Hotter Than Hell (16 page)

“Because a mortal has offered half of her soul to you, and because you have earned her unconditional love, you are spared the fate of the Realm of the Dead.” She smiled and added, “You will return to Ericka’s world and you will live as a mortal. You may walk in the daylight, take a wife, and reproduce.”

“He can come back with me?” Ericka’s voice was one of both disbelief and excitement.

“It is so.” Belisma’s gaze returned to meet Aedan’s. “You will be given what papers and human things you need to live in the mortal world. You will age and you will die and you will forget your life as an Incubus.

“Or,” Belisma continued, “you may go to Annwn and continue to live as an immortal. The choice is yours.”

Aedan had difficulty finding the right words as he looked at the beautiful woman still cradled against him. “If she will have me, I would choose to live a mortal’s life with Ericka.”

“What do you mean, if I’d have you?” Ericka turned and threw her arms around his neck. “I love you, Aedan. I’ll have you any way I can get you.”

She kissed him hard and hungry and he returned the kiss just as passionately. So much so that his thoughts spun and he heard only the pounding of their hearts.

Aedan jerked his eyes open and his head up when his feet no longer touched grass but smooth tile. It took a moment for him to realize they were in Ericka’s home. He almost laughed when he saw glass tanks now lining one wall—tanks filled with water and his collections of fish.

When he looked at Ericka, she was grinning and his smile widened.

“Your eyes are brown now, not gold.” Ericka stroked his cheek. “They’re beautiful.”

Aedan had nearly forgotten Belisma. He turned to see if she had accompanied them, but she hadn’t.

Even the ever-present veil was gone.

For a moment he felt lightheaded and stumbled forward.

Ericka caught him by his shoulders, her expression concerned. “What’s wrong?”

He looked at her and this time he did laugh. “I think I’m feeling…human.”

“Wow,” she murmured. “My own demon lover.”

Aedan settled his hands on her hips. “Your human lover, you mean.”

Her expression grew serious. “I love you.”

Aedan took her face in his hands and kissed her hard. He separated his mouth from hers and whispered against her lips, “I love you, Ericka Roberts. For all of our years. I love you.”

EQUINOX

L.A. Banks

SHE OPENED HER EYES, LISTENING TO THE OTHER goddess murmurs in the moonlight. It took a moment to adjust her thoughts and her understanding to the new era, to the new languages being spoken, to the new weapons available for her use. She sat up slowly, quietly, as a deep sadness claimed her and then shuddered in horror as she became aware of all that had been done.

Silent tears cascaded down her high, regal cheekbones. She tossed a thicket of dark, brunette hair over her caramel shoulders and stood wide-legged, naked and majestic, in a warrior’s stance. Her bow in a tight grip, her quiver filled with deadly arrows, she peered down into the still mountain pool that shimmered like glass.

“I, daughter of the Nubian queen, Leto, a Titan revered in all of Greece, and begat by the Greek god, Zeus, stand I the twin and sister of Apollo—Artemis—and vow by my bow and arrows created by the great Hephaestus and the Cyclopes to avenge this injustice against the wilderness! What have they done?”

Vancouver, Canada…

Vincent D’Jardin rubbed his palms down his face in weary agitation. How the hell his commanding officer had found him at his favorite bar way out here made every muscle coil in his body with tension.

But that’s what they did in their profession—find people who didn’t want to be found. Still, it wasn’t right. They’d said after the Delta job in Miami, he’d have some time off. Vincent locked gazes with Major Harcourt for a moment before returning his angry glare to his bourbon. This was bullshit.

“I know,” the major said, sliding onto a barstool next to Vincent and hailing the bartender for a beer.

“That’s why I came myself.”

“What’s the job and for how long?” Vincent didn’t look at the man beside him, just took a surly sip from his drink.

The major slid an arrow tip across the bar toward Vincent. “I figured with your background, you might be able to shed some light on this.” He sat back eyeing him. “You’ve heard about them, I’m sure.”

Vincent let out an agitated breath. He’d been undercover in Miami, not under a rock. Who hadn’t heard about the kooks who were abducting CEOs of major mining and lumber firms without a trace and simply leaving dead stags shot up with bronze arrows? From Wall Street to the Amazon, work sites had been disrupted and dead stags had been left everywhere.

