Authors: Gena Showalter
Nope. Nothing.
“Finally.” He sighed with pleasure. “We’re on equal footing.”
“Then why do I always feel off balance with you?” she asked, resuming her doctoring. When she finished bandaging him, she sat back and eyed the results. “You’ll be sore and weak for several more days, and I’m sorry for that but there’s no help for it. The important thing is that you
will
heal.” As she spoke, her stomach growled.
His grin spread as quickly as the color in her cheeks. “Hungry?”
“Yes.” She nodded, rubbing her belly. “Very.”
“I have energy bars in my pack.”
“Energy bars?”
“Tasteless morsels packed with everything our bodies need to survive.”
“Sounds…delicious.” Her nose wrinkled, but she leaned over him, meshing her breasts into his chest.
His blood heated as desire rushed through him.
She rooted through the backpack. “I have bread in my satchel.”
“Grab that, too. The bars will help us keep up our strength, but they won’t do much to fill us up.”
“Is this what I’m looking for?” she asked, holding up a brown-packaged rectangle.
“Yes,” he said, his voice more hoarse than he would have liked.
She started to pull away.
“Maybe you should dig one out for me, too.”
“Of course.”
“Just make sure you dig real deep.” He wriggled his eyebrows at her.
Her lips twitched, a smile clinging to the edges. She reached deep inside the bag and withdrew another energy bar.
“Oh, yeah. Just like that.”
“I suppose this is where I demand payment?” She slid away from him, leaving a trail of heat, and grabbed two pieces of hard, slightly crumbling bread. “I did warn you that I planned to start charging you for your naughty invitations.”
He allowed his gaze to sweep over her. The hem of her robe was noticeably shorter where she’d torn the strips for his wounds, revealing the peaches-and-cream perfection of her calves. Smooth and lean, slightly muscled. All traces of amusement abandoned him. Though she’d moved away, he felt the imprint of her nipples all the way to the marrow of his bones.
“I did warn you that I planned to pay with kisses,” he said, willing her to close the rest of the distance between them. He needed her tongue in his mouth. Weakened body be damned.
She lost her amusement, too. Her smile disappeared. Desire lit her features, swirling in her eyes. “Yes, you did warn me,” she said, breathless.
“Com’ere.”
Slowly she moved her face toward his, so close the sweetness of her breath fanned his chin. “I shouldn’t.”
“You should.”
“You’re hurt.”
“Not too hurt. Kiss me.”
“Yes, I— No.” She blinked and straightened her back, widening the distance between them. “No. We need to eat,” she said, giving no other reason for her sudden refusal.
What had changed her mind? He wanted to demand an answer, but his pride wouldn’t allow him. A woman had never pulled away from him before, and he didn’t like that one had now—one he wanted more and more as the seconds passed. One he wanted more than he’d ever wanted another.
He ate the bread first, relishing the familiar taste, then tore into his energy bar, eating half in one bite. Jewel, too, ate her bread, then nibbled on the bar, wrinkling her pixie nose in distaste.
The wind kicked up, rustling leaves and gusting tendrils of her hair over her shoulders, onto his chest. It felt like a caress of her hand.
He gulped. “We really should get moving soon. The longer we stay here, the more likely the demons are to find us.”
“They’ll never find us here. In fact, we’re safer here than we would be anywhere else.”
“How do you know?”
“Marina fears the owner of this land.”
He considered that and wondered if
they
should fear
the owner of the land. “So tell me, Prudence. Where will I find the Jewel of Dunamis?”
Her cheeks paled, leaving her skin pallid. “You need rest. There is no reason to worry about that now.”
“You swore to take me to it. Are you planning to renege on me?” He spoke quietly. Deceptively calm.
“No, of course not.” The thunderous look Gray was giving her now was the look he usually reserved for his enemies. Ominous. Deadly. “I have every intention of revealing exactly where Dunamis is.”
His shoulders relaxed. “So where is it?”
She turned to him, meeting his gaze and holding his stare. The fact that she was still fighting her need to kiss him didn’t help matters. But run, she would not. Kiss him, she would not. He might not remember what had happened inside his consciousness last night, but she did. She remembered how he’d thought of her as “not for him.” Remembered that he’d intended to push her away if she hadn’t done it herself.
If she kissed him now, she wouldn’t have the strength to pull away from him, even if she heard him curse her to Hades in his mind. She’d spent the entire night caring for him, bathing him when his fever raged, pouring water down his throat. Sleep had been impossible when his survival depended on her, so shards of fatigue rode her hard, weakening her resolve to remain distanced from him.
