Secret Worlds (294 page)

After winding through the halls and down another set of stairs, I left the hospital closer to the ER. The flashing of red and blue lights lit up the dark sky like a tiny, foreboding light show. I turned and headed in the opposite direction as my heart began to race, and I pulled out my phone. I really needed to put this taxi service on speed dial, especially with my car a heap of metal.

Outside the double doors leading to the ER waiting room, I scuffed my shoe against the sidewalk and tried to push down the trembles that threatened to consume my body. After an eternity, or thirty minutes, the cab driver finally pulled up. I slid in the back seat.

“Is there some sort of unwritten rule for Dallas cabs to be slow as fuck?” I snapped.

The driver glared at me from his rearview mirror. “You got a problem, Lady, you can walk or take the bus.”

I gritted my teeth and gave him my address. He took off, turning sharply, and I grabbed the armrest on my door to keep from sliding to the other side of the seat.

My gaze bore into the back of his head. It would be so easy to just wrap my hands around that fat head of his and twist. He wouldn’t see it coming. He would swerved to the side and hit that car turning at the light up ahead. If the driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, they might go flying through the windshield, leaving a trail of glorious death.

I pressed my hand to my mouth and swallowed hard as my stomach roiled. The box rattled, and a hoarse laugh filled my head. It fed off of anger and violence. The more I played into it, the more of a hold it gained me.

I inhaled deeply as I gripped the armrest and pulled a happy memory to my mind of Serenity and I on our couch, playing video games. She’d promised me that and ice cream a few weeks ago. I would talk her into tonight as it would be the last night I had here. I needed to return home and dump this daimon as fast as possible.

When the driver pulled in front of my apartment building, I shoved a ten at him, hopped out of the car, and rushed up to my apartment. The flung-open door hit the wall with a slam that shook the walls. I scanned the dark living room, panting.

“Serenity,” I called. “Are you home?”

A figure stepped out from the hallway, too tall to be Serenity. The overhead light of the living room flared to life, causing me to raise my hand up and squint. Hermes crossed his arms and leveled his gaze at me.

“I knew one of you would return home eventually,” he said.

Hermes leaned against the wall with his arms crossed as he kept me pinned under his gaze. “Why did you run from me?”

I shrugged and tossed my phone on the end table beside the couch. “I had something I needed to do. Where’s Serenity?”

“And this something has you smelling like smoke?” He sighed. “What have you done this time?”

I glared at him. “You’re not my dad.”

He gave a rough laugh. “I would certainly hope not. I’m nothing of a father figure to you.”

“You’re nothing of anything to me,” I said. “We never can be. We should mark that night as a happy memory and move on.”

“Damnit. How many times do I have to tell you it’s different?”

My fists clenched at my sides. “Because your actions speak louder.”

He crossed the room before I finished exhaling and wrapped his hands around my wrists, sending tiny shocks along the fox and up my arm. I gave a tiny gasp, and he pulled me against him, with his lips only inches from mine. My heart twisted into a knot, and I licked my dry lips.

Even another night would never be enough for me, and it remained all I could have. Though we belonged to the same world, we were on opposite sides. He’d seen centuries of lovers and would have many more when I was dust. All the reasons swirled around my head in a thick fog that strangled me from the inside.

That’s when the locks trapping the ker unclicked. I slammed my forehead into his nose.

He pushed away from me, holding a hand to his face. “What the fuck?”

“There’s only one way to keep you with me. All others, you’ll eventually abandon me.” I rolled my shoulders back as the world took on a darker tint.

His eyes widened. “This isn’t you talking. Cassi, you need to fight it.”

Yes, fight me.
A voice hissed in my brain.
You’ll only lose. You’re weak. Love is weak.

Love? Since when had I started loving Hermes?

I stared into his eyes as my heart seemed to rise into my throat. Nothing good happened to those who fell in love with gods. I wouldn’t be any different, but maybe loving him could hold the ker at bay.

I closed the distance between us, wrapped my arms around his neck, and slammed my mouth into his. The kiss was hard and angry at first, filled with my clinging desperation, but he changed in, sliding his tongue along the contour of my upper lip. One hand rested on the small of my back, and he pulled me in closer while the fingers of the other stroked my cheek. A tension between my shoulder blades dissipated, and I relaxed into him as the box stopped rattling.