It was a seriously vexing puzzle—who could get a twelve-point stag into Wall Street office buildings, past security cameras, without a trace, and then butcher it? To his way of thinking, that ruled out environmentalists. They wouldn’t sacrifice the animal. Had to be terrorists trying to leave some coded message.

But he took grave offense at the assumption that, because the perpetrators worked with arrows as their calling card, he should have some insider knowledge. Vincent stared at the unfamiliar shape that was a three-dimensional cone that was designed to leave a gaping hole in the victim, as well as briefly studied the strange etchings on the sides, then took a slow sip of his bourbon, considering how he would answer.

“You run the markings by the foreign languages boys?” he asked, looking at the arrowhead again but not touching it. Vincent glanced up into his CO’s impassive blue eyes. “Or the guys that specialize in antiquities—or did you think the Owiqwidicciat would have some special Native American insight through his maternal DNA about freakin’ arrows?” He narrowed his glare on the major, becoming more pissed off as he thought about it. “Or, maybe, it would be because my father was French Haitian…

perhaps I could check with a voodoo priest and get back to you?”

Major Harcourt sighed and took a swig of beer to wet his dry throat. “Gimme a break, D’Jardin, and drop the chip on your shoulder while you’re at it. I know you’re pissed off about us recalling you so soon for another job, but it doesn’t have anything to do with heritage. You’re the best man for the situation, given where these Artemis bastards are tracking.” He leaned in closer. “Yeah, we decoded it off the arrowheads, and it’s ancient Greek—so we’ve got some Mediterranean assassins, go figure.”

“I’d rather not,” Vincent said, coolly assessing his CO. “I’m on leave, remember? You promised me a month.”

Dismissing the comment, Harcourt pressed on. “You ever heard of this terrorist group, D’Jardin? We can’t figure out if they’re a splinter cell, an individual cell, a gang, bandits just out for financial gain by kidnapping the wealthy, or what. But they’re cutting a swath through Yukon country, crossing international boundaries from the U.S. to Canada and back again using the wilderness as camouflage, and headed—we think—toward pipeline outposts up in Alaska. It hasn’t been publicized yet for obvious reasons, and we were able to cite the Wall Street incident as an isolated, possibly organized-crime-related event…just like we could clean up the other situations that happened on foreign soil, keeping certain details out of the media and on a need-to-know basis. However, they’ve abducted an oil baron…that got presidential attention. Now the powers that be, who are much higher than you or I, want this problem to go away very quickly and very quietly, with a good group to pin it on. No matter what, terrorists did it. That’s the only reason I came to you. We clear?”

Vincent looked at the major and clenched his jaw with a nod. “Clear. Just as long as I don’t have to cut my hair.”

The major smiled and accepted Vincent’s surly peace offering in good humor. “No, you can leave the mane—will probably help you blend in on the job up there, anyway.” He took another swig of his beer and stared at the French barmaids with appreciation. “I’d be mad at me, too, you ornery SOB. But duty calls.”

“It’s not a mane, they’re dreadlocks,” Vincent corrected with a mutter, but the major’s attention was slow to return.

What else was there to say? The man had always been fair and wasn’t a bigot he’d give him that. But after living underground, hustling through the damned Everglades after drug dealers, the last thing he felt like was a wilderness job. His nerves were raw and the accusation leapt from disappointment. Not to mention, oil fat cats, mining and logging robber barons were the antithesis of victims to his mind’s eye. They had been the enemy as far as he was concerned. The things they did to the environment, and their ever-present threat to it, made him sick to his stomach. As it was, he’d come home to help vote on the proposed water quality standards for Neah Bay for submission to the Environmental Protection Agency. But now he couldn’t even do that and he’d have to chuck his personal philosophies to get the job done.

“What do you need in terms of resources, Vince?” The major finally looked at him, the tension relaxing from his weathered, bronze face as he put the arrow tip back in his pants pocket.

“Top squad, Bravo commandos,” Vincent grumbled, his gaze on his drink. “Five men.”