“Where is it?” he demanded again.
She pushed out a breath and prayed he took her next words as the answer. “I need you to escort me to the Temple of Cronus.” A sense of foreboding swept over
her. For her? For Gray? Or the temple? She closed her eyes, trying to center the sensation, to study it, but it slipped out of reach.
Gray bared his teeth in a scowl. “That wasn’t the deal, babe.”
He hadn’t taken it the way she’d hoped; instead, he’d heard the hesitation in her voice, the wistful catch. She couldn’t lie to him, but now she’d have to utter a distorted truth he would assume meant one thing, when in fact, it meant another. It’s what she had done with Marina, and she hated to do it to Gray, but she
had
to reach the temple.
The only memory she had of her father was inside that temple. His face was a blur to her, but she remembered how he’d descended the long, white steps, coming straight for her, his arms wide.
“I sprang you from prison,” Gray said. “You take me to Dunamis.
That
was the deal, and you know it.”
“What if I told you that you will discover Dunamis at the temple?”
“Will I?” he asked, suspicious.
“I wouldn’t have said so otherwise, would I?”
He remained silent for a long, protracted moment, then relaxed. “If Dunamis is in the temple, that’s where we’re going. Geez. For a minute you made it sound like they were entirely separate things.”
She blinked innocently. It had taken Marina over a year to even suspect that when Jewel responded with a question, the real truth did not lie in the answer. Gray was well on his way to that realization after only a few days.
“Is anyone or thing guarding it?” he asked. “Dunamis, I mean?”
“It does have one protector, yes.”
When she said no more, he added, “You want to tell me what I’ll be up against?”
How did she explain without lying? “The protector is strong and brave, but he will let you do whatever you wish with Dunamis.”
Gray’s eyes narrowed. “Just like that?” He snapped his fingers. “The man will give it up just like that?”
“Answer a question for me first. Why do you want it so badly? The jewel, I mean.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“All I know is that you do not wish to conquer and rule the surface world, nor do you plan to use it to destroy an enemy.”
His silver gaze pierced her all the way to her core. Jewel didn’t think a man had ever looked at her the way Gray did, as if she were a platter of some unknown, but delicious-smelling dessert.
“Will my reason affect your willingness to take me to it?”
“No,” she said, and it was the truth. No distortion. No dancing around the issue.
He nodded, deciding to trust her. “I want Dunamis because it’s dangerous. In the wrong hands, millions of people could be annihilated. I want Dunamis,” he added carefully, “because it needs to be guarded by the right people or be destroyed.”
Her stomach knotted, sadness mixing with her dread. She’d had to hear that, hadn’t she? What would
he do or say if he knew that destroying the jewel would destroy
her?
Would he hesitate in his determination, perhaps change his mind? Or would he act without reservation?
“I will answer your question now,” she said, forcing the words out. “The protector of Dunamis
will
let you destroy it. Just like that.” She snapped her fingers.
“Why?” Incredulity radiated from him.
“He believes as you do, that it needs to be destroyed.”
Gray’s brow furrowed. “Then why the hell does he protect it?”
“That is a question you will have to ask him yourself.”
He opened his mouth, his eyes thoughtful, then he closed his mouth with a snap. Opened, closed. Finally, he growled, “What do you have on under that robe?”
Confused, she blinked over at him. What kind of question was that? He knew what she wore under her robe: a thin white chemise. He’d seen it. Had he planned to ask her something else, then changed his mind?
She sighed. She might have watched this man her entire life, but she doubted she’d ever understand him. Or maybe it was just men she didn’t understand. All the other male minds she’d ever read had been focused only on their survival. Some hoping to block her out so that whoever owned her at the time wouldn’t know of their crimes. Others had merely been nervous, wanting her to see the truth so she could send them on their way. But for all of that, she’d never taken time to truly explore the male thought process.
“You want to know what I’m wearing under my robe?”
“That’s right.”
“But—why?” She wished to the gods she could read his mind right now.
“Instead of answering me, why don’t you show me?” Gray let out a heavy breath. Damn it. For a moment, when they’d been discussing the destruction of Dunamis, Jewel had looked so lost, so sad, and he hadn’t known what caused the transformation. He’d only known he had to fix it.
Thankfully, he had. Color bloomed bright in her cheeks, and her take-me-to-bed eyes sparkled. Desire flared to life, but it couldn’t beat past the sudden sense of lethargy racing through him. He gently stretched his arms over his head, arching his back. His mouth widened in a yawn.