He cupped my ass and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he carried me down the hall and into my bedroom with our lips locked together the entire time. I needed his touch, needed his scent of olives surrounding me more than I needed to breathe. Okay, I still needed air, but this came close.

The bed creaked as we collapsed on top of it, finally breaking our kiss. He stared down at me with his eyes almost black with passion before he swooped down to plant kisses along my collarbone. His hands slid along my ribs, down my hips and along my thighs, leaving little jolts in their wake.

I pushed him away long enough to yank my t-shirt over my head and toss it on the floor, followed by my bra. Hermes ran his tongue down my neck and between my breasts as I slipped his shirt up to play with those hard muscles underneath. He grazed my right nipple with his teeth before he took it into his mouth. I arched my back with a loud gasp and gripped the bottom of his shirt.

“Oh, you like that?” he asked. “But what would the Fates think? Maybe I should stop …”

“Don’t you dare,” My breath caught in my throat.

Hermes’s tongue traveled lower, circling around my belly button as he removed my pants. He nipped at my ankle softly and trailed kisses up my leg to my inner thighs. He licked at my slit and grinned up at me, causing an anticipatory throb to echo through me.

“If my words aren’t enough to make you believe, then I’ll have to show you,” he said. “Tonight, I worship you.”

He flicked his tongue against my hardened bud, sending delicious tremors through my body, before he plunged it inside of me. I groaned and grasped the sheets on the bed. He drove me to the brink and pulled back with a pause. I gave a frustrated cry, unable to articulate what I needed at that point as the electricity of his touch that I’d come to love faded away. Not for long, though.

He returned, glorious in his nakedness, and hovered over me, resting his weight on his elbows. He slid his rigid shaft along my folds, and I moaned as a heated shudder passed through me. His cock pressed against my hungry opening, and I raised my hips, loving the little bursts of heat that spread from my loins to the rest of my body. He pressed his forehead against mine and locked his gaze with mine.

“It’s just you and me, now,” he said. “My name will be the last one you scream.”

My joyous shout filled the room as he plunged into me. My fingernails dug into his arms as I bucked my hips up with each of his thrusts. The rattling of the ker and the darkness had faded away to nothing. Hermes filled every part of me, and I welcomed him. We were the only two that existed in this whirling storm of passion. My blood roared in my ears as my orgasm thundered through me.

“Oh god, Hermes,” I cried out.

He threw his head back and gave a rumbling moan as he exploded inside of me. We lay there panting, staring into each other’s eyes for several moments. He chuckled and rolled to one side, taking me with him, and planted a small kiss on my temple.

“Told you I’d make you scream my name,” he said.

“Actually, you said it would be the last name. That’s still up in the air.”

“Oh, this isn’t over.” His embrace tightened around me. “We have tonight, and tomorrow, and the next night, until forever.”

“I won’t live that long,” I muttered. “And we’d probably get tired of each other.”

“We’ll figure something out,” he said. “The point is I want to be with you, if you want me.”

I yawned, barely able to keep my eyes open. “We can see where this goes.”

I drifted to sleep wrapped in his arms, but even that could not keep the nightmares away. My aunt’s dead eyes glared at me, and she pointed her finger. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t understand what she was saying.

I woke with a gasp to a heavy air that seemed to hold me down and a burning in my wrist. I whimpered as depression sank into me. Beside me, Hermes struggled to sit up. Serenity stood over us with a pistol pointed at me. However, it wasn’t Serenity that stared at me behind those eyes.

It was Moros.

“Isn’t this interesting,” Serenity’s voice took on Moros grating rasp. “A god and a pandoran in bed together. I doubt either of your families would be happy about that.”

“Get out of my daughter,” Hermes said through gritted teeth.

“Funny, you didn’t seem that concerned for her a few hours ago. You were busy with another girl.” Her eyes slid to me as she chuckled. “Always the same.”

I sat up, clutching my sheet to my breasts. “Why are you doing this?”