All his dreams of going back home to the Makah Nation where he grew up were evaporating as he sat, his mood darkening by the second. All he wanted was a few weeks to return to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State…the small town of Neah Bay was calling his name…so was home cooking, and the beaches flanked with red cedar and pristine wildlife. He wanted to find a place of solitude that the people who lived by the rocks and sea gulls had known for thousands of years before invasion…to sit in the wilderness to stare across the Straight of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island. All he’d wanted to do when he walked in this bar was to relax, finally tie one on, and get laid—now this. “And a brunette.”

The major gave a start and then caught the joke and laughed. He downed his beer and slapped Vincent on the back. “You always get me, D’Jardin. I can never tell when your surly ass is serious or not. I’ll see you at o-eight-hundred in Anchorage. There’s a Black Hawk waiting for you at the military hangars here.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through his close cut hair as he slapped down a twenty-dollar bill on the bar and stood to leave. “You kill me, D’Jardin—I swear.”

Vincent watched his CO thread his way through the bar toward the exit. “Who was joking?” he said, polishing off his drink as he stood.

At least he didn’t have to go through a bunch of crap with rookies. The squad that assembled were familiar faces, and slow smiles crept across each one as recognition was made.

Lou, short for Lu Chen, everybody respected as a fighting machine despite his wiry, compact size. It was good to have him on the team, and his explosives expertise was undeniable. He offered Vince a slow, confident nod and Vince nodded back, feeling much improved as he quickly assessed the group.

Dutch, the crazy Swede, was six feet, six inches, of blond destroyer. Having a solid artillery man was a must. Good. Jermaine, an insane brother from Brooklyn who was an unparalleled communications whiz, stood with sinew-cut arms folded over his cinder-block chest, attitude raw, and cornrows glistening. Cool.

Vincent laughed to himself as Donovan walked up and gave him a Cuban brotherhood embrace. Like him, Rodriguez could track anybody and find the wings of a fly in the middle of a hurricane, if he had to. They’d both survived Miami.

Jesse, one of the best snipers in the unit, stood back, chewing on a toothpick, his shock of red hair blowing from the force of the chopper blades as he pushed his lanky frame off the side of the craft.

“Howdy, all,” he said with a wide grin and a distinctive Midwest drawl. “Good day for huntin’, ain’t it?”

Indeed it was.

SHE SPIED THEM FROM THE TOWERING TREE TOPS, she and her nymphs blending into the thick canopy watching, their eyes keened like hawks to each male form that walked through the wilderness. These hunters carried weapons that no animal would stand a chance of survival against.

Even their method of hunting was unbalanced, unfair. They made war against the innocent—her forests.

If they came in search of their missing generals of destruction, they would be trapped by their own folly. Those decimators of green places had been turned into stags as her great legends prophesized—

he who befouled Artemis’s wilderness would be transformed and then hunted to his death. Was the edict not clear? Had they forgotten over the eons? The thought of such disrespect enraged her. She only wished she could deliver to them the fate that had befallen Actaeon, whom she’d turned into a stag and beset his own hounds upon!

Seething, Artemis followed the men with soundless footsteps, her nymphs taking strategic positions.

They had employed mercenary Titans against her! These men were of no mere mortal proportions.

Their height and stature, like her own, was surely a Titan blend, if not of pure blood.

Closely studying them, she keened her eyes, taking each in as she steadied her bow. One had hair like a flame and loped as he strode, another was thick and tall, his hair like sunburned wheat. Another was clearly of Nubian origin, perhaps Ethiopian, she couldn’t be sure. One had hair as dark as Egyptian onyx, his frame smaller, but his agile speed noteworthy. Another was hard to judge…Persian, Asiatic?

The most magnificent one in the lead had a mane like a lion’s…he walked with a royal cat’s agility, his aura almost stroking the trees with uncommon reverence as he passed them. Splinters of sunlight glinted off his tawny hue. His eyes were intense, that of a seasoned hunter…his shoulders broad and sure. He was at least two hands higher than her, and she stood as a goddess at six feet tall. Her bow lowered slightly, but then she reset her stance. She would not be tricked. This was no immortal, and certainly not one with reverence to her pristine lands.

Yet their mission intrigued her and she almost laughed aloud. Were they so foolish as to be searching for the missing? They already had them, the dead stags, that was the laughable thing. She had no real interest in slaughtering soldiers who simply followed orders—she had gotten to the generals who gave the orders. Once she’d conquered them all, no more orders would be given to harm the dear land.