“You’ve already seen exactly what I’m wearing under the robe. Soaking wet, no less.”
“Maybe I’ve forgotten.” His eyelids were growing heavy. “Maybe I need to see again.”
“No, you do not,” she said primly. “What would Katie say about your behavior?”
Hearing her speak his sister’s name so easily was disconcerting. Strange and surreal. “How do you know Katie?” His question held curiosity and surprise as he fought to stay awake. “I haven’t thought about her since I met you.”
“I’m sorry.” Jewel nibbled on her bottom lip. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her.”
“It’s okay.” He yawned again. “Really. I’m just curious how you know about her.”
Agitated, Jewel eased to her feet, but he was unable
to read her expression, unable to figure out what she was thinking. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she said quietly.
He wanted to push her for an answer, but didn’t think that would be wise. She looked ready to bolt and never return. He didn’t understand this…or what it meant. “Jewel,” he said.
“Sleep,” she interjected, cutting off whatever he’d been about to say. He felt oddly compelled to do so. “I’m going to the river to fish. If I never eat another energy bar, I will die complete.”
J
EWEL STOOD
at the edge of the river, her robe tucked into her waist, liquid lapping at her ankles, her hands wrapped around a long, sharp stick. She’d removed her shoes, and moss-covered rocks supported her feet. The dome above stretched hot fingers over the land, making her sweat through the thin material of her clothing. She stared down at the clear, dappled water, watching, waiting for a plump fish to swim past. She’d never done this, had never lived off the land before. She only prayed she was successful.
Soon a long, fat swirl of iridescent color darted between her ankles. Her heart skipped a beat. Finally! Her hand tightened around the stick as the fish continued to swim around her, nipping at her ankles. When it tired of playing with her nonresponsive legs, its rainbow fins spanned and flapped, ready to bolt.
She threw the spear.
And missed.
The succulent thing darted away to safety. “Damn it,” she growled, sounding very much like Gray.
Over the next half hour, four more delicious-looking fish swam past her, and she missed each one of them, her spear falling uselessly into the water.
“I can do this. I can.”
Another fifteen minutes passed. Finally, a plump, incandescent beauty came within her sights. She stilled, even her breathing grinding to a halt.
One, two,
she mentally counted. He was about to swim…three! She tossed the spear.
Success! The tip of her spear cut into the target.
“I did it,” she said, jumping up and down, splashing water in every direction. “I did it!” She grinned, holding the stick up for inspection, feeling proud and accomplished as she eyed the flopping treat. No more energy bars today, thank you very much.
She skipped back into camp and leaned her stick against a tree. Gray was still sleeping. His features were relaxed, giving him a boyish quality that warmed her. His pale hair fell over his forehead, and he had one arm over his head; the other rested over his bare chest.
Her hands itched to reach out and trace the hard planes of his abdomen, the ropes of muscles that led down, down—she gulped, forcing herself to gather twigs and grass. After building a sufficient mound, she used Gray’s lighter to create a fire. Once the flames crackled with heat, she cleaned the fish as best she could and held out the stick, cooking the meat until it flaked into her hands. Unfortunately the outside charred.
A little while later, Gray yawned and stretched, grimacing as his wounds protested the sudden movement. Then he stiffened, his eyes darting in every direction before settling on her. He pulled himself to a sitting position.
“I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Sorry.”
“You needed the rest. You look better already.”
“I feel better. What’s that?” he said with a chin tilt to the fish.
“I’ve never cooked before, but I have seen it done, so you’ll have to tell me how I did.” Using a large, firm leaf as a plate, she scooped some of the fish on top, and handed it to Gray.
He accepted with a raised brow. “What if I’m not hungry?”
“You’ll eat it anyway, because you don’t want to hurt my feelings after I went to the trouble of catching and cooking it.”
“Good answer.” He took a tentative bite, chewing slowly, his expression unreadable.
She was just about to ask him what he thought, when something in his backpack started speaking. A real, human voice. Jewel jumped, her gaze going impossibly wide.
Gray set his plate aside and dug inside the pack. “Christ,” he muttered. He tangled his free hand through his hair. “Check-in time.”
“Ah, your communicator,” she said, when he withdrew a small black box. She’d seen him use the box on several of his missions. People from his work were able to speak with him, and he to them. Her apprehension faded.
“Mother, this is Santa.” He spoke directly into the box. “Go ahead.”