“You can’t guess? It’s all for you? You and your little family.” Moros waved the gun in Hermes’s direction. “Not that his family is much better. They took my form originally, and left me a spirit trapped in a box. Only to be released by your dumb ancestor. But hey, the last few centuries have been fun.”

“Poor you.” I shifted my body closed to the edge of the bed. “Plaguing humanity must be tiresome.”

“It’d be better if your family wasn’t always showing up to ruin things. But hey, we’re going to fix that. It’s why I’m here, after all. At first I wanted you. You’d lead me to the others. But then, I found this wonderful demi-god, just ripe and ready for me.” Serenity’s hand trailed over one of her breasts. “So much pain inside. It’s almost as if she never had a happy moment, until she met you. Then you went and did her dad, and she thought she’d lost you. But I was there, ready to snatch her up.”

“Always the bottom feeder,” Hermes said. “I told you before, find another place to prey on.”

Moros turned the gun on him. “You expect me to be frightened by you? I was around since long before you were seed in Zeus’s well used cock, and I’ll be around much longer yet, especially now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. “Besides the fact you like to overshare.”

“One whispered word in the right ear, and Daddy would be up in arms.” Moros slid Serenity’s gaze to Hermes. “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s if you could still speak.” Hermes sat up. “You can’t defy me even in you spiritual form.”

Moros pressed the gun to Serenity’s head. “Back off, Messenger, unless you want your favorite’s gifted brain all over the wall.”

My heart pounded in my chest, and little flames flicked across my knuckles. “Hey, how about you get out of my friend and we deal with this just you and me?”

“Why would I do that? She has so much untapped potential,” Moros said. “I haven’t felt this kind of power in millennia.”

“You’re not going to get near my family with her,” I said. “They’d kill you on sight. Not that I see how you’re going to do that with me, either.”

“We have ways. But you do have a point.” Moros smiled and leaned closer. “I can already sense the ker in you, struggling to get out. Let’s see if we can’t help her.”

I shoved my hand in Serenity’s face and flared the fire up. Moros lurched back with a gasp, dropping the gun. Hermes lunged forward and grabbed Moros by the front of Serenity’s t-shirt, jerking her closer to him.

A thunderous boom reverberated as the gun went off and set my ears to ringing. Serenity’s body flew into the wall near the window, bounced, and toppled to the ground. She was on her feet and out my bedroom door in an instant. I flung the covers off, leapt out of my bed, and was halfway across the room before I realized Hermes wasn’t ahead of me. He sat in bed with his hand pressed against his side. Blood oozed through his fingertips.

“Go,” he said. “Don’t let him take my daughter out of this house.”

I sprinted through the hall into the living room, leapt over the couch, and planted my foot in Serenity’s back just as Moros was opening the door. She slammed face first into the door, and we both toppled to the ground. That would probably leave a bruise I would have to apologize for later. I rolled back and hopped to my feet.

“You really are a coward,” I said. “And I think Hermes is going to kick your ass for shooting him. After I do of course.”

Moros rose in a fluid motion. “You’d really beat up your best friend.”

“If it gets the job done,” I said.

Moros grinned. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

With a gravelly growl, Moros leapt at me with Serenity’s arms stretched wide. I squatted down, rolled on my back, and planted my foot in her solar plexus. With an oomph, she slammed into the couch behind me. I got to my feet and grabbed her by her head before she could recover. It thunked against the carpet with a muted thud. The box rattled, and laugher filled my head as a rush went through me. I wanted to see her bleed.

“Excellent,” Moros said.

I gasped and backed away. What in Hades was I thinking?

Moros stood up. “I’m going to have so much fun with this one. The things I will make her do with her own hands. And when she finally breaks, it will be delicious.”

Heat flashed through me, and tiny flames danced around my closed fist.

“Are you planning on burning your friend?”

“Just you,” I said. “I’ll rip you from her and send you screaming to the pits of Tartarus.”

Serenity’s head went back as a whispering cackle filled the air. “Better than you have tried, little girl.”

I gave an inarticulate scream and flew at her. Moros spread Serenity’s arms and closed her eyes with a grin. The shock jarred my body as I crashed into her, and we hit the ground again. The box creaked open and the ker slithered forward with her anticipation reverberating in my mind.