to tell me, Hypnos?”