“Where are you?” a deep male voice said.
“Pickup has been delayed,” Gray responded.
“Should we send another courier?”
He rubbed a hand down his face. “No. I have scheduled a pickup within the next few days. Copy.”
“Copy. Over.”
“Over.” Gray shoved the box into his backpack and picked up his plate. He took a bite, acting as if he hadn’t just had a conversation with his box. Or boss. Or whoever. His expression remained blank as he chewed.
She decided not to ask about his work; she could guess. The package: Dunamis. What she couldn’t guess was how he felt about the food. She waited beside him, rising on her haunches, ready to hear his praise. “Well?”
“Tastes like chicken,” he said. “Thank you for cooking.”
Not what she’d wanted to hear because she remembered how he’d complained about chicken in one of her visions. She’d hoped for
delicious, scrumptious,
or
savory.
“It’s good for you, so eat it whether you like it or not.”
She filled a leaf for herself, sat back and nibbled on the burned flakes. Not wonderful, but not as bad as that energy bar either. “I wish we had pizza delivery here. I’ve always wondered what one of those gooey round things taste like.”
His hand froze midair, hovering just in front of his mouth for a split second before he lowered it. “First you knew about the Hoover, among other surface items, then you knew about my sister Katie, and now you know about pizza, yet you don’t know what it tastes like. I know you said you don’t want to talk about this, but I
have to know. How can you know of them, but not have experienced them? You said you never visited the surface.”
She didn’t want to answer. She could walk away from him again—she doubted he had the strength to follow—but he’d just bring it up the next time he saw her. Determination seeped from his every pore.
He’d been upset with the thought of her reading his mind, so how would he react to knowing she’d watched his life unfold all these many years?
No matter the answer to that, he deserved to know.
She closed her eyes and gathered her courage, then forced the words to emerge. “I’ve had visions of you for years.” There. She’d confessed, and the rest spilled from her. “I watched you grow from boy to man. Sometimes you’d appear in my night dreams, sometimes in my daydreams, the rest of the world fading from my consciousness.”
“What? How?” Those simple single-word questions whipped from him, lashing out.
“I didn’t see your entire life,” she assured him, “but merely glimpses. And I don’t know how, only that it was so.”
A moment passed in heavy silence while he absorbed her revelation. “Glimpses of what, exactly?” Now his tone was devoid of emotion, and somehow that was all the more frightening.
“I saw your family, your home. Your,” she coughed and glanced away, “women.”
“That seems like more than a glimpse to me.” Still, no emotion.
“I had no control over it. I tried to stop them, to close my mind to them, but the harder I tried, the more visions I received.”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being spied on.”
“I didn’t spy on you,” she ground out. “I wish to the gods you’d had visions of me, so that this wouldn’t seem so one-sided and wrong.”
His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. “That’s it. That’s where I’ve seen you.”
“What?” Her brow furrowed. “Where?”
“I’ve seen you before. I told you that. Remember, I asked you if we’d met?” It all fell into place, and Gray’s fish settled like lead in his stomach. Why hadn’t he recognized who she was immediately? He’d known she was familiar to him the first moment he saw her.
Over the years, he’d dreamed of her. He’d thought nothing of the dreams at the time, thought they were merely products of his overactive imagination and the weird things he’d encountered, but now he replayed some of them through his mind.
Jewel chained to a wall, her body draped in a blue robe, her black hair streaming around her. Men and women were paraded in front of her, some killed afterward, others spared.
Jewel being held down while someone chopped off her hair. A punishment, the one-armed, knife-wielding bastard said, for omitting details.
Jewel, trying to escape a tower, falling to the ground and breaking her leg.
He shook his head, the images alone sparking fury. Dark, potent fury. This was so hard to take in. Almost
impossible, really. He only prayed he was mistaken, that he hadn’t dreamed of her actual life.
“Let me see your leg,” he demanded softly.
Her face scrunched in confusion.
“Show me your lower right leg.” He remembered how the bone had popped through the skin, how she’d cried in pain and hours passed before anyone found her. And then she’d been punished, forced to watch an innocent man slain. Her physical wound somehow had miraculously healed days later, but a scar had remained. “Please, sweetheart. Show me your leg.”
Surprise flashed in her eyes, but she stood and lifted her robe.
His lungs constricted, and he scrubbed a hand down his face. There, on her shin, was the scar. His childhood dreams had been real. He’d actually seen glimpses of her life, and he hadn’t been able to stop them, either. He’d tried, though. God knew he’d tried anything and everything to rid himself of the haunting images of the dream woman’s tragic, tortured life. Therapy. Hypnosis.
Jewel had known one cruelty after another. It had been bad enough when he assumed they were merely dreams, but knowing they were real, that Jewel had truly lived those horrible things, he wanted to gather her in his arms and keep her safe for the rest of her life.
“I’ve seen enough,” he said, his tone cracked. How had she survived? How had she retained such innocence? How could she still see beauty in the world?
She dropped her robe and sat back on the ground, picking up her plate, resuming her eating. “What was that all about?”
“It isn’t one-sided,” he told her, his tone flat.
She paused, looked at her leg, then at him. “You saw glimpses of me?”
He nodded.
Her cheeks bloomed bright with color, and her mouth formed a small O. “What did you see me do?”
Obviously she didn’t like the knowledge that she’d been watched, either. “This and that,” he answered vaguely. “What was happening when I saw you that first time as flesh and blood? Those people were being paraded in front of you, then carried away or killed by the demons.”
Going pale, she set her leaf aside. “You know of my ability to read minds.”
He tensed, because he suddenly knew where she was going with this.
“Whoever owns me at the time brings me their citizens and enemies alike and commands me to ferret out any betrayers. The first time I refused to do this, I had to watch a man die horribly. I’ve tried to lie, to protect the people, but I can’t. Lying cripples me for a reason I don’t understand, the words frozen in my throat, so at times I’m forced to admit things about people that I do not want to.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for her, wishing there were more soothing words he could give her.
“So many times I wished they would have simply punished me instead.
That
I could have withstood, but no one wanted to hurt the very one who held the answers they so desired.”
“Have you always had this ability?”
“Always.”
“Was your mother or father—were they like you?”
“Not my mother. She was part of the siren race, and while she was powerful, she could not read minds or tell the future. I’m not sure about my father.”
“So you are siren?” Gray searched his mind, but didn’t recall any glimpses of Jewel’s childhood or family. That explained the sexiness of her voice, though.
“Part siren. I’m not sure what the other half is. My mother and I, we lived in a village of peace-loving creatures and any one of those creatures could have been my family.”
“Why aren’t you still living in that village?”
“A human army marched through, slaughtering everything and everyone in its path.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, helpless to do anything more.
“Thank you.”
His brow furrowed. “A human army, did you say?” When she nodded, he said, “How did they get here?”
“The same way you did: through portals. Most Atlanteans believe the gods sent them.”
“Are we close to a portal now?”
She nodded. “The dragons now guard them, killing anyone who dares enter.”
Gray remembered the guards that had stood at the ready at the palace he’d entered. They’d been big and strong, but had looked human, not dragon. Not like the winged dragon-creature who attacked him in the forest.
He forced down the rest of his fish, even though it
had grown cold and tasted like refrigerated ash. He set his leaf aside. “I wondered how the people here seemed to know so much about humans, yet I hadn’t seen many. What happened to them?”
“For the first time since the creation of Atlantis, every race banded together to fight and destroy the enemy, but even if those humans had not invaded our land, we would have known about humans. As I mentioned before, sometimes the gods send us humans they wish to punish. Those criminals serve as a food source for the demons and vampires.”
“That explains why I’ve been so hated and on everyone’s shit list.” Gray shuddered, recalling all too easily that he himself had been on the menu. “How did you survive the attack?”
“I’m not sure.” She laughed, but the sound lacked humor. “I can predict everyone’s fate but my own. After the attack, the dragons found me roaming the woods. They raised me for many years before I was stolen by the vampires.”
“And what of your father? Did he die, as well?”
“I never really knew him, and my mother rarely talked about him.”
Sadness colored her voice and gleamed in her eyes. He knew what it was like to miss a parent, to ache for them. His mother had died when he was barely a teenager. It had been a long, painful death as cancer ravaged her body. He’d tried to be a man about it for many years and pretend it hadn’t affected him. But at nights, when he’d been alone with his thoughts, he’d remember her voice, the way she’d sung him lullabies,
the way she’d read him stories, and he would cry, wishing her soft arms were around him.
He’d weakened once and tried to talk to his dad about it, but his dad had gone on a weekend drunk. After that he’d never let his dad see his pain, nor had he let his brothers and sister know. He was the oldest child, and he had to be strong. Even if his dad hadn’t given him the reminder over and over again, he would have known that he was supposed to be the rock. The man they could lean on and count on to see them